Is F1 getting boring?

[mach11]

i feel the previous posts here are getting a little off topic...
anyways... regarding F1 getting boring...

the Bahrain track was 6.29 km long... which i feel was the main factor in the race being very boring... the new teams were unimpressive... and the various teams did not take any risk with the strategy as this was the first race after a long time where refuelling was banned...
there was a tentative feeling i think with all the teams.... even drivers were hesistant to take that many risks in this race...
thus i feel now that teams will get a better idea on how to go about with their strategy....

[West]

It could also be track design, as suggested in an interview by Race Tech magazine in December or January issue. A track like Barcelona kills overtaking due to the medium to high-speed nature of the circuit (and of course due to the nature of F1 cars' reliance on downforce). The F1 designers in that interview said the onus shouldn't always be on them, although changing a track is a completely different matter than designing a car.

[Ciro Pabón]

Well, I'm old enough to remember that Chapman used high wings to avoid turbulence. Not boring, only ugly... but there is an idea here.

Look, ma! Clean air! Now, if we could use steel tyres and get rid of marbles...


Remember: you read it the first time in F1Tech... and probably for the last time.

Yeah, yeah, do not nag me. I'm also old enough to remember why those wings are no more, thank you very much.

For my bored friends:

"The cure for boredom is curiosity. There is no cure for curiosity." -Dorothy Parker-

[marcush.]

for me it is clearly the point of loosing too much time when changing tyres.
It would be best to actually have no time penalty changing tyres -so a short and quick and fast pit in pit out road versus a long track to cover if you take to the race track.
This would erase the drawback of changing the tyres after abusing them to overtake the other guy ....you could hustle in front of him dive into the pits ,your guys performing a super stop and you are still in front with a fresh set of rubber..
so new windows of opportunity would arise..
Some tracks would be quite easy to modify that way...you could as well make a real shortcut to the track for that pit lap and hold the guy at pit exit by timing ligts ..so the pit lap starts at pit entry and is to be at least say as long as the best lap the guy has posted already...

[hollus]

Now that makes a lot of sense. A shortcut before or after the pit lane, only pitting, so that the total time lost in a pit stop is about 10 seconds instead of 25 seconds. Give them some extra sets of tires too and we'd have some cars one stopping and some cars 5 stopping. Plus if you cook your tires for pushing, yo only pay 10 seconds for it.
I am all for this idea.
Pity that Bernie would claim the credit for it

[Ogami musashi]

I have read this kind of academic opinion by you several times. Unfortunately we have yet to see a high downforce design that facilitates overtaking in F1. My view is that it probably isn't existing. This is based on the experience of watching the game for 20 years and applying some common sense.

"Common sense" is often more "Common beliefs" based on nothing.

Just that because you didn't see overtaking with High downforce cars (probably have missed a part of the early 90's, GE cars and some CART races) doesn't prove your point about downforce level having an effect on wake.

All this talk of diffusor angle and coupling of diffusor and wing wake is just theory without addressing the core problem.

In addition to ignoring the on track tests,the fact that the so called "theory" is the root of basically everything you use all day long for your convenience, you don't bring even the slightest debut of point.


I won't discuss with you until you bring precise point; What you're saying there is just "this is all theory! We have to bring that limit! I know that for i watch F1 for 20 years", which is not more that all those armchair experts you can see in number on all forums full of their "not rocket science" solutions.

[dave kumar]

Frank Dernie, one of the leading F1 aerodynamicists for the past 30 years, has sent me this note, arguing that the “overtaking problem in F1″ is not the aero, but the mechanical grip from the tyres and the lack of mistakes made by drivers on gearshifts due to semi automatic gearboxes. He advocates manual gearboxes and rock hard tyres. Hear him out.

“None of the facts in the last 30 years support the theory that grippy tyres and low downforce promote overtaking. If reducing downforce was the answer, then 1983 would have shown it, since we lost 80% of the aero efficiency in the 1983 rules, ” he says. “But there was no more overtaking than in 1982.

http://www.jamesallenonf1.com/2010/03/g ... rargument/

Part of his argument is that much harder tyres wouldn't penalise driving off the racing line as much because the loss of grip wouldn't be so severe.

