We have had seven winners in the first seven races of the year, which is a record at the start of a season, but not a record overall. The longest run of winners that I can find is actually nine (although I am sure if that is not correct there will be people out there who will set me straight). The best run I could find was between France 1961 (about the time I was being born) and France 1962 when Giancarlo Baghetti, Wolfgang Von Trips, Stirling Moss, Phil Hill, Graham Hill, Bruce McLaren, Jim Clark and Dan Gurney all won races in succession. There have been eight consecutive winners as well, notably in 1982, which was, for me at least, a pivotal year in getting me into the sport as a profession.
Formula 1 is amazing in that, at a time when we should be rejoicing at such variety and interest, there are people whining about the sport being too unpredictable and blaming Pirelli for having done what they were asked to do, which was make tyres that would promote better racing. Being a single supplier in racing is often a thankless task, as the media does not write about the component unless it fails. Bridgestone worked on the principle that if it built bulletproof tyres it would not get bad publicity. Pirelli had a different idea. It risked criticism for making tyres that did not last, but managed to get across the message that when it comes to making tyres to meet specific needs, Pirelli is the place to go… That is a great example of positive and creative thinking bringing dividends.
Looking after one’s tyres has been a key element in the sport for as long as there have been tyres and so it is the finest traditions that drivers and engineers must work to find out how their tyres work; and then use them accordingly. Thus one driver in a team may struggle to find heat at a given time on a given day, while his team-mate, with a different driving style or a different chassis set-up, can do it. We saw that with McLaren in Canada. Lewis Hamilton had it all right; Jenson Button had it all wrong. We have seen the opposite at other races. The cleverest drivers are the ones who are the most consistent in their choices. It is not a lottery, but rather it is a question of people making the right decisions at the right moments.
And in such circumstances you have gambles like the one we saw Ferrari and Red Bull make on Sunday in Montreal. They did not work out, but it was not a lottery, it was a strategy.
I find all this really rather tedious. Just as I find the question of DRS being artificial to be a waste of energy. DRS is no more artificial than slip-streaming used to be. That was created by a set of circumstances created by the rules as they were at the time. The DRS of today is the same. Yes, perhaps it allows people to overtake , but why not? They did the same with slipstreaming and there were races back in that era where the strategies at the last corner decided the final rush to the flag, and thus the result itself. There is nothing wrong with that. And in fact one needs to salute the people who came up with the answers after years in which everyone whined about drivers not being able to overtake. When you boil it all down, I guess, the truth is that people will whinge about anything that does not suit them, or in the case of the media, they will write stories because they think there is nothing better to write about. My view is that being positive is always best: Pirelli has done a great job; the DRS is a clever solution to an obvious problem; and the World Championship will be won by a driver who best works out how to use his tyres. From a sporting point of view that is great.
Now the most important job facing F1 is to alert the younger generations to the fact that motor racing can be cool and exciting before the current fans all die of old age. To do that we must learn to speak to them by means that they understand… using modern technologies.
Hear, hear!
This is the most entertaining seasons racing that I can remember. What is there to moan about? – Just a shame that I cannot watch all of the races as I cannot, on principal, bring myself to contribute any of my hard earned cash to the Murdoch machine.
On the subject of the new engine formula it would be short sighted in the extreme to back out now. It is the only positive thing to come out of F1 that can help sell the sport to the non petrol heads out there.
Generation Y reporting in. F1 is my all-time favourite sport. It’ll shoot into the heavens of my mind when I can stream races online in HD though!
I agree Joe. I much prefer the races this year when the result is so unpredictable. It isn’t a complete lottery though. The championship leaders are still the usual suspects after all.
Joe, thanks, as always, for your insights; although I must disagree. In the past, tires wore in a somewhat know fashion which good drivers could figure out, adjust to, and plan their race around. Now the tires seem to go off and on rather randomly which, to my way of thinking, turns the race more into luck and lottery, rather than skill and race craft. Watching top drivers such as Alonso and Raikkonen go backwards at the end of a race due to tires suddenly falling off does nothing for the sport. When someone as skilled as Jenson Button throws up his hands in dismay about getting to grips with tire management, then the pendulum has clearly swung too far in the wrong direction.
They still do.
The question is whether the tires are actually going on and off randomly? Looking at the WDC-leaderboard I would say it is less random than most people seem to assume.
A racing driver struggling with worn rubber is one of the great sights of our sport in my opinion. And Button said on the BBC last week that his issue is not with tyres, although it certainly does look that way to us the viewers.
Jenson struggled across the whole weekend. If it was simply tyre deg he’d have simply fallen off the cliff. It does seem like the deg happens more suddenly than last year, giving less warning and there is a narrower operating window but I’m going with Adrian Newey – the tyres are perfectly predictable – we just haven’t worked out how yet…
The thing that I don’t understand about your argument is that it isn’t the tire that is unpredictable. The engineers know exactly at what temperature range they work best and why the tire did or didn’t ‘switch on’. What the engineers are having trouble with is how to set up the car so that the car will bring the tire to the temperature range that they need them to be. Thus one can conclude that the teams don’t understand their cars well enough to be able to predict how a setup change will affect the tire.
The temperature range is small so it is very important to make sure that you exactly know how your car influences the tire when you change the setup. If there is one point with which you can accuse Pirelli for doing a bad job is that the temperature range might be a bit too small because even a track evolution of a few degrees can have a significant impact on the tire performance. And it is certain that the track will evolve a couple of degrees. But then again isn’t a tire with these characteristics exactly the mission Pirelli were given when they were appointed to be the new F1 tire supplier?
McLaren tried an aggressive set-up to get the tires to heat up faster. It backfired when the tires got destroyed. Button can manage tires perfectly well. One team’s bad set-up does not infer a problem with the tires supplied to the whole grid.
It would be a lottery if the tires weren’t consistent, set to set. I have not heard one complaint about that (whereas in NASCAR and Indy in years passed, you would hear drivers say “that was a good set” or “something was wrong with that set”). The only complaints have been that they either couldn’t get the tire up to temperature, or they overheated it.
Tire management has been a part of racing for as long as tires have been on cars. In the Bridgestone era, it was about abusing them so they’re up to temp, and driving hard to keep temperature in them. Remember the graining? That’s because the driver/car combination was not working the tire hard enough and there was insufficient heat in them. I think there was one instance where a Bridgestone actually blistered (Montreal, 2010). Tire problems were consistent throughout F1 history, albeit different problems in different eras.
And keeping it FTA
I like DRS mainly because it winds Nigel Roebuck up…
Ha! Not just me then
Hear, hear indeed! Nothing is more dull than knowing who is most likely to win a race before it’s even started (the Ferrari/Schumacher years anyone?) – I appreciate Vettel is a great driver but I don’t want an exhibition procession every other weekend like last year. It’s the unpredictability in any live sport that makes it such great viewing and for F1 that has only been enhanced by the Pirellis, DRS, etc. And witness the top of the championship – we still see the best drivers up there so the cream still rises to the top. Quit the whining and carry on racing!
