[Rules] "Changes to improve the show"? [current F1 overtaking multi thread merge]

[jab]

Originally Posted by Martin Brundle

It was pointed out by several F1 strategists over the winter that the refuelling ban may well generate one early pit stop and a long run to the finish. Drivers also reported great difficulty in overtaking during pre-season testing. And so it all proved to be.

The only way this will change is if the tyres fade much more dramatically at some circuits or mandatory two-stops are introduced. This was generally discussed but dismissed by some teams who felt their cars were more easy on tyres.

I spoke to many drivers after the race and they confirmed that managing the tyres on heavy fuel, especially in turbulent air close behind another car, meant that it was a rather leisurely pace and not physically challenging for them. This was confirmed by a race pace largely six seconds off the pole position time.

We must give the new system a chance at a number of different circuit layouts with alternative tyre compounds. But I suspect that we'll get more of the same, especially if the safety car is deployed early in the race.

It would be radical and expensive in the extreme to try to re-introduce refuelling, so forget that.

Bridgestone understandably want to make racing tyres which perform well and represent their technology and brand in a positive light so they won't want to supply overly soft compound tyres which quickly fall apart.

So we come back to the age-old problem that modern aerodynamics make following one another very difficult. This was supposed to be improved last year but the radical and ultimately legal double diffuser spoiled that. And we have even more extreme versions of that device on all the cars this year.

Double diffusers, which generate a lot of downforce and turbulence under the rear of the cars, are banned for next year, but for this year a change to a mandatory two pit stops may be the only solution, and there is no guarantee that will fix the problem.

Most of my F1 driving career was spent with no race refuelling. Back then the cars were generally much less refined and it was easier to make an error, especially with manual gearshifts. Also the cars carried a lot more drag and slipstreaming was more effective. They were certainly far less reliable and that mixed up the results considerably.

What he said

[chillibowl]

but everyone is already going at different speeds. the Red Bull(s) and Ferrari's are lapping at at .3-.5 sec a lap faster with a full fuel load. clearly they built a better car so why should the rules make it easier for anyone to overtake them?

what surprised me most were the lap times at the end of the race on low fuel. no one got close to the lap times set in quali. obviously the tires had fallen off but not a single driver with 12-15 laps switched back to the softs to at least try to set some fast laps and try to make a move up the field.

the first running in the heat and overly conservative strategies couple with teams/drivers still testing the limits of the new rules gave us a race no more exciting and no more processional than anything we have seen before. but really more pit stops...that just means more passes in the pits...thats what we consider exciting this year?...i feel like im on crazy pills again.

[jab]

2 mandatory stops will not mean passes in the pits because they'll all be stopping roughly at the same time - pretty much the same as now, in other words. But it will mean the drivers can be more aggressive on track because they won't need to conserve tyres. So, in other words, it's exactly what we need, although it does mean the little guys are screwed because there's no wildcard strategy. It would have to be a temporary fix until they can sort something else out but I think it may be what we need

[chillibowl]

and why will the guy in front, who stopped at the same time as the guy behind, suddenly be less aggressive and more easy to pass?

[jab]

But it's got nothing to do with what the driver in front is doing. The point is the driver behind won't worry about wrecking his tyres

Take Webber, for example - the cars he was stuck behind were about a second a lap slower in ultimate pace, so he could've gone for it, but couldn't because he had to save the tyres. Had he not had to worry about that, he almost certainly could've and would've passed them

Same for Rosberg coming up behind the limping Vettel

[tblincoe]

Originally Posted by jab

What he said

I agree with not reacting based on one race - wait until Malaysia and lets see what happens. I've posted similar sentiments in the Bahrain race thread, but the lap times are pretty astounding from the race. EVERYONE was ultra-conservative on Sunday and I'll pretty-well guarantee that we will see different strategies, including two-stoppers, by Malaysia. Only then can we fully understand how things will go the rest of the season.

And a quick aside to the suggestion of mandatory two-stoppers: I hate the idea even though I understand the reasoning behind the suggestion. Once you mandate strategy decisions, it makes strategy MUCH more predictable than it is at the moment. Just look at the DTM's mandatory two-stop rules and how those races develop...

my solution = (wait-and-see) + (much less durable tire compounds)

[jab]

Yeah, I think we have to wait until Europe. But we need changes before Barcelona if changes need to be made otherwise that race will sink the audience into a coma

I'm not bothered about making strategy predictable. OK, it would kill the chances for a wildcard, but we shouldn't have to rely on strategy to create good races. As for the tyre compounds, they either need to be less durable or more durable - more durable so they don't go off in a draft (same reasoning as the compulsory 2 stops, essentially - better tyres = more overtaking), or less durable so that we get more strategic variety. But Bridgestone are too conservative for the latter

I'd take more overtaking over more strategic variety if possible right now. And it is possible to overtake with the right tyres, or at least it is in Bahrain normally

[neiltb]

mandatory 2, 3, 4 stops for tyres always means you always have to look after them, there will always be an optimum time to stop and the teams will expect that of the drivers, strategies will be the same +- a lap or 2. If you go for a pass and lock up a tyre bad enough you could be a sitting duck to the guy behind, so best not to try. Plus the overtakee's tyres are fine too, and he has the clean side of he track.

