feynman wrote:Well, who said the fastest cars were supposed to be at the front. If cars were as wide as moto-cross bikes, they'd all line-up beside each other, but they're not. Just 'cos historically they started fastest-first, why exactly is that 'correct'?
Here's the thing, for decades now we have had a revolving door of regulation and rule changes as the administration try to slow down the cars and keep the show interesting, and every winter, the engineers show how much smarter they are than everyone else, and claw back eveything that was taken away, and more.
But those claw-backs come at a cost, the cars are highly evolved and finely tuned for ultimate performance, and barely drivable when following another. That's the slightly unsatisfactory dynamic we've ended up with.
The solution is to acknowledge that ruthlessly efficient Darwinian process, and game-change the environment such that instead of constantly fighting against the engineers (and always losing), you switch it tai-chi style, and use their weight to help you.
Cancelling qualifying and lining up on the grid in reverse championship-order is that sort of switch. (The only reason we cling to qualifying is that some weekends it's the only guaranteed bit of excitement or tension, but that's not a reason to keep it, it's a reason to improve the racing).
Now you bring the whole weight of the research and development effort into engineering cars that can hustle, that are good in a crowd. That now actually perform at their best when following another. You've shifted the whole emphasis of car design. You'll have cars designed to mix-it, and built to withstand a reasonable bit of ol'fashioned rough and tumble.
All those supposed intractable aero-problems will evaporate as the real smart guys now spend their time finding ways to get past a grid full of cars, instead of burning millions to engineer nano-vortices to slow down the car behind.
I'll be honest, I can't say I am 100% convinced, but I am pretty close to it. There could be a weird flip-flopping in the championship order for the first coupla races ... Smaller teams start at front, gets points, get pinged to the back, big teams then score points, get pinged back. Might be a weird becalmed middle of the grid ... so that would need some thinking about, but I am fairly confident it would all resolve itself quickly.
Yeah I know it's a tough sell, but I figure you can keep your head in the sand and then act all surprised and disappointed when the fastest cars at the front keep disappearing and following each other home, when you spent all winter and all weekend designing and sorting them to do just that, or you can change the environment.
Given the choice: a season of Barcelona parades, or a season of Suzuka 05, whaddya prefer?
Great to see some people think like this. I guess people need to see how any technical rule can't solve the problem. Everybody has many ideas that they think would improve overtaking, and they may be right to some extent, but none of them can solve the true problem.
The true problem is that the competition system is a non-confrontational system. First, competitors are impelled to build a faster car and drive it faster on an empty track. this decides a great part of the overall result of the competition. NO direct confrontation is promoted AT ALL. During the race there is a chance of confromtation but, since it is allowed to have a faster car than the rest, the system tends to cancel the chances of having confrontation.
The reverse line-up according to current WDC standings is a system thought to promote confrontation. Perhaps the use of the word "reverse" is what takes people to think that the system is up side down and that goes against the natural way of thinking. If people could change the name of the system to "Confrontational" starting system, or "overtaking" system or some other name without the R word, it might get much more acceptance.
Under this system there is only one way to be REALLY successful: Overtake more drivers and allow less drivers to overtake you. Forget about sitting in a fast car, be the #1 driver in your team and get bored until you win. You will have to overtake ALL slower drivers and defend from ALL faster drivers.
night all
