> Wouldn't Formula 1 be more interesting if everyone had to race with the same car?
This already exists. Formula 2 is essentially Formula 1 racing, but everyone races the same car with the same specs. IndyCar is another example of Formula style racing where everyone races the same vehicle.
But Formula 1 is fascinating because it pushes the technological envelope of what is possible. The engineers back at car-manufacturer headquarters are the athletes participating on the team. The main driver of course is important, but there are plenty of examples of amazing drivers in less desirable cars that lose repeatedly. Because the engineering is part of the sport. Formula 1 drivers have quit teams over engineering decisions. Formula 1 is so interesting because the cars just keep pushing the engineering envelope of what is possible with 4 wheels.
This is similar to the old Ford vs Ferrari days at Le Mans, where car manufacturers had to build cars that were capable of racing at high speeds for 24 hours straight. Of course the driver is important. But more important than the driver is the car. The car must be able to last, and especially back in the 60s, cars really couldn't do that.
Much of the technology that is developed at those races trickled down into what we drive today and have built more reliable cars. Technology like fuel injection that we take for granted in cars today came from these races.
> But why do the cars look so much like regular F1? They wouldn't need much air intakes, only some for cooling... Are the batteries so big?
The cooling ducts in the sidepods are a lot smaller in Formula E than in F1. On the top, there's no airbox where the air intake would be but you need to have a rollover bar above the driver's head.
> Wouldn't Formula 1 be more interesting if everyone had to race with the same car?
It would be a different sport. Not necessarily worse or better, just different. The engineering constrains and challenges are, et this moment, part of the point.
Formula E is closer to what you’re talking about, i believe only the power train is customisable.
> Some might say it's not much of a sport anyway, but it seems popular
Yeah, that is another argument. Not many people understand that driving a F1 car is hugely physically challenging though and drivers need to be in top shape. Us mere mortals would be exhausted after 2 laps and could not hold our head straight for even one high speed corner.
That is literally the opposite of what the article says.
> Watching [Hamilton], I understood what was so interesting about this sport, even though I was watching it in its most bare-bones form—cars going around in circles. The driver is the apotheosis of quick-moving prowess, total focus and control. The car is both the most studied piece of human engineering, tuned and devised in lab-like environments and at the same time a variable entity, something that must be wrestled with and pushed. The numbers are crunched, the forms wind-tunneled. And yet some spirit escapes their control, and that spirit is known only by the driver. Yes, we watch this perfect blend of man and machine, but we speak of the machine as though it were not of human origin, as though the machine, being born from science could—eventually, through its iterative processes—sublimate human flaws.
I find the analogy slightly ironic, since the best driver in formula 1 is indeed determined not only by his own skill, but also on the basis of his car quality.
> a simulated race car has almost nothing in common with the real experience other than your hands are turning a wheel and your feet push pedals.
Real life engineer made a data analysis between a virtual F3 car vs real F3 car, keep in mind rfactor is an old sim from 2005, sure you can't (Yet) replicate the g-forces of the real thing but everything else is pretty close.
> This is an attractivity that is completely lost in modern racing, really, with its small, fuel saving, ecologically correct "cars". Thank God there's LMP...
LMP? You mean the formula where the major constraint is the fuel characteristics of the engine?
I like the analogy attempt but there's a lot of science behind Formula 1
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