Lewis Hamilton, Mercedes, Albert Park, 2018

No proper fix for F1’s passing problem before 2021 – Brawn

2018 F1 season

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Formula One’s managing director of motorsport Ross Brawn says it will take until 2021 for the sport to properly tackle its overtaking problem.

Several F1 drivers complained overtaking has become even harder in F1 this year following a 47% fall in passes last season.

Brawn called overtaking the “vital ingredient” which was missing from yesterday’s season-opening race in Melbourne. “There were really very few passing moves,” he said.

Lewis Hamilton, Kimi Raikkonen, Albert Park, 2018
2018 Australian Grand Prix in pictures
“It’s vital that the cars are capable of getting close to one another and racing wheel to wheel. When there is only a small speed gap between two cars then it’s almost impossible for the pursuer to get close enough to mount an attack.

“We saw that yesterday with Hamilton and Vettel, Verstappen and Magnussen and again the Dutchman and Alonso and with Ricciardo and Raikkonen. Think of how much wheel to wheel dicing we missed out on. And, for the very first time we even had a third DRS zone specifically to increase the chances of overtaking.”

Brawn said F1 needs “a structured approach to the problem” of how to improve the quality of racing.

“One of our aims, which we are looking at with the FIA and the teams is that, for 2021, we want to have cars that allow drivers to really fight one another on track.

“To that end, the FIA and F1 are carrying out an aerodynamic research programme with two car models, both in the wind tunnel and using CFD. We need to evolve a car design that achieves close to the level of performance we now see, but permits wheel to wheel action.

“Formula One fans want to see a better show and overtaking is the most exciting and spectacular element you can have on track. The whole Formula One community must make an effort to satisfy this need, because the fans are our biggest asset.”

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Keith Collantine
Lifelong motor sport fan Keith set up RaceFans in 2005 - when it was originally called F1 Fanatic. Having previously worked as a motoring...

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64 comments on “No proper fix for F1’s passing problem before 2021 – Brawn”

  1. Or you could just call the Indycar folks. If you watched the St Petersburg race, run on a course even tighter than Melbourne, you saw not just passing, but cars running nose to tail down straights and into corners. And thank goodness, no DRS.

    1. Everyone has the same chassis though, and they have push to pass. F1 will never have that.

      1. Right, which would make overtaking harder because the cars are similar in performance. Surely F1 with the huge difference in performance between the top and bottom teams could generate more overtaking than they do? Watch more IndyCar, it’s better anyway.

    2. No idea why there can’t be a solution next year! Just limit the front wings to a simpler design to say… 2 elements. Hey presto less complex wings that are affected less by dirty air!

      Ross Brawn can just deposit a cheque into my account for this ingenious (read common sense) idea.

      1. Lennard Mascini (@)
        27th March 2018, 10:08

        @lee1 Just want to point out that Liberty really have nothing to say about the cars. They have 1 out of 27 seats in the FIA World Motorsports Council, where most things finally get decided. The F1 Commission, as well, which is the step before the WMC, is made up of mostly teams. They only get to talk about motions put forward by the Strategy Council, which is made up of some of the richest and top teams. Are you suggesting getting teams like Red Bull, Ferrari, Mercedes, and McLaren to discard what is probably the biggest difference between their cars and the backmarker and midfielders? Because that is simply ludicrous. The reason for 2021 is that only then can the Strategy Council be abolished, so only then can Liberty start making the big changes. For further information on how this stuff works, read Dieter Rencken’s column from about two months ago: https://www.racefans.net/2018/01/24/divide-and-misrule-how-formula-ones-regulations-are-written/

    3. “No DRS”, well technicly no, but ‘push-to-pass’ is just as fake.

      1. @montalvo F1 has a “pass” button to deploy more ERS, which is equally as “fake” as push to pass.

        1. I disagree, ERS is simply part of the engine system and is used to maximise performance during each lap, just like the internal combustion engine part of the powertrain package. Push-to-pass in Indycar is a different story, you can not use it after a SC (like DRS) and drivers are only given a certain amount of seconds per race to use it. Yes, you can use it to defend, but when that happened there was no overtake. Just as artificial.

