It's such a paradox , I guess ultimately it's better to give slight amount of performance increase in the most subtle way . Not enough to illicit an audit and therefore ban, just enough to give the slightest edge. So it can be used for an entire season or seasons .
Now that there's a budget cap, I kinda want the FIA to simply say set the rules in terms of maximum car size, weight, and Safety features - and then let everyone (within the Budget Cap) go wild.
that's exactly what I was thinking. Imagine the crazy cars we could see tearing up the grid. But unfortunately that would mean 1 team would almost always be dominant for a season having found the best package or innovation that the rest would scramble to copy for the rest if the season to catch up
They need to force jackwads like Mercedes to narrow their cars down. There's no real racing in F1 anymore specifically because of Mercedes in particular making every new car an inch or two wider on every iteration, ON PURPOSE, so no one can pass them, ever.
@@kitalalaris 🤣🤣🤣🤣 You do realize car width is specified in the rule book right? It's one of the things the scrutineers look at. I guarantee every car on the grid is the same width within a couple of mm.
All about money though ain't it, they didn't want costs to go through the roof for manufacturers. Then you get merc spending £250mil+ a year these past years and winning everything lol.
The F-duct was my favourite. It's so elegant and simple, yet a very clever loophole.. You aren't allowed moveable aero devices. However, the driver covering a hole in the cockpit with their left leg down the straights caused it to stall airflow over the rear wing making it more slippery. It wasn't a moveable aero device, but acted like one.
I was lucky enough to attend the first GP in Phoenix, and sit next to Mario & Michael Andretti (the year before he move to F1) and Bobby Rahal. It was during the Friday practice session, and the three of them pointed out the Williams and it's active suspension. The next hour was a lesson in how aero and suspension worked, and I got to go with them down to just outside the final turn and they showed me how the Williams (and I think Ferrari as well) worked coming into the turn and then exiting onto the main straight. While all other cars would dive/squat under both braking and acceleration, the Williams would just lower down smoothly. It was fascinating to watch, and even more amazing to hear 3 legends talk about it. As they politely said their goodbye's after practice to go into the pits, Michael looked at me and said "You're going to want to be a Maclaren fan next year" and gave me a wink. Pretty cool stuff.
Nice one Paul. It’s great to hear that some of the big names in F1 are so passionate about the sport that they will share their observations with a fellow fan. It obviously made your day👍
The mass damper should be made legal. It would help trickle it down to street cars, where it would help the everyday car. Mass damper help improve stability... It made no sense why it was banned in the first place.. It doesn't create a safety issue. So many of these bans made no sense. Rear wheel steering, fans, independent height controlled suspension, F-duct, double diffusers... So many should be allowed... Most of these would have trickled down to street cars and made them better.
@@Leshic2 moat were banned to stop teams spending so much...but tith the budget cap ur right...many of these shpuld be allowed...teams can only spend what the budget it, so you wouldnt have limitless spending on development for all of them....teams would use the ones they could make effectively and cheaply
The "Twin Chassis" Colin Chapman designed was a mad idea in the ground effect days. Driver sat in the chassis that carried the engine and running gear whilst the bodywork was a separate chassis that was allowed to flex under down force and create more ground effect. The other teams put a protest in and the FIA banned it before it had a chance to race.
Yes. It was Chapman finding a loophole in wording of the regulations. They stated the driver, engine, suspension etc must all be attached to the chassis. The plural of chassis is chassis so Chapman figured he could have more than one and suspend the driver in the inner chassis and have everything else bolted to the outer chassis.
Lotus twin chassis. Before the season started It originally passed scrutineering and was allocate a chassis number by the FIA and classed as legal to race. It was only banned after Ferrari got wind of it and complained. The comments at the time were “if it was painted red and had a prancing horse on the front, it would have been allowed to race”
What I've read indicates that he twin chassis was something that worked much better in a wind tunnel than on the traack. Any changes of attitude between the chassis would result in potentially sudden and extreme changes in downforce, like when the suspension loading would change during a multiple-apex corner. supposedly the drivers were not sad to see it outlawed.