With the DRS, i agree that it is no more artificial but the FIA need to think about where to place it more. placing it after the hairpin at Montreal just eliminated that spot as a passing spot and we lost some amazing passes. i would of put it between 7 & 8. and thus the hairpin would still be a place for great passes.
Dear Joe
Whilst I agree with much of your sentiment here I still have reservations about the specific characteristics of the tyres Pirelli have currently come up with. Whilst I accept there is a degree of the teams having to understand the tyres better to enable them to be used most effectively I sort of get the impression that, to a greater or lesser extent, teams don’t know why there are fast when they are fast and why they are slow when they are slow. Hopefully this will get better over the season as knowledge accumulates but we may never have full understanding. I also find it slightly invidious to have teams spend small fortunes on design, only to have this compromised by something that could not be fully accounted for within that design. (I work in Architecture and we wouldn’t ever stick a building on foundations of unknown provenance!). A return to a tyre with a greater reliance on mechanical grip over chemical grip may help here – you can still design in a given wear rate to enhance racing but it should be less temperature specific and so less unpredictable as chemical grip, or ‘stickiness’ depends largely on tyre temperature. I do however accept that in designing a tyre this way Pirelli may be less open to negative publicity regarding their product than was the case with Bridgestone.
Still enjoying the season though!
They aren’t magic; they obey the usual laws of physics. Just because some teams and drivers don’t understand them doesn’t mean that they are unpredictable.
Agreed. People seem to talk as if the tyres are all different and they get dealt a rum hand each week.
The cars all suit different tracks and temperatures and driver styles – always have, always will unless it becomes a 100% spec series. The tyres just exaggerate that routine and mean nobody can build the fool proof aero trick that overcomes all odds this year. (imagine if Pirelli had thrown out these tyres mid way through last year we might have seen Vettel actually fight for his second championship!)
There was a mid-season run of 9 different winners in 1982, so there is a tie. Patrese, Watson, Piquet, Pironi, Lauda, Arnoux, Tambay, De Angelis and Rosberg won for 6 different teams.
It wouldn’t be too much of a stretch to imagine a Lotus win in the Valencia heat, followed by a Perez win in the Silverstone rain to equal this run.
Thanks for your great blog as well Joe. I read every day, and it is easy to take these things for granted so I should say thans once in a while.
Yes, you are right. I knew someone would correct me if I did not get it right.
I agree. I think this season is great. I was talking to a friend yesterday who is only just getting into F1 and he thought it was great racing – he loved the strategy element of tyre management.
Who cares if the cars can’t go at 100% for the entire race? Every year there are rule changes that try to limit the performance of the cars, from engine regs, to skinny / grooved tyres, to aero rules. The limited life span tires are just another in a long list of similar regulations and they seem to be very effective. It’s no more artificial racing than when the engine capacity was reduced or the size of the rear wing was reduced. The Formula is the Formula. Everyone has to play by the same rules (even Red Bull it seems!) so if that means that this year needs more strategic thinking from the drivers and teams rather that just all out power or aero performance, I for one think that’s a good thing.
Seven winners in seven races is much more interesting than one driver running away with every race. With the points spread that there is these days, the championship should be open to a number of winners very late into the season.
Absolutely right. Teams now have to think on their feet all weekend rather than mapping nearly everything out beforehand. the perfect balance of planning and reacting. I feel the driver skill is more important now too.
I wish people would not go on about the ‘Murdoch’ money machine. To be able to watch most sports, live especially F1 with the excellent interviews with past drivers. is worth every cent. Anyone who loves F1 will not begrudge the modest fees.
Please speak for yourself. I love F1 and made the decision not to switch to Sky. It is not the extra cost (which would have come to £10/month), I would have happily paid that, but who the money goes to and what it it represents for the future of the sport. Having seen most races on both channels I think the BBC’s pre/post race shows are much, much better.
Forgive a backwards look friends, but I wonder if you remember when Murray Walker did the show for the BBC. It would start right in the paddock from the start, without the 40 second segments of music and random shots [stupid], without the lame theatrical presentations with Jordan and DC…. Murray got down to business right from go and it is really amazing how articulate and interesting he was right the way through.
Anyone hear the commentary on BBC 5 live for Montreal quali ? It was B A D. [sorry]!
You obviously did not listen to the race then.
It was cricket for the first half-hour. Then Jonathan Legard, who used to tell you the colour of a Ferrari when on TV, but fails to let you know the colour of the sidewalls at pitstops. The best bit though was when Hamilton stops a second time and JL asks JA, the Pirelli test driver, who will win?
Matter-of-factly JA says “Hamilton, definitely Hamilton”, which he duly did.
That is how predictable these tyres actually are. A one-stop for the top 10 starting on options just leaves you looking dumb, when two-toppers and starters on primes can cruise past you. That is not normal open-wheel racing like you get in every other formula – Karts to GP2.
It’s not the diehard fans that matter when it comes to TV, sadly. It’s the potential fans that may be lost to other sports that is the real worry.
Beg your pardon? To anyone who is NOT a Sky user, the fees are not modest, and involve a satellite dish, decoder etc etc plus regular payments each month.
If you watch other sports as well as F1 then you can spread the charges over more than one, or if you are a couch potato and sit in front of the box most days then you can justify the costs.
For those of us who have a life outside of sport and watching TV, the costs are another expense and not particularly welcome, aside from any political considerations about the Murdochs.
Sport is just becoming a big money machine, and losing a lot of viewers because of it. The whole arrangement by the BBC and Sky stank to high heaven and won’t be forgotten in a hurry.
At last, a sensible piece about the vagaries of this years racing. The only people complaining are those with vested interests or those who don’t have the willingness or capacity to understand. I visited a friend and his Dad (who have sky) to watch the Canadian GP and both of them, not great F1 fans, sat down and watched the entire race with me, and remarked how exciting it was. Without DRS and the Pirelli tyres they’d have watched the first three laps and then wandered off.
It’s the fan boys that are complaining, simply because if their favourite driver isn’t leading the championship then there must be something wrong with the rules, and when you get 7 winners from 7 races, the odds are that every fan boy will be disappointed more often than not.
And then there are those that prefer other forms of motor racing, and use any excuse to have a moan.
As for DRS being artificial, the whole sport is artificial, just like every other sport.
bernies people providing great input into a discussion as always
Karen, I have to say this. I have had a big – professional – crush on you lately. You are, as they say, killing it.
That is enough declarations of love… Ed.
Okay, okay, but the beeb and sky bashing was something else! [silly person]
Agreed Karen.
I can forsee that if one the top teams actually gets a handle on tyres, etc. and were to win all seven last races by scampering away from pole and finishing 50 seconds ahead of P2 (as per Ferarri/Schumi days) then it will be exactly the same people complaining that ‘team X’ has made the sport boring!
Right on Karen!
“the whole sport is artificial” – Exactly!