          And giving F1 push-to-pass instead of DRS won’t solve a thing. You need to clear the massive amount of dirty air the current cars are generating. Not some silly artificial solution like PtoP or DRS.

        2. @montalvo @beejis60
          I’ve never understood how push to pass (among other things) is “fake”. How does it differ from the drivers having a graduated accelerator pedal? As long as all drivers have the same tools at their disposal at all times, I don’t see a problem.

    4. jztemple, for a start, it is worth noting that the IndyCar series bans drivers from blocking an attacking driver from trying to pass him, which in itself immediately starts making things easier.

      Secondly, wasn’t that particular race criticised in some quarters because the large number of crashes and collisions meant that they kept introducing “full course cautions” – seven of them – which kept bunching the field back up and disrupting the flow of the race. In terms of frequency, it’d be the equivalent of having three full safety car periods during the Australian GP: the high number of crashes probably makes for an exciting highlights reel, and I get the feeling more people watched that than the full race coverage, but there were several posters on this site who watched the race live and complained that the high frequency of “full course yellows” was more frustrating than exciting at times.

      1. Mark in Florida
        27th March 2018, 17:19

        Yes Anon I am one of those that thought there was too many yellow flags. But I also see the benefits of the changes with the new aero regs that Indy is trying out. Removing the down force has helped to bunch the cars back up and they are able to stay nose to tail. However I believe that they took a little bit too much off the cars making them loose in the back end. Push to pass is not an automatic pass of another car. The driver following can use it to get about 60 more horsepower. The car ahead can also use it to defend. The strategy is to use it smartly and not waste it. You still have to set up your passes the old fashioned way to make it stick by catching the other car by surprise so that he can’t use his ptp to defend. Unlike DRS where you don’t have a prayer. My hope is that Indy will continue to evolve the cars to make them be more stable and neutral with less down force involved.

  2. Yes, absolutely… But make it “real”.

    No DRS.
    No multi race engines and gearboxes. Let the teams face each race with the fastest car they can make.

    1. For Spa, Montreal, Beijing, Suzuka, Interlagos, or COTA, by all means – get rid of DRS.

      My condition is I don’t want to watch a Cataluyna, Bahrain, Hungaroring, or any street race without DRS.

      1. @reg Shanghai, not Beijing. Furthermore, DRS has never really been too powerful there nor at COTA, and Interlagos and ‘definitely’ not Suzuka. Not even in Spa and Montreal to the same extent as before the introduction of the current engine formula.

    2. @sham Though I agree 3 engines per season is too much removing those rules entirely means that Mercedes, Ferrari and Red Bull will end up with a new spending war that will just kill customer outfits. Probably McLaren and to a lesser extent Renault would join this war. The smaller ones won’t ever get into the points anymore it’s almost guaranteed.

  3. Tracks matters most of all yet is rarely mentioned when this comes up.

    1. Yes, let’s go back to Adelaide!

      1. Yes, would like adelaide back too, much better!

    2. @balue, I think that it is because, firstly, older fans have something of a sentimental attachment to certain circuits and are therefore reluctant to criticise them because they have fond, and perhaps rather rose tinted, views of that circuit. Albert Park, I suspect, is one of those circuits – and, if people cannot bring themselves to question whether the circuit is an issue, then they immediately throw all the criticism at the car instead because they leave that as the only thing they can criticise.

      Secondly, in some ways perhaps the vox populi is being intentionally harnessed to lash out at certain parts of the car – the engine, in particular, being one part that certain outfits have a vested interest in getting changed and, given the influence and leverage those teams have over the popular press, the more criticism they can whip up against those parts of the car, the more they can use that as a way of pressuring the rule makers to shift the sport in their favour.

      1. There may be an element of rose-tinted glasses when categories outgrow tracks, but at a certain point, we have to draw a line in the sand at what kinds of tracks we’re willing to give up, and adjust the formula accordingly.

        I love Albert Park because there’s little margin for error, you can get close to the cars, and while you wouldn’t quite call the layout flowing, it’s more than just start-and-stop right-angle corners. It even has a couple quick sequences that require pretty high commitment. Montreal is tight and close and also produces decent racing, but is entirely composed of chicanes and hairpins. I love Montreal too, but I don’t want a formula where you need every street circuit to look like Montreal in order to produce a good race.

