Formula 1 must not emulate the World Endurance Championship by introducing a ‘Balance of Performance’ system despite Red Bull’s current domination, Mercedes team principal Toto Wolff has said.
Red Bull have been undefeated since the season began and are on course to repeat last year’s championship double by an even more emphatic margin.However Wolff does not want to see Red Bull being reined in by a ‘Balance of Performance” system similar to that used by the World Endurance Championship and other series to create closer racing.
“I think if we start to put in a balance of performance we’ll ruin this sport,” said Wolff in Monaco.
“This is a meritocracy. Best driver and best car spending the same amount of money wins the championship. And if you break the rules in either you should be heavily penalised, but only then, not for a good job.”
WEC introduced Balance of Performance regulations for its top class when the LMP1 regulations were replaced by the current Hypercar rules in 2021. The WEC Committee imposes different performance limits on the teams’ cars based on data gathered from each entry.
The most recent changes to the BoP were made 10 days before this year’s Le Mans 24 Hours. Toyota, which won the opening three WEC rounds, had its minimum mass increased to 1,080 kilograms, 16kg more than closest rival Ferrari. However it was also allowed to consume more energy over the course of a stint – 908 megajoules to Ferrari’s 901. Other teams were allowed to run lighter cars and use more energy.
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Ferrari took victory following a race-long fight with Toyota, who dropped back in the final hours after Ryo Hirakawa crashed. The cars crossed the line separated by 81 seconds.
WEC’s regulations state “the aim of BoP is to allow cars of different engineering designs to compete in the same category.”
“Manufacturers, Competitors, drivers and any persons or entities associated with their entries must not seek to influence the establishment of the BoP or comment on the results, in particular through public statements, the media and social networks,” it adds.
Interactive: WEC Balance of Performance before and at Le Mans
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World Endurance Championship
- Toyota’s Kobayashi keeps his nerve to deny Porsche Penske Imola win
- Ferrari lock out top three grid positions for home round at Imola
- How to watch the Chinese GP, IndyCar at Long Beach and WEC at Imola
- Fifth-placed Cadillac disqualified 26 days after WEC’s season-opening race
- Vettel completes Porsche Hypercar test at Aragon
cheesandpicklebutty
12th June 2023, 11:18
A Ross Brawn style BoP would ruin Le Mans…
Bullfrog (@bullfrog)
12th June 2023, 22:17
Not as much as bloody DRS would
Boomerang
12th June 2023, 22:39
Ross was on the mission to hurt the team that was utterly unfair towards him. He made it big time. I’m 100% convinced that slump in Mercedes’ performance would never happen under his technical guidance. Regardless of the background of their performance slump I hope they will recover as soon as possible to make this season interesting to watch.
Yes (@come-on-kubica)
12th June 2023, 11:22
Yeah just do it but retrospectively apply to Mercedes dominance.
Proesterchen (@proesterchen)
12th June 2023, 11:30
Mercedes earned their wins and Championships by doing a better job than everyone else.
It was the FIA that decided that having done a great job at the beginning of a regulatory period should see your advantage enshrined for many years to come by restricting the competition from learning from their mistakes and improving their cars.
Unfortunately, the FIA have learned nothing from their mistake and here we are, the same dominance, different team and colour on the car.
Christopher Rehn (@chrischrill)
12th June 2023, 16:14
Toto is very clearly saying Red Bull deserves to win right now. Why turn this around at Mercedes? Can’t we just be happy when one of Toto and Christian says a nice thing about the other?
anon
13th June 2023, 8:09
What do you expect when posters like that are being trained to automatically criticise opponents, even if they were to say something that poster would usually support? It’s the normalisation of extremes in behaviour, where that poster has convinced themself that obsessive hatred of others is normal behaviour now.
Nick T.
12th June 2023, 21:45
I’m sorry, but this is a ridiculous comment. They were given one of the longest runs of dominance without a rules change. Excellence also means being able to adapt to a new design challenge. Not just getting it right once and coasting on it forever.
Boomerang
12th June 2023, 22:41
Not correct, 2021 technical rules change affecting the floor design was aimed at Mercedes. They were surprised how efficient it was.
bosyber (@bosyber)
13th June 2023, 13:21
And the 2017 rule change certainly shook up the field, just that Mercedes did get that largely correct while Red Bull fluffed the start. It was not as fundamental as the 2022 new rules of course, but even so it was a big change.
