Round 1: 2015 Australian Grand Prix (Grand Prix Weekend Thread)

[Tourer]

Originally Posted by Oldtony

In summary the AGP put on show the structural, management, ethical and rule problems that the present FOM & HIA administration have foisted on F1.

The stupidity of the so called cost saving measures limiting testing and upgrading was put on show by the McLaren-Honda farce and the lack of progress by the other teams in closing the gap to Mercedes. Heaven save us from standardisation or parity rules, but freezing things for a season is not the "pinnacle of motor sport".

In my view this is exactly what the problem is. I read and re-read Horner's comments and Marko's comments and nowhere did I see either of them demanding that Benz be pulled back, as others in this thread have claimed. What they said is that they want to even the competition up.

Personally I don't think that it CAN be levelled up when those trailing behind are not able to test or in particular do much development of their power plants. Putting a spec freeze on the new engines in the first year with only limited updates permitted in the 2nd year was mindless stupidity. It only takes one engine builder to zig when the others zag and for zigging to turn out to be the best solution and the whole competition is ruined.

Benz have done a great job all round and congratulations to them but preventing the others from having ANY chance of closing the gap is frankly stupid beyond measure.

The cost reduction argument for the freeze and limited upgrades is a complete furphy - introduce MASSIVELY expensive and complex power plant rules and then kill the competition for the sake of a small percentage of the overall cost of the new power plants - dumb, dumb, dumb.