  4. Solution – go back to simpler non-hybrid engines that don’t cost as much and are easier to get right. Get rid of the big wings etc, use ground effect and increased mechanical grip instead. Get rid of DRS, which instead of increasing racing has decreased it by encouraging drivers to wait for the easy pass on the straight. Not rocket science but I’m sure they’ll mess it up anyway. Especially with people like Whiting around – quote “If, as some people think, it may be a little more difficult to follow a car closely then we can increase the authority of the DRS. I don’t see a big issue.”

    1. Can you please explain how the power units make passing harder? There has always been disparity between engines.
      Merc is not just fast because of its power unit, if that was the case Williams and Force India would be coming 2nd and 3rd.

      The only thing i would change to the power units is driver controlled ERS deployment like the old KERS.

      1. In my opinion, the power units are sucking development money away. Also the PU complexity makes it easy for one team to figure out tricks to get a clear advantage; the more complex , the more ways to find an advantage. I say front wings have no more than are two elements. V6 turbo , only max fuel, no restrictions on flow rate. No auto trans, no traction control, may the best driver and team win. Simpler PU and others can afford to enter.

        1. Seriously, if you want to see the best driver and team win, go watch spec series. F1 is not for you. F1 is always the best driver, team (engineers on and off-site), and R&D win.

      2. @theoddkiwi Sorry should have been clearer, I don’t think the engines themselves are to blame directly for the lack of passing, my comment was more about how to improve F1 generally. They’re expensive, which is a great detriment to the sport, have largely failed in their aim of attracting manufacturers, and are altogether I feel an unnecessary burden on the teams. Also on a personal note I have no interest in hybrid technology so I’d like to see a normal internal combustion only format. Personally I’d use something like MotoGP’s ‘claiming rule’ from a few years back, and let manufacturers build whatever engine they like within certain limits (eg, max 3.5 litres), but with the proviso that any other team can buy that engine from them at a set price. That would stop development costs running too high.

  5. Maybe a limited, regulated return to ground effect cars (thus wiping out the overcomplicated front wings), coupled with removing the bargebaords and all the fiddly bits and turning vanes between the front wheels and the sidepods ??

  6. In the quest to “make the cars faster”, it was completely overlooked that the grip of the wider tires and the downforce from return of the old lower/wider rear wing would soak up a lot of driver mistakes, making it all the harder to perform an on track pass.

    I am mostly disappointed in how soon people forgot the primary reason why F1 raised and narrowed the rear wing in the first place: to reduce turbulence and improve front wing downforce for a following car.

    1. It wasn’t overlooked. It was stated ad nauseam right here on this very forum.

      Generally

      More Downforce = Poor Racing

      And the powers that be know that as well.

      Unfortunately the powers that be also believe that,

      More Dowforce = Exciting Cars

      Which is also true. They just took the easy way out by bolting on downforce through the expansion of the wing instead of trying different approaches that could have been more costly, and more importantly, time consuming.

      1. @julianwins – Almost exactly. Except that the excitement that more downforce brings is best appreciated in qualy. In the day or yore, F1 had qualy engines and race engines.

        Maybe Liberty could make F1 great again by allowing teams stupid amounts of sidewall crushing downforce for qualifying. With, much reduced, levels of downforce for races. Have their aero addiction and fun racing too. (Good luck enforcing that!)

        If I had to choose between watching Exciting Cars or Exciting Racing, will always tilt the balance towards the later.

      2. It wasn’t just repeated ad nauseam but iirc pretty much everybody were more or less against adding more downforce.

        In the end the issue was the hybrid engines which directly and indirectly caused the huge addition of downforce and grip. The cars of 2014-16 were slow. Which is okay as the cars were still fastest racing cars on earth. Only people who had problems with the cars being slow were the engine manufacturers who though the slow speeds made the hybrid engines look bad. Nobody thought the 2013 cars were slow. But come 2014 and the leaf blowers let many people disappointed. The downforce levels dropped maybe just 10% going from 2013 to 2014. So it is crystal clear the speed deficit was caused by the hybrid engines.

