The Overtaking News Topic

[Ogami musashi]

Hello All,

I propose to make this topic the place where everybody put news, interviews and quotes on overtaking made by professionnals.

The goal is to have a log of what is being said about overtaking in motorsport in general.

I suggest not to discuss too much the news because we would lose track of the news.

[Ogami musashi]

And i start the first news which is quite surprising in fact:

An international seminar to examine the issue of overtaking in motor sport was hosted by the FIA in Paris on 11 November.

The event was attended by key stakeholders including FIA technical experts, circuit designers, technical directors, senior engineers and drivers from Formula One, NASCAR, IRL as well as other major championships.

The aim of the seminar was to share the latest research and to examine recommendations to improve overtaking opportunities. Issues discussed included aerodynamic design solutions, circuit design and layout and potential sporting regulations.

The FIA will prepare a report based on the findings of the seminar and subsequent expert group discussions, which will be widely disseminated in a consultation with the international motor sport community.

http://www.fia.com/inbrief/

[Ciro Pabón]

Hi, Ogami. I can contribute with this curious and rather heavy to read piece, written in 2007.

Formula One 2011: Chassis Regulation Framework - A Briefing Note in preparation for the Formula One Manufacturers’ Advisory Committee

Some of those suggestions were implemented. I "quote" this graph from the document, to enhance the interest the "respectable public".

[Ogami musashi]

Thank you, that's usefull.

I posted on Autosport and of course now the topic is full of "the solution is simple.." and other "it isn't rocket science.."

[marcush.]

In my mind al those statistics are blurred by only choosing the parameters and even the race series suitable to underline what you were trying to show.
High downforce is not necessarily avoiding close racing

We got champcars and Group C ,LMP1 and 2 certainly are high downforce yet overtaking
is quite common there.

so I´d say the complete theory about no downfarce equates to more overtaking is an assumption not a fact.
Fact is there are types of racing where a lot of overtaking is a fact:Touringcars for example ,but this is definitively a contact sport ....manoevres completely without making contact are more of an exemption not a rule.Still there are races where no overtaking is done ,apart from the start...

Really this whole overtaking improvement thing is a complete waste of time as even if you get a handle on really make it easy to overtake ,you will either have a quick reshuffle in the order after the start as nobody will be able to defend with lesser machinery or if you do the Handford-wing way overtaking will happen all the time but as thres noone who can capitalise on being in front you get ONLY overtaking and theres no buzz about it anymore it simply is devaluating overtaking
as a demonstration of driver finesse and commitment-wich is really what you want to have.

[Ogami musashi]

Well, then, as long as we have educated discussion:

I agree with you marcush, high downforce doesn't necessarily mean problems in overtaking but in fact i think the seminar is a good iniative because as you hint it you can't take one feature and link it to overtaking or not hence the seminar was full of people with different technical solutions.

IMHO the 2011 framework paper is was a bit an FIA only view that's why i think the seminar is a good thing.

Now it underlines some requirements, downforce is necessary for F1 as long as you want to keep the speed, and that requires elaborate technical solutions.

I do hope all of this talk is not vaporware; I don't necessarily want to see overtaking frenzy but it is obvious somlething is hampering overtaking in F1 (and probably in several other series) and that "something" is probably a sum of different things, and each sums is different for each series.

Speaking of technical solutions, there's a basic things for aerodynamics:

-You need aeros (aero elements) to have grip
-Those aeros spoil the air

So you're in trouble when following.

Yet:

Some aeros are sensitive to wake pattern, some are sensitive to mass flow/air density, some will trigger drag, some not.

The basis rationnal is that if you balance those aeros you have a good equilibrated basis.

In our case balacing Ground effects and wings.

Still the fact that F1 cars are different from each other poses a lot of problems.

[Scotracer]

Maybe it would be useful to get telemetry data of overtakes in different series. Of course it wont be easy to get but being able to find out the cause of an overtake on the driver level will make us able to remove that factor. My thinking stems from the idea that F1 drivers are better drivers therefore make fewer mistakes = less overtaking.

[mx_tifoso]

Do we really want a lot or more overtaking? Let's see what Mr. Ross Brawn has to say...

Well, there’s some very useful work being done with the FIA, with FOTA on the contributory factors to enable overtaking to take place. Circuit design is very important and if you look at the range of circuits we race on, some of them have much more overtaking than others and that’s because of the circuit design. Format of racing is another important factor because we spend two days making sure the fastest car is at the front and we’ve now removed the variable of fuel weight for qualifying, so we’ve really made sure the fastest car is at the front. I think the technical side can’t be ignored, and we need to do what we can to make the cars as benign as possible in terms of their ability to follow other cars, but we’ve also got to attack the other areas. I think we’ve got to be careful not to go too far.

Formula One has a spirit, has a character, has a DNA that we don’t want to spoil. I find basketball a little bit difficult to follow when they’re scoring 90 points and football with one or two goals is exciting – for me. I think motor racing, with one or two great overtaking manoeuvres per race, is what we want.

...

I'm in the 'we' category.

And the questions that led to that answer were:

Q: (Joe Saward – Grand Prix Special) With regard to the cars of the future, is there any possibility of ground effect coming back to make the racing better?
FT: Why, do you feel the racing is boring?

Q: (Joe Saward – Grand Prix Special) I didn’t say the racing was poor, I’m saying that people always want it better. I’m saying, have you discussed this?

http://www.formula1.com/news/headlines/ ... 10840.html

[speedsense]

Yet, in the highest downforce era of F1, the ground effects era, was highest percentage of passing in the history of F1.

[Ogami musashi]

The GE era was certainly not the highest downforce era of F1.

Today's F1 (2004 F1 being the highest) are significantly higher.

[WhiteBlue]

I don't understand why this debate is started again every second week.

• Everybody and his dog knows what is needed (except those in denial).
• wings are needed to make downforce independent of curbs and bumps and provide front downforce
• wings have the support of the teams and Bernie for advertising and that will not change
• excessive downforce (>1.25 tons) saps energy, power and exceeds the physical limits of the drivers. Hence it should be banned

[Just_a_fan]

Just because people hold an opposing view to you does not mean they are in denial.

Evidence abounds that overtaking occurs in high downforce series. The problem isn't the downforce but how it is generated.

If you don't want to discuss the issue how about not commenting on it and just allow those who still have an interest in the subject discuss it.

[WhiteBlue]

If you don't want to discuss the issue how about not commenting on it and just allow those who still have an interest in the subject discuss it.

You have my explicit allowance. By all means discuss to sub atomic levels. I just cannot understand that a new thread is needed every 2 weeks about this. The points have all been made in the previous threads. Do we need to disregard all of those in regular intervalls?

[TheRMVR]

Yet, in the highest downforce era of F1, the ground effects era, was highest percentage of passing in the history of F1.

Do you have, or does someone else have statistics on the rate of overtaking since the beginning of Formula 1? I'd be very interested to see some of those..

[Shredcheddar]

WhiteBlue, do you frequent F1 Technical just to bitch about threads? That's about all I've see you contribute. Or would the internet really be a better place without this thread? SUCH a big deal, we better make sure we get this right.

I'm with Ross Brawn. I will always love racing all the same, and to me you just have to marvel at the great overtakes. Remember Hamilton's impressive charge from the back of the field in what, the third race of this season? That's special because overtaking is a rare commodity. F1 is plenty exciting for me and, while it could be better, I'm pretty content with it.