Grid and Race position biased KERS

[ringo]

As the title states, could this be the solution to the lack of entertainment in F1?
It's much better than reversing the grid, since it doesn't give any incentive to qualify poorly.
In case anyone doesn't get the title, what i am proposing is to allocate KERS power amongst the cars based on grid position and race position.
The car on pole will have the least available power for KERS, while the car at the back will have the most.

To make sure that the car at the back isn't handicapped by KERS weight, all cars will carry the same mass of batteries; only that access to the total power will be limited based on position.

So how does the idea sound? Workable?

[PNSD]

Would the information be changed corner to corner? my worry is a car might try qualify 3rd or something in the realizastion that it could prove more advantageous.

[Giblet]

It is of course, workable, but is it good?

Besides the artificial aspect of it, I don't like it as drivers would be punished less for mistakes. Drivers are also not rewarded for being in first and being generally quicker than their teammate and the rest of the field.

I look at like NASCAR, if you are in front at the beginning of the race, you probably wont be there long, as you are the one pushing the air out of the way and eating your tires and fuel harder. While different circumstances are in F1, the lead car will still be punished through wear and having to defend the guys behind with more KERS available.

My opinion on it is based on the previous iteration of KERS, the more power available the more punishing being in first would be.

[ringo]

Maybe, but a third place car wont have much more KERS power than the car on pole.
The power should be graduated, i'm not sure if it can be weighted by time gap as well as position.

My aim is to basically have the cars neck and neck on the track. Each driver has to make full use of his slightly unfair advantage.

For instance pole position only has 60kW, while dead last has 120kW
12th may have 90kW and so forth.

pole position won't be punished, after all his car more than likely has better handling and aero.
His disadvantage in KERS only shows on the straights, or wherever it is the others chose to deploy.
Pole position is still a worthy prize, since the KERS 2nd place has is not much greater. And in the case of Vettel outqualifying Webber by 0.4s a lap, Webber's KERS wont automatically make him overtake Vettel. His power available may only gain him 0.3s a lap.

Secondly this is to make sure the pole sitter doesn't think the race is over because he is on pole. If he gets overtaken on the thrrd lap then so be it.
He gets more power to get back to first place, and he still has his speed and aero advantage which won him the pole in the first place.

[Tamburello]

Just accept that motor racing in general, and F1 in particular, is inherently processional and get on with it. I don't remember it ever being fundamentally different so no need to artificially create it.

[ringo]

It's the least artificial of the solutions to make the racing exciting.

It's also better for new teams who can't spend hundreds of millions to get a few tenths, and yet it still doesn't make a crappy car better than a good one.

It's even less artificial than the stalling rear wing, since it can be used any time a driver pleases. No "zones" mandated for engagement.

In fact i think this Idea is pretty good. It's so good, it makes the adjustable wings like like a joke.

[oj1983]

It's a tricky one. On the one hand I've love to see more overtaking and excitement, but the way the sport is set up at the moment, the most successful teams the previous year get the most tv money, maintaining the status quo.

And then come the race weekend teams have 4 hours of track time to get the best from their car, and then quali to sort them into order from quickest to slowest. How can we possible expect dramatic overtaking and that kind of thing when we've spent all Friday and Saturday making sure they are in order in the first place?

I'm a big fan of this quali system as it provides plenty of action and interest from start to finish but I'm not claiming to have a better idea to provide a better race on a Sunday. I don't like some of the reverse grids and the forced gimmickery that gets banded about but there must be a better solution out there surely?

[PlatinumZealot]

I think he means the power changes during the race too, depending on your race position. So if you're coming first with 5 laps to go, the guy coming second is gonna have that 10 more KW in his KERS to pressure you. It could be interesting.. Closing stages of the race and the back markers have twice the boost on shot tyres..

[ringo]

Exaclty,
There is no worry on fridays and thursdays for the teams, it would be the ussual practice sessions to do as they like.
On Saturday qualifying is done with full KERS power for all teams. There is no bias set in at that point, the teams just run as fast as they can.

It is on race day however that the KERS systems are programed with a similar system to the adjustable wing, only based on track position not 1s behind or any arbitrary nonsense like that.
I am thinking about keeping the KERS equal for the first lap, then on the second, the KERS is restricted according to position; not how fast your car is.

If you're like Jenson, Massa or Mark and had a bad qualifying session and you're in the midfield with a top 3 car, there's no bias, you get your KERS advantage.

If you want to go on pole in brasil in a Williams and grab it by a second, you get the least KERS regardless. It doesn't matter how good or bad your car is. You get according to your position.
Even when you go into the pits from first and end up fifth you get more power, likewise if you spin out and lose ten places.