        But the main issue was that the new cars were too easy to drive. Due to the way hybrid oil burners work the most of the lap time gain comes from corner exits when the computer spits out some energy through the rear tires to accelerate the car to its cruising speed for the straight. It is bad for racing for many reasons but even worse for a racing car that prides itself being hard to master. The cars were not physical or difficult to drive. Add in that you needed to do massive amounts of fuel saving, lifting and coasting and could not attack because of the kind of tires fia ordered and it was pretty much a total pancake of a technical regulations. On most tracks the cars ran maximum downforce packages so the teams could not beat mercedes by building a better chassis. It was all about the engine. All about having a mercedes engine.

        So f1 went with a huge knee jerk reaction. Add more downforce. ADD A LOT. To make the cars harder to drive. Then add more tire because the heavy weight of the cars combined with massive downforce levels need more rubber to support the increased cornering loads. To do that the cars become even heavier. Simsalabim! The cars are now faster and toto can claim that these are the fastest f1 cars ever. Faster than a 2004 f1 car that had less than half of the downforce, that ran on grooved slicks with almost half the contact patch the current pirellis offer. And without drs What an achievement (sarcasm)! You could put this amount of downforce to nascar and have them beat the 2004-05 f1 lap times…

        A lot of this additional downforce comes from the floor of the car which is partially why the cars are becoming longer than london buses. Longer floor = more ground effect = more downforce from the floor. Of course the hybrid engine packages are massive and elongate the cars even further.

        But my point is there were lots of smaller ideas at play. Bernie wanted harder to drive cars, engine manufacturers wanted faster cars. Red bull wanted more aero because it was only way they could compete. Everybody knew what was going to happen but did not care. But everybody knew. Now we are here stuck with the manufacturer’s who love this and won’t let anything change until 2021.

        1. Whaaaaat? Engines have nothing to do with down force unless you are using the blown diffuser or similar.

          The only thing the power units do is provide motive force. V12, V10, V8, or V6T regardless of engine if there is no mechanical grip and no downforce, they will all be blisteringly fast in the straights and rubbish in the corners.
          The same vice versa, all fat tyres and lots of downforce slower down the straights and quicker through the corners.
          Yes its a bit more nuanced than that but the principle is the same regardless of engine.

          A good example is commercial airliners like the Boeing 737. A nearly 40 year old design yet the basic design is there.
          Each version leap from 100 to the 400 to the 800 to the -8 Max, most of the flight performance has come from improved wing design, the engines happened to have been improved too. If you put a -8 Max engine on a -100 it will be more powerful and efficient but the aircraft will not have the flight performance of the -8 as the -100 wing just cannot provide the lift and lower drag of the -8 Max wing.

  7. Wings aren’t required. They are a 1960s concept.

    With a tyre war the speeds would not be much slower per lap. The cars would be super fast in a straight. The braking zones would be longer and the cars could follow like a motogp or formula ford, resulting in battles and passing re-passing.

    There you go just fixed it for you in 5 minutes.

    1. I thought this too, but unfortunately wheels do create lift. Presumably wider wheels create proportionally more lift than narrow ones. I believe one way to reduce the lift is to cover the wheels, but then the series is an open-wheel series not a closed wheel series, so covering the wheels isn’t allowed. Aerofoils are used to counter the lift generated by the wheels, and so they will remain until another way is found to counter that lift.
      The best way to avoid turbulent air is to create a rule that bans it, but how do you measure turbulent air? How do you measure it so precisely that you can tell one team their cars will loose grid places while another team with a nearly identical aerofoils keeps theirs? The Stewards need to measure a car and weigh a car with great precision to ensure all the competitors are complying with the rules, so the same would have to measuring turbulence.

      1. @drycrust, yes, I believe that the relationship is, on paper, a linear relationship, so doubling the width of the tyres would also double the total amount of lift it produces.

        Furthermore, Tony is very, very wrong with his assumption that changes to the tyre alone will make the sort of impact he thinks it will. Willem Toet has demonstrated that, if you did produce exactly the sort of car he is thinking of – one that produces pretty much no downforce – you’d end up with a car that would be slower around most circuits than a Formula 3 car.

