Tight rules make todays F1 cars "the same-Forghieri

[Rob]

Monday 25 February at 06:35 : Feb.25 (GMM) Legendary former Ferrari designer Mauro Forghieri has lamented today's F1 rules that make all the cars "look the same".

Now 78, Italian Forghieri was a leading figure at the fabled Maranello team from the 60s to the 80s.

"Now, I see them all as though they are karts," Speed Week quotes him as saying.

"I bet if they were all painted white, you could not distinguish them. There are no freedoms; everything is overly regulated."

Forghieri said the result of the tight technical rules is that teams are forced to look more at one another's cars than delve deeply into the designers' creativity.

"It's really absurd," he said.

"When you see a new part, then the following week you see it on a lot of other cars."

http://www.onestopstrategy.com/dailyf1news/nieuw/article/19302-Tight+rules+make+today%27s+F1+cars+%27the+same%27+-+Forghieri.html

[Massimo]

Not just the cars, a lot of the circuits look the same to, in those days every circuit had it's own character, some maybe boring, but most of them were spectacular and a lot faster than nowadays.
When Ferrari needed a tool or part that they didn't have, they just walked into the Lotus box next door and borrowed it, and vice versa.
The catering, motor homes etc. were a lot different to in those days, at the Nurburgring for instance, the teams created a sort of hotel under the grandstand where they slept, the Ferrari mechanics filled big buckets with water and cooked pasta for everybody, today the teams have mobile Michelin star restaurants and super luxurious motor homes.

Forghieri wrote a great book about those days, with anecdotes and fantastic insights.
It's in Italian, don't know if there's an English version, but i can highly recommend it, it's called "La Ferrari secondo Forghieri - dal 1947 ad oggi" (Ferrari according to Forghieri-from 1947 till now)
Here's the book number -Mauro Forghieri, D. Buzzonetti, Ed. Nada, ISBN 9788879115377

[AfterLife]

If the rules wasn't tight, Formula1 would be boring in the otherway. For example by an innovation a team would be 4 seconds faster than the others. I think Formula1's current situation is unavoidable.

[wisepie]

Those were the days but they were also very cruel times and we lost so many talented drivers. Forghieri has a point, though, there was a camaraderie and the teams were proper 'teams' of enthusiasts, not like today's high-profile commercial F1. I know which I prefer, but at least F1 is now a global sport and we can follow it easily, so if the current way is the only way forward, so be it. Ferrari certainly links the past with the future and for this reason has mythical status. Per eternita, speriamo!