Williams would accept weight penalties... are these people crazy?

Williams would be willing to accept weight penalties next season in the interests of the sport.
Technical director Patrick Head says he will not vote in favour of the proposal and does not even like the idea but would "live with it" if necessary.

Max Mosley and Bernie Ecclestone, the sport\'s two most powerful figures, are proposing the introduction of a one kilo penalty for every point earned next season.

Head has said he would back a series of other changes to the framework of each Grand Prix weekend from 2003. But if he got his way he insisted he would like to see the sport unchanged and Williams given the chance to overcome Ferrari on merit, just as they were beaten by McLaren and then Ferrari after dominating in 1992.

"We would support further restrictions on testing and we would support sensible proposals that would reduce wasteful costs, of which there are a considerable number in Formula One™," said Head.

"I think our pride is such that we have view it is up to us to compete with Ferrari. We were probably as dominant in 1992, we didn\'t achieve quite the same level or reliability as they have - but then I don\'t think anyone did in those days.

"We were as dominant in terms of performance but that was overcome. McLaren and then Ferrari overcame that situation. Our view is that it is up to us to make sure that we compete with Ferrari, and McLaren have the same view as well.

"I don\'t think we want the gift of ballast to help us to do it. But if the situation of the interest in Formula One is so serious and its thought that ballast will put that right we will have to live with it. But we won\'t be happy about it and won\'t vote for it."

Head agreed that there is a need for change from the start of the season in March next year. And he supported the proposed change to have qualifying decided by the aggregate of two sessions on Friday and two on Saturday.

"Something definitely needs to be done to make the racing more interesting," he added. "There has to be some competitive contribution on Friday that goes towards grid position.

 "It is difficult for anyone to find something interesting to write about race after race on Friday when the teams are saying you can\'t tell much about the lap times.

"It wouldn\'t be false to make some part of Friday count towards your grid position. That would be quite a reasonable thing to do make Friday more interesting and make it visible who is quick and who is not."

He also said it would not result in a dramatic increase in costs. "The direction things are going in, with one engine per weekend, in the future there shouldn\'t be an especially high addition cost by having a competitive Friday," he stated.


Do you think it is fair? I\'m not of course. It would be similar to load K.Bryant with 5 KGs because he jumps too much. Pathetic for F1 lovers like me.

[Kurt Angle]

I don\'t like the idea of a penalty. If one team is better than the other then it is up to the other teams to improve their cars.

Yes, right! Do you imagine Real Madrid had to play with only 10 players because it\'s the best club in the Earth?

one way to "slowdown" Ferrari is to only let them have one Qualify day rather than the new proposed 2 days for everyone else.

Also a handicap system could be put into place,

Example the more points you got in the world championship the lower your starting position will be.



oh and love the link in the sig ...to Kurt

But ooseven, why to be detrimental with a team which is good? Encourage the rest of the teams, but don\'t damage the best...

Originally posted by Adan
But ooseven, why to be detrimental with a team which is good? Encourage the rest of the teams, but don\'t damage the best...

i suppose

but you realy got to ask yourself will a lower starting possition REALY effect Ferrari performance ?

i will make the first half of the racer intresting though.

after all the season was wrapped up in record time last year.

I don\'t think that\'s the correct solution. Just imagine that in every sport the best competitors are f*cked cause they\'re good! Now we\'re to give only one point to Manchester United per won match cause they have a good team. If you want to do more interesting a determined sport, there are other solutions, but not that sort of rubbish. I think everyone that likes F1 won\'t be ok with this theorical resolution.

Originally posted by Adan
But ooseven, why to be detrimental with a team which is good? Encourage the rest of the teams, but don\'t damage the best...

They do these things all of the time. Dodge got screwed in the 70\'s NASCAR days b/c the hemi was dominant...subsequently, they were banned and dodge didnt return to NASCAR untill a 2-3 years ago.

This also happend to the Neon ACR\'s in "stock" class autox. The neons were so dominant, that the sanctioning body made up a list of approved parts each driver could have based on the car they were driving. These trunk kits rendered the ACR\'s almost void in competition b/c of the bullshit trunk kits they received. Some teams got worthwhile things like CAI\'s or much bigger sway bars while the ACR\'s got very little to improve. It was there idea of leveling the playing field, to which they made it very hard for like 2 types of cars to win, the ACR being one of them.