@@robg521 *_”It was only banned after Ferrari got wind of it and complained.”_* Not true. Not even close. The scrutineers at Silverstone might have felt like giving old mate Colin a bit of encouragement but the real opposition came from within FOCA. The FISA, as it was known then, stepped in when a lot of British teams objected. Of course, they’d be perfectly happy for you to blame Ferrari and the FIA (which didn’t exist then).
@@Juandinggong I agree, it’s not like it’s a intentional loop hole like the diffuser or blown exhaust. It was such a simple item tuned to perfection. Imagine todays cars with a tuned mass damper, maybe there will be more aggressive driving manoeuvres
I think my favorite thing to learn about is the exhaust blowing, and how many times they tried to stop it by changing position, only for engineers to just be like "oh, that's fine, we'll just redirect the flow"
Imagine how different all the cars would be if none of these were banned. Some of these can't work together so they would have to pick and choose the right combination for their drivers.
Get real. The racing would be awful! One team would develop the best solution and would walk the championship. You need to watch the engineering robot challenges. F1 is not for you.
@@unfairfight3625 pffff a fighter jet can do that Why would you drive knowingly to pass out A fighter jet has more forces than a car But its not the point You just wouldn’t push it that hard
One rather glaring omission - the dual-chassis Lotus Type 88. I made a slideshow full of these banned innovations for an engineering class in high school and made a point of including that insane piece of machinery. One chassis to bear the brunt of ground effect aero, the other to house the driver and protect them from the rough ride and porpoising that entailed the era's hydropneumatic suspension. The design only ever saw one race weekend in Long Beach, and Colin Chapman was adamant that it be allowed to race....to the point that he hired a Nixon lawyer to back him up! The design was banned the moment it showed up, and Chapman then declared that he would head off to Florida to watch the space shuttle launch, as F1 no longer valued mankind's technological advancement. Ouch.
Interesting facts about the double chassis: The word 'chassis' is both singular and plural. So you say: 1 chassis, 2 chassis, unlike 1 tyre, 2 tyres. That was the loophole in the regulation Chapman took advantage of. Lotus drivers hated double chassis cause it was inconsistent when cornering, so it gave a totally unpredictable car behavior. Wouldn't have been successful anyway.
Imagine if all these were not banned. We'd could have ended up an 8 wheel steering fan car with ground effect, active suspension, blow double diffusers and flexible wings 😳
It sounds cool in concept, but it would just give evidence to the main accusation other racing classes and types always throw up in F1’s face: that the cars are not relevant to road-going cars.
It would be great to have an " outlawed" F1 series, just to see who can really make a difference. It would be interesting for the engineering crowd and fans , but sponsorship might be tough to obtain at least initially.
I like this idea a lot. Give them a spec engine and gearbox, apply a cost cap, and let the engineers go nuts. Award prize money for the most devious ideas.
They had Can-am racing back in the 1960s, 70s and 80s which was pretty much that. Sadly the interest wore off and it was discontinued. The fan car called Chapparal 2j, is the only car being banned in that series because of how overpowered it was lol
2:03 - Not me just realising that I had a piece of F1 technology on my wrist when growing up! So funny to see that casio watch being glued onto the steering - F1 has come a long way
I've got one of those attached to a vent on my dash. The strap broke, and I had two of them so the other one gets worn when I'm working and the broken strap on the other one is ideal for threading into an unused air vent.
By far it was 1982 and the Brabham BT49's "liquid cooled brakes". It allowed the car to race way under-weight, but the regs allowed for a car to have it's coolant topped off before scrutineering. Presto! Car is back to legal weight. Pure genius!
Then they ban the invention, and engineers and designers will create even MORE genius inventions. You seem to not get the point. Innovation flourishes with more restrictions. Restrictions pushes these engineers to come up with better stuff. Then the better stuff gets banned, engineers make more genius inventions, and so on and so forth until it reaches the absolute maximum point science can allow. Some of the innovations we have seen in the past 10 years might not be realized if they didn't ban other innovations 20 years ago.
“Formula” refers to a set of regulations. Complaining that formula 1 is regulated is like complaining that you can’t carry the ball by hand in soccer. The regulations ARE the sport.
The only bans I found having some justification on this video were the ones related do gizmo bans (where FIA was trying to make pilots more decisive for performance) and the DAS (given the cost cap current philosophy) . As for the other innovations I really didn't get why they were banned. None of them were dangerous, dubious or only achievable by deep pocket teams.