        To be honest, reading a number of the replies here, when people start talking about reverting to regulations from the 1990’s and wanting to make the cars look more like that era, it makes me wonder whether what they really want is to try and make the sport regress back to what it was like in an idealised version of their childhood. It probably explains why so many like the approach IndyCar have taken, which was to deliberately make the cars look like 1990’s cars to cater to the nostalgia crowd (quite a few of those involved talked about making the cars look more “traditional” or “retro” in order to garner more appeal from their existing fans).

  8. “Formula One fans want to see a better show and overtaking is the most exciting and spectacular element you can have on track. The whole Formula One community must make an effort to satisfy this need, because the fans are our biggest asset.”

    Don’t want to read too much into what Brawn is saying…but could mean putting a number of the bigger fans on track as obstacles to slow the leading car.

    Or it could be just another addict’s placation from a sport with an addiction problem.

    F1, you’re addicted to aero. First, you need to admit you have a problem, then you can seek treatment. Sure, you can try to engineer a deal with the aero-wake police, but F1, you might want to ask yourself how much downforce is enough.

    Taking many corners flat out isn’t a performance achievement to brag about. Unless you decide to convert the format to a time trial series. I’d be ok with that.

    To pretend, with the current rules, F1 is a racing series just keeps the aero addiction denial stuck to the tarmac.

    1. Don’t want to read too much into what Brawn is saying…but could mean putting a number of the bigger fans on track as obstacles to slow the leading car.

      So that’s why they added cowcatcher front wings and the halo, all the pieces fit together. Now you make me fear for myself! @jimmi-cynic

  9. It is embarrassing how much F1 spends to put on such a boring show. So many people I know who used to watch and even attend races no longer do either. How many more fans do you need to lose? 2021, holy crap!? and then they will still get it wrong. Why don’t you write another opening theme or come up with some more graphics. lol with a tear of sadness.

  10. Vettel fan 17 (@)
    26th March 2018, 21:40

    To be honest I can’t see that any problem (or very few) will be resolved before 2021. If they don’t fix it then, they are in trouble.

  11. what I don’t understand is why hasn’t it been suggested that DRS be active all the time like it was for practice and qualifying in 2011? surely everyone having DRS all the time would make the racing much better and we wouldn’t have the argument about DRS make it part of development instead of just a tool, I remember there was a discussion in 2011 about how much earlier redbull could open there DRS out of corners giving them an advantage.. it definitely would make racing exciting and it’s not even about safety, if you spin because you left your DRS open that is your own problem no? just like running wide locking up, everything cannot be moderated like it is now.

    1. I’d like to see them increase the distance the trailing car is behind the lead car to activate DRS. Start with 1.2 seconds or 1.5 or so. It can even be track specific each race. Adding more zones won’t do anything if trailing within 1 second creates an aero wake. There needs to be a clear advantage the trailing car has over the lead car, and the cars with better straightline speed are going to be at the front anyway. The slower car needs some sort of aero advantage on the straightaway.

    2. Obviously, if everyone had DRS all the time, it wouldn’t make passing easier anymore, as the lead car would have it too. They should look at increasing the DRS gap though, so the chasing car can use it more often.

  12. The problem rests in 2 areas;
    1: The dependence on the front wing to balance the cars handling. With or without a rear wing there will be turbulent air behind another car, the regulations will have to restrict the effectiveness of the front wing and loosen the design regulations to allow the teams to find other ways to compensate for the loss of front-downforce.
    2: Tyres that are unable to last a full race distance, and worse, the gimmick that mandates at least 1 pitstop and 2 different sets of tyres be used. Mandatory pit stops are a gimmick that both discourages close racing (“we’re looking for a gap”), introduces an element of luck that no amount of skill or planning can compensate for (Vettels AGP win), whilst this might make the fans of lesser teams happy when they benefit from pit-stop lotto, it destroys the enthusiasm of fans of teams that lose out through no fault of their own. A 2.5 second 4 tyre change is impressive but no substitute for an on-track battle for position, pit-stops for new tyres should not be mandatory, in fact they should be discouraged by the sort of restrictions seen in other series ( smaller crew, slower pitlane, minimum time etc.) The tyres supplied should all be capable of a full race distance and the teams should be able to choose different compounds for front and rear tyres to best suit their cars characteristics.

