Sebastian Vettel has taken an easy and utterly dominant victory at the Indian GP to extend his lead further in the championship. Fernando Alonso however progressed from 5th on the grid to 2nd at the finish to keep his title hopes alive. Mark Webber finished third, just ahead of Lewis Hamilton.
Any charge up the field is unlikely tbh. How many overtakes did we see last year? I remember 1 or 2 by the Toro Rossos, but that was it. The sand off-line is terriblegodlameroso wrote:Two DRS zones for this years race, I imagine it will be on the main and back straights. So even if Vettel takes a 5 place grid penalty for a gearbox change he can still charge up the field.
Is Vettel taking a penalty already? Or is he due a gearbox change?godlameroso wrote:Two DRS zones for this years race, I imagine it will be on the main and back straights. So even if Vettel takes a 5 place grid penalty for a gearbox change he can still charge up the field.
There has been no announcement of any such penalty. I think godlameroso was just talking in a what-if fashionJackuar wrote:Is Vettel taking a penalty already? Or is he due a gearbox change?godlameroso wrote:Two DRS zones for this years race, I imagine it will be on the main and back straights. So even if Vettel takes a 5 place grid penalty for a gearbox change he can still charge up the field.
I think Tilke gets a bad rap because most of his tracks were built in an era that made it incredibly hard to pass on any track. People were frustrated that even with a clean sheet to work with and presumably tasked with designing a track to facilitate passing, this didn't happen (although they weren't any worse than most existing tracks). First impressions have apparently lasted, despite the numbers and quality racing of recent years on his tracks.Earnard Beccelstone wrote: I think the Tilke tracks are trying to be too many things to too many people.
zztopless wrote:I think Tilke gets a bad rap because most of his tracks were built in an era that made it incredibly hard to pass on any track. People were frustrated that even with a clean sheet to work with and presumably tasked with designing a track to facilitate passing, this didn't happen (although they weren't any worse than most existing tracks). First impressions have apparently lasted, despite the numbers and quality racing of recent years on his tracks.Earnard Beccelstone wrote: I think the Tilke tracks are trying to be too many things to too many people.
Why his tracks (like most) didn't produce the desired results in this period:
a) From the mid 90s up until 2009, the cars were the worst they had ever been in terms of being able to run close to the car in front (despite the incremental regulation changes during this period aimed at addressing this such as the raised front wings in 2005). This is backed up by the low average overtakes per GP during this period.
b) The ability for teams to use fuel strategies meant that if a faster car was stuck behind a slower car, the safest way to overtake was to run the next stint longer and pump in faster laps once the car(s) in front pitted. It also meant that unlike today, where to make the undercut work a driver often has to pass slower cars when he is dropped back into the pack, the driver trying to pass through the stops was running in clean air, while the slower car was generally dropped around cars that were often running faster anyway, due to being lighter (having not stopped).
c) The Bridgestone tyres in 2010 were too conservative to get the most out of the new non-refuellying formula. Even still, the average amount of overtaking moves per race doubled from 14 to 28 from 2009 to 2010, which then increased to 60 in 2011 with the introduction of DRS and Pirelli tyres and then down slightly to 53 for this year to date.
The numbers since the 2010 and 2011 changes:
Non-Tilke tracks averaged 42.7 overtaking moves per race over 2010 and 2011, Tilke tracks averaged 48.14 and Tilke tracks excluding Valencia and Abu Dhabi (where he was constrained by stakeholder desires for street tracks) averaged 51.4 over the same period. For 2010 it was 38.6[31.6] vs 27.2 in favour of Tilke, in 2011 it was 68.5[64.8] vs 58.3, figures in brackets are the Tilke averages including Abu Dhabi and Valencia.
Malaysia, China, Turkey and Korea have all shown they can produce great racing in the last few years, while also having plenty of high speed stuff to show off what an F1 car can do. India has one of the best sequences of corners in F1 today, in my opinion. The run from T5 - T15 is all medium to high speed corners (150kph+) and the crazy direction changes actually make the cars look fast on tv. It should produce more overtaking this year with the steps being taken to clean up the dust. Austin looks amazing too with the potential to allow plenty of wheel to wheel stuff. Even Bahrain produced some great action this year and is mostly let down by its (lack of) natural characteristics (elevation change and landscape).
I guess I just get a bit frustrated with people jumping on the Tilke-bashing bandwagon based largely on unchecked assumptions. Aside from the two street circuits (which shouldn't count for obvious reasons), his tracks produce more overtaking opportunities on average (both pre and post DRS & Pirelli) compared to the tracks he didn't design. He also manages to incorporate medium and high-speed corners, even with the strict FIA safety standards. Of course he gets criticized by many for the amount of run-off required to incorporate such elements.
One more thing that doesn't get commented on or noticed much either in the online fan community or by the TV presenters is the fact that today's F1 cars can follow closer to car in front, as a result of the 2009 aero changes. Having watched a few old raced from 2004 and 2007 over the last week, it really is noticeable just how much closer they can now follow and that they can stay close for longer. This was the primary purpose of the 2009 regulation changes and doesn't seem to get it's share of the credit for the better racing we see today.
Overtaking stats are from: http://cliptheapex.com/community/overtaking
raymondu999 wrote:and even the hairpins tighten (they are wider on entry than on exit)
No, they actually make it slightly faster... The hairpins are less "tightenning" than "extremely open entry".SamH123 wrote:Do tightening hairpins make this circuit one of the slower ones?
It might not play to Ferrari's strengths if their upgrades don't work...
ahh ok I see. this track looks similar to S. Korea on balance? Maybe slightly fewer fast cornersbeelsebob wrote:No, they actually make it slightly faster... The hairpins are less "tightenning" than "extremely open entry".SamH123 wrote:Do tightening hairpins make this circuit one of the slower ones?
It might not play to Ferrari's strengths if their upgrades don't work...