Proesterchen (@proesterchen)
12th June 2023, 11:26
Toto is right.
BoP-ed series die because while many get lured into them by the promise of no competitive pressure and endless wins at the green table, at the end of the day only one car can win and few will stomach having done a better job and losing because the regulators decided to dish out even harsher punishments just in time for the only race that matters.
PS: I’m not a fan of the interactive graphic scale starting at an arbitrary 800 kg. Scales should always start at zero.
Andre
12th June 2023, 11:39
“Scales should always start a zero”. Since when? Scales need to suit the range of the data to convey the information that the data needs to convey. What are you going to learn by setting the y-axis to zero in the plot above? Nothing. Even worse, it will make the differences between the bars indistinguishable to the reader.
MichaelN
12th June 2023, 11:47
The differences are very small. Changing the range gives the impression that there are big differences. And thus makes it appear more important than it really is.
Sihrtogg (@sihrtogg)
12th June 2023, 16:52
The range should be such that the reader is not tricked (as is the case with this graph).
Plotting between 1020 and 1060 should:
a) allow the viewer to easily see the differences
b) make the viewer aware of the range, because one car is obviously not three times as heavy as the other
Even better to zigzag the bars at the bottom to indicate a truncation.
That said, a table is probably an even better way to convey the information than a graph in this case.
MichaelN
12th June 2023, 11:52
Wolff is not right, the claim that all teams spend the same is obviously false. There are many costs exempt from the caps. It’s disappointing that this wasn’t pointed out in the article.
Dex
12th June 2023, 11:31
Why is he talking so much about this dominance? It doesn’t last even a full season yet, what dominance? This time last year Ferrari still had the best car or at least competitive car. Mercedes dominated for seven years. In any case, it’s not a bad thing, being the best, so why should it be punished? This man really shows his ugly side ever since they lost their own dominance. At least wait for RB to win 8 consecutive constructors champ. before you open your mouth about that. Yeah, he’s so worried about the fans, I know…
Proesterchen (@proesterchen)
12th June 2023, 12:01
Nah, they apparently had a significant weight advantage compared to Red Bull and were fooled (or fooled themselves) into thinking that they had a competitive design when their success was the result of the other guys carrying extra weight.
MG1982 (@mg1982)
12th June 2023, 15:07
Since we had in-season TDs, what you’re saying is impossible to take as 100% accurate and/or sole reason. Most likely it’s just 1 of the reasons for the declining performance of their car since the start of 2022. Plus, the 2023 Ferrari is one of the few cars slower on certain tracks than the 2022 car.
SteveP
12th June 2023, 18:52
It’s a habit for Ferrari. They fooled themselves a few years ago with an F1 car that was faster than the Mercedes, but only by virtue of a set of engine cheats (swept under the carpet when eventually discovered). Taking away the engine cheats revealed what a total dog they had designed. Truth told, they fooled everyone and Merc had people in burn out improving the engine to match the cheat they didn’t know about.
They fooled themselves again last year with a floor that didn’t comply, and improved tests meant they had to remove the cheat, the compliant floor wasn’t as competitive…
I wish, just for a change, Ferrari would apply that sharp thinking to producing a legal game changing feature
Esploratore (@esploratore1)
12th June 2023, 19:23
Even before the so called cheats, 2019 ferrari wasn’t very competitive, it was only in quali and in very few select cars, they didn’t even get close to fighting for the championship.
Esploratore (@esploratore1)
12th June 2023, 19:23
select tracks*
MichaelN
12th June 2023, 11:43
Is this the same Wolff who lobbied long and hard for regulatory changes to hamper Red Bull’s superior pitstops in 2021? Or maybe the same Wolff who, together with his drivers, put on quite the show to get the FIA to mandate increased ride heights in 2022?
Jere (@jerejj)
12th June 2023, 12:06
He’s right that no one should ever get punished for success.
Otherwise, not much point in trying to be the best in the long term.
S
12th June 2023, 12:23
Including viewers?
Dominance punishes anyone who enjoys watching competitive racing.