    1. Disagree re: pit stops and tyres. Pit stops add strategic variance to races. Yes, luck *can* become more of a factor, except not.

      What I would like to see is MUCH bigger gaps between tyre compounds. So you can chance your 1 stopper (or even 0 stopper) on tyres that are quite a bit slower, but will last the race, or you can run flat out on the fastest tyres you have, and pit as soon as they start degrading.

      It seems like a semi unpopular opinion, but I really liked the tyres of 2012? 2013? that fell off the cliff if you ran them too long. They were a little bit extreme in terms of the falloff, but it did provide some interesting racing.

      These current races are boring as hell with 1 stop – the tyres don’t allow much variation in strategy, cars end up just following eachother for most of the race instead of actually working their way through the field, and there are few large speed differentials that encourage semi-interesting racing.

  13. Why wait until 2021… I think simply reverting front wing rules to those of from 20-25 years ago could have nearly magical effects.
    The current front wings are large enough to be snow plows and the difference in the amount of downforce they generate in clean air versus dirty air is the biggest problem. Smaller front wings would reduce the difference between clean and dirty air, allowing drivers to get closer without losing confidence in the grip level.

    1. Sadly…it’s not the just front wing. It’s the floor that suffers in the aero-wake too. Both need to be reigned in, but can’t imagine F1 is willing to reduce aero performance levels dramatically enough to make racing slower, but far more watchable.

    2. Old front wing regulations were not simpler in the sense that they limited design more heavily. The team’s ability to design complex aerodynamic surfaces was much more primitive which is why the wings were simpler.

      Also it is not the size of the wings but the complexity that is the issue. The current front wings are much closer to stalling all the time. As such they generate a lot of downforce from relatively small surface but also are very sensitive to changes of the air that hits them. And the wings also control the airflow around the car and around the front tires so when the airflow is disturbed these fine aerodynamic flow structures fall apart very easily.

      The key to better front wing is to make them a lot less complex. Less elements, less appendages. Simply making them smaller won’t change anything at all.

  14. IndyCar got it right in one attempt.
    Formula 1 has been making all kinds of stupid changes, often going back and forth like a bunch of incompetent monkeys, for the last 20 years and keeps failing. SMH.

    1. Indycar is completely different, everyone has the same aerodynamic package.
      The only solution to take from Indy is standardisation, then it just becomes an engine formula.
      Maybe a standard front wing is not such a bad idea, but home much design do we want to take away from the teams

      1. Oh give me a break. All it takes is to lessen aerodependency. Everybody and their grandmother knows it.
        You don’t need any standardisation for that, what are you even talking about?
        Almost all dimensions of a F1 car are regulated (from tyres to wings). Just restrict the amounts and sizes of the wings and winglets. It’s that simple.

  15. Formula One fans want to see a better show and overtaking is the most exciting and spectacular element you can have on track.

    At this rate, future generations will have to watch quaint low-res footage on YouTube legacy sites to see what the ‘overtaking’ thing was all about.

    1. At this rate, future generations will have to watch quaint low-res footage on YouTube legacy sites to see what the ‘overtaking’ thing was all about.

      @david-br, this may come as a surprise for you, but F1 is not the only motorsport in the world ;)

      1. True, OK, so I should have said ‘what overtaking in F1 is like’
        :O)

  16. What we need is an ‘Overtaking Working Group’. Now where have I heard that before?

    As I’ve said for many years. Wider tyres, less aero. 1/2 is not good enough. Just make these front wings smaller and less complicated. No Y250s, etc. As socksolid mentions above. Not sure Red Bull would be happy with you though, and herein lies the issue.

  17. Jonesracing82
    27th March 2018, 0:39

    This is rubbish, they could try banning all the stupid winglets & bargeboards on the cars overnight & save a heap of $$$ in the process. also have single plane 1990’s style front wings on the cars. DRS won’t be needed then. Indycar can do it with a similar type of racing car so why not F1?

  18. I still think there’s too much focus put on overtaking & still believe that a race with little/no overtaking can be just as exciting (If not more so) than a race with tons.