I don't know if this can be the whole answer. Surely cars have to be able to follow closely to be in a position to make an overtaking move. At the moment the penalty for following another car closely seems to be less cooling for the engine and more work for the tyres to compensate for the loss of downforce due to hot turbulent air produced by the car in front.

The thing I find strange about Frank Dernie's argument is that he doesn't use evidence from other open wheel racing series. What if anything can we learn from IndyCar for example?

[marcush.]

In my view the whole overtaking discussion is based on drawing conclusions on only partly understood and uncomplete facts .

just take extremes of racing :spec series

what do we see ? we see close racing dicing ,but we also see processions as in F3

Dicing is only possible if the penalty of hitting the other guy is not compromising your race too much

example:WTCC ,also to an extend Champcar racing

Todays cars with their carbonfibre suspension do not take too well to being hit ,the same was true with the aero thin section steel predecessors ten years back..

Stipulate a minimum impact the suspension has to survive without any change in alignment and without physical demage to render the car not raceworthy and you
get to a point were taking risks when making a move again is a possibility .

we have to conclude that F1 surely is the home of the worlds best drivers ,so to
think they make big mistakes is not really on .manual shift or semiautomatic ,just look at the steering wheels they operate ...can you imagine Nigel Mansell or Vittorio Brambilla operating a PC during a race?


the gearshift thing is something to forget ,the boxes today are a lot more reliable then back in the good ol days were the gearbox was the part to fail
today it is more likely to be hydraulic or electric related

restricting performance will all but erase technical failures with the level of professionalism as the teams are nowhere near the edge of the technical possibilities.

[dave kumar]

Just to summarise some of the posts to date.

The recipe for more overtaking attempts, once close enough:
More robust bodywork/suspension
Rock hard tyres (less sensitive to car being off the racing line)
Tyres that are more tolerant of being worked hard and have a broader window of performance (drivers can push without being losing the tyre for a few laps)

But we also need to address the problem of cars being able to follow closely in the first case. This seems a bit more contentious.

Is it enough to limit downforce as some suggest or do we need to clean up the wake pattern. Are these two aims independent of each other?

Oh and I almost forgot - track design! This is a big factor. Does the abrasiveness of the surface matter or is it only the width and combination of straights and slow corners?

[marcush.]

Just to summarise some of the posts to date.

The recipe for more overtaking attempts, once close enough:
More robust bodywork/suspension
Rock hard tyres (less sensitive to car being off the racing line)
Tyres that are more tolerant of being worked hard and have a broader window of performance (drivers can push without being losing the tyre for a few laps)

But we also need to address the problem of cars being able to follow closely in the first case. This seems a bit more contentious.

Is it enough to limit downforce as some suggest or do we need to clean up the wake pattern. Are these two aims independent of each other?

Oh and I almost forgot - track design! This is a big factor. Does the abrasiveness of the surface matter or is it only the width and combination of straights and slow corners?

please let me add :

erase or reduce the penalty for going into the pits

[Pup]

I think you guys are on the wrong track completely. The current cars have been fiddled with so much, they're essentially just a bunch of band-aid's piled on top of one another each trying to fix whatever got broken by the last band-aid.

They need to do the best they can with this season, but then scrap the entire car design and start over, with a car that's geared more toward efficiency and mechanical grip, and with a single wing located centrally on the car to reduce both its wake and the effect of other cars' wakes on it. And while they're at it, they can provide better crash protection and protection around the tires with beefier, full width crash structures.

Once again I flog the Sigma concept dead horse...

[rich1701]

The BBC getting rid of Jonathan Legard won't do any harm. I estimate his commentary makes watching a race 60% less enjoyable than it otherwise would of been.

[Germanengineering]

Bring Juan Pablo Montoya and Takuma Sato back to F1. Problem solved.

Juan was offered another seat to comeback and he turned it down. He loves Nascar and is doing very well.

[Germanengineering]

Bring Juan Pablo Montoya and Takuma Sato back to F1. Problem solved.

If you want to bring back someone let it be Paul Stoddart. He will bring back some exciting racing.

[adam2007]

Melboure
Barcelona
Budapest
will be very boring races

most exciting are like

canada - i bet at least 2 safety cars in race
spa
suzuka
etc..