MichaelN
12th June 2023, 16:10
I get that some people are genuinely interested in automotive engineering, but… there is preciously little about F1 cars that’s anywhere close to cutting-edge. Every single team would fit these cars with traction control, but they’re not allowed to. Many would probably prefer automatic gearboxes, but they’re not allowed to. Every team would have movable aerodynamics, but they’re not allowed to. They’d all like to deploy more than 4MJ during a lap, but … again, they’re not allowed to.
There are limits on every component of the F1 cars (not to mention an increasing number of them are spec-parts). The Technical Regulations alone are nearly 200 pages long.
praxis (@praxis)
12th June 2023, 17:31
Shh, you’re breaking the illusion here!
Most fans aren’t truly looking for cutting-edge engineering in F1, even when they say they are.
What people mostly like is the sum of money being spent to lap milliseconds faster. Sure that’s impressive, and often times there are some truly exotic stuffs involved. But that doesn’t necessarily equate to something cutting-edge.
Nick T.
12th June 2023, 21:52
Exactly. It’s a complete joke. Frankly, they’re more into the elite tech image F1 projects. Most likely don’t know the difference between a diff and torsion bar.
The dream would be letting them run their engineering exercise chassis AND a spec car every weekend. That way we could see actual driver competition and fans get their tech/innovation fix.
F1 frog (@f1frog)
12th June 2023, 12:07
The problem with Balance of Performance is it makes any result slightly unsatisfying. The Le Mans 24 hours was extremely exciting last weekend, but we will never know whether Ferrari won because they were actually the best team or because Toyota were slowed down for the sake of the show, and that makes it slightly unsatisfying. Hopefully next year, with so many manufacturers and more experience for teams like Ferrari, Balance of Performance will no longer be used in WEC. But if they tweak it slightly all the time to try to make it ‘fair’, then every result is tainted by the question, ‘what would have happened if there was no Balance of Performance? Did the best team really win?’ In sports, unless a random luck element comes into play, the best team should always win, and with Balance of Performance that is not guaranteed. It just doesn’t work and is not sporting. Hopefully it will never be introduced to Formula 1.
S
12th June 2023, 12:31
We can ask that same question in regard to F1 – except replacing “BoP” with “Money.”
Have Red Bull and Mercedes really been the best teams and had the best drivers for the last 10 years? Or was it because they spent more money than (almost) all of their competitors?
If we consider that the aim of BoP is to eliminate, or at least minimise, the technical differences between competitors, then we can get a clearer picture of who is doing the best on the day in a sporting sense rather than predominantly a technical one.
That’s the theory, anyway.
Fact is, when machines are actively involved in a ‘sporting’ performance, there is no purity or clarity. It is not sport anymore – it is engineering. The performances and results will always be entirely dependent on non-sporting factors.
Proesterchen (@proesterchen)
12th June 2023, 14:36
Ferrari. ’nuff said.
S
12th June 2023, 14:58
Ferrari is Ferrari. ‘Nuff said.
MichaelN
12th June 2023, 15:33
Ferrari is consistently among the top three teams. For decades. The rare exception usually has a clear explanation.
Proesterchen (@proesterchen)
12th June 2023, 12:31
WEC cannot not use BoP. They have attracted designs that are fundamentally uncompetitive like the Peugeot on the back of promising them “competitiveness” through slowing everyone else down.
MichaelN
12th June 2023, 13:41
Peugeot is just going about things in a different way because alongside the BoP the LMDh/LMH category also has a couple of performance metrics that the cars cannot exceed.
Peugeot’s bigger emphasis on underbody downforce put it at a disadvantage around the notoriously bumpy Sebring, but works pretty well elsewhere. Their main problem has been reliability, not necessarily outright speed (although dealing with the former obviously had some implications on the latter).
Proesterchen (@proesterchen)
12th June 2023, 14:44
It doesn’t, though.
Peugeot literally had everyone else’s performance degraded just in time for Le Mans and still wasn’t there with the quickest car.
Peugeot know how to build a quick car, presumably. Them coming to WEC with this intentionally-slow design is offensive to me, as are the rules explicitly written to enable such shenanigans.
MichaelN
12th June 2023, 15:41
The Peugeot car has race pace; their major problems have been in executing a proper race.
At Spa, their fastest laps were quicker than the 2nd Toyota – and at the preceding race in Portimão (where Toyota was very quick) the Peugeot, even in qualifying, was still closer to the fastest Ferrari than Piasstri was to Norris in F1 in Spain.