Mostly agree but the f duct can be dangerous because it made the drivers take one hand off the steering wheel at high speeds. Most of the cockpit innovations throughout history were made so the drivers can have both hands on the wheel (gear shifters, clutch, buttons on the wheel etc.) but the f duct did the opposite. Still would've been interesting to see how F1 would've evolved if the other ones weren't disallowed...
@@f2b32 I mean mclaren introduced it by putting the hole where the drivers legs were but Ferrari and every other team just put the hole near the steering wheel
The only bans I consider fair play are bans for safety and maybe cost, everything else is fair play. F1 is supposed to be a team sport and engineering playground before anything else, There's feeder and spec for more driver based championships.
If Ferrari can’t make it work the it’s illegal, if not now, by the end of the season. This was a well established fact before the took over at the FIA.
I think the Fan car by Gordon Murray is such an icon of engineering that it still *blows my mind* Love seeing the 70's photos also, it's such a different time to now.
My favorites are the ones being used now that we won't know about for years to come because they must be absolutely brilliant to evade the FIA. And I love everything that can be snuck past officials.
For me, the Exhaust blown diffusers made F1 even more amazing audio wise (The Mclaren, Lotus and Red Bull being a huge favorite of mine). I missed the odd cutting out sound that TCS gave F1 cars in the early 2000s so this kinda made up for that. Its why I love how the current cars sound under braking and off throttle. I can't explain why but I have a soft spot for those kinds of sounds in general even outside of F1 (Such as that weird off-throttle Burble on the Ford GT GTLM or that sputtering effect on both the Nissan V6 in the ByKolles LMP1 and the V6 in the Acura ARX-05) I will say that both the Fan car and the six wheels are also cool just in how clever they were (And I would argue the standout example of looking at a rulebook and going "Well, they didn't say we couldn't do it..")
Off throttle blown diffusers made the most incredible noise Been saying for years they need to bring back ground effects to resolve the passing issues, and we're getting it next year
@@mitchell-wallisforce7859 your jet fighter isn't running an average 3-3.5g over the course of 90min. Yes they do experience high g and in some cases higher but not for the extended period of time like F1
"Hey guys we got this great new idea. What we do is..." "BANNED!" "Ok, well based on the new rules we could instead..." "BANNED!" "How about..." "BANNED!" "But..." "BANNED!"
From what I understand the biggest issue with the P34, Goodyear refusing to supply them with updated rubber aside (probably at the behest of Ferrari) was that when the attitude of the car changed or bumps were hit the wheelbase of the car could temporarily change making the balance very unpredictable. Likely a defect they could have minimized eventually but it wasn't to be sadly. I have sat in the cockpit of the P34 and it was kind of a magical feeling.
I wish there was a series, either F1 or similar, that had very few rules or regulations. Let the technology and drivers participate uninhibited. It would bring an inherent danger, but these drivers are top-notch and know what they're getting themselves into.
Actually the 'fluidic switch' made a comeback when Mercedes pioneered the "Double DRS" idea. My favourite innovation was the piano wire used by RedBull. They ran a high tensile resistive wire to the rear and front wing which would be momentarily heated by applying voltage to relieve tension (as a wire gets hot it increases in length) on the straights allowing the front wing to 'relax' and generate less drag. Sadly it was banned so they had to go to aerodynamically actuated flexi wings which themselves have been an ongoing battle with the FIA since. 😅
Was discovered after a crash when other teams noticed all the wires running inside the nose cone and worked it out. To scrutineers it just looked like tensile strengthening.
@@thomas316 Good thing that didn't trickle down. Sir your oil change is done but we noticed your pianos were out of tune- that'll be $445 with the luthiers' fees.
Would have been good to reference the lap time benefit of each of these innovations. Bans on the basis other teams protest need the context of how scared they are.
lap time benefit is pretty tricky to quantify. If you make some system that allows you to win a race by being 0.2 seconds a lap faster on one track (and then it gets banned) would it have been otherwise equal? In fact if you remove that trick it could be 3 seconds a lap slower. How would we really know.
@@ribbonsofnight Compare the lap times of the car before and after the changes with the same driver. Or look at theoretical improvement. One of the engineers would have had to show that whatever was outlawed would have increased speed. They probably would have had some graphs that show the expected difference.