F1 is cool and is exciting, the only thing it needs to do is make itself accessible to younger generations. This means Bernie not squireling away all the footage, making F1 clips available on you tube after the event (it is a staple of the young ones(!)), and giving them the change to see, smell and heat the sport up close without having to get their parents to spend $1000 euros on tickets or whatever.
The problem that always has existed in F1 is that 99% of the stakeholders can only see it from their own point of view, rather than through the eyes of others.
I agree that the question of DRS being artificial is a waste of energy. At least KERS isn’t though!
I think it’s quite reasonable for those who voluntarily carry out the orders of someone else to receive criticism. The Pirellis on my car are there because they’re cheaper than Michelins and Bridgestones not because of any F1 involvement.
I know tyres, fuel consumption etc have always existed to variable extents in F1 but the tyre randomness just seems to be dominating things too much these days. Even after quite a long while, nobody has worked out how the tyres work yet. Surely something’s wrong there? Have the F1 Engineers suddenly come over all stupid?
I never thought I’d hear criticism of Jenson’s tyre handling – I thought he was supposed to be good in that area? In Canada, where he couldn’t get decent performance on either tyre, he claimed afterwards that it wasn’t the tyres. Admittedly, he wasn’t able to explain what *was* wrong so tyres can’t actually be ruled out.
Back in the day, you could attempt to break a slip streaming opponent and try a decent defence. What’s the defence against coming out of a slow corner into a straight with the guy behind a button push away? I wish drivers had to fight a bit harder to overtake. Lewis admitted after the Canada race that he deliberately didn’t try and overtake someone before the DRS zone. Ok, clever tactics but still too easy.
Although I like your attitude and where you’re coming from, I just wish it were more obviously true. I don’t believe that the best driver and team will win this year because I believe the luckiest driver and team will win this year. It’s a lottery, randomised by the tyres, in my view.
would you rather it be like when Schui had his own set of tyres that were different than everyone else, and no one but he and his engineer were allowed to even see them. as long as the tyres are 100% consistent for everyone, which i have some doubt they are, then this is the best situation.
While I agree with the general thrust of your comments, and very much appreciate the efforts of Pirelli, there does remain an element of lottery.
The unusually narrow optimum operating range* for the current tyres does mean that drivers are at the mercy of the weather even when it doesn’t rain.
An race winning setup on Saturday can be transformed into a mediocre performance on Sunday just because the track temperature changed by a few degrees.
The smarter teams can mitigate this effect to some extent, but the lottery remains – and it is not like wet weather, where driver skill can compensate.
(* I appreciate that the tyres are very similar to last year’s, but the absence of the blown diffuser makes them more vulnerable to this effect.)
It’s a little bit like you’re on your way home one night, and someone across the street invites you in to their drinks party. And you find there’s cocktails, and champagne, and wife-swapping, and brazillian bikinis, and all the single malt scotch you can drink!! After a few days of this, you want to get back to your lovely sofa, and the homemade lasagna, and the bottled guiness from Ireland, and a hot bath and put your feet up.
Yes F1 is exciting and totally unpredictable this year, but I want to get back to seeing the top drivers being on top. I miss F1 that we knew and loved. It weren’t that bad
Gosh! I’m afraid I can’t agree with you there Joe. Being fast on a Saturday with your setup and tyres, not being able to touch the car until Sunday at which time you find you can’t get any temperature into them, or they go off within a few laps. This isn’t tyre management it’s tyre dominance. I too find the discussion tedious but that’s because the defining conversation in F1 at the moment is about tyres rather than about racing.
All in all the season is good for Pirelli. I’m not saying they weren’t asked to do it but this notion that the tyres drop of the cliff once they go off makes me wince every time I see it happen. To see Alonso taken apart by Grosjean, Perez and Vettel, in the closing laps, being completely unable to defend his position makes a joke of Motor Racing – what do they call it? Shooting fish in a barrel – call me old-fashioned (and I’m leaving that one open for your abuse) but I like to see drivers fighting for their position – fighting not capitulating.
I don’t like the Parc Ferme rules either.
But one door shuts, another opens. I’d rather no doors, though.
Specifically, the new tyres, I’d like to see that overnight data used.
That’s the rule John, no doors allowed to be opened!
Not even the brass revolving doors at Selfridge’s?
Just watched the superb documentary The Ghost of Oxford Street narrated and the rest by Malcolm McLaren, backing of all sorts but some choice Tom Jones, and, well, there’s a revolving door. When I was a kid, I used to sneak in there, to thumb the foreign magazines I could not afford.
I keep thinking, if you see F1 for the first time, you are asked which pill to take, red or blue. But what should be going on is a walk through a hall of mirrors. With a friendly hand. Yes, strange. No, not scary.
DRS is lame, the sooner it goes away the better.
Totally agree, i want a proper overtake not a PS3 overtake!
My view is that the unpredictability is far more to do with the closeness of the cars than the tires. In years passed, if you couldn’t get your tires operating properly, you were still a few tenths off, and you probably lost a position in qualifying. In Q2 in Montreal, the top-16 were within a second! I don’t ever remember it being that close. Kimi Raikkonen was one tenth behind his teammate, yet five spots behind! A gust of wind up or down the straight would have probably been enough for a spot or two on the grid.
As for DRS, it is still artificial. With slipstreaming you lost the advantage as soon as you pulled out from behind the lead car, and then you approached the corner side-by-side. Now, you open your wing and drive by. While DRS has increased passing, it has brought about the most mundane, predictable, frustrating overtakes in the history of F1.
In the case of the Canadian GP, instead of Lewis having to fight his way past, he was able to just press a button and drive by. Had he been required to fight his way past Vettel, he may not have caught Alonso until the last lap, which could have set up a thrilling finish. Instead, we were robbed of that and forced to watch two uninspiring DRS drive-by “overtakes”.
Aside from that, look at all of the passes that Pirelli have made possible by bringing in softer tires. Hamilton’s passes on the back-side of Catalunya (where there were zero passes in the Bridgestone era); all of the non-DRS passes in Turkey; Rosberg having some good duels in Malaysia.
Finally, being slightly faster than someone should not be reason alone to overtake. There should be race-craft involved (which there still was back in the real slipstreaming days), rather than just opening a wing and driving by. You should have to fight for a spot, rather than have it gifted to you.
I would contend that DRS has actually hurt F1, as it provides an easy alternative to attempting a risky pass. Why try to divebomb into the hairpin when you can open your wing on the next straight and simply drive by the car ahead of you?
Respectfully, I disagree regarding DRS. Before it was brought in, there was no way Hamilton could “fight his waypast” Vettel; back then he would have been tucked up behind him with absolutely ZERO chance of passing – even if he was actually a lot faster. Just remember the title decider from 2010 where we were robbed of a REAL fight for the championship because the much faster contenders were stuck behind slower non-contenders.
DRS may not be perfect – in fact, with other changes that have since been made it may not even be necessary any more. But I think we need to remember why it was introduced – the total inability to overtake due to aero effeciency/ineffeciency no matter how quick.
That, surely, must be wrong.
