carguy123 wrote: But during that era you had a lot of innovation in chassis as evidenced by the pic you posted. They not going to give them the chassis freedom now that they did then. It makes sense that if you lock in the motor you free up development on other parts to make it interesting, but what they are demanding now is a locked in motor and minimal play in other aspects. It reads like IROC to me. Is #8 a Tyrell?
The rules are the rules. Everyone has to build to the same ones. All I ask is that you remember that the state of the art in chassis design is a lot more advanced than it was back then. F1 still allows a lot more freedom there than Grand-Am or those insipid toys that pass for "Indycars" these days.. 
The only thing that pisses me off about this F1 season is that when Brawn went on their early winning streak, Ferrari & McLaren first went to court, instead of the wind tunnel. Please recall that Brawn actually "bought" the ex-Honda factory team. He believed so strongly in his new chassis (and yes, the aero kit..but that's part & parcel of F1 these days) that he scrounged up enough OPM to buy the damn team for himself, and go run the races. And after everyone else caught up, they found a solution to put themselves back up front (Brit GP, Barrichello/Button 1-2).
Weird thing is, I've seen this before. In 1979, Ligier dumped the Matra V-12 for the Cossie DFV, and Jacques Laffite shocked us all with two straight wins right off the bat. Ligeir didn't do then what Brawn's done now, but Lotus, McLaren & Brabham sure did. Laffite ended up 26th in points. And Mario Andretti won his World Championship in a Lotus with a lot of aero tweaks. Even Ferrari learned the lesson, with Jody Scheckter winning the 1980 Championship with
Dude, all I'm saying is that the motor isn't as important as people think it is, when you're allowed to design your own chassis. IMO, F1 (or even endurance sportscar racing) won't be IROC unless the sanctioning body specifies that everyone has to run the same chassis, regardless of what lump's in the back of it.
Sorry about the length of the post, but I really care about our sport.
And oldsaw's nailed it on the head about the pic I posted.