Two things were missing. #1 - Ground effect sliding skirts. #2 - Lotus 88 Twin Chassis. I have never been able to figure out how that trick was supposed to work.
Traction control was made illegal because it took away the skills of needing to drive the car same with Abs. It's called drivers aids. Anything that helps the driver control the car was made illegal. Making sure it's down to the driver to race the car and not technology.
driver aids like ABS and TC aren't considered safety systems in motorsport, maybe safety would be higher if they were implemented but not implicitly, only by reducing frequency of crashes not the danger of them, the cars would be much much safer if they went only 100kmh but we don't want to see that either same way the sport is better with less driver aids
ABS and traction control were banned to make overtaking easier because the leading car will make more mistakes with both braking and acceleration. I think they should create some other means to make overtaking easier than crippling the cars. Maybe go back to 2005 regulations where tires can be made as perfect as possible (currently tires are intentionally bad, especially the soft compounds) but you cannot change them during the race? That would allow going faster if you're willing to sacrifice tire surface but you'll suffer later in the race if you do that.
@@MikkoRantalainen well if you go to the FIA site. It says there ABS and TS was banned to take away driver's ads to put it in the skills of each driver. Having tires compounds break down fast makes racing more tactical. They need to make them even more soft. Also should make two stops in forced or use all three compounds in a race. Having tires that can last a full race only means its about hard racing and nothing else.
Pit stops should be made especially slow because they promote the mentality of the thow-away society. The modern F1 policy of penalising engine & gearbox changes to promote careful use & reliable design should be extended to tyres.
I actually loved the idea of the Full Throttle Control. Run by BMW Sauber Team in it's heyday (probably by more teams), it basically left the throttlebodies wide open, based in GPS position on the track, even though the driver would lift the throttle (e.g. through Eau Rouge).
The thing about Sweden 1978, Mario Andretti in fact started from pole and despite Bernie Eccleston trying to throw the other teams off the scent by having his cars qualify on full tanks, John Watson started second and Niki Lauda third
From what I understand, Bernie was actually quite annoyed with Niki in particular, as he wasn't sandbagging enough. EDIT: Further context: Bernie didn't want to make it clear to the competitors exactly how much benefit the Fan Car had. As such, he instructed anyone who piloted the cars (this being NIki Lauda and John Watson) to be careful with how fast they went. Indeed, the pair "only" qualified second and third, with Watson being sixth-tenths of a second behind the fastest time. (For reference, the top 5 were within 1.5 seconds of the leader; the top 11 cars were within two seconds of the leader.) After the pole sitter Mario Andretti spun on the 18th lap, the two cars took the lead easily; John Watson himself didn't last long up front, as he spun just a lap later, apparently suffering issues with his throttle. But what really got everyone's attention was a bit of an accident. Just eight laps into the race, a slower car began dropping oil onto the track. It was at this point the advantage the Fan Car had was made incredibly obvious, as while everyone else struggled for control, the Fan Car seemed virtually unaffected by the slick race track. Niki Lauda managed to win the race by a massive thirty-four seconds over his next rival, and only three cars in total managed to stay on the lead lap. It should be noted that Niki himself stated he still wasn't trying to show how fast the car really was, suggesting he was still sandbagging when he took the checkered flag.
My favourite outlawed design is the rear steer braking. Its been around for a long time in tractors and i think its cool to see it worked into high performance cars considering it was used in well no performance tractors
4WD makes the car heavier and the grip/traction it gives does not make up for the added weight. It has been tried before in the 60s and 70s and none of the cars that had it were particularly successful.
Would 4 wheel steering be that beneficial? At Monaco probably, the Monza chicanes probably, but a tighter turning radius doesn't always equate to more corner speed. Adding more wheel angle would scrub more speed potentially and you'd pay a weight penalty. I've driven 4 wheel steer RC cars and they are way more twitchy and hard to drive, but I'm sure F1 engineers could make them drivable.
@@mgers75 something that maybe Mercedes could use and something that RB would definitely avoid. I understand the negative elements of it, but I don't think it should be banned. In fact I think it makes the sport more interesting having not differentiation. Just because it's legal doesn't mean all the teams will actually use it. I don't get why it gets to be outlawed.