I like DRS but, honestly, I think its use should be limited. Rather than being able to use it lap after lap after lap, you should have limited numbers of DRS enables. This would encourage a little bit of tactical nous to become involved again, rather than just hitting the push to pass.
You saw this in the old days with the turbos, turning the boost right up got you the place but you paid for it later with fuel consumption. I like that, encouraging a bit of balance.
The only thing I’d say is that IMHO DRS was really brought in to limit the advantage that McLaren had with their F-duct…
Really don’t know where to start!
Joe, I don’t think anybody is complaining about the tyres not lasting per say, what they are complaining about is the total lack of consistency between sets, thus making it impossible to take sensible data from Friday testing and translate that into a game plan for the race.
To quote Redbull/Mclaren/Ferrari (and others), there gripe is that the operating window is way too narrow and in-consistent.
That in anybodies language is a lottery.
Let’s face it, it’s not like Pirelli don’t have form for this (previously in F1 and in many other categories of Motorsport).
I have no issue with 8 different winners per say, but to try and claim that this is NOT down to the tyres is somewhat stretching it.
If you can be inclined to do the numbers, it becomes more obvious.
for example, if you compare the Q3 pole time with fastest lap of the race, in the past it’s usually been within a second, this year:
Track – Q3 time – Fastest lap
Australia – 1:24.922 – 1:29.187 (Hamilton/Button)
Malaysia – 1:36.219 – 1:40.722 (Halilton/Räikkönen)
China – 1:35.121 – 1:39.960 (Rosberg/Kobayashi)
Bahrain – 1:32.422 – 1:36.379 (Vettel/Vettel)
Spain – 1:21.707 – 1:26.250 (Hamilton/Grosjean)
Monaco – 1:14.301 – 1:17.296 (Schumacher/Perez)
Canada – 1:13.784 – 1:15.752 (Vettel/Vettel)
that’s more like 4+ seconds.
now, you might not think this is a problem, but what it shows is the cars are not being driven even remotely close to their limits at any time during the race, ie. they are no longer ‘racing’ and just on a tyre saving cruise.
Let me put it another way, what part of the Canadian GP will everybody remember?
The way Lewis went though to take the win in the last ~14 laps?
So, we like to see somebody on a charge – Yes?
then can we please five them the tyres to enable them to do this all the time!
You can’t have a tire that does everything. It can’t be both durable enough to abuse AND degrade at the same time.
Sure, there is a middle-ground between peaky Pirellis and hockey-puck Bridgestones, but it’s not like it’s simple to engineer. Also, it’s a moving target for Pirelli, since last year the teams had significantly more stable cars, with more downforce, due to the blown diffusers. Beyond that, I’d bet Red Bull has 25% more downforce than HRT or Marussia… so you can’t optimize the tire either way. Pirelli wanted to keep things unpredictable, but perhaps went a little too far. There would be a chorus of complaints if they went the other way and ended up with tires that were difficult to pass with, but were more predictable.
Realistically, the only way you’ll really get what you want is to have a tire-war. Then you’ll see tires pushing the limits, allowing the drivers to go as fast as possible, hopefully not suffering from too much degradation, but also not being so ridiculously conservative that the softest compound could be abused for a whole race and not see a bit of degradation.
To a point, your right, although it’s quote possible to make tyres that don’t fall off a cliff with almost zero warning.
I want to see the drivers actually RACING, not constantly cruising round trying to eek a little more life out of shit tyres.
Ultimately though, you are right, we need a tyre war, this is what pushes competition, both on and off the track, what we are suffering now is the legacy of Spankie, (in much the same way as HRT and Marussia are.)
Thinking about it, Bernie was too far ahead of his time when he burned a ton of money on Bakersville. Since then he seems to be slipping further and further behind it.
I don’t mind the tyres at all, what bothers me is it’s ALL anyone talks about. Drivers, commentators, teams, journalists. They seem to miss the fact these machines are going at near on 200 mph wheel to wheel, and you don’t hear much about engines or any other components. e.g. Merc drivers always adjusting the brake balance – not once have I heard the commentators explain why and how they do this, and the effect it has. You can be sure that they will mention hundreds of times which stripe is which tire,
It’s just getting boring, however the racing and the season are excellent!
Solid gold common sense.
The thing with DRS to me is not that it is artificial, just it is rather boring and takes away from a risky exciting overtaking move to the kind of one you pull on a motorway against a large truck. When Hamilton caught Alonso there was an inevitable pass coming (DRS or not), it would have been far more exciting seeing Hamilton have to fight Alonso, and Alonso putting up a defence. Instead as Villeneuve pointed out on Sky Hamilton deliberately didn’t go for the pass at the hairpin before the DRS detection, and Alonso deliberately tried to entice him into passing so he would take it back on the DRS straight. They both crept round and Hamilton just sailed past on the straight.
The worst for me was the onboard cam from (It think) Vettel’s car,, he follows Alonso, gets better traction and pulls up level with him, it’s equal from there, normally they would go side by side down the straight with the one who could brake the latest being the winner, instead you could see them level up then as soon as he went over the like Alonso just vanished from view. I may be accused of whining but to me that’s just not exciting. Overtaking should be finished in the braking zone not half way up the straight. I do think it can be good to help, but the effect can be far to great sometimes as it was here, discouraging drivers from exciting overtaking manoeuvres and encouraging boring ones.
Think of the best overtakes you can remember, Hakkinen passing Schumacher at Spa, Alonso around Schumacher at in Japan, Villeneuve around the outside of Schumacher (maybe there is a theme here??), many Montoya overtakes. How many DRS overtakes do you think you will remember?
No, it takes away cars running nose to tail for entire races.
Well I think it has positives and negatives, stopping cars getting stuck and following until pitstops is one of them. If it helps the car behind get a slight edge to just about get in range for an overtake it works, but you have to admit driving past on the straight isn’t exciting, there is little a driver can do to defend. It is just a case of getting it to the right level which I fear may be a difficult task as cars and race conditions change year by year.
The tyres may make things unpredictable and hurt certain drivers but I’m in favour of them, I think they add to it, you still have to try when passing a car on gone tyres, and I like the fact drivers/teams can elect to take a risk as Alonso did.
Now KERS on the other hand…
Joe, you’re wrong there.
We have not seen a race that has Pirelli tires and no DRS. The easiest way to prove you wrong is to point out all of the non-DRS passes, of which there are many. In my post, above, I pointed out several; Hamilton’s passes in Spain, many non-DRS passes in Turkey last year, several passes in Australia and Malaysia. DRS certainly did not provide all of those opportunities.
Besides, sometimes it is nice to watch someone successfully defend their position (Gilles in Jarama, 1981; Webber in Monaco, 2012).
Remember the phrase “catching him is one thing, passing is another”? Well, with DRS, that’s no longer the case, and it’s a shame.
We will have to agree to disagree. There are no rights and wrongs.
My biggest gripe is your claim that, if it were not for DRS, we would be subjected to endless processions. We’ve seen an increase in passing on all parts of every circuit, which is something that cannot possibly be attributed to DRS.