Lots of factors go into deciding the pace, and it’s a surprise the FIA/ACO has been able to do such a good job with the Le Mans BoP (even if it’s fair to criticize them for introducing one when they said they wouldn’t).
anon
12th June 2023, 18:59
Using Portimao is disingenuous though – Peugeot have used that circuit as their main testing venue for more than a year now, so they were expected to be better there than at other venues.
If anything, the impression most had is that Peugeot underperformed at Portimao given the amount of testing data they had for that specific circuit.
MichaelN
12th June 2023, 13:34
@f1frog
Ferrari was also slowed down. The BoP at Le Mans was extremely successful, it’s actually been quite surprising and a big talking point in more sportscar-focussed fora. Many times in GTE Pro you’d have two teams that were clearly better than the others, despite the ACO’s best efforts to prevent this.
In this year’s race, you can pretty much trace the exact results right down to who ran the better race. Even the LMDh like the Cadillac, which some feared would be at a disadvantage compared to the LMH, had a genuine shot at winning had their race been slightly more smooth. Ferrari #51 ran – not a faultless – but a better race than anyone else. So yes, the best team won. Racing is, after all, more than just building cars.
Alan Dove
12th June 2023, 14:40
I don’t think we can say the ‘best team won’ when we have this level of governmental interference. If a team is pegged back, as Toyota wear, they then have another set of variables to combat. It ruins their preparation. Ferrari got penalised too, but not as severe as Toyota.
Le Mans is a nice tradition and thankfully it has its heritage to draw upon to maintain current interest, but as a sorting spectacle? It’s like making Messi wear lead lined boots. It’s just not cricket.
BoP is and always will be an admission of failure on the part of the respective motorsport that implements it. WEC lacks that much appeal it has to arbitrarily control performance. By removing risk from the competition it’s just a bunch of racing billboards for Instagram. Motorsport to some extent has always been like that, but it was tempered by risk. The risk of utter failure. That’s how this relationship between sport and show was balanced (for want of a better word).
BoP is sporting desecration and the embodiment of lack of sporting integrity within motorsport.
S
12th June 2023, 15:28
BoP is exactly the opposite.
Designing and building a car isn’t a sport – it is engineering, and multiple parties doing so in parallel is a technical competition (but not a sport).
Human drivers racing together on a track (alone and unaided, as per the wording of the sporting regs, though never in practice anymore) is sport.
Giving one driver a car that is fundamentally slower or of less potential than another, however,
F1 is the most shining example of this conceivable – especially so in this modern era.
F1 – the pinnacle of antisport.
MichaelN
12th June 2023, 15:51
The level of acceptable ‘interference’ is arbitrary, though – and a matter of personal preference.
If Ferrari in F1 has problems with the Pirelli tyres, they’re not allowed to run Michelins. If Mercedes has a lack of aerodynamic efficiency, they’re not allowed to invest more in an engine upgrade to offset Red Bull’s aero-advantage. If Haas wants to buy a Red Bull chassis rather than outsource it to Dallara, they’re not allowed to. If Aston Martin wants to run three cars because it would save them the trouble of replacing the boss’ son, they’re not allowed to.
There are no ‘anything goes’ racing series. Every restriction is privileging one solution over others.
Red Bull was just making up the numbers for nearly a decade before they became successful again. Their supposed ‘dream team’ of Horner-Newey-Verstappen-Honda won all of two races as recently as 2020. Then the regulations changed and suddenly they’re championship contenders.
Alan Dove
12th June 2023, 16:48
While I have issues with some of F1’s more restrictive rules that have come in, which I would love to see go, they are not comparable to BoP. The FIA does not decide that one car is too fast, and at the next race that car must race at a higher weight. That’s a step too far for a race series to have sporting integrity.
Le Mans will survive, and even thrive maybe as I think we might see a anti-F1 culture gain steam in the coming year, but it’s built on a heritage and legacy that was free from BoP. We are not in new ‘golden era’… we are in the ‘controlled era’.
SteveP
12th June 2023, 19:03
Change that to plain “sport” and you have the right statement.
Horse racing, the best horse gets handicapped until it is middle to low ranking. This keeps the bookies happy.
