GP2 Forum

When I saw the new cars today I once again recognized that they are extremely ugly. With the time you get used to the look, but when you think about if the cars look good or not you still come to the result, that they look awful!

A the ban of refueling, aerodynamic devices on the sidepods and the prescription of an extremely oversized front wing as well as an undersized rear wing led to the fact, that F1 cars of today look absoluty unproportional. In 1997 the Ferrari had ratio from lenght to width of 2.18, the Virgin (length 5500 mm) in 2010 of 3 (okay, a normal F1-car had 2.78)!! In addition to that the shape of the cars got ugly as hell to make the best out of the new rules. Everything looks like a 3 year old kid has drawn it, it's just terrible.

The growth (in length) of the F1-cars:

Ferrari 312 T (1976)
Length: 4143 mm
Wheelbase: 2518 mm

Benetton B186 (1986)
Lenght: 4348 mm
Wheelbase: 2791 mm

Ferrari F310 (1997)
Length: 4358 mm
Wheelbase: 2935 mm

BMW Sauber F1.08 (2008)
Length: 4600 mm
Wheelbase: 3130 mm

Sauber C29 (2010) - no refueling anymore
Length: 4940 mm
Wheelbase: n/a

a lot of criticism has been heard from alonso regarding flexible rear wing.

V12-Power wrote: ...
The growth (in length) of the F1-cars:
...

This was nice researching, thank you!

I agree, the cars are getting uglier and uglier. It`s a shame, but we`ll get used to it, we did it in the previous years and we`ll do it this time. I hope that there will be more thrilling races but in my opinion things like flexible rear wing and K.E.R.S. wouldn`t be really needed. Make the rear wing bigger and without any electrical adjustments and there will be a good slipstream again. There will definitaly be some things to decrease corner speeds, maybe there should be some glue on the circuit

MäxX wrote:

V12-Power wrote: ...
The growth (in length) of the F1-cars:
...

This was nice researching, thank you!

I agree, the cars are getting uglier and uglier. It`s a shame, but we`ll get used to it, we did it in the previous years and we`ll do it this time. I hope that there will be more thrilling races but in my opinion things like flexible rear wing and K.E.R.S. wouldn`t be really needed. Make the rear wing bigger and without any electrical adjustments and there will be a good slipstream again. There will definitaly be some things to decrease corner speeds, maybe there should be some glue on the circuit

I think the central problem are the high noses: they dramatically increase aerodynamic efficience, but you pay this when you're behind another car. The fact is that modern F1s are no more cars...They're airplanes with wheels!

I wonder why nobody never proposed to force team designers to slow down noses.

Yeah the cars aren't exactly great-looking devices these days. Certainly they're nowhere near the Brabham BT44 or the Lotus 79 for example. Having said that I do like the new Merc, it's not pretty but it's aggressive-looking and looks like it eats small children for breakfast: I like that in a car!

The high noses don't help at all, and combined with the "coke-bottle" shape of the sidepods where they drop down almost to the floor at the rear of the car, it makes the current breed of cars look like they're kind of sat down on their arse, they start high at the front and go low and they look a bit strange. We expect cars to be generally wedge-shaped - look at a current road car or a 1970's F1 car and they have low noses and high tails. F1 cars now seem to go against that completely so they look bloody weird.

I agree. I also say that in my opinion the perfect F1 cars were the mid 80's ones (especially 1984-85-86).

For they had:

- large tires;
- big wings;
- large bodywork;
- turbocharged and pretty sounding engines!

These are all the features we appreciate in normal cars..and even in a racing car as well!

Okay, we cannot go back with time...We have a modern alternative to those ugly things! Look at Gordon Murray's Caparo T1. That could be a great example of a F1 of the future!

I agree with both of you, but I also like modern cars like McLaren MP4-21, Red Bull RB4, Ferrari F2007 or the Leyton House CG901:

nimrod111 wrote:Okay, we cannot go back with time...

But luckily we can go to oldtimer-races!

Greyhead wrote:Having said that I do like the new Merc, it's not pretty but it's aggressive-looking and looks like it eats small children for breakfast

=D>

From which year is this LH This is team March

I never really liked the mid-80's cars much. The wings grew too big I thought, as that generation of cars had the power to drag them through the air. I thought they sounded a bit dull too, the 1990's V10 engines sounded much better in my opinion. Personally I prefer the cars from the ground effect era and immediately following that (1977-83), the 1983 Brabham BT52 was stunning (in fact all Brabhams from that time were very pretty). Then there were the Lotus 79 and 88, Williams FW07, Tyrrell 009 and 010, Renault RS10, Ferrari 126C2... all very elegant cars.

Mind you, that era did also give us the Arrows A2 and Ferrari T4 and T5 so it wasn't all good

RacerBG, that's the 1990 Leyton House CG901, a very elegant little car and for me Adrian Newey's prettiest.

Greyhead wrote:RacerBG, that's the 1990 Leyton House CG901, a very elegant little car and for me Adrian Newey's prettiest.

Thanks I was wondered because V12-Power says "modern cars"

Well it's more modern than a Maserati 250F for example

Greyhead wrote:RacerBG, that's the 1990 Leyton House CG901, a very elegant little car and for me Adrian Newey's prettiest.

Ivan Capelli is the driver. He is now one of the speakers of the italian TV. And when he reminds his past in Leyton House, he always says about Newey's cars: "they were pretty and fast cars, but VERY VERY uncomfortable!" ahahah

Yeah, the CG901 had such a cramped cockpit that they had to put little "bubbles" on the side of the car to accommodate the drivers feet