Originally Posted By: bdcardinal
Just finished watching the race. I agree with David Hobbs that if they are going to have a penalty, take away Constructors points.
Well, that might be helpful, but I think we have to look at the root cause here. The engineers were making the modes very complex, and clearly not very user friendly from the driver's standpoint. Of course, neither they nor the drivers cared, because an engineer would just rattle off some arcane commands to a driver, who would then execute them in hope of a certain result. Now, they can't do that.
Perhaps it's time for engineers to think how to make their menus and modes more friendly for the drivers and less inscrutable. Straighten out some of the spaghetti code and bizarre menus with various dead ends, and you'll avoid a lot of these problems. Everyone complains that the drivers cannot memorize every menu and mode out there. I'm sure that's absolutely correct. I highly doubt, however, that user friendliness has been refined much, if at all.
With respect to advanced engines versus something "older" or different, yes, the teams agreed to this. Mercedes, Ferrari, Honda, and Renault would have little to no interest in the sport if you went back in time twenty years with respect to engine rules and/or technology. Those teams have made it very clear that they want the hybrid package. McLaren and Williams as constructors have also invested far too much into the hybrid aspect of things to want to be going backwards, either. If you gave an option of a "normal" engine by an independent manufacturer without all the hybrid hoops, but with still some sort of performance equivalence, I really wonder how many teams would choose to run it or if it would drive any of the current engine manufacturers out of the sport altogether.