Blaming tyres in a formula that is utterly dictated by aerodynamics is not being able to see the wood for the trees.

[chillibowl]

and they guys infront of Webber were not trying to save their tires. a race is dynamic and all racers are fighting the same challenges. if they all have fresh tires than the reason there is no overtaking goes back to aero and tires and an extra pit become irrelevant so why the need for a change unless its for the root problem.

Originally Posted by jab

Take Webber, for example...so he could've gone for it, but couldn't because he had to save the tyres.

he made a choice to save his tires and take the points he was given. no rule change will change that call this early in the season. if on the other hand this was going to determine the WDC and Webber in his car that was 1s a lap faster and still could not find a way past...no one here would be calling him a victim.

[tblincoe]

Originally Posted by jab

Yeah, I think we have to wait until Europe. But we need changes before Barcelona if changes need to be made otherwise that race will sink the audience into a coma

I'm not bothered about making strategy predictable. OK, it would kill the chances for a wildcard, but we shouldn't have to rely on strategy to create good races. As for the tyre compounds, they either need to be less durable or more durable - more durable so they don't go off in a draft (same reasoning as the compulsory 2 stops, essentially - better tyres = more overtaking), or less durable so that we get more strategic variety. But Bridgestone are too conservative for the latter

I'd take more overtaking over more strategic variety if possible right now. And it is possible to overtake with the right tyres, or at least it is in Bahrain normally

We have to remember that comparing Bahrain 2010 to any other Bahrain race is comparing two completely different tracks.

That being said, if we just crunch the numbers on lap times I have no doubt in my mind that the rule in the paddock was to run conservative this weekend and then analyze the data for up-coming races. I foresee the possibility of a pattern of decision-making in future races (circuit-type pending) that includes a set of 'conservative' tire preservers and another group of 'pushers' that could actually make for a fantastic show.

I just want to give the situation enough time to organically develop before we introduce new variables that forces everyone to be conservative again...

[ECW Dan Selby]

Originally Posted by jab

Yeah, I think we have to wait until Europe. But we need changes before Barcelona if changes need to be made otherwise that race will sink the audience into a coma

The thought of Barcelona actually makes me want to cry.

Selby

[Sodemo]

Originally Posted by jab

It's an element of the problem but even so, we'd still have seen good racing yesterday with those cars if they had decent tyres on that didn't degrade when close to another car. I've never known that to happen before

Not sure if I agree with that jab.

Drivers have been complaining for years that they are unable to get close to a following car, the problem has compounded and gotten worse year after year. Drivers have also in the past said that their front tyres begin to die when in the dirty air of another car, again, its been a problem for decades.

Perhaps the narrower front tyre doesn't help in these situations, perhaps the inevitable increase in downforce since 2009 doesn't help either, maybe the heavier cars make the problem worse, I don't really know.

What I do hope is that for 2012 they look at the aero rules again and someone bashes their heads together and we can have a massive slash in the aero available.

[ECW Dan Selby]

Yeh that's exactly it. As tempting as it would be to just throw a new rule in there, I think it may just harm. The idea of manditory 2 stoppers sounds awful. We'll have everyone in at the same time, for status quo to resume. I know there's some small upsides, but let's face it, it'll resort to overtaking via pitting.

Let's just hope that everyone was going ultra conservative this race and that we'll have a few guys lower down the grid gunning for it.

Selby

[jab]

Originally Posted by neiltb

mandatory 2, 3, 4 stops for tyres always means you always have to look after them

Not necessarily. Yesterday they were having to protect their tyres from overheating because they had such a long run to do with them. 2 mandatory stops will mean the tyres will always give you some grip because they'll be fresher. There's less of a risk of them going off completely

Originally Posted by neiltb

Blaming tyres in a formula that is utterly dictated by aerodynamics is not being able to see the wood for the trees.

We all know the aero is a problem, but we can't sort that out mid-season. And drivers could still overtake at Bahrain in the past regardless of the aero, so you can't blame that for the bad race we had yesterday

Besides, what is the solution for the aero problem? I don't think there is one. Banning wings is just silly and spec aero isn't the way to go because we've seen that FIA-led aero changes do nothing. Remember it's in the teams' interests for the aero guys to make their cars difficult to be overtaken

[Purist]

Some of the comments don't add up. How can the tires be too durable, or still have life left in them, AND be overheating? It sounds like last year's tires were less durable, but I don't recall any overheating issues in the slipstream at Monza or anywhere else, so how is this scenario even possible? It makes no sense at all.

