Unless and until the FIA change the F1 car specifications the garagista type operation can't possibly exist. It costs so much to design and develop the current breed of hybrid engines and to afford the wind tunnel and run a large CFD department that only the majors can afford it.

Now if the FIA decided that 1.5 litre V8s would be the most complicated engine they could run, and that aero was banned, we'd be back to 1961 again.

 

Kit

Can't see much wrong in returning to 1961.

 

Hope the Garagistas can continue. I can relate to teams following their own thinking and using their own designs and construction. B teams don't make sense to me they would just be extra cars for the main team. For me its more about the cars than the drivers.

Lets face it though, F1 has a limited life span.

Leo

 

Much as I hate to admit it, but I don't see any future for garagistas. To me these people gave F1 it's golden age: rear/mid engined Coopers, wings, fan cars, ground effect Lotus cars and even six wheelers! :O B)

Although not a perfect solution satellite teams should (theoretically) provided more winners.

 

Can't see much wrong in returning to 1961.

I agree 100%, it'd be the exact opposite of the mega-hi-tech F1 world we see racing these days, and all the designers would have to start re-thinking.

 

1.5-litre era for me was magical. A wonderful epoch.

 

Coopers, Graham Hill, Jim Clark in his pomp: What's not to like?

In the Cosworth era almost everyone had the same engine (apart from Ferrari & Matra), the same Goodyear tyres even the same Hewland gearbox. Therefore people by sheer necessity had to think outside the box, thus creativity became the norm! B)

Today it's all about mega budgets for engine development and extensive testing & development

 

Grumpy

You've forgotten BRM.

 

Kit

I also favour a return to the 1920s. A lively time. Lots of development, speed and colour. 1920s, 1930s, 1950s,1960s and '70s - all brilliant in their way.

 

Given that Formula One is now completely and utterly dominated by major automotive companies is it sensible to call time on the "garagistas" ?

When I saw the headline I thought 'has wayback machine visited?'

...it's been over for decades, where have you been?

 

Garagisti are alive and well - just not in F1. There are still creative, skillful and knowledgeable types that can conceive and build cars. Look at the hill climbers and off-road racers for instance.

The books on suspension by Alan Staniforth and aerodynamics by Simon McBeath show what can still be done by amateurs using their brains and skills. F1 is not the only class of racing car, despite Bernie's best efforts!

 

Trisha, on 07 Aug 2020 - 09:10 AM, said:

Can't see much wrong in returning to 1961.

I agree 100%, it'd be the exact opposite of the mega-Hi-tech F1 world we see racing these days, and all the designers would have to start re-thinking.

Ah but ... lives were frequently lost... remember Monza?

 

I'm not suggesting a return to the exact F1 cars that ran in the 60s, but a reduction in engine capacity and therefore potential power output, together with aerodynamic restrictions to effectively prevent the current situation where aero dominates the development processes. There would be nothing to prevent modern day structural advances, carbon chassis and suspensions etc. being used and making the cars very much more crash resistant.

 

Grumpy
You've forgotten BRM.

I'd not forgotten about BRM, Trisha, but if I had stated each and every alternative to the Cosworth I'd have produced quite a list (of mostly underachievers) :O

@Kevan I've noticed for a while, but only now I've decided to raise the elephant in the room. :O having said that it's been one of my pub gripes for years!!!

 

F1, along with so many other sporting activities, has become a victim of the profit-driven culture of "pack the paying-public in and give them a show". From the general public's side, it has worked - my step-son, who is a long way from being a petrolhead, is a massive F1 fan. But the other side of the coin is that development costs have increased exponentially, in an effort to provide the spectacle.

With the benefit of hindsight, I Garagisti never stood a chance.

As I have posted several times before, F1 has been dead to me since sometime around '83. I got far more into rallying, but that has gone the same way now.

In my fast-approaching twilight years, I will stick to "classic" events such as FIA Masters F1 (and rallies akin to RallyLegend).

 

The garage

At the turn of the millennium the Japanese said that the British have been responsible for 57 per cent of the world's most important inventions. A startling statistic, perhaps.

Many asked why and how. Fools. Pretty obvious to me.

Men and sheds. We like them. The shed is where we go. To whence we are driven. It's where we stash home-brew, avoid the arrival of relatives, evade the tyranny of the daily command list, side-step the drudgery of the daily grind and listen to the usual winter deluge lashing the roof.

We doodle away. Drink far too much. Daydream. Nightdream. Nurse hangovers.

And just occasionally, there it is. A doodle that is useful. Derek Gardner came up with a Tyrrell GP car in his shed. And another...

Life without a shed in this climate? Unthinkable.

 

Cost has basically been the issue. I did some research and having up dated the numbers for inflation, here are the approximate 2020 figures:

Cosworth DFV £1,876,935 development cost
Cosworth DFV £137,154 purchase price

March 701 £46,756 construction costs
March 701 £140,269 purchase price for Tyrell Team

Tyrell 001 £342,880 development cost

Try doing ANY of that today? :O

 

One wind tunnel, complete with moving floor and 3-axis sting to hold the car model, £7,000,000.....................

That was around 1998.

 

But CFD programs are available for little or nothing to run on home computers. Wool tufts and someone with a camera are also cheap enough.

A lot can be accomplished without a big budget for the lower league racer.

 

Tufts of wool and expensive wind tunnels. Yep. What an amazing road of exciting development over many years, eh? Lots of clever people with as many different ideas. Physics, maths, success, failure, drawing boards, CAD, 3D, try this, no don't, oh what the hell, we'll give it a go.

Streamlining. Cheat the wind. Fab on the straight bits.

Aerodynamics. Amazing cornering. So let's combine both, or at least try.

A few examples below of evolving racing cars from both disciplines - streamlining and aerodynamics. And finally a pic of a car with neither, but... one that gave one helluva lot of fun - to drivers and spectators alike. In our quest for more, have we lost something along the way?

 

Trisha, if you haven't seen it, you'd be loving the scene in "Ford v. Ferrari" wherein at the Dearborn test track, Shelby, Miles and crew yank the "computer" out of the gt40 and start taping fabric tufts all over the car, while an exec exclaims "What are you doing!?"

 

Stuck

Brilliant! Thank you. Haven't watched the film, yet, but I will. Promise.

 

Stuck

Words insufficient. Yanking the computer out of the car! Excellent. When I retired I put an axe through mine. Now in hysterics. Apologies.

 

Being pedantic, it's a UV recorder they yanked out of the car, which was probably there to read the wheel movements rather than any aerodynamic pressures.

 

Being pedantic, it's a UV recorder they yanked out of the car, which was probably there to read the wheel movements rather than any aerodynamic pressures.

I think I heard Ken Miles mention some kind of Ford computer in some kind of period interview, though it is a faint recollection. Ford certainly used impressive automated test equipment (perhaps basic computers or Numerically Controlled machines?) for other things such as track simulated dyno and gearbox testing.