Some recent comments by Montezemolo :



It seems like there are two sets of teams with conflicting interests here. On the one hand we have teams like Ferrari who wish to have more technical freedom and testing because they do incorporate some of their technological innovations into their road cars. On the other hand, we have constructors like Williams and a horde of others now who stress on cost reduction and stringent technical regulations.
Does Montezemolo have a point here ? I mean F1 is supposed to be the pinnacle of motorsport, but the way newer and stricter regulations are being imposed it might restrict the scope of innovation which ultimately may lead to car manufacturers questioning the sustainibility of continuing in F1. F1 is not merely an advertisement for car manufacturers, it was until recently a breeding ground for new innovation and quite a few of the road cars in the past few years have incorporated technology that has been developed in F1.

Are these rash of new regulations hurting the sport's credibility ? The budget caps, testing restrictions etc primarily aim to bring the field closer together and reduce entry barrier. But, is there really a point in trying to bring teams like Campos racing or USF1 up to the same level as Ferrari/Mclaren when their investment, expertise and commitment to F1 are hardly comparable ?

Cost reduction is a crap excuse.
Toyota and Honda left not because of the high-costs alone but because they were wasting too much money without winning.Testing restrictions and all those rules introduced to reduce costs did not prevent them from leaving even though their bosses knew they would be spending considerable less money.

So,this cost-reduction measures are in overall just crap.Especially when it comes to testing,it makes the off-season extremely boring,it is unfair to young drivers and also to drivers changing teams since they need time to adapt to their new cars and teams.

Since 2002 the power that be of F1 have constantly made a mess of things without ever realising that there has never been anything wrong with F1 and if they pretend to introduce more overtaking they should change the cars and the circuits not the sporting rules.
Fortunately F1 is still a too great sport to survive the constant hits it suffers from ridicuous rule changes (new qualifying systems,point systems,etc) but every Winter it is the same ****,you know there is going to be some new rule introduced by some genious mind which will decrease the appeal of F1.

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"In that sense Kimi is better than Michael Schumacher. When I was working as Michael's data engineer we always had to tell him accurately how he could drive faster in different corners according to the computer. With Kimi you don't need these kind of advice. He finds the solutions himself."-Andrea Stella

The harsh restrictions on testing is particularly a problem for small cashstrapped new teams. They can't afford inhouse state-of-the-art simulators to 'test' the car properly. The system doesn't work in their advantage, very much the opposite.

If you regard F1 as the pinnacle of motorsport the ban on testing during the off-season is ridiculous. If your car appears to have a fundamental problem during the first tests you are hardly able to respond before the season kicks off.

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"Life is measured in achievements, not in years alone.” (Bruce McLaren)

The small teams are always going to be on the tough spot.
Without testing restrictions, they do not have enough money for testing.
With testing restrictions, they do not have enough money for simulators, computers and software designers.
So, what is the point of adapting f1 to the minority that can barely afford it.
Small teams will always suck, no matter what change to the rules they make.
Democracy does not really work in F1. Actually it is against the spirit of the "unwritten rules" of f1.

Not mentioning that 3 out of the 4 new teams may not make it to the grid in Barhein. If you think that Mosley wanted to change the whole gig, just to accommodate these entities that have nothing to do with Formula1, is mind blowing.
I would like to see who has still the nerves of criticizing Montezemolo words, when he said that theses new teams were "nobody".

Agreed, but in the past it was far much easier to step into F1, plugging in a Cossie and perform reasonably well on a shoestring budget.

Walter Wolf and Lord Hesketh spent their own money, showing quite a few eyebrows in the 70's. Unless their considerable wealth they ran dry very quickly.

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"Life is measured in achievements, not in years alone.” (Bruce McLaren)

I think we have to differentiate between normal testing ... and the continuous unlimited testing we had a few years ago when the big teams had a second team that only did testing.

That situation is rather costly and in the advantage of the big teams, the small ones cannot go testing and racing at the same time.

The current testing restriction is too much again. I don't think the testing cost much money. The teams use the same equipment and staff as they use for racing. If they test locally (UK, Europe), the biggest cost is the rent for the track. If more teams test on the same track, this is not too much either, so I don't see a problem.

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Give me pancakes !

I think that if they wanted, FIA could find a middle term. They could manage to negotiate with 3 or 4 European tracks for them to be availabe for testing in certain dates. Every team would be allowed to test there in those days. The amount of days would be discussed with the teams to find a reasonable amount. It's ridiculous for a professional driver to be forbiden to drive the car of his profession for 3 whole months!

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"Clark came through at the end of the first lap of the race so far ahead that we in the pits were convinced that the rest of the field must have been wiped out in an accident."
Eddie Dennis, describing the dominance of Jimmy Clark in the Lotus 49 at Spa-Francorchamps - 1967.

I would go the other way around and change the cars and regulations so they suit the best circuits....

Anyway, it appears that a novelty was introduced when the 2009 regulations were drafted. For the first time rules weren't changed by chance (this should slow down the car, let's do that) but rather based on careful investigations what the proposed changes would do to the chances of overtaking.

The study conducted showed that to make an overtaking manouevre, the faster guy needed something like a two second advantage per lap until the end of 2008, that the changes in the regulations during the previous seasons all contributed to making overtaking more difficult - and most important, they came up with a new set of rules, which caused the necessary advantage to shrink to one second a lap.

Of course these investigations were made by virtual means, and whereas the aerodynamic behaviour of the front of the car is fairly easy to predict by computer, the further to the back of the car we get, the more uncertainty is connected with any analysis of aerodynamic behaviour done solely by virtual means. But still, it is better than simply putting a wet finger in the wind and do a bit of guessing, as had been the case for years before 2009....

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I agree 100 percent that Toyota and Honda - and BMW for that matter - left because their failure to win mae it impossible to justify their presence. But that will always happen in F1, if the major manufacturers enter works teams (as opposed to offering engines and accessories for any specialist team that can the delievery....) - only one can be champion, and the rest are losers, from the perspective of the marketing people....

Hence, although I think de Montezemolo has a point, the consequense of giving him and Ferrari what they ask for would be a very small number of potential winners and a dwindling number of also-rans. I see a more promising perspective in well-thought regulations increasing the likelyhood of some actual racing happening....

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Exactly what I think. A bit off topic maybe, but I always thought that the idea that modern F1 needs new circuits which allow easier overtaking/more modern/tilkedrome etc is wrong. Fix the cars so they can still race/overtake/whatever on the old ones. Sure some track modifications for safety and similar is good, but that is a different thing. I care more to see cars the maybe slightly slower cars on the great tracks than slightly quicker cars on dull tracks. All the technology and stuff that makes F1 F1 could still be there I think.