How to fix F1?

[VIVA GT]

Here is one thing that could happen when shorter F1 cars crashed. Jacques Lafitte's Ligier at the 1986 British Grand Prix (he suffered badly broken legs):

[Peter Mallett]

I was there and remember this quite clearly. It resulted in the ruling that the driver's feet had to be behind the front axle line.

[bjohnsonsmith]

Originally Posted by Peter Mallett

I was there and remember this quite clearly. It resulted in the ruling that the driver's feet had to be behind the front axle line.

I was at that race too and I remember it was over an hour before it got restarted, as it took a while to extricate Laffite from the car. He was lucky not meet the same fate as Ronnie Peterson, who also suffered multiple leg fractures at Monza in 1978 and died from a fat embolism, which was caused by the fractures.

[Peter Mallett]

Ronnie also had burns IIRC which added to his woes.

[VIVA GT]

Originally Posted by bjohnsonsmith

I was at that race too and I remember it was over an hour before it got restarted, as it took a while to extricate Laffite from the car. He was lucky not meet the same fate as Ronnie Peterson, who also suffered multiple leg fractures at Monza in 1978 and died from a fat embolism, which was caused by the fractures.

It may have helped that there was a qualified Doctor on the scene pretty quickly as Jonathon Palmer's Zakspeed was caught up in the accident too.

[S griffin]

Apparently though the dire organisation and medical care contributed to Ronnie's death. It was from the next GP onwards that they would have a medical car at the back of the pack when the cars lined up on the grid in case of a major accident

[bjohnsonsmith]

Originally Posted by Peter Mallett

Ronnie also had burns IIRC which added to his woes.

He did but it was the fat embolism from the fractures that got him.

http://atlasf1.autosport.com/2000/it.../peterson.html

[Peter Mallett]

Yes I know. I was simply remarking that unlike Lafferty he had even more injuries.

[Kato]

Originally Posted by bjohnsonsmith

He did but it was the fat embolism from the fractures that got him.

http://atlasf1.autosport.com/2000/it.../peterson.html

Sometimes you are just plain out of luck.

[bjohnsonsmith]

Originally Posted by Kato

Sometimes you are just plain out of luck.

There is that.

[Breanerse34]

Ok, this is one of the most interesting thread I've ever seen. I like to see how people create their ideas to make this world a bit better if i can say so.

[Born Racer]

Welcome to Ten-Tenths, Breanerse34.

[Pandamasque]

2022 related question. Was there a definitive decision on keeping/losing DRS yet? I noticed how absolutely none of the official F1 2022 artistic renders feature a DRS mechanism on the rear wing. What's the latest?

[Kato]

DRS is interesting, like a frog in increasingly hotter water we are used to it now. It exists due to F1 being an aero formula. So let's decrease this aero advantage if you are within a second of the person in front on the road in curtain parts of the circuit. Not very pure is it. It is a nod to entertainment instead.

Get rid of it and just knock 50% of the downforce out in the regulations. Don't play about go in hard. A sign of your success would be whole departments of aerodynamicists leaving to work for Boeing and Airbus.

[S griffin]

I agree. Overtaking should be a skill. It should be about the quality of passing, not quantity. DRS has taken away a lot of driver skill, same as TC did

[Richard C]

DRS is included in the 2022 technical regulations. My suspicion is that they would ultimately like the various changes to make the need for DRS moot. However they are likely unsure if it will play out that way. So keep DRS for now, then drop it later if they no longer need it.

Richard

[S griffin]

There should never have been a need for DRS in the first place. Let’s face it, it’s a typical ‘sticky plaster for a gaping wound’ solution to a problem. If they had concentrated on keeping downforce under control and therefore having cars that could follow better, everything would have been fine

[Pandamasque]

I agree with the sentiments above. I thought the whole point of the 2022 overhaul is alleviate any perceived need for DRS.

Originally Posted by Richard Casto

So keep DRS for now, then drop it later if they no longer need it.

Richard

I hope that doesn't take too long. I'd take a long hard battle that maybe ends in an overtake over countless "passing" any day.

[Richard C]

Question for the group following this topic. What exactly do you think are the conditions or scenarios that allow for one driver to pass another? I think we can exclude situations such as passing someone who has pitted or who has slowed due to mechanical reasons. Imagine cars who are working correctly in average conditions.

Clearly, this is a loaded question and I am looking to make a point based upon what people say

Richard

[Greem]

Originally Posted by Richard Casto

Question for the group following this topic. What exactly do you think are the conditions or scenarios that allow for one driver to pass another? I think we can exclude situations such as passing someone who has pitted or who has slowed due to mechanical reasons. Imagine cars who are working correctly in average conditions.

Clearly, this is a loaded question and I am looking to make a point based upon what people say

I'll weigh in on this with the point that the current cars are tuned so finely for open air running-away-from-everyone that slipstreaming, side-drafting a la NASCAR, and generally being able to run within reasonable proximity of each other to entice hot braking manoeuvres isn't possible.

I love the current cars, they're about as perfect as they can be within the current ruleset (up to YE 2020). But that bit is sorely lacking.

