> hybrid power unit closer to 50/50 split between ICE and electric horsepower

Fun fact, at those ratios it would make a lot of sense to use an electric continuous variable transmission (eCVT) - connect the engine and the motor with a planetary gear set to the wheels, done. The electric motor spins backwards when going slow and forward when going fast. Those eCVTs can be lighter, more efficient an deliver more power across the entire range. But they're illegal in F1 - because they make the car sound boring.

Right now we're in a stage of the current regs where 5 manufacturers can be within tenths of a second of each other in qualifying, and the other 5 are not that far out. Five different teams have gone away with the technical regulations, gone into completely different factories, wind tunnels and simulator setups, some of them have bought in components like engines and suspension but basically have had to build and test everything else and work out all the aero across the wings and floor, and come out over a 5km track to be within meters of each other.

If you think about that a bit, it's kind of crazy and mad.

But it also means to shake things up you need to throw the dice again. It's like this generation has evolved to find the peak apex design and configuration for each and every circuit to the point where teams with more limited resources can now get competitive (yay for Williams last week!), and it's time for a new generation.

I agree next year could be chaos. I think teams that have been consistently applying discipline and consistency will continue to do well (Red Bull, McLaren, Mercedes), those that are catching on will continue to rise (William, Haas), and those who haven't realised that's the name of the game yet (Ferrari, Alpine), will continue their passion-fuelled mismanaged decline. The new players (Audi taking on Sauber, Cadillac), are going to be interesting to watch.

But within 5 years, everyone will be back to within a few tenths of each other over a 5km circuit, and we'll probably need to go again...

And Formula E comes with its 4the generation, becoming closer to actual F1, but with more acceleration

Interestingly there are discussions about moving back to having the majority of the power from IC engines as soon as the end of the decade, with synthetic fuels. Personally I can’t wait.

Shame they're getting rid of the MGU-H just when it's starting to roll out in production road cars (the latest 911, specifically).

Also the end of DRS. Good riddance.

The best comparison I can think of is that in a Indycar race, it's every driver against each other, meanwhile in Formula 1 you can feel it's the whole team that's actually taking part in the race, and the car on track is just the tip of the iceberg of the process.

They put a few full NASCAR races recorded solely from a drivers perspective up on youtube every once in a while. I never appreciated that sport until I started watching those. It's far more brutal and compact than I ever had expected with the shift in perspective making all the difference. It's "dudes racing for their lives."

Interesting.. I agree on the description but my experience was opposite. I enjoyed F1 much more, though I really enjoy all the technical stats and talks with the teams/engineers that develop the cars and find it to be an equal part of the whole thing as the actual racing itself.

Used to be a big Formula 1 fan as a kid, growing up in Niki Lauda's home town (of 2000 people). Formula 1 lost it when they moved away from the V10. And when they started putting kids in the cockpit instead of real men.

the corporate hi-tech "extravaganza" has only come recently with its rise in US popularity. While you are not wrong I think thats just one part of the sport. Indycar is just racing and strategy. F1 is technical development, racing, strategy, and team performance. I like both but while I find the racing better in Indy, I follow F1 much more closely because I really enjoy the technical side of the sport. I also think 10 teams (soon to be 11) and 20 drivers (soon to be 22) that race in every race makes it easier to stay invested throughout the season.

Honestly after going down to the local circle track to watch the Legend cars, modified , Whelen and actual honest to God GM B-bodies from the 80s, along with other open wheel and general cool shit, it's not hard IMO to find (and be directly involved in) actual racing than watch "NASCAR" Cup series or F1. Legend cars on a road track in particular kind of takes me back to watching the super bike races (which were about as real and hardcore actual racing as you'll get) at Mid Ohio.

And MX-5 Cup is better than both!

I think that an ideal race league would use WRC-inspired homologation rules and little else (except for some safety features)

Any chassis size. Whatever aero you want. Any engine size/configuration. The only constraint is that it needs to be something you can put into production.

we’d get to see a Cambrian explosion of weird race car variants that would make race day strategizing wild. and we’d really get to showcase cool creative engineering. And we’d eventually see the benefits of that engineering trickle down into normal production cars we all drive

For what it's worth, the most entertaining circuit racing in the world happens at grassroots level featuring slow, cheap cars that permit a lot of drafting.

The faster the cars get, in the main, the less overtaking occurs.

> The reason these series always get compared is because Indy’s tight rules make it less compelling while F1’s more open rules make it less competitive.

I'm new to racing, but can you elaborate on this? How are F1's rules "open"? They seem just about as strict if not more so than IndyCar to me? At least I don't think IndyCar has "ahead at the apex" rules?

> In the end you end up wondering if your favorites could hack it in the WRC.

I'm glad I'm not the only one. Screw "Grill the Grid" or whatever nonsense they're doing on YouTube now; let's see the F1 grid do a rally.

Every engine supplier has their own fuel supplier contract so the fuels won't be completely identical.

Up until the late '80s-early '90s cars and rules were rather similar, and drivers like Andretti or Mansell were able to move between categories with relative ease.

I'd say that the rift become apparent in '94, after the safety changes introduced due to Senna's Death and the massive shift in pilot training brought by Michael Schumacher.

There was a time when the Indy 500 was part of both the F1 and IndyCar championships (whatever they were called at the time).

True, but that's kind of a good thing as a fan. Cheap tickets, and you get to wander around the paddock as they prep the cars before the race, even with a regular ticket. That level of access in F1 is not possible for regular people.

Personally I can't get excited about oval circuits.

I'm not sure it is objectively marginal. At Circuit of the Americas where they have both raced recently the difference in lap time is about 10 seconds. That doesn't sound like a lot but is close to 10% of the lap. The F1 race is 56 laps so by the end an Indycar is going to be 5 or 6 laps down. Throw in the fact an Indycar can't do 56 laps without refueling and it might be closer to 7 laps. In motorsport that is extreme

Getting faster is hard and expensive really. You can be pretty cheap and still be quite fast.

On other side, F1 has for very long time kept speeds down when new innovative ways to gain it has been discovered. For some reason I can not understand drivers and spectators dying in accidents is bad look for the sport... As such it really is not best we could technically do.

Not really. F1 regularly changes the rules to make the cars slower for safety reasons.

F1 is on a completely different level than IndyCar. The drivers are also on a different level compared to anything else.

making a car go fast on a straight bit of road is relatively cheap. making a car take a corner a couple tenths of a second faster is very expensive. and there's only so many corners in a lap. add up those tenths - that's your few seconds of difference!