Fuel tank buffer? The process of always pumping fuel at max rate and then save the excess fuel from driving slower than what the engine consumes in a buffer to use later on the straights, giving a some extra hp.
Mass damper is one of the ones I have the most respect for, but I'd be a liar if I pretended the 6 wheel cars didn't fascinate me in a way no other gizmo has.
Now I want to see a car with active dampening, an active computerized f-duct system for multiple cornering scenarios, exhaust blowing, four wheel steering, and DAS. Now that would be a hell of a car lol, I’d love to see what no holds barred could look like.
I am subscribed to many channels that release F1 related content and yours is by far the best of them. You do a great job diving into the technical details and manage to cover complex topics in a really tight and efficient manner. I really appreciate all the hard work you put in. Well done indeed. Thank you.
My favorite was the "traction control" Red Bull had in 2013 that became known towards the end of the season. Instead of putting it on the engine, they put it on the KERS which let them use it out of corners more effectively. Since the hybrid era was coming the following season and KERS was out, there were only 5ish races left in a season already out of hand, and that it didn't violate the TC rules, no team bothered to protest and chalked it up to fair ingenuity.
I’ve long thought the extremely proscriptive rules and banning innovations is ridiculous. Shouldn’t the rules be infinitely simpler such as maximum fuel use and allow for development which would often benefit road cars?
F1 is a sport. It’s not about making the fastest car possible, but make the fastest cars within regulations that allow for good, safe and fair races. The FIA makes those regulations to keep costs under control, have good raceability and make the cars as safe as possible. They honestly do a great job. Many inovations are really bad for thr sport.
10 innovations that were banned. Okay, here’s what we should do: at the end of the season, let each team choose a technology from this video to put on their car, chosen in reverse order. Then, run a 3 race mini season in January and February reserve or development drivers. Top 3 drivers get superlicenses, and top 3 teams get 5, 4, 3 extra testing days with next year’s car, respectively.
Williams making a continuously variable transmission was a pretty good one, or I guess just Williams throughout the 80’s and early 90’s. They innovated so much but almost everything they did got banned.
The only things I'd ban (on safety grounds) are f duct and 6 wheelers. Active suspension is one of the things that would be awesome for both race and street cars... if it were developed more.
well now I'd really like to see an outlaw version of F1 to bring on more of the tapped engineering to light, and to bring on more epic upgrades without rubbish regulations and stuff
Since we have a budget cap now which restricts the richer treams from simply beating everyone with the size of their wallet, I think that the FIA should relax all bans and let the teams decide which past innovations they want to bring forward. An example could be RB deciding to maximize the blown diffuser, maybe Merc decides to prioritze the F duct or the Double DRS, Renault invests in the damper etc
Tbh I'd love to see the 2023 RB with a Fan, with a tuned mass damper, with break steer, with a blown double diffuser on some proper michelins that would let the car push flat out
Surely, once they learn how to police the salary cap effectively, they will be able to open up the regulations. Image a Formula 1 with open development, but everything becomes shared information at the end of the season so other teams can legitimately copy. It would force teams to constantly develop on a budget. The best brains not budgets would prevail and Adrian Newey would probably win another dozen world titles.
The FIA regulations are totally missing the point. From the publics view, it isn't the speed that is the problem, it is the lack of close, exciting racing! These regulations only focus on reducing speed instead of dealing with the issue of dirty air that makes close racing so challenging. Thankfully I think this is addressed for the 2022 season so hopefully we will see better racing next year.
I remember seeing a video of the F-Duct, when Alonso was using it in Spain, and his team principal having no idea as to how he would steer the car if he operated it. It sounds pretty dangerous if he won't be able to steer
They were using the oil to burn as well as the fuel, making extra power, FIA subsequently found out about it and banned it... And instantaneously they were nowhere
@@cschnauz It wasn't just that they were directly burning it which would be easy to see... but they were atomizing minute amounts into the intercoolers, lowering the intake temperatures (and burning less of the oil than the regulations were looking for) and gained a huge boost in power since cool intake air is denser. Or at least that is my interpretation of the things that I have read.
I feel like F1 has calcified and the season is won or lost in the rule book. I think moveable aero should be allowed. Give the teams each a safety cell and specific amount of energy per race and see what they come up with!