Without hankering for days of yore, I would dearly love to see F1 cars capable of 200+mph, cornering on rails, but able to run as closely as FF1600 non-aero cars can.

I'm going to be disappointed though

[Pandamasque]

To me, cornering on rails got a bit boring. It'd like downforce levels get to the point where in equal machinery a Hamilton would be clearly faster through Eau Rouge than a Latifi. Lately it has been going the direction where a Hamilton is going just as flat out as I could (while screaming and emptying my bowels into the cockpit). I'm exaggerating, but you get the point. Less % on rails leaves more for drivers to show their skills and different styles, more scope for mistakes, more overdriving, better spectacle, more variance in pace.

@Richard Casto
Overtaking is usually produced by the variance in pace, even if it's very temporary. Without unreliability, missed shifts or vastly overpowered tyres etc, current cars produce little variance in pace, aside from tyre wear. But during the years since overtaking became difficult strategists learned to avoid scenarios that involve overtaking. This creates this "waiting game" that we see at the start of every GP before the leaders eke out a gap good enough to be in the pitstop window. You can see them suffering lap after lap with their tyres, all that in order to avoid having to overtake a midfield car after pitting.

[Richard C]

Originally Posted by Greem

I'll weigh in on this with the point that the current cars are tuned so finely for open air running-away-from-everyone that slipstreaming, side-drafting a la NASCAR, and generally being able to run within reasonable proximity of each other to entice hot braking manoeuvres isn't possible.

Originally Posted by Pandamasque

Overtaking is usually produced by the variance in pace, even if it's very temporary. Without unreliability, missed shifts or vastly overpowered tyres etc, current cars produce little variance in pace, aside from tyre wear.

I expected answers to fall into categories such as...

1. Teams might choose design trade offs that allows one to be faster than another in specific parts of track
2. Driver skill will make it happen
3. Late braking
4. Following closely to setup a pass

But you guys are jumping straight to the punchline here! You are not playing my game.

I think we are all singing from the same sheet of music. Aside of the issue of significant skill differentials (best driver vs worst driver on the grid), generally the issue is not skill related (so scratch item #2). The cars are broadly similar in performance (scratch items #1 and 3) or at least when matched up one on one, it can be hard for one car to show a significant advantage enough to pass the other which is aggravated by the aero nature of current cars (scratch item #4).

Passing is not impossible, but at times a real uphill chore.

"Reducing downforce" is a common theme. I guess to a degree that might help. One area that might be real is to extend the braking zones. So that allows more time/track surface for something to happen. But broadly, we would still have the same issue IMHO in that the cars performance will generally be the same. And I think unless we have cars that are using a majority of mechanical grip, they will remain with some level of "difficult to follow" (note, the new 2022 rules are supposed to reduce this, so I hope that is so). But I think that generally lesser downforce, will just be the same issues as now, but with slower laptimes. But I could be wrong. It might work. However the sport has a confidence issue. In that laptimes must be short, the cars must be quick. So if you kill cornering speed, you have to up straightline speed to keep laptimes low. That creates it's own set of issues (mostly safety related). But those might be something that can be dealt with.

I will toss out what I think might be something I rarely hear about and that is the ability to run different racing lines successfully. I think in that scenario it requires that grip can be found off line. I think some of the best passing we have seen in recent times have been one of two things...

1. A pure ballsy attempt at a pass that has high risk and it pays off.
2. The following driver is able to make an alternate line work through one or more turns and is able to get alongside and make a pass work.

I think it's hard to try to make #1 the norm because the passes either work or they don't. I think #2 is an area that we might be able to make work. But I think that alternate lines are hard to find due to lack of a rubbered in line and/or their being a narrow racing line as everything offline has a lot of marbles, etc. I don't know what the answer is to making alternate lines work more than they do today. Sometimes these alternate lines work earlier in the race (Kimi at start of 2020 Portuguese Grand Prix).

Originally Posted by Pandamasque

Less % on rails leaves more for drivers to show their skills and different styles, more scope for mistakes, more overdriving, better spectacle, more variance in pace.

I think the above hits the nail on the head. Variance in pace by the cars being harder for drivers to maintain pace that is near the maximum of it's potential capacity.

The question is "how" to make that happen. Frankly I think the rule makers understand the problem quite well. But struggle for solutions that are not gimmicks. So we get gimmick solutions. Tires that don't last and DRS are both tools that allow for variance in pace. Tires are worn? You can't push them as hard. You are behind someone? Enable DRS and get a bump in speed down a straight.

The question is... how to bake that (no gimmicks) into the regulations in such a way that engineers down still produce cars that are easy enough to drive that really good drivers are able to bang out nearly optimal laps for many many laps.

Richard

[Casper]

The rules define the cars so much the engineers arrive at about the same place apart from variation in aero so why should anyone expect anything more than what we get. Some would say what about the huge Mercedes advantage but they have done something that others haven't worked out how to do and that "manage" a team into first place which includes any mechanical advantage they can obtain in the process. How many team managers would publicly admit that the drivers need more support as Toto has done and admitted the team has not done enough in that area. Ferrari would not even understand the concept not would I suspect Renault and HAAS isn't on the same planet.

