Innovate that whip!

Today Max "Hurt Me, Hurt Me" Mosley said "What is wrong with Formula One today was wrong before any of the present economic problems cropped up. Essentially it's the rules, which have become ever more restrictive compressing the work of the engineers into an ever smaller area. As such, success in F1 today consists of optimizing every single part of the chassis to the ultimate degree and that is both extremely expensive and utterly pointless."

OK. I get it. I agree completely. However, aren't you like the head rule maker of F1? While I don't know the inner-most workings of how rules in Formula One are decided upon it seems to me that the FIA president who is most visible in F1 compared to all the other forms of motor sport the FIA governs is the "Big Shit" or "Head Honcho" when it comes to telling the teams what they can and can not do.

If this is the case then I blame you, Max, for "the continual search for lighter, exotic materials that has created a mentality in F1 where the engineers are only comfortable in refinement, they don't do innovation. That is slowly destroying F1."

I know you've done a lot of good stuff concerning safety in the sport and you will always be looked upon kindly for pushing those much needed measures thru but I ask, is it not maybe you whom is slowly destroying F1?

Think about it.

"We've finally found a serious engineering challenge for the teams in KERS. Some manufacturers have risen to this challenge, one manufacturer has produced electric systems which will astonish people when they appear, another team is working on a completely new technology which will also astonish people. But some leading teams, such as Ferrari, have said that they don't like KERS because it is 'too complicated'. Could you imagine the great F1 engineers like Chapman or Duckworth saying "I can't do that because it is too complicated"? It is a symptom of a disease in F1 where incremental change becomes the whole object of the exercise and real serious innovation plays no part.

Max's main goal over the past few years has to cut costs in the sport and make F1 more environmentally relevant i.e. "green" yet he is the man that proposed KERS. How much money do you suppose the teams have spent in R&D? Do you really think the hippies that say F1 is harming the environment are going to be at all impressed with KERS (they should be, but they won't be).

So he talks about innovation and cutting costs and all I feel I see him doing is standardizing the sport to that of a lesser formula and finding new and "innovative" ways to spend money here that was saved there.

The guy is a smooth talking politician and he probably is going to continue running the FIA a la Putin does Russia once his current term is up.

Maybe one of his high class hookers will accidentally beat him to death?

Should have worn a helmet.

I'm tired of rice jokes...

So Honda quit F1. I have to agree with Bernie Ecclestone in that had Honda not set such lofty goals for themselves that they would probably still be in F1 but by telling themselves they shall win races and championships and then only scrounge together 14 points, finishing 9'th overall, on top of the lack of sponsorship it all makes sense.

As much as I love F1, I don't understand it. What were Honda doing right in 2004 that they could not replicate in future seasons? I mean Button got a shitload of podiums and finished third behind the Ferrari drivers while Honda themselves finished the season second in the constructors championship. Then again, the question could be posed what was everybody else doing wrong? I don't know. What I do know is that other teams got their shit together whilst Honda went on a downward spiral.

Overall I am not liking where F1 is going. I understand costs need to be cut and the economy through out the world is shitty but I do not appreciate how the change in trends is turning this sport into a less innovative series. Sure, it is placing more emphasis on the drivers, but there still needs to be the innovation. That is something that sets F1 apart from the rest. It is what makes it the best. The best cars coupled with the best drivers. Money helps all of this, yes, but we need not make the series lame. Next thing you know Mosley will want them to race only on ovals. That will be when I quit watching motor racing. I hate ovals.

If Bernie Ecclestone was smart, he would start releasing DVD's of old F1 seasons in full because the lamer current F1 gets the more hungry for vintage F1 long time fans will become. Maybe that is what this is all about. Bernie is about to start selling DVD's and knows how to drive up interest! Brilliant old sot!