@@captainace1277 They're open compared to what they used to be. More restrictive around the front and rear wings, but the Venturi tunnels, diffuser, underbody, engine cover, side pods and suspension are much more open to invention.
Active suspension came at a time when the sport was great. It was space age for the era. Other innovations are lateral thinking in comparison, although each time an F-Duct or a DAS comes along I wish I had thought of it and wonder why nobody thought of it before.
If we can buy American luxury cars and SUVs with active suspension, it's a wonder it isn't found more often in Europe. Now, I converted mine back to standard as electronic shocks with magnetic dampening we're horrendously expensive to replace, but they were pretty cool while they worked. (I took them off at the 220000 mile mark, so it's not like they didn't last, but $1600 in shocks on a $3k vehicle that's just kept for a spare didn't make sense).
It is always great to see that the great minds of f1 would never stop improving the cars, no matter of the regulations and rules applied to limit them.
6 wheeled race cars and road cars honestly sounds like a great idea to help mitigate issues with losing traction. Can’t crash if your car is firmly planted on the road
Head on collisions, not looking where they are going, intersections, drunk driving etc all that is what causes most accidents not oversteer or understeer. The smaller front section reduced drag and turbulence from the tires which is what the main benefits were not traction.
Get real. The racing would be awful! One team would develop the best solution and would walk the championship. You need to watch the engineering robot challenges. F1 is not for you.
Always wondered if these would just be the norm now if they hadn't been banned. Always felt it was just the next evolution in gearing after the introduction of sequencial shifting.
i would say that if they had allowed the active suspension all road cars would have it as standard now. making road cars safer and faster. also the cvt gearbox would have been a good adition.
When you mention the Brabham "fan car", it's only proper to give credit to Jim Hall for doing the same thing in 1969 with his Chaparral 2J, still arguably the coolest race car ever.
Some of these things are outlawed with good reasons. Then, there are things like the Mass Damper, which is a brilliant system with no good reason for being banned. That should've stayed in F1.
Restrictions is what pushes innovation, it is the engineer's bread and butter, the need to constantly find new solutions and problem solving. This is what makes F1 what it is. The fact that an innovation is banned is not the thing we should focus on, its the fact that the innovation was made. Once a great innovation proves itself to be so good that it is banned, the next innovation can be created.
Honestly, given the history of competitiveness in the past years, Id love to see a regulation framework that allows badly performing teams a tad bit more freedom to innovate their way up
The more inovations you allow, the better teams with the most mean, experience and ingeneers to take advantage of them are going to do. It’s the Adrian Neweys and such that would benefit, not the teams at Haas or Williams and you would have an even bigger gap.
Senna hated active suspension, despite it without doubt helping him get the famous win at the European GP in Donington in 1993 (which I was lucky enough to be at). I was at Hockenheim in 1987 when Senna's active suspension failed, leaving the car stuck at a ridiculous angle, and the car showered sparks for lap after lap until the front wing had basically been worn down to nothing. He pitted and got a new wing and still managed to come third. For me that was his best race.
Imagine the car that could be produced with all these innovations. I wonder fast they would be. Active aero, blown and double diffuser I am thinking...
@@solidoperative Yep, it did. A RU-vidr (Jimmy Broadbent) managed a 3:16:00 around the Nordschleife with that thing in Assetto Corsa. Irl you would go unconscious from the G-forces xd
@@solidoperative That car would easily hit 15+ G in some corners since you can take the final corner at Monza nearly full throttle in that thing. Considering a rocket launch is 11 Gs of force, maybe they could, not 100% sure though*
What about the side skirts that could be raised lowered for ground effect? Launch control? Ferrari's secretive movable front wing? Arrows A22 crazy front wing? Honda secondary fuel tank?
For years F1 complained there was not enough overtaking, yet most of the stuff they banned was exactly why drivers could not overtake. External wings make a huge wake turbulence that destroys the downforce of potential overtaking cars.
I want brakesteer and DAS to be legal, just because it's cool as hell that drivers can learn those kinds of things. Also, it feels like both are in the spirit of F1, where the drivers are a cut above the rest and have the skills to drive the most advanced, fastest cars around at incredible speeds.
They did. It was a good idea but it sounded dreadful because the engine never changed pitch. Theres's a video of Mansell driving it somewhere on RU-vid.