MG1982 (@mg1982)
12th June 2023, 15:36
True. But given what we know for sure after Le Mans, I tend to say they won on merit. 1st, the BoP wasn’t a net gain for Ferrari+Rest against Toyota, Toyota had an advantage over Ferrari+Rest too. 2nd, Ferrari wasn’t the car that (seems to have) gained mostly thanks to the BoP, actually it seems it was the 2nd car after Toyota affected negatively by the BoP. 3rd, the gap to Toyota in Quali. 4th, I think Ferrari built the car with Le Mans 24Hours in mind, winning this race being more important for them than winning the champ, also easier to achieve… for the 1st year of their return at the forefront of WEC. 5th, luck…. that their car did not eat the tyres faster than needed on this particular track.
Alan Dove
12th June 2023, 15:49
You can’t remove the BoP interference from the race result. It is intrinsically linked. the race is a construction of the governing body’s desires. It’s no different the making Usain Bolt run with lead shoes and saying whoever beat him won on merit. It doesn’t add up. it’s a fugazi, it’s show over competition.
As a sporting contest WEC is finished, caput. BoP may be a necessary evil to maintain the event I should add. It’s just means the competition has failed and something has to be done to keep the show, and I emphasise show, on the road.
MG1982 (@mg1982)
12th June 2023, 18:11
No. And I’m not doing that. Just saying why I believe Ferrari’s win seems genuine, and not a BoP factor. It’s not like they didn’t prove the car could be fast(est) before the BoP, also there’s no real proof the BoP took the win away from Toyota.
Alan Dove
12th June 2023, 19:36
They had to carry more weight last minute. Weight slows cars. That’s all the proof you need. It changes everything. It changes every single aspect of what it means to generate lap time. It effects the setup, the decision making, the tyre consumption … everything. It’s a horrendous level of interference, and more egregious given how close it was to the event.
formevic (@formevic)
13th June 2023, 12:54
BoP? Do you all really know LM rules? The greater car weight is been counterbalanced by greater Mj of power granted per rule, not per Bop. The Toyota-Ferrari comparation hasn’t changed pre/after BoP settling.Toyota had higher weight but higher Mj power allowed before and after. The BoP has been introduced under pressure from Porsche and Peugeot. Toyota won last 5 LeMans without pressure, any actual constructor opponent was in field. Main of their problems was this was 1st time they had to face a fierce opponent and needed give out 100%, which put them too much pressure and prone to mistakes. Ferrari car better pace was plain and clear, only the frequent yellow flags brought competition till the end.
Kribana (@krichelle)
12th June 2023, 12:11
Perhaps what F1 should do, is to stop introducing new regulations. In 2021, both Mercedes and Red Bull were fairly matched in terms of performance.
S
12th June 2023, 12:33
Solely because the rules were changing.
Proesterchen (@proesterchen)
12th June 2023, 12:33
Ironically, 2021 was close because competitors were largely prevented from developing their cars and the FIA came in with a BoP-like ruling that managed to gimp the leading Mercedes just enough for the worse Red Bull to catch up.
MichaelN
12th June 2023, 13:38
Exactly, and fair play to Red Bull for going all in on that rare opportunity and making the most of it – but that season saw a pretty big regulation change that very clearly impacted one of Mercedes’ strengths.
That’s not to say it was intended to, as even Mercedes admitted that they did not realize this at the time. It was a big mistake by Wolff to let this slip and not prevent the change from being implemented. As he said: “The changed aerodynamic rules compared to 2020 have affected us much more than they affected Red Bull. It’s our fault though that we underestimated this rule change. We had thought that the technical advantage we had in the previous season would be enough to cope with the change and still be the leader.”
Anonymous
12th June 2023, 16:45
I don’t believe the changes for 2021 were designed to hamper Mercedes. Iirc there was division as to whether they would benefit low or high rake cars.
In general, though, I think competitive intervention from the FIA is at times justified to make sure the constructor’s championship doesn’t diminish the driver’s championship.
asd
12th June 2023, 12:37
But in 2022 Red Bull and Ferrari were finally matched in terms of performance. In 2023 Mercedes and Aston Martin were finally matched on performance.
Why do you ignore the rest of the F1 field?!
asd
12th June 2023, 12:46
BoP would improve F1 beyond measure!
Alan Dove
12th June 2023, 13:54
Who is even asking the question?
