F.1 – Minardi: “Simplest cars and battles and not 1000 hp”

From the analysis of the first four races of the season, a huge mix of the forces on track emerged, compared to only twelve months ago: + 55 points at Ferrari – from fourth to second force of the World Championship, +19 Sauber and +12 Lotus balanced out the negative signs at McLaren (-43 points), Red Bull (-34) and Force India (-43), due to the technical crisis of two manufacturers Renault and Honda, but not only as in case of team of Vijay Mallya.

Despite the confirmation of the line-up and power-unit supplier (Mercedes) they get to eighth place, with only eleven points. The fault lies in the economic crisis, which is touching most of the grid. “Today, only five teams can save themselves financially and this can not and should not go unnoticed. It’s definitely useless and ridiculous to talk about engines with 1,000 hp or reintroduce supplies of gasoline, which can only complicate the studying of races as well as increasing costs again. To get out of this crisis, there’s need of well-defined programs, intervening on technical and sporting regulations”, Gian Carlo Minardi analyses at the microphones of www.minardi.it.

“I agree, although I do not share, the use of these complicated and expensive power-units in Formula 1, because I think the most correct scene is the WEC World Endurance Championship. Take a step back, towards the aspirated engines, in my opinion is complicated, because from 2020 the future of  mass-production cars will be facing the hybrid, the energy recovery and less polluting turbo engines. The high costs that the private teams have to consider do not work. A PU absorbs almost one/third of the entire budget for the majority of the teams. A truly unsustainable system, that today we are touching with hand“, the manager from Faenza continues. He suggests introducing cars with an easier aerodynamics that highlights the quality of the driver, without too much help.

“The DRS is useless, because it is a technology that will never find a place in mass-production cars. Would we like to about how wings have become complicated and burdensome? More than 100,000 € for a single front wing is not an enormous cost? It would be better to have simpler aerodynamics that allow overtakings on track, and not only through box’ strategies or the mandatory use of two compounds. If we now reintroduce also the supply element, we are really okay … Today we are looking at cars that “suffer” getting too close to those that are in front. It is not normal“.

It’s time to take remedial actions with serious and fast solutions. You have to attract fans with races full of overtakings and battles without any new-fangled technologies. We must find new trademarks. Today, everyone regret the duels of Villeneuve-Arnoux or, going further in time, to duel between Schumacher and Hakkinen at Spa-Francorchamps. F.1 must once again become the racing car of dreams, perhaps through wider tyres, aerodynamics that allows exploiting the wake, and why not, even using less mechanics during the pit-stop. One person for tyre could create more suspense.

Instead of just hearing about strategies and tires, it would be better to tell the duels with more suspense? “We have to take remedial actions. Do not forget that the problems at Renault are touching two teams that are financially solid, such as Red Bull and Toro Rosso. I hate to think how the future will be for those teams that already are out of breath ..” And we left behind only four of the nineteen appointments … An atmosphere almost like that of Alfred Hitchcock!