    The focus should not be on overtaking, It should be on presenting possibilities to overtake but where overtaking isn’t guaranteed.

    The focus on & pursuit of more overtaking has done nothing but damage the sport, It’s ruined corners, It’s ruined circuits, It slowed them down, It introduced gimmicks like flappy wings & cheese tyres none of which did anything to actually improve the racing.

    A race where overtaking is guaranteed, Is too easy or too predictable is just as bad, If not worse than a race where overtaking is too hard. Overtaking should be difficult, It should be challenging & it should be down to the drivers skill & bravery & something which some drivers are better at than others.

    Instead of focusing on overtaking & judging everything on the number of overtakes a race had, Instead look at how close the racing was, How many good battles there were, How many exciting near overtakes there were (which lets not forget can be just as exciting as an actual overtake) & how on the edge of your seat some of those battles, Those near overtakes & the actual racing as a whole had you.

    F1 & the fans need to consider this & stop the push for more, more, more because quantity doesn’t always equal quality!

    1. And actually to add one more thing.

      Despite it’s low number of 5 overtakes…. It’s sitting at a 7 in the rate the race poll.

      Not everything should need to be a 9-10 & a score of 7 in my book is still good. It indicates that while not great or amazing most (On this site) still found it to be exciting enough to consider it good despite having few overtakes.

  19. ihavenoideawhatimtalkinabout
    27th March 2018, 1:31

    by performance does he mean only speed? performance is also the ability to do anything beyond hotlapping.

  20. “look at how close the racing was, How many good battles there were, How many exciting near overtakes there were (which lets not forget can be just as exciting as an actual overtake) & how on the edge of your seat some of those battles, Those near overtakes”

    None of the things you mention were at all exciting because it was obvious that passing was impossible. There were no battles or near overtakes, there was only a long procession to the finish, interrupted by pitstops and the VSC.

    But if your point is that overtaking could be too easy too, then I agree. We don’t want the cars to just assume their natural positions in the first few rounds and then have another procession to the end.

    1. ‘assuming their natural positions’ is what the engineers strive for over the radio with the tyre, fuel and engine management.
      When you hear them asking the drivers to acheive certain times, or push then not push, they might aswell control the gas pedal from the pits.
      Hand these back to the driver to make the decisions and it will mix things up. Not everyone will like seeing drivers run out of fuel or destroy their tyres, but that’s racing. Would be even more excitng than the lottery of a wet race.

  21. I’m no engineer, but surely ground effects, steel brake discs and manual gearboxes would bring back racing to the glory days. The current brakes and gearboxes mean there are next no mistakes going into or coming out of a corner, whether it be a Mercedes or a Sauber. This is where the huge majority of overtake manoeuvres originated from in the 80’s. Miss a gear coming out of a corner, guy behind can get alongside down the straight then it’s the bravest man to brake last. Simples. Steel brakes and manual gearbox would also immeidately cut costs too.

    1. Going back to fully manual gearboxes would immediately put F1 behind every other category as even the most junior of formula use paddle shift now so I don’t believe that is a realistic goal & TBH it’s not something i’d like to see either.

      Steel brakes wouldn’t make much of a difference. When Williams were trying to get Alex Zanardi more comfortable with the car in 1999 they ran him with steel brakes (As thats what he was used to in Champcar) & actually found that in terms of braking performance there was no difference, However it did cost some overall performance due to the added weight.
      I think Benetton also did some back to back testing with carbon & steel brakes in the 90’s & came to the same conclusion.

  22. Remove Q3-racemode, so superior engines will lose on durability. And make the whole track a DRS zone, no point in capping the action. Needs to happen before 2021, this season will most likely proof that.

  23. Quality of overtakes is even more important than their number though. Don’t forget that while you are making changes. So don’t make it impossible to defend like it was before the recent changes. There should be a balance in between. Ideally without DRS highway passes too.

  24. 2021? That is taking too long. Surely there must be some (on top of this good thought through 2021 plan) short term tweak that can make the next 3(!) years a bit more interesting? If you can regulate the disappearance of the shark fin, surely you can simplify that guilty front wing!?

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