Proesterchen (@proesterchen)
12th June 2023, 14:50
Heads of losing teams. And heads of teams who have just announced the hiring of losing technical personnel to begin a fresh era of losing.
Basically, anyone who has already settled for not even trying to compete yet wants to show some success, anyway.
S
12th June 2023, 15:11
Alternatively, it’s anyone who realises that it’s supposed to be a competition ON the track, not just off it.
Among the teams – it’s those who realise that F1’s level of competitiveness is exactly proportional to their financial gains from F1.
So, while Wolff says this for the motorsports media, he’s saying something very different when talking with his accounting and marketing teams.
In that sense, the best thing Mercedes has done in the last 5 years is stop winning.
MarkWebber (@markwebber)
12th June 2023, 14:01
BoP has already ruined Le Mans as it diminishes the value of the win. I can understand having Bop in a touring car series, but it’s ridiculous in a prototype race. Le Mans was never about the race action, it was always about the car.
BlueChris (@bluechris)
12th June 2023, 14:02
As long as Toto denied it, prepare for it soon :)
Qeki (@qeki)
12th June 2023, 14:28
“Yes” says the evil Liberty Media with a grin on their face as they are planning in their headquarters how to make F1 even more Liberty [evil laugh].
Phil Norman (@phil-f1-21)
12th June 2023, 17:12
Maybe Toto should have said nothing. It will only give them ideas ;-)
Phil Norman (@phil-f1-21)
12th June 2023, 14:40
I think Toto is correct, on the whole. Then I do wonder if some people have read his comments the same as I have. He is saying BoP should NOT be introduced not that it should. He is saying that Red Bull should NOT be reined in, not that they should. Some people are saying he is wrong because Merc were dominant at one stage which is an argument I just don’t follow.
We can argue of course over whether the budget cap is also a BoP type rule. But I think it is slightly different. In theory without the budget cap teams could spend anything they liked on F1. I know this happened in the past but I think the cap is a good idea. It’s not too draconian and of course spending more does not necessarily lead to the best results e.g. Ferrari, McLaren.
MichaelN
12th June 2023, 15:58
If there was an actual budget cap like Wolff claims, Mercedes probably wouldn’t be able to develop their B-spec car and afford Hamilton’s salary. The budget cap actually only applies to a select few expenditures. It – probably not entirely coincidentally – somewhat matches the income the series generates for the teams. Nothing wrong with that, it’s smart business. It makes the costs of F1 acceptable to manufacturers, and keeps enough no-chance outfits in the series (as F1 is close to being effectively free for them) which guarantees that no manufacturer has to suffer the embarrassment of finishing last.
Tifoso1989 (@tifoso1989)
12th June 2023, 16:33
If all teams are spending the same amount of money, there is no valid reason to continue the testing ban. Regardless of the tools used by each team, such as RBR or Mercedes using simulators for car development and Ferrari utilizing Fiorano within the budget cap, it will be interesting to have Toto’s feedback.
MarkWebber (@markwebber)
12th June 2023, 20:58
There is also no reason to continue the restrictions on how many components can be used during the season, which was originally introduced to reduce costs
Bullfrog (@bullfrog)
12th June 2023, 22:51
Yes! Real fans can’t watch simulators (and don’t want to). Bring back one or two in-season tests. And not in Qatar or on the moon or whoever pays the most – let Silverstone, Monza etc see and hear and feel these fabulous cars and drivers, for a one-figure sum. Not on a screen next March with fairytales dubbed over it.
NewVerstappenFan (@jureo)
12th June 2023, 21:58
I am all for bop, but not in F1.
I would love to see complete freedom of design and then bop slapped on to keep some racing.
NinjaBadger (@ninjabadger)
12th June 2023, 23:10
I’d be interested to see if BoP could be used as a form of punishment.
For example Red Bull Racing spending overbudget.
Instead of just restricting future CFD and windtunnel resources that might have an effect down the line, be given a weight penalty to instantly neuter the current advantage gain.
Maisch (@maisch)
13th June 2023, 9:24
I would probably stop watching if BOP was introduced, id rather see one team having an edge for a couple of seasons. It already removed some of the excitement from Le Mans. Spec series racing at top level is already best done by indy car, and I enjoy that aswell, but in F1 i want it to be a constant engineering race against the rule book.