Also, how can it be that everyone would pit at the same time if the tires they have on still have life in them? I mean, if you're on softs, and can still put in slightly better laps than the fresh hards, why would you stop when the other guys do? Why wouldn't you wait a few laps, until the pace has equalized, to come in and change rubber?

Blaming the aero in general is a misnomer. It is the over-refined nature of the current aero, brought on by overly tight regulation of the main wing plains, that has led to cars that are too sensitive in another car's wake. The F1 cars of the '80s and early '90s had MASSIVE bi-plane and even tri-plane rear wings. You can't tell me those didn't make an abundance of downforce, and hence, turbulence as well. However, those cars were much more able to follow one another and overtake. Why exactly is that?

[tblincoe]

Originally Posted by jab

Not necessarily. Yesterday they were having to protect their tyres from overheating because they had such a long run to do with them. 2 mandatory stops will mean the tyres will always give you some grip because they'll be fresher. There's less of a risk of them going off completely


We all know the aero is a problem, but we can't sort that out mid-season. And drivers could still overtake at Bahrain in the past regardless of the aero, so you can't blame that for the bad race we had yesterday

Besides, what is the solution for the aero problem? I don't think there is one. Banning wings is just silly and spec aero isn't the way to go because we've seen that FIA-led aero changes do nothing. Remember it's in the teams' interests for the aero guys to make their cars difficult to be overtaken

From what I've read, getting rid of the diffusers will make a considerable difference in overall downforce numbers next season.

Other than that, I believe the aero/overtaking problem will always be a moving target for the FIA that will require identifying the major wake-producing elements that develop on cars and subsequently writing them out of the rulebook.

[tblincoe]

Originally Posted by Purist

Some of the comments don't add up. How can the tires be too durable, or still have life left in them, AND be overheating? It sounds like last year's tires were less durable, but I don't recall any overheating issues in the slipstream at Monza or anywhere else, so how is this scenario even possible? It makes no sense at all.

Also, how can it be that everyone would pit at the same time if the tires they have on still have life in them? I mean, if you're on softs, and can still put in slightly better laps than the fresh hards, why would you stop when the other guys do? Why wouldn't you wait a few laps, until the pace has equalized, to come in and change rubber?

Blaming the aero in general is a misnomer. It is the over-refined nature of the current aero, brought on by overly tight regulation of the main wing plains, that has led to cars that are too sensitive in another car's wake. The F1 cars of the '80s and early '90s had MASSIVE bi-plane and even tri-plane rear wings. You can't tell me those didn't make an abundance of downforce, and hence, turbulence as well. However, those cars were much more able to follow one another and overtake. Why exactly is that?

Another great point - which is why overtaking will never by "easy" no matter what the aero regs are. I think the emphasis should be on focusing on multiple elements, including aero, that lead to processional races: strategy, circuit design, points structure, regulations, etc.

[jab]

Originally Posted by tblincoe

From what I've read, getting rid of the diffusers will make a considerable difference in overall downforce numbers next season.

But they'll make it back up, as ever. No doubt some clever designer will again snake his way through the rules and the emphasis will be on something else, maybe even in the diffusers again

But it's interesting to note that when they take the DDDs off, that'll mean more rear tyre wear, which could make things interesting

[ECW Dan Selby]

Originally Posted by Purist

The F1 cars of the '80s and early '90s had MASSIVE bi-plane and even tri-plane rear wings. You can't tell me those didn't make an abundance of downforce, and hence, turbulence as well. However, those cars were much more able to follow one another and overtake. Why exactly is that?

Great question.

Selby

[neiltb]

Originally Posted by Purist

Blaming the aero in general is a misnomer. It is the over-refined nature of the current aero, brought on by overly tight regulation of the main wing plains, that has led to cars that are too sensitive in another car's wake. The F1 cars of the '80s and early '90s had MASSIVE bi-plane and even tri-plane rear wings. You can't tell me those didn't make an abundance of downforce, and hence, turbulence as well. However, those cars were much more able to follow one another and overtake. Why exactly is that?

because they weren't efficient. Look at the size of a front wing at that time. It sits in clean air and balances the rear downforce. The turbulence of the car as a whole gives rise to more turbulent air at the rear wing, needing more wing elements to generate downforce. Less efficient wings = less overall d/f from said wings = less dependence on them. more came from the undertray.

Jab, I agree that the aero thing this year is a mess and we can't do anything, I just don't think 2 mandatory pit stops is going to do anything, regardless of what MB says.

