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Comment by NoOneNew | Hacker News Reader

This video highlights some of what you're talking about: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rnIjQC08qKk

Little out of the box innovations that are pretty cool and then banned. The mass dampener in the video is really what gets to me. FIA just loves to ban random things. Like, I get some forced regulations according to safety. The Halos, for example, I get that they must be to a specific standard. But a simple mechanical device that helps keep the car stable, gripping the road? Ban that? We're not talking about group B rally level of innovation.

Kind of feels like the FIA adopted the principle, "If it's fun and/or interesting, ban it."

Fresh blood is needed too.

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From a safety point of view, the tuned mass damper was a nightmare. A small heavy object that must move freely in the car is hard to secure if a crash happens, and they do happen at very high speeds every single year. It's the same story with the skirts - they make the cars produce very efficient downforce, except when they don't work for whatever reason and the car continues in the state of motion is was in, almost always into a barrier.

Into a barrier is the good outcome for loss of downforce. The car may make a backward somersault and fly over a barrier or land on top of another car.

Loss of downforce does not necessarily mean it goes tumbling. Skits basically means it's easier to create the suction that provide the downforce. Loss of that means it lacks the grip it would otherwise have, not that air gets under the car in a way that send it flying. The front wing and rear wing would still produce some downforce that keeps with the wheels on the ground.

Not necessarily, but it does make it more likely; that’s why I wrote “may”. If the design has skirts to generate more downforce, designers will decrease downforce generated elsewhere.

Having said that, I think skirts were forbidden more because they make driving a car through corners too easy and races too dull than out of safety concerns.

The FIA has made a rule now that any new/innovative finding on a car gets banned the next season.

So if a team develops something, they can run it for one year after which it's banned from the sport.

All of this is to cut cost for the smaller teams; take the DAS system of Mercedes (Double Axis Steering). If the FIA doesn't ban it all teams need to be running it next year, or they fall behind. However its a complex system and the small teams (Haas, Williams, Alfa Romeo for example) might not have the money to research and build it.

So if you don't have massive amounts of engineers and test equipment to invent / develop new things that give you a performance boost for one year then you don't have a chance of winning. Doesn't seem like a very clever way to cut costs to me... Well, maybe it does cut costs, but it also prevents any small team from ever winning.

> The FIA has made a rule now that any new/innovative finding on a car gets banned the next season.

Or in some rare cases, it becomes compulsory instead...

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