That was not my point. I do not think that DRS does any harm. The rest of the argument is conjecture.
But what we saw in Canada was Lewis refusing to take Alonso going into the hairpin simply because he knew that if he did Alonso would come straight back at him with DRS on the following straight. Madness
No, that was what happened in the days of slipstreaming
Depends how you define madness.
That’s what happens at Indy, that’s what used to happen in slipstreaming days at Monza.
It’s all about tactics and using your brains to engineer the best solution to your problem. Don’tr see the issue.
I think cars running from nose to tail was a result of the bulletproof bridgestone tyres and that everyone got similar performance out of them.
Now that we have variable performance pirelli tyres, i think DRS is un-needed, and as proof i would say that due to alonso and vettel being on very worn tyres and hamilton being on fresher tyres, he would have still got past both alonso and vettel even without DRS and the spectacle would have been better.
I think pirelli have done such an excellent job to bring an uncertain variable into the racing, that DRS is no longer required.
Yes, but having DRS does no real harm.
Having a properly engineered system such as the F-Duct did no harm either, achieved at the worst the same effect, but surpassed the DRS in that the driver, given brains, chose when to operate it. (Didn’t lead to the often seen repass next lap either, that’s appeared since).
DRS was a sop to the poorly executed and dangerous catch ups that appeared after McLaren stole a walk. Allow properly integrated systems and problem solved, look what Mercs done with such. Okay I know that theirs is DRS activated, but that comes about because Chasa and co can’t suck innovation up and get it right.
Perhaps there is an even better idea than DRS; it *might* remove some pizazz from some overtaking but it’s still a lot better than cars running head-to-tail for the bulk of the race. Doesn’t anyone remember the very last race before DRS was introduced?
Yeah, I remember it. They were using Bridgestone hockey pucks, right?
Ever thought that Pirelli had more of an effect on overtaking than DRS? They’re running softer compounds and even have significantly lighter tires (up to 2.5 kg each).
Didn’t you see all of the non-DRS passes in the past year and a half?
Maybe what we should do, instead of the complicated DRS, is just say that once you are within 0.5 sec, the lead car must let you by. No possibilities of a DRS failure OR a procession! My, wouldn’t that be exciting then.
Agreed on Pirelli’s input to the extra amount of overtaking seen since the start of 2011, but I can’t also see the sport dropping DRS, but maybe they might look a change in the regulations for it in 2013.
Either they limit the amount of uses per race per driver – say 5 each
OR
They figure out a system whereby DRS switches off once the cars are side by side to promote the classic late braking overtaking, and stop the following car from just sailing past ala Hamilton on Vettel and Alonso in Montreal.
OR
Both suggestions combined.
The current system would of been great under the Bridgestone era, but with Pirelli tyres and KERS now available, I think its best to set limits on the DRS
The very last race before DRS was introduced was on Bridgetstone tyres!
Joe – I’ve been thinking hard about this for a while. I don’t think any true fan wants things to be predictable. But even after 40-odd years of following F1 closely, I’ve found it hard to grasp the tyre situation this year. I don’t want to know who will win a race, but I do enjoy understanding a win unfold. Clearly the teams aren’t finding it straightforward either. And with one or two exceptions, the commentators and journalists don’t seem to have a clue. The biggest mystery to me is how thoughtful, tyre-minding Button can be so utterly adrift.
I suspect Button has a chassis problem that is eluding them, rather than a tyre problem, as others have had in the past.
Joe, good article, but I really do think the part about DRS and comparing it to Slipstreaming is a little off the mark.
I get were you are coming from, but saying that slipstreaming is just as artifcial as DRS is just silly.
Back in the days of the classic slipstreaming races are venues like Monza, the rules didn’t dictate that you could only slipstream in 1 or 2 designated areas of the track. It also didn’t say that once passed, unless you were able to out brake the other car(s) you couldn’t use the slipstream to aid you. It also didn’t say that you needed to be within 1 second of the car in front to use the slipstream at a certain part of the track.
Now I realise that in this day and age you can still slipstream the car in front without DRS, so what I have just written might be seen as a null arguement, but to put the 2 in the same box is wrong and I am making point of the fact that one is an almost natural occurance of any object the passes through the air and 1 that alters the aero package of a car to give it less drag so it cuts through the air that is written into the rules that was, for all intents and purpose, was to create overtaking. I don’t want to turn this into a ‘find another solution’ post, but why not start with the basics and have the FIA produce a standard brake package that is less efficiant ans as such increase the braking distances. The good thing about that is that you can use it everywhere, not just in a designated zone.
Am I a whinger about DRS? Yes, because it turned the “Sport” into almost a made for TV drama. I’m all for techonological advances, that’s why, even though I’m not a fan of KERS, I do believe this will have an effect on road cars and will play a part in the future more and more.
To whoever thought of DRS, great effort, hell of a concept, I just don’t think its right for F1.
Easiest solution? Give the cars more drag. The Champ Car Hanford device worked well. Wider tires would work well. Single element rear wings would work well (both limit downforce and increase drag… and even provide a better area for sponsors!) – the same could be done with front wings too. Mandate 5-10 cm Gurney flaps along the full trailing edge of the rear wing endplates.
Any of those would increase drag and provide a less-artificial method of providing a slipstream effect. It would also prevent the total drive-by, where your wing stays open until you brake. I’ve never had a slipstream advantage stay with me AFTER I passed the car ahead!
A final option, since egos are probably under the knife here, is to revise how DRS is used. Make it so that the DRS must close when the nose of the overtaking car goes past the rear of the lead car. Then it would actually be like a real slipstreaming move, and not a simple, mundane drive-by.
Great argument but why not remove the restrictions on the DRS system? If you do that you have essentially just another device on the car that makes it possible for the car to run with high downforce levels and have a high top speed. It would also brings bake some of the risks that old cars had because it is extremely difficult to corner an F1 car with the DRS open but in some corners it could just give the advantage the driver needs for an overtake.
Slipstreaming required skill, pressing a button does not.
I think those that criticise DRS forget to understand that to get its use, the following driver must close to within 1 second (without rooting their tyres) and the reward for doing so is a chance to pass that extreme turbulence whilst following others has previously prevented.
p.s. I would love to get all present drivers into old school FF1600 cars……
That’s odd. If that’s true, I wonder how drivers manage to pass in non-DRS zones…
I wouldn’t call it a reward. It might be a reward if how you put it were the only case, but if your in 10th, 2 seconds behind 9th and get lapped just before the detection zone, you are within 1 second of the car that just lapped you, don’t you get to use you DRS and therefore help to make up time to the car in front?
If you were smart and getting lapped, you would use it to your advantage providing you had enough gap to the car behind. I just think you should be allowed it all the time, or never.
I for one am loving this season, Pirelli did what their client asked them to so it is not their fault people are having a hard time understanding the tires. I thin at this time the top three seem to be solidifying their position at the front of the championship and hopefully it will remain a three horse (or more) race up until the last race.
