[Purist]

SKG, you don't have to save it up all for one go. If you have thoughts on some of the earlier posts, feel free to put up those responses.

A Further Consequence

Another conceptual note on my previous post would be this thought. If you have circuits set up such that you frequently have those situations where, unless you make the pass rather quickly, you're continually giving up a fair amount of time, it seems like you're actually encouraging the drivers to NOT push in the race. That strikes me as an attitude the many would find antithetical to the whole idea of even being a racing driver.

While I'm here, I thought I'd provide a few more examples.

The Bad

At Shanghai, Turns 11 and 12, and to a lesser extent, the Turn 14/15 hairpin as well as Turn 16, create the overtaking problems I discussed previously. You have these multiple, slow corners that spread the cars out once they hit the subsequent straight. Now, the back straight is long enough that you may well be able to pull back up and make something happen, but the front straight often doesn't quite have the distance you need to set up to make a move.

At Sochi, the two main stretches are at least long enough that you have a decent chance of making something happen. However, the front stretch of 1,300m plus, with its braking zone at Turn 2, is preceded by no less than four slow corners in succession (Turns 15/16 and 17/18). Also, Turn 13 is slow, and the runs from T13-15 and T16-17 are relatively short, so you won't make up much time if you've been caught behind someone and had to give up time because of it.

The gaps suffer through Turn 3 as well, due to how slow Turn 2 is. The back stretch would also be helped if Turn 10 were slightly quicker, but it's not as bad as coming off of T18 and having to slipstream well past the pits. I might add, if Turn 13 had a less acute apex, the effective added racing room there would help overtaking in that area.

The Good

The first corner at Istanbul is quick enough that the cars don't lose touch too much, and so, the Turn 3/4 zone is retained as an overtaking point with some real potential. Turn 7 is is also fast enough, with sufficient room for line variability, that if you can get in behind someone, and stay fairly close through Turn 8, you have a shot of making a move into T9.

The opening corners at Singapore aren't fast, but they aren't really slow, either. Turn 5, in particular, is more open than a normal 90-degree-intersection turn, and allows for some different lines through it, which is why the run to Turn 7 that follows works so well. Furthermore, Turn 22 requires you to slow down some, but you're probably not going to lose any time there because of the compression, and it puts you just a bit closer to the guy in front for the sling through T23 and onto the pit straight, which aids overtaking there.

On the flip side, having the more open hairpin leading into the slower one at the start of the lap at Sepang is key to making that combination work. Not having that huge compression all at once, and the corners set up to provide an array of possible lines, actually helps overtaking happen there, AND also happen then on the run around the T3 sweeper into T4. The configuration of T1/2 mitigates the spread you see between the cars coming off of Turn 2.

Well, that was more than I initially planned to do, but hopefully this helps flesh out a few more things in the minds of readers.