What can new F1 learn from old F1?

The Historic Formula 1 races at the Silverstone Classic were among the most exciting of the whole motorsport weekend. Spectacular and loud cars passed and repassed each other, leading to inevitable comparisons with contemporary F1.

There may be areas in which F1 can learn from its earlier incarnations, but not in the areas many think - or kept repeating in conversation during the Classic weekend.

UNFAIR COMPARISONS

One of the main comments at Silverstone was how good the racing was, despite the usual problem of dirty air from slicks and wings on cars like the Williams FW07C and Tyrrell 010.

Indeed, even the event's post-race release said that fans were treated to "some memorable entertainment of the kind not often served up in contemporary motorsport".

But this ignores two key differences between categories like the FIA's Historic F1 Championship and the grid we see on TV so regularly.

The range of machinery is vastly bigger with the historic series, which allows normally aspirated F1 cars built between 1966 and '85. The performance of the various chassis therefore differs greatly.

Ollie Hancock's blinding starts in the 1978 Fittipaldi F5A got him ahead of later cars of the '80s, creating a bottleneck - and place swapping - as the chasing drivers battled to pass the slower car.

It's not just the performance of the cars that varies either. There's no doubt that the frontrunning Historic F1 drivers are good and could be (or have been) competitive in contemporary racing.

But the quality falls away quite quickly further down the grid. Errors are more common and the gap between pole and 28th (ignoring the unbelievably slow Judy Lyons) was 20.850 seconds.

That's around five times bigger than the margin between Mercedes and Manor, so it's no surprise that there's more overtaking. The variations in pace and driver abilities help that.

FREE REGULATIONS

The cars of the 1966-85 era were produced with fewer regulations than F1 has today. The cars thus look varied and identifiable, underlining the argument that F1's current rules need to be freed up.

But if today's F1 designers were handed the rulebook from the '80s, they would not produce cars that look like a Brabham BT49. Just as the '50s rules applied now would not create a return to the Maserati 250F.

The brains behind motorsport have simply learned too much. Cars built to the old regulations would be far faster, with huge amounts of downforce and aerodynamic appendages everywhere.

That may seem like a good idea, but as cornering speeds increase (and braking distances decrease), overtaking becomes harder and harder. This is one thing F1 needs to be wary of with its 2017 regulations; the new cars may look spectacular and lap faster, but if they can't race, how long will it be before people are calling for changes once more?

And no matter how free a set of regulations are, cars would eventually end up looking similar too. That's because the best approach would become apparent and everyone would eventually go down that path.

Just as in the natural world, things would evolve to get the best possible result in the prevailing conditions (or rules). A whale shares many similarities with a shark, even though it has evolved from a creature that once lived on the land.

The variety in historic racing - surely one of its appeals - is from an earlier stage in that process. It can (and should) be enjoyed, but not necessarily duplicated.

TRACK LIMITS

Debates over track limits - and how to police them - have been raging in F1 this season. At the Classic they were not an issue, raising suggestions that you don't need to push them to the extreme.

Again, this is ignoring the difference between a multi-million-pound professional world championship, with the world's best drivers, and a largely amateur (though serious) historic category. The pros have to push the margins far more.

At the German Grand Prix there were 93 track-limits warnings in first free practice and none in qualifying, after the situation had been clarified. In other words, the drivers took liberties where they thought they could and reined things in when penalties loomed.

Given the narrow margins - the 0.638s gap separating first and second in Historic F1 qualifying would have more than covered the top four at Hockenheim - that is hardly surprising.

At Silverstone some did push the limits on occasion, but the organisers chose to let the odd transgression go. It was not an underlying problem. Both the F1 and Historic F1 calls were correct given the context.

DRIVING STANDARDS

One area in which the frontrunning historic drivers did excel was in their wheel-to-wheel battling.

This was perhaps best exemplified by the Can-Am fight between Rob Hall's Matra MS670 and the more powerful but less agile McLaren M8F of Andy Newall.

In race one Hall had to find a way by the 8.8-litre Can-Am monster, and eventually did so coming out of the Loop. Newall responded on the run to Brooklands and the two cornered side-by-side.

There was a small amount of contact, but both made it through unscathed. Hard but fair racing.

Historic competition tends to be self-regulating, partly due to the lower stakes involved but also because of the higher risks. The cars aren't just valuable (and often owned by someone other than the hotshoe driver), they are also far more dangerous to have a crash in than modern machines. Those factors tend to discourage outrageous moves.

When someone did overstep the mark at Silverstone, in the second Super Touring race, it was dealt with properly.

Colin Noble Jr, one of the stars of the event, had put on a great show on both days in his ex-British Touring Car Championship Vauxhall Vectra, duelling with the Honda Accord of James Dodd.

The pair ran side-by-side through the faster version of Club in the middle of race two with no problem, but when Dodd tried to repeat the move on the final lap, Noble Jr simply pushed him off the road. The Vauxhall won, but was then excluded, handing victory to Dodd.

Such firm action sends a clear message, which modern F1 has always struggled to do. It failed to do so with Ayrton Senna and Michael Schumacher, both of whom have influenced a generation of racers.

Nico Rosberg's German GP penalty for running Max Verstappen off the road at the hairpin was sensible, but nothing has yet been done about the latter's moves under braking.

THE BENEFIT OF NOSTALGIA

The great motorsport journalist Denis Jenkinson wrote a piece during the '70s, lamenting the fact that most F1 cars of the day had Cosworth DFVs and looked ugly.

Now those cars are revered. One imagines that the current Mercedes F1 W07 Hybrid - surely one of the greatest racing cars ever - will go the same way once time has allowed the rose tint to develop on people's spectacles.

The appeal of nostalgia should not be overlooked. More than 100,000 spectators made it to Silverstone last weekend, making it the circuit's biggest four-wheeled event outside the British GP.

And big historic meetings like the Silverstone Classic are fantastic. They provide good racing between great-looking and superb-sounding machines, piloted by some fine drivers.

As FIA Historic Commission president Paolo Cantarella said in June, "historic racing can play a huge role in attracting people to the sport" and can provide an insight into where that sport has come from. It should be enjoyed as such.

What it shouldn't be used for is as a stick with which to beat modern racing. It is operating in entirely different circumstances.