The system is dynamic an keeps every driver racing on the limit.
The mechanism to control the KERS output simply locks out some of the cells; the last car having full access to the batteries.

[Rob01]

Maybe we could get just one manufacturer to supply ever one the same car. Why has F1 become a series of everyone needs an opportunity? Give me the wide open rules that the F1 designation deserves. F1 should lose it's F1 designation. A 1.6 liter turbo. So simple a cave man could make the necessary power.

[nipo]

If we want to produce some more excitement we can copy the idea from the Winter Olympics event where cross country skiing is married with shooting rifles (I don't know what that sport is called).

Like we can have the driver get out of the car and change his own tires. Or even really shoot a rifle for God's sake!



OK, enough joking. The first improvement on KERS I would think of is not in handing different power limits to different people. It is actually the freedom of using the boosts. Instead of limiting boosts per lap, the quota should be for the whole race. Drivers and race teams can then make their bets - will they want to spread the usage out to minimize average lap time, or will they go for more opportunistic strategies to bet on cutting out some really quick laps when the opposition is pitting / something happens on track?

As for your proposal, I would firstly raise the question whether the little bit of difference in KERS power will result in observable improvement in the racing. We've seen in 2009 that everybody tends to use KERS at the same spots and if we are talking about two cars fitted with KERS that differ by only a small percentage of power, I doubt if we can see any effect at all on track. To me, it is more like the cars at the back have progressively more number of boosts per race. This should give a clearer advantage, as well as being easier to administer than setting different KERS power limits.

Secondly I think handing out gifts/penalties based on qualifying result is just not the appropriate thing to do, IMHO. I think they should be given according to the current standings / previous race results. I don't think teams will have that much foresight as to plan scoring less at one point to be in a better position in the future.

Having said all that, I do agree tweaking the boost factor is much easier than attempts like adjustable wings. On a side note it brings me back to the idea of weight penalties for previous race podium finishers / standing leaders. A combination of these might actually produce something good for TV.

Oh, and of course, if your/my plan is to really work, KERS has to be made compulsory, which, if I'm not mistaken, is not the case for 2011.

[myurr]

It's the least artificial of the solutions to make the racing exciting.

Eh? It's 100% artificial, as bad in that regard as all the other artificial ideas. It's the same as giving cars balast the higher up the grid they qualify.

The least artificial ways to make the racing exciting would be to make sure that the physical designs of the cars allows for close racing, and to try and make the characteristics of the cars mean that the best qualifying car doesn't necessarily have the best race pace (as they're trying to do by banning refuelling to change the balance of the cars, somewhat cancelled out last year by the adjustable front wing). Qualifying then becomes a compromise between track position and race pace with the opportunity to try differing strategies in order to maximise your chances.

[CMSMJ1]

If the cars are not fast enough then the teams need to work harder. Stop farting about with trying to change the bottom line - the people that work hardest and smartest will be fastest.

You are pulling the rug out from under them and making it into a benefit society.

[Jersey Tom]

Gimmick. No thanks.

[gridwalker]

And then come the race weekend teams have 4 hours of track time to get the best from their car, and then quali to sort them into order from quickest to slowest. How can we possible expect dramatic overtaking and that kind of thing when we've spent all Friday and Saturday making sure they are in order in the first place?

+1

All of these ideas for spicing up the racing ignores one thing : the cars have been tuned over a series of days to line up in pace order, then are given 2 hours to try and change the order ... how can we give the drivers a better chance of doing this?

The simplest way of shaking up the order is to remove the Parc Ferme rule from between Quali and the race : this way, mechanics could rectify setup errors made during the qualifying sessions and experiment with setups that may prove advantageous. Without a sunday warmup session, any changes that are made will essentially be blind, which would introduce a natural "lottery" factor based upon the best judgement of the pit crew.

I believe that this would be a much simpler and more cost effective way of spicing up the racing than introducing complex regulatory mechanisms to KERS : IMHO, all teams should be given equal opportunities to perform, irrespective of their position on track. The movable rear wing was artificial enough (as the leading car will never be given that advantage) but adjusting that advantage in increments all the way down the grid is antithetical to everything that F1 is supposed to be.

This goes without saying that reducing functioning parts of the KERS system to mere ballast (dependent upon your position) runs completely contrary to the pro-efficiency stance that seems to be so important to the FIA these days.

Why introduce an electronic handicap system when we could improve matters by simply freeing up the spannermen to do what they do best?

Unfortunately, removing Parc Ferme isn't likely to happen, considering that a curfew has now been imposed for 2011. I'd rather see a little more human drama unfolding over the race weekend, rather than relying SOLELY upon technology to make the difference.