Hmm, no idea why I had it in my little brain that Zanardi was an F1 crash. Probably because it happened in Europe and most of the coverage of it I saw was while watching F1. I disagree on De Villota, you suffer massive head trauma and a year later something inside goes pop, seems related.
I've been watching the coverage of the Jerez tests like watching a couple of locomotives heading towards each other on ice. Ugly. Renault and specifically Red Bull must be in quite a thrash right now to get things sorted out. Put all the spin on it they can, but their competitors in Ferrari and Mercedes have huge amounts of data now, including full race simulations. Quite a game of catch up.
Looks like yours and everyone else's fears of powertrain reliability are founded, no carbeques yet, not really sold that the fire risk is extreme. Newey has had several disaffected commentary about that and the chassis design even though he had input in the process. I get the feeling he's not happy, probably with the eccentricities of upper management. I focus on different dumb regulations, specifically the tires being made fragile to promote competition. Still not solved as witnessed by Rosberg taking a 200mph spin at the post season tire test. They got very lucky this past year that no one got hurt because of artificially degraded tires.
As far as the rules, as much as I think run what ya brung would be cool, it will never happen. Even F1 is a spec series. Always will be. Primary reasons are the same everywhere. Cost control, safety, and competition. No one will watch and sponsors will vaporize if one manufacturer spends 10 billion and goes out to lap the field. 105% rule and all,you need to keep the backmarkers in it both financially and with cost, hence the spending caps. No one will watch a 4 car race. I've been to them, they suck. As a small child I did watch a series with no motor rules and have seen someone lap up to 2nd place. Boring. Safety, you have to have cars with specified safety requirements, similar mass, speed, and body style compatibility. I've gotten up close looks at sheared off roll cages made out of .065 tube because somebody wanted to be lighter. Solid beam front axles made out of titanium failing at the welds whilst at 160mph. Titanium crankshafts for a chevy V8. You cannot stop racers from spending money in an effort to kill themselves. If you give them a relatively safe spec to work in they will then spend the same money to find every inch of the rules but hopefully the rules will be intelligent enough to minimize the catastrophe.