I do wish the performance curve of the tires had a plateau at the top of the curve rather that a pronounced peak so that driver could push harder at that moment, but I do love that once they are past their prime they fall off the cliff, it reminds me of the old turbo races when people where running out of fuel at the last lap. I also love the fact that Ferrari and Red Bull tried a risky strategy, It didn’t work but it kept us on our toes until the end.
I applaud Pirelli for their daring policy on tyres. It isn’t a lottery – the fastest three drivers are leading the championship! Just as the top drivers always lift the title in Nascar despite overtaking being so easy, the points being ‘reset’ two-thirds into the season and fuel strategy being all important; this close-competition is testing the top competitors by giving a fighting chance to the lesser mortals. Perfect.
I do believe that DRS is a touch too artificial, but until the teams radically slash downforce then it’s here to stay. Besides, as Karen says, all sports have artificial constraints. Flappy wings are hardly ruining the challenge and spectacle of Formula One; according to stats released by Mercedes there are still more passes without DRS than with it, despite scenes like Hamilton waiting until he got in the DRS zone before making his moves last weekend.
The point made about DRS passes not being memorable is true though, but when one happens for the lead on the final lap of a race it will soon be committed to our collective memory along with the Villeneuves, Hakkinens and Montoyas.
So much common sense on the blog today Joe! Thanks.
I think what a lot of people are missing,is something fairly obvious.Ask yourself what is the limit,in terms of an F1 car,and the answer is always going to be its tyres.Whether they grip like B.E. to his billions for 1 lap or 100 laps,they are the limiting factor in a cars performance. So instead of complaining that the cars can’t be driven to their limits,accept the fact that they never are driven to that point,they are driven to the limit of the tyres. The skill lies in driving the car as close to the ever-decreasing limit for as long as possible,and being able to adapt and get all the performance available.
Most of the times Joe’s articles say what I and many of my fellow F1 fans have concluded with common sense. I still find it strange that there are so few reporters that do this because what the reporters write about is what fans will be talking about and a lot of the times when I talk to a moderate or occasional F1 fan I hear arguments that are complete b**ls**t and they say they were just repeating what they have read in the paper/blog/new site.
The Pirelli tires deliver exactly what was asked from them and I like it. I remember that just 5 years ago I was discussing with my friends who was going to be world champion and we only had 3 drivers to choose from. Now we still don’t even have a clue and the races are exciting, what more does a fan want?
The only problem I have with DRS is that there is only one point on the track at which it can be used. This encourages the drivers to wait with overtaking until the DRS zone and that can result in a boring overtake. But this system still beats the old system where cars couldn’t get past each other because there was not enough down force to get close (to me the only thing this resulted in was drivers being hampered in their progress just because the car wasn’t able to get close enough to attempt an overtake). A DRS system where it can be used wherever and whenever the driver wants is in my opinion better but it will also make racing more dangerous (then again isn’t it a drivers job to manage risk?).
Sorry but have to disagree on DRS – it is a solution to a problem but it’s an extremely lazy one.
We all know that overtakes are often the most exciting part of the sport, and it was always disappointing to see only one or two per race. But the answer isn’t giving us dozens of easy passes! It’s like the idea FIFA had to please Americans, making the goalposts bigger – it takes away too much of the sporting prowess that most spectators love.
Canada was a prime example, but there have been countless others, that overtaking is just too formulaic now. One inevitable passing spot per course, no point trying anywhere else usually. Would seeing Vettel and Alonso attempting to defend against Lewis not have been the better spectacle?
Slipstreaming is much better, IMO, because it’s not so arbitrary. If DRS could be used anywhere on the circuit within a sec of the car ahead I’d probably be happy, but I think the slipstream-friendly rules for Indycar have hit the right solution this year.
You complain about nose-to-tail racing, how about this for a solution – make the cars more difficult to drive so that forcing a mistake from the leading driver is easier. Forget aero for the moment, because we’ll never ween F1 away from its windtunnels, but what about increasing the horsepower available to the drivers? something to sort the men (and ladies) from the boys.
well said joe, Also the skill the driver has to do, drive the cars and use kers and push the drs button, if you look at the steering wheel there is buttons galore. You are quite right the driver who probably wins this years world championship wont neccessary win the most races, only who will master the tyre management the best and tot up the points. A few years ago eccles was going to introduce medals, the one with the most, wins the championship,that was a rubish idea this is much better, unpradictabillity is cool, well i think so anyway….
In order to prevent “Our Joe” slipping on a cliche poop, we have been working on a title for GP+ looking forward to Eight in a Row. It’s over here:
http://joesaward.wordpress.com/2012/06/12/the-day-after-2/#comment-100761
Get your entries in before Spain…
OurJoeQuote/
…to do that we must learn to speak to them by means that they understand… using modern technologies.
/OurJoeQuote
That’s it Sir… “speak TO them”.
Just switch the Comments OFF so the blighters can’t mess the place up.
We need to engage th eyounger fans… by having races “LIVE” on tv, and not edited highlights at 10pm….
Maybe the BBC will say “Oh, due to popular demand, we will be covering all races live from 2013 onwards…..”????? I say this because of servreal things this year has cost the BBC money they didn’t want to spend on F1:
The Olympics
The Queen’s Goldern Jubilee (How much that river pagent fiasco of a coverage cost, only they will know!)
Olympic Flame “LIVE”
And some Euro 2012 football game thing going on in North East Europe…
Once they have this off thier books, maybe, just maybe, they will find the cash to show live races again….!!! It’s funny thay they limited the coverage with all these other things happening this year, and no-one picked up on it when they were complaining about it…
My personal view is that Pirelli should (if logistically possible) take all four compounds to each race. Thus allowing each driver/car combination to make their own choice on which tyre/stop strategy would get them from start to finish in the fastest possible time .
It would appear that each driver and car reacts significantly differently at various tracks with varying climactic conditions .
We got a snap shot of this in the closing stages at the Canadian race .
Perez started 15th and beat the pole man Vettel to 3rd .
How fascinating would it be to watch the differing strategies unfold at varying parts of each race with the inevitable climax of strategies at the end ?!
p.s. Oh , and don’t insist on drivers running 2 compounds . It’s fake and nonsense .
amen joe, on everything you’ve said here. i think we also need to note how close the field is in general this year – 1 second covers the top ten, and another the top 20 – when was it ever this close? so, if you get slightly worse tire wear, there are +/- 10 other drivers likely to take advantage. that’s the defining factor, not the “unpredictable” tires. look at the last race – alonso and vettel’s tires going off wasn’t unpredictable… everyone knew it was coming! it was just a question of when and how badly. same with perez and grosjean…
Joe,
I have huge respect for what you do and I personally think you are right in most of what you say (not that you need my endorsement).
A few days ago, you wrote a piece on the importance of fans; attracting, keeping, engaging.
With that in mind, a quote from above:
“the World Championship will be won by a driver who best works out how to use his tyres. From a sporting point of view that is great.”