Overtaking is done with long brake distances, hot brakes and who has the most faith in their own destiny into any given corner.

Mechanical grip is another place where a driver's confidence is always tested, hot tyres and no aero always brings out the best or worst in a driver. it would be interesting to throw the whole field of drivers into formula vees which have limited mechanical grip and I reckon there would be some real surprises.

Reduce the size of the tyre contact patch would not hurt at all as the tyres temps will immediately go up and hot tyres are slippery tyres.

Get rid of all the car to pit telemetry and also the steering wheel controls and make the drivers assess how the car is going by having to feel and observe its behaviour themselves. The only thing the steering wheel should have on it is a horn button.

If a class is defined as tightly as F1 is then you get stalemate, nothing more or less and F1 has reached that point apart from the occasional surprise usually introduced by outside factors like Hamilton's illness.

[Pandamasque]

I'm going to touch on one subject that people rarely, if ever, mention in the context of "how to make more overtaking happen".

Driving standards and the application of FIA Sporting Code! Controversial, I know.

From memory, Appendix J (or something or other) of the FIA code says "overtaking can be done on the left or on the right. [...] Crowding an opponent beyond the edge of the track shall be reported to the stewards". This is not verbatim, but close.

There is no mention of any terms like "racing line", "my corner", "outside/inside". You can do whatever you want without causing a collision or forcing another car off the track.

Now, every time someone attempts an overtake/defence around the outside (i.e. the long way) and there's contact or one car forces another off the track.... the stewards seem to flip a coin, as they come up with a decision. Heads means penalize the car on the outside. If it's tails, do nothing. If a coin gets stuck in the ceiling or leaves Earth's orbit, penalize the car on the inside, unless the driver is a rising star, then flip again

And then everywhere from Martin Brundle's commentary (with all due respect!) to the YouTube comments section you get all those silly arguments like "it was his corner", "he's coming through", "he's committed", "he's entitled to push him off", and all that "if you no longer go for a gap you're no longer a racing driver" Senna-inspired **** that just doesn't correlate the formal rules of the sport, but does correlate with the informal ones (i.e. the rules as they're applied).
As a result most just don't dare pick a different line and stick it around the outside, knowing that the opponent will most likely shove them off the track and most likely get away with it!
As a result, we get less overtaking and less variety in overtaking tactics. Add DRS into the equation and you end up with just one correct answer for passing. And every time Albon or Stroll tries something different they're automatically considered to be wrong.

One more reason to like Kimi Raikkonen is that he's one of the few who actually allow opponents to challenge around the outside and almost never gets the elbows out any further than formally permitted by the rules. This results in more overtaking opportunities and, crucially, longer side-by-side battles! And this is exactly what we miss in DRS-assisted passes.

So why not apply the FIA Sporting Code properly and police driving standards more stringently, like it's often done in the US, and get more/better overtaking "for free"?!

Originally Posted by Casper

The rules define the cars so much the engineers arrive at about the same place apart from variation in aero so why should anyone expect anything more than what we get. Some would say what about the huge Mercedes advantage but they have done something that others haven't worked out how to do and that "manage" a team into first place which includes any mechanical advantage they can obtain in the process. How many team managers would publicly admit that the drivers need more support as Toto has done and admitted the team has not done enough in that area. Ferrari would not even understand the concept not would I suspect Renault and HAAS isn't on the same planet.

I think "huge" advantages by today's standards wouldn't be seen as very significant in the past. What makes them huge is that very often advantage in pace of a team like Mercedes comes with same or often greater consistency and reliability. Suddenly we can expect a couple of tenths a lap over the next opponent to turn into an easy and predictable 1-2 for the leading team.
And every time such an advantage comes up in an interview with influential team members, more and more that aren't able to single out critical 1 factor that. It's always "every little thing done a tiny bit better", because the rules, as you mentioned, push the teams into an increasingly narrow space to create. One the one hand, tighter rules ensure no-one suddenly makes a leap in one area and dominates, on the other it makes teams maximise all of the areas making their performance over a lap (and over a race) more similar.

Most of racing is headed in the direction of tighter rules. Some even try to limit strategic variances. I noticed lately that car manufacturers are more inclined to avoid situations that involve a lot of design freedom that can allow domination, unless there's artificial balance of performance in a series. I guess corporate boards favour artificially close competition to a potential "domination or embarrassment" situation. The latter we've seen during the recent LMP1 Hybrid era in FIA WEC, where even at its peak only 4 manufacturers took part and the most technologically adventurous one (Nissan) didn't avoid total embarrassment. Their programme was terminated after a single race. Now that formula collapsed and in response it's being replaced with something involving artificially close competition with rather lower risk of complete failure.

[Casper]

I forgot to include in my last post the biggest thing to encourage overtaking is slower lap speeds as that lengthens the time needed to overtake in any given part of the track. Either that or lengthen the tracks to effectively do the same thing, it sort of compensates but not as good as slowing the cars down. As speeds have risen and lap times fallen time to do anything has been compressed vastly and each year it becomes more so. By increasing performance each year they are driving the competitive on track action into the ground and F1 is worse off for that.