It only takes a small few to complain b4 things become unfair.

That sucks luckee

Well, Team Ferarri has developed a bit of a dynasty role in the F-1 sport, and really, the only way to take it down is to beat Schumacher one of these years. Now, it seems like every year he\'s taking the points total, and now that Rubens has turned up his game, so has the Construction Points (or whatever they\'re called, I know it\'s something like that).

The only way to take down Ferrari is that you have to find a way to beat them. Altering cars with the weight penalties is a bit farfetched, but you just know that somebody has to have the skills to take down Schumacher and the rest of the Ferrari Team.

See Yuz.

Ideally, Id like to see all motor built to specific HP ratings by each manufacturer. They would be allowed to tune the power curve as they wish, but everyone would have the same HP numbers.

That way the racing can be left to driver skill and suspension tuning...pit stops..etc.

I find all of F1 boring, with or without Ferrari & Schumacher.  Not as boring as Winston Cup NASCAR, but still very very boring.  The way I see it, anything they do to it will be an improvement; it\'s hard to imagine anything making it more boring.  The way it is now, it\'s like watching star trek, and seeing spaceships zipping around a track.  That\'s how much connection this sport has with reality and real cars.  I enjoy GT and touring car races much more, and of course Rallying is the ultimate motorsport.

I do think that weight penalties for winning points is a stupid idea.  They do that in the Japanese Touring Car circuit, and it results in drivers jockeying for 4th or 5th place instead of trying to win.  They are looking foward in the series to make sure they won\'t have too much weight on board in the last events.  Utterly stupid and counterproductive in my opinion.

They need to come up with more rules to even the field, without resorting to weight penalties.

[Cerberus]

I think Max Mosely is an arsehole. He is going to destroy F1 one day. He made a major cock up when he restructured the qualifying system, now he is talking about this. I have to say that as much as I loathe seeing Ferrari and Schumacher dominating, to punish/handicap them because they have done a better job than the rest of the field in producing a better car seems too much. It is a matter of fact that in any sport, not just F1, there are teams that are doninant, and there are teams that aren\'t. These periods of domination change back and forth over seasons.

15 years ago, it was the turn of McLaren to dominate, winning 15 out of the seasons 16 races. They would have won all 16 had it not been for Ayrton Senna colliding with a back-marker in the Itallian GP. Then, over the next 5 years, the balance of pwoer shifted to Williams, they absolutely creamed the opposition in 92, with Mansell scoring twice the amount of points his closest rival did (who happened to be his team mate Riccardo Patrese). This Williams dominance stretched on up to the end of 1997 with Villeneuve claiming the crown, and was only briefly interrupted when Schumacher won in 1994 and 1995, though the 94 title was won rather dubiousley. McLaren took hold of the batten in 1998 and held on to it for the 2 years when Hakkinen was world champion. Since then, it has been scarlet cars of the prancing horse. None of the others were penalised, so there is no justification for Ferrari being done so.

It is a well known fact in sport that if a team is dominating for any real time, it gives the chasing pack a chance to draw a target on their back. This WILL also happen to Ferrari, they CANNOT keep hold of the torch too long before it burns them. They will without doubt slip from the top step of the ladder, to be replaced by another team, a team who did their homework that little bit more efficiently. 5 years from now, maybe a little more, maybe a little less, Ferrari meay well be a midfield team again, chasing perhaps a McLaren for the final points in each GP, while a Jordan or Sauber are clearing up every other fortnight.

To interrupt this natural process by bringing in weight penalties, will be the sports death knell.

Bernie Ecclestone is often painted as the villain in the picture, but he isn\'t really. The one we should all be making a voodoo doll for, is Max himself. Bernie is the owner of F1, thus gets to call the shots......... to a certain extent only though. When it comes to rules and regs, he is under the thumb of Mosely, due to the fact that F1 is sanctioned by the FIA.

My solution is this:-

Get rid on Mosely, and the problem is half dealt with, then appoint someone who isn\'t a tosser.

Originally posted by luckee
Ideally, Id like to see all motor built to specific HP ratings by each manufacturer. They would be allowed to tune the power curve as they wish, but everyone would have the same HP numbers.

That way the racing can be left to driver skill and suspension tuning...pit stops..etc.

There is a limit luckee, but I can\'t remember what is the exact HP.