I think the management in F1 needs to acknowledge that most F1 fans* aren’t happy with that statement. We want the fastest driver to win the World Championship, not the one who best works out his tyres. F1 is not a Rubik’s Cube.
‘Fastest’
Not to get bogged down in semantics; we all appreciate that there are many facets required to win a World Championship but the balance is clearly too skewed towards tyre management as it is. The tyres should not dominate every conversation, of every session, of every weekend. Tyres aren’t free to the teams are they? Then they should play no more a part than Brembo or BBS or Magneti Marelli. In my opinion, tyres are just as irrelevant to the deserving winner as the aero-flow you spoke so dispassionately about in your post about engines.
Perhaps the issue is compounded because tyre management used to be so important in eras past and those who remember the 50′s, 60′s, 70′s and 80′s can live with it, like putting on an old jumper. However, there is now a whole generation of fans that have followed F1 for 20 years, who think this is heresy.
This is an important generation. This is the generation that has grown up with the internet, social media and quad-play. These are the folks being targeted by the brands to become life-long car-buyers or product users. These are the people who are taking their children to races, buying them Lewis caps, tweeting their photos and starting the whole circle again. God forbid, these are the guys paying for Sky TV subscriptions.
To these people, F1 is not an endurance event. F1 is a sprint; the exercise of determining who is the fastest driver. The days of Fangio being able to catch Hawthorn & Collins by selecting a higher gear into each corner of the Nordschleife seems like lunacy… why weren’t they taking that gear already? To these fans F1 has always been about driving on the limit and beyond. It’s what made Senna special. There is a clear disconnect.
F1 is a truly wonderful sport. It is, cosmetically, as exciting as it has ever been. It’s been great to watch in 2012 and for that I am grateful. However, I think there is a better solution out there than such mysterious tyres, or tyres that are rendered useless by flat-out driving.
How about some tyres that can last 15 laps of hard pushing but then hit ‘the cliff’? Wouldn’t that be just as exciting? Wouldn’t we then end this tip-toeing around, retain the over-taking but get to see who’s fastest again? That, Pirelli could be proud of.
Joe, you spoke a lot about progress in your engine post. I agree and I think Pirelli should be urged to come up with something better. For the record, I don’t blame them – they designed to a brief – but perhaps F1 management need to engage more with the fans because almost every person I speak to thinks the tyres need changing and this doesn’t seem to be getting back to Pirelli.
But perhaps I’m just whingeing and whining…
* (As supported in a poll of over 4,000 F1 fans on JAonF1 http://www.jamesallenonf1.com/2012/04/pirelli-surprised-by-schumacher-attack-on-short-life-tyres ),
What makes you think JA readers are representative of F1 fans?
Perfect
[quote]Perhaps the issue is compounded because tyre management used to be so important in eras past and those who remember the 50′s, 60′s, 70′s and 80′s can live with it, like putting on an old jumper. However, there is now a whole generation of fans that have followed F1 for 20 years, who think this is heresy.[/quote]
As a fan who fell in love with the sport in the 90′s please don’t presume to speak for me. I’m reveling in the Pirelli era, I love the unpredictability and the challenges of tyre management. And when all is said and done, it is still the pinnacle of Motorsport were watching.
MOTORsport has always been a TEAM sport and distilled to “man & machine vs man & machine”. The tires have always been part of the “machine”. This is not simply one driver pitted against another.
As far as JAonF1 – He does a good job but I’m less than impressed by many of the posters.
Keep bobbin’ & weavin’, Joe.
Call me negative and a cry baby, but I don’t think going from one extreme to the other is any better.
Yes, Pirelli is doing a great job but I think they went a bit too far. After a GP I always read the team quotes on your other website. After Montreal, the only comments from drivers, technical directors and team principals were about tires and nothing else. So we now have teams spending millions and millions on their cars, employing armies of technicians and brilliant engineers, but none of that matters as it’s all about tires. It just doesn’t make sense to me. I don’t watch motor racing for the tires.
During the first stint in Montreal, it was clear that Vettel, Hamilton and Alonso were not racing. It was a continuation of the Austin Healey parade but with the drivers having switched cars. It was obvious in the first chicane (after the Senna S) that these 3 drivers were gingerly driving around the kerbs and without any lateral movement of the chassis at all. This is not racing, this reeling off laps hoping tires will last.
How can Perez qualify no better that 15th and finish 3rd in a race run in perfect weather conditions with no crashes and no safety car? The only answer is tires.
Michael Schumacher was right a month ago when he said the current tires prevent drivers from driving hard. Isn’t it what F1 is all about?
I completely disagree.
I think the racing this yr has been excellent and Pirelli should be congratulated for being bold and not going down the conservative route which Bridgestone pursued. I hope the new turbo engines come in for 2014 to spice things up a bit further! Perhaps another key reason for good racing in 2012 is the quality of the field, world champions galore and exciting youngsters like Perez, Grosjean and Maldonado in cars that can fight at the front (sometimes).
Leave the DRS available for a full lap, let the driver decide when to use it.
Joe – don’t know why but my name as been changed with a quotation mark before a lower case ‘d’. Looks a bit strange. Any reason?
I guess that is what you typed. I have not touched it. I am not even sure I can.
Yes, I can…
No, it just appeared like that. Thanks – whatever you did it worked!
Cheers.
And it has again…
I’ve corrected it, I think! Boy, this fun isn’t it! You don’t have to answer that by the away…!
Yes but were the rules actually written to promote slipstreaming or was it an after-effect? Not quite the same.
Your point?
The point is that DRS was added to the show to spice it up whereas slipstreaming was not a mechanical contrivance tacked on to the car.
Doesn’t matter, really. Every formula is contrived in one way or another. Unless you’re racing Formula Libre.
Doesn’t matter what happens there will always be someone who doesn’t like it and will complain. Can’t please all of the people and all that! On a personal level I am delighted at the variety of drivers and teams at the front. I first got into F1 in the 80′s and remember the 3 year period from ’86 – ’88 when only 5 drivers and 5 teams won a race. I thought it was exciting then and still do, it’s just different now!
Joe… thank you thank you for being one of the first to point out that the younger generation may favor technology. We grew up with it.
At 27 years of age I am part of a generation who has the benefit of knowing what the world was like before the internet and cell phones, yet still growing up with evolving tech and keeping an open mind about it.
I love things like DRS and KERS. I could care less if some old fart thinks they are artificial. An F1 car is artificial in its entirety from the start. As long as all cars are able to use it I just don’t see the problem. F1 is not a heritage race. Nowhere in the rules has there been a requirement to ‘always stay the same’. In fact, F1 has constantly and always been about evolution. The only thing that has remained constant is that the driver and team that makes the best use of the car they create will win.
I love it. I love F1. I love what it was, is, and will become. And I love change. It is the spice of life friends.
I for one, do not want a return to the days of Schumacher leading from start to finish on his “specially developed for him”, tyres. Our basic problem is that F1 has been developed almost as far as physically possible and the rules prevent any sort of major new ideas. Any differentiating factor is welcome until such time as we have an engine competition again.
