F1

Driver Mistakes Enliven Race

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  • #302709
    PT
    Participant

    Let’s face it – F1 never has a dull moment if its drivers keep making mistakes, as the 2015 Hungarian Grand Prix proved. Lewis Hamilton apologized to his team for a scrappy race, but we have to be grateful to him for those mistakes that livened up the race.

    How exciting was it to see Pastor Maldonado run into Sergio Perez whose Force India then tossed and twirled like a bucking bronco!

    How glad we were to see two Red Bulls on the podium thanks to Lewis Hamilton running into Daniel Ricciardo and damaging his front wing, and Nico Rosberg’s left rear tyre being punctured by Ricciardo’s front wing endplate!

    How refreshingly unpredictable was it to see drivers falling back due to penalties which gave Fernando Alonso and McLaren Honda a golden opportunity to reap in the points with 5th, and to which Jenson Button contributed as well with 9th!

    Drivers must make mistakes, they shouldn’t be clinical and precise all the time. But you can’t tell that to a team boss (who pays the driver to race without errors) or to the driver himself (who wants to haul in maximum points at each race).

    The only way to make drivers err is provide opportunities for that. That’s why I think the Points-for-Overtaking suggestion I made earlier in this forum (see Radical Rule Change to Save F1 post) would work. It would make drivers want to overtake more, and in many cases that could go wrong. The chance for errors would soar, and there would never be a predictable or unexciting race again!

    #302712
    Anonymous
    Inactive

    @pt You’re joking, right? As someone put it in another thread:

    I don’t need a Hungary GP every second week to keep watching – I think I even prefer not to have that kind of race every time.
    I guess my point is: the main reason to watch races is not merely to be entertained, it is to live through a race, understand the strategies and hope for the unexpected, even when it doesn’t come. There is beauty in a well driven race and well executed strategy even if there is no fight for the lead or positions.

    In other words, if every race was more like Hungary, it would become boring. Overtaking isn’t the only important aspect of motor racing.

    #302713
    Anonymous
    Inactive

    I agreee with @anto, but @pt has a point. In my humble opinion, the best solution to create more excitement through challenging the drivers without making excessive gimmick-ry of it would be to extend the range of tracks F1 is visting. Let’s be honest here, most current F1 tracks are middle-speed affairs of around 5.5something klicks – that is not helping with matters. We need more long tracks, more short tracks, more extremely fast and more extremely slow tracks. Hell, throw in an oval for good measure. Variation is the biggest natural challenge in motorsport, so let’s variate.

    #302721
    PT
    Participant

    @Simtek

    I certainly need a Hungarian Grand Prix every second week to keep the interest level. I may not be saying that if I have the privilege to watch the race from the grandstands at the venue, but watching on TV oceans apart from the venue with a thousand things going on in your life you need something in it to hook you. Well, I certainly need it…

    But I appreciate your point.

    #302722
    PT
    Participant

    @Klon

    That’s a valid point you’ve made…We just don’t have variety. Something like a Circuit de la Sarthe is needed…

    #302729
    PT
    Participant

    @Simtek

    Unpredictability is an important element of any race. It’s what makes a race, a race – or it would just be a procession which is what we’ve been having for quite some rounds now.

    If I know either Lewis Hamilton or Nico Rosberg is gonna win, and one of them do, where is the unpredictability?

    When I Googled “race meaning” this is what I got:
    “A competition between runners, horses, vehicles, etc. to see which is the fastest in covering a set course.”

    This is what a race is, in its purest form. I agree that motor racing cannot be simplified to such an extent when you also have the machine element added to it, but why do we need pit strategies to determine what happens on track? It seems F1 has got so complicated that it has gone away from that original concept of a race…To tell you the truth, in spite of the reasonably long break we had before the Hungarian GP I really wasn’t missing F1, for the first time since 2000.

    #302715
    Michal
    Participant

    Then then look at Alonso’s remarks. When the drivers are clearly less challenged by the cars they are less prone to make a mistake. When they are busy with controlling fuel etc they are not thinking about overtaking as well. Also thanks to new aero restrictions as well as Pirelli tyres it is even harder to follow another make it difficult to pass. Then the only passes which are possible are the ones using DRS and when a car is much much faster…

    #302826
    Anonymous
    Inactive

    “the main reason to watch races is not merely to be entertained”

    Then why do we bother watching at all?!

    #302832
    PT
    Participant

    Good points @Michal and @Rodney

    Too many rules is also a key issue with F1 now…

    #302845
    John H
    Participant

    No points for overtaking wouldn’t work because two drivers could just overtake each other again and again.

    #302847
    PT
    Participant

    @John H

    The rule only needs to be fine tuned to prevent the same competitors from overtaking each other…remember, a successful defense also gives points, so the same driver won’t keep trying again and again to overtake and keep failing because he’d be giving the guy ahead points on a platter. And if he successfully overtakes he will do everything he can to defend too since a successful defense would give him points.

    I don’t think two drivers would keep on overtaking each other time and time again.

    #302848
    PT
    Participant

    @John H

    Check this reply I gave to your comment in the earlier post on points for overtaking.

    “That’s really a possibility – there probably would need to be some rule enforced which says that once a successful overtaking has been made by driver B on driver A and then driver A on driver B or vice versa, the same two cannot be eligible for points for subsequent successful overtakings on each other except at a later stage in the race, at least 10 laps later.”

    #302849
    John H
    Participant

    But that’s just more rules that will get confusing and open to interpretation and grey areas. Sorry, its an interesting idea and great lateral thinking, but F1 needs less rules not more in my opinion!

    Changes like wider cars are the ones that need to and happily are being made.

    #302851
    PT
    Participant

    More rules, but for the greater good. This will help eliminate needless other rules and change the face of F1 racing totally. It may take time for people to get adjusted to, but once it works they’ll get the point. It’s a rule to eliminate other needless rules.

    Grey areas are always a risk in F1, but what I’ve suggested is pretty basic, and if the idea is worked on the grey areas and loopholes can significantly be reduced.

    I too love wider cars – I’ve wanted to see them for over 10 years now. The points-for-overtaking regulation could perfectly complement the new technical regs that are being conceived to aid overtaking.

    More action and not a dull moment!Plus unpredictability…

    #302853
    dragoll
    Participant

    I don’t understand the mentality of some of the comments in this thread. F1 is a sport, and the concept of a sport is to determine who is better. In motor racing, this has historically meant which car is better, however, many fans, including in this forum have gravitated to supporting a driver, rather than a car. I understand that, it is easier to support a fellow human being. However, this notion that F1 should be for our entertainment is rather bizare. I fully understand that for F1 to succeed, there has to be a certain level of interest from sponsors, however, people are suggesting that they want to an unpredictable race every other weekend, this is just absurd.

    If you force unpredictability, by way of rules, gimmicks, and other such outside influences, then the result will be an artificial event. The result of this artificial event will be that people will become de-sensitised to weird and unusual events as they become the norm. This will leave the traditional fan by the way-side, as a traditional fan will be left feeling empty, because no matter how much their team/driver tries to improve their performance, some outside influence, conjured up to entertain the masses, will leave this fan feeling empty and bewildered about the sport.

    F1 is a sport. Don’t turn it into WWE on wheels, or worse, Nascar…

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