[Sodemo]

Originally Posted by neiltb

Blaming tyres in a formula that is utterly dictated by aerodynamics is not being able to see the wood for the trees.

100% Correct!

The thing is, they keep bleating on about how the double diffuser will be banned in 2011, stating this as some kind of "plan" to get racing back into F1, but the banning of these type of diffusers will be a total drop in the ocean, you will still be left with the same problems. A total re-think is needed on the whole aero philosophy.

[jab]

Originally Posted by Purist

Blaming the aero in general is a misnomer. It is the over-refined nature of the current aero, brought on by overly tight regulation of the main wing plains, that has led to cars that are too sensitive in another car's wake. The F1 cars of the '80s and early '90s had MASSIVE bi-plane and even tri-plane rear wings. You can't tell me those didn't make an abundance of downforce, and hence, turbulence as well. However, those cars were much more able to follow one another and overtake. Why exactly is that?

In that sense, it's the old "need more emphasis on mechanical grip than aero grip" argument, which was done to death before they changed the aero rules for 09 and was given as the reason why racing would be better when it's been just as bad, if not worse than before the changes

The genie's out of the bottle. We can't uninvent the invented

[neiltb]

how about a virgin testing style front wing with a shear plate that breaks at a limit of front downforce, thay'd have to limit rear downforce/drag then. You could make the shear plates an FIA supplied part.

[Purist]

The other thing that seems odd is that we're going after the diffuser as the culprit, when we know that undertray aero produces commensurately less turbulence than do the wings. Why are all of you going after the item that is counter-intuitive to be criticizing in the current equation?

Writing items out of the rulebooks is exactly what has gotten us into this mess. By doing so, we make it more and more the case that there is ONLY ONE ideal solution to the F1 "problem" as far as designing a "good" car. The more similar the cars are, the closer they are to having the same performance potential at every point around a given race track. More than anything else, I would have to say that this homogeneity is the root cause of making overtaking steadily more and more difficult in F1 as time has gone by. This isn't helped by the fact that EVERY track in F1, save for Melbourne, has either been designed from scratch, or at least reconfigured, by the same person: Hermann Tilke (yet more homogeneity).

[craigd]

Originally Posted by jab

2 mandatory stops will not mean passes in the pits because they'll all be stopping roughly at the same time - pretty much the same as now, in other words. But it will mean the drivers can be more aggressive on track because they won't need to conserve tyres. So, in other words, it's exactly what we need, although it does mean the little guys are screwed because there's no wildcard strategy. It would have to be a temporary fix until they can sort something else out but I think it may be what we need

I understand your reasoning for mandatory 2 stops and the aim of enabling the drivers' to feel like they can attack and not worry about the tyres too much is good/essential! But I believe you'll likely achieve that as well through not having mandatory stops.

It might seem like everyone will still just do the same thing and so not stop or do whatever is the optimum strategy (which could mean be slow and conserve), but they likely won't. You'll get wild cars that will go on risky strategies and mix it up for the others, which in turn may cause them to adapt their strategy.

For example, if compounds and number of stops was free in Bahrain, you'd likely have seen a much more attacking Lewis. At the first stops, Vettel and the Ferraris would likely have still gone onto the hards to lock the front out and head for the finish. Hamilton - having got into 4th - would more likely be inclined to go soft again and go on the attack (which seemed to handle a half distance anyway).

Now as we saw with the lap times at the end of the race, the midfield guys on softs were lapping as quickly as the front runner on hards, and they were midfielders! If say Lewis had have been on softs again he'd have reeled in the front 3 in no time. Now sure, it may have been the case that he'd have ended up burning them out and having to pit a second time for more softs (he'd have had the gap back to Rosberg), but the racing would have been better as he'd have been putting pressure on the Ferraris by being on a different strategy. He may have got through and then tried to hang on while the softs fade, or he may have forced the Ferraris into a mistake, or he may have just stayed 3rd. But he'd have been able to attack and try and make something happen knowing he could have avoided the hards. (Remember too they were still seconds off the qualifying pace at the end too, so even 10 laps on some new softs at the end would likely have negated the pit stop compared to the others' pace.)

Now you could go, well that's all just ifs and buts and fairy/wishful hypotheses, but the point is that the less retrictive rules allow me (and by extension the engineers!) to ponder these strategies and think 'what about this?/why don't we try that' in the race. Instead, these mandatory stopping rules (one or two) force everyone down a very narrow path.

As others suggest though, I think we need to see how Melbourne and Sepang fair. But I still believe they should free things up and let each team choose to attack or conserve as much as they wish. (I suppose though that if a driver were to attack on soft stints, they'd need more fuel to begin with since their consumption will be higher but that's another story!)