Seven different winners is the best possible situation, congratulations Pirelli!
Neither do I
Martin
Mercedes, bless them, have rescued us from that.
Joe,
agree 100%. I believe if you took a poll, the most vociferous objections would be from those whose favorite driver is struggling rather than walking away with it. I’ve no favorite team, let alone driver,
since the passing of Mark Donohue “Captain Nice”, so I enjoy watching the engineers scratch their collective heads. Captain Nice would have relished the challenge as he sought “the unfair advantage”. Pirelli, as far as I’m aware, are using the same compounds/production techniques for each specific set. That is to say all softs have the same characteristics under identical circumstances. All supersofts, etc. If these engineers are up to it, and time will tell, then one or more of them will unlock the mystery and win the Championship. A technological challenge. But ain’t that part of F1?
as always joe , well said
This is an interesting post.
Early last year a friend of mine posted something to the site, how I found out about it, and it was interesting – part of what he said was:
“Now while I don’t advocate going back to the “good old days” I spent some time looking back at the lap charts and points tables for the 1980 season there were seven different drivers who won races and Alan Jones won five of them.
In 1981 eight different drivers won races before Nelson Piquet won the championship and the top 5 drivers were split by 7 points.”
Leaving aside the fact that the points awarded has changed since then – it seems to me that this is a good thing and I struggle to understand why anyone would see this as a bad thing.
Personally, unless you’re a Ferrari fan, watching the red cars win race after race is less exciting than watching paint dry…the same can be said when total dominance by one team turns results into first place…daylight second and some time the following week another car crosses the line.
I remember the ’81 Spanish GP where the first five place getters were split by less than a second, much better than getting up after the winner crosses the line, making a cup of tea and coming back to the TV just in time to see the second place getter show up.
Spectacle like the ’81 Spanish GP is good for the sport cars driving around by themselves and occasionally blasting past back markers like they are in reverse…well…not so much.
All F1 fans should be thankful that we’ve got such an interesting season to watch.
It is worth remembering that the present tyres are very susceptible to track temperatures, as well as all of the other factors, so practice/quali at 20 Deg C is not a good indicator for a race day at 30 Deg C.
Suspension setup for something like the Sauber with a lower-power engine than McLaren could quite conceivably give them a wear advantage at one range of weights and speeds. Peres came alive in speed terms in the last 1/3 of the Canadian GP, posting a couple of fastest laps if I remember correctly.
DRS does have some disadvantages as Michael Schumacher found out, and there is a weight penalty involved as well.
KERS I quite like in principal, but it should be available at all times, not just at a specified point on the track.
Try as I might, I can’t find anything to argue with in Joe’s post.
As for which driver can and can’t make the tires work, it seems that each driver has his style, each style tends to either add energy or not re: tire heat, and therefore a given driver is either helped or hurt by what the circumstances require. Jenson will be more than fine if tire heat is the enemy for the day but will struggle on a day when the job is to add heat to the tires. As the girls might say, he’s just too cool.
This means the best driver is one that can become whatever and whoever the day requires him to be. Nothing wrong with that. Just ask Mario, he’ll tell the racing he respected most was racing that required the greatest range of driver skill and adaptability. Sure seems like that’s what the Pirelli’s demand. (And kudos to them for sticking their neck out by making tires that help competition by wearing more abruptly. Takes some balls, I think, if you’re in the business of selling tires.)
I just wish someone would explain to me how they set up a car to help the tires get hotter or stay cooler. I gather the engineers know how, but what is it they do to achieve that? Surely somebody knows, but I surely don’t. Who does? Anybody?
This could have been said already but I’m not reading the 100+ comments already up by the time I write this.
I suppose one could argue that Pirelli is getting more press out of Formula 1 by being mentioned a lot more during the races than I ever remember Bridgestone being mentioned, even if it is bad press they could subscribe to the same thinking Bernie Eccelstone does that any press is good press.
What if they shortend the time window to 0.75-0.5 of a second and thus it will be a bit harder but will still keep it there. And i still think puting the DRS Zone on the longest straight the most unorigional idea, put it on a shorter straight so they can get along side and pass.
Hmm.. maybe having a drivetrain even close to approaching the technology of say a Kia Optima hybrid, might make F1 “hip and cool”. LMP’s can do it.
Agree with everything in this post except the point about DRS. I think the issue with it is that a car is maybe half a second behind another when it enters the straight, and after using DRS, pulls a car length ahead before the next corner. Its all very clinical – a car is behind, then it is infront. If you compare this to slipstream overtakes of the past its not often the case as slipstream is lost when the car behind pulls out. And the reason slipstream was possible in the past was because cars could follow each other closely – without the aero horribly affecting the following car. Cars following closely, looking for a way past (hate to say it, a little like moto gp) is racing, even if there is no overtake – is DRS racing, or simply passing?
Don’t get me wrong, there have been races improved by DRS, but also some diminished by it, depending on the circumstances. If aero was altered so cars could follow more closely, the racing would be closer and more exciting and DRS wouldn’t be required (maybe its not atm with pirellis but thats a slightly different argument). DRS does what it was designed to – to allow cars to overtake – but conversely, unlike the pirellis, it doesn’t really seem to promote real racing – which is what we all want to see. Its an adequate solution to a problem that may or may not exist, but there are surely better ones.
Frank Dernie said it years ago that F1 needed less mechanical grip to promote more close racing. Everyone else was blaming the aerodynamics, leading in part to the 2009 changes and countless tech posts…
You could say he got it right.
I, too, think that the DRS is somewhat ‘cheating’. Well, it’s not the system itself strictly speaking, but the rules around it.
And it’s not like the ‘Turbo Boost’ button in the turbo-era, because then you were risking not getting to the finish line if you used it too many times due to no fuel taking mid-race.
I also think that the DRS is unnecessary from a technical point of view, because they could achieve the same effect with a more powerful and durable KERS when the same or similar rules were applied to it, or reverse it and use the DRS and not the KERS, but that wouldn’t be a progressive option and would be limited to high-speed straights only. In other words: two separate ‘boost’ options with basically different roles is just – redundancy – unnecessary, IMHO.
Anyway, my point is that the DRS is cheating for all the reasons mentioned above, and also the tyres. Again, not the tyres, but rather the rules. It would be a much more elegant and honest version to develop tyres that would last a whole race and ban tyre-changes mid-race, too (of course you’d still need e.g. emergency tyre-changes, but nevertheless you could cut down on team personnel e.g. with just one tyre-crew and not four along with the amount of tyres used – that would make a REAL cost cut). The new sorts of tyres together with mid-race changes don’t work for me. Either do fast tyres enabling flat out speed throughout with all the pit stop strategy games or do a tyre-conserving race without pit stops like they did it before and let everything decided on the track. The two together is just too much and a bit confusing to me.
Fact is that they do provide spectacle, but it just feels like action for action’s sake. Yes, I know: that’s what people wanted, but they cannot be fooled either.