Post here all non technical related topics about Formula One. This includes race results, discussions, testing analysis etc. TV coverage and other personal questions should be in Off topic chat.
it's a very pure, organic system with nothing artificial or gimmicky about it. The guy with the best speed and clean passing winzzz
It's a complete garbage system as far as I'm concerned. Because the whole premise of it is if you're doing good we're going to penalize you.
Another way to look at it is if you’re doing well then you get more opportunities to show how good, and deserving, you are. It would be a relatively level playing field.
The main problem not currently being addressed, in the way the aero is, is the number of tracks where overtaking is extremely difficult now and probably won’t be helped by the new regs. Perhaps the time trial solution I suggested above would help. Instead of passing, a driver would need to get within say, 0.5 seconds at some defined points on the track and that would count as a pass. Or maybe the worst tracks for overtaking stay with the current system.
Fortune favours the prepared; she has no favourites and takes no sides.
Truth is confirmed by inspection and delay; falsehood by haste and uncertainty : Tacitus
For once I agree with the guys on SKY and Jenson Button.
There is a whole lot of grousing about something we haven't yet seen.
It is an experiment. Why not wait and see?
To achieve anything, you must be prepared to dabble on the boundary of disaster.”
Sir Stirling Moss
If people want to see close racing with the best drivers rising to the top, F1 needs to become a single make series. That way the car is taken out of the equation, and the car can be designed for close racing without the risk of it being altered by the teams.
If you are more fortunate than others, build a larger table not a taller fence.
If people want to see close racing with the best drivers rising to the top, F1 needs to become a single make series. That way the car is taken out of the equation, and the car can be designed for close racing without the risk of it being altered by the teams.
lol this has nothing to do with it! Nobody wants another spec series. in fact yet another benefit of the Saturday grid race is teams will have to design their cars to follow closely
as it is, watch tomorrow and let's see if Charles clears off into the distance and how exciting that is. Bearing in mind we already know he's the fastest on a clear lap, before the 'race'. We're depending on the softs not lasting or rain to have a contest for first at all. This is because they are starting in approximately SPEED ORDER!!!
i'm not sure how it can work doing it for only 2-3 races, as a trial next year, I think it needs to be over a season to even things out, but perhaps they have a plan for how it won't upset the championships
Maybe they're doing it for the first 2-3 races so that the season finale is effectively moved back towards the last race.
yes i suppose they could do that, and start with both top 3 teams' cars at the back, this year's wcc order or something. 3 races would let them share it out among them
Re: the VSC thing. S'funny how it put the guy in the fastest car behind slower cars which should have resulted in exciting overtaking / racing. But it didn't. People then annoyed because the VSC "robbed" a driver of a win. And yet people want to have races effectively decided by just this type of fast-behind-slow situation.
I brought this from the Sochi race thread.
There was racing, with Leclerc edging up to Bottas but not quite having enough to pass. This was partly because he couldn’t sustain the attack because of overheating in Bottas’ wake. If having to follow were the norm the teams would not set up their cars undercooled and the attack would have persisted. And in 2021 the cars should be able to follow closer increasing Leclerc’s opportunities. And if this were earlier in a reverse grid race with Bottas catching other cars so having to plan both attack and defence so much the better.
Sounds interesting to me.
Fortune favours the prepared; she has no favourites and takes no sides.
Truth is confirmed by inspection and delay; falsehood by haste and uncertainty : Tacitus
Re: the VSC thing. S'funny how it put the guy in the fastest car behind slower cars which should have resulted in exciting overtaking / racing. But it didn't. People then annoyed because the VSC "robbed" a driver of a win. And yet people want to have races effectively decided by just this type of fast-behind-slow situation.
I brought this from the Sochi race thread.
There was racing, with Leclerc edging up to Bottas but not quite having enough to pass. This was partly because he couldn’t sustain the attack because of overheating in Bottas’ wake. If having to follow were the norm the teams would not set up their cars undercooled and the attack would have persisted. And in 2021 the cars should be able to follow closer increasing Leclerc’s opportunities. And if this were earlier in a reverse grid race with Bottas catching other cars so having to plan both attack and defence so much the better.
Sounds interesting to me.
Exactly
The top qualifyers are given far too large of an advantage with the grid head start and clean air (and less spray in the rain). A reverse wdc position grid sprint race would only negate that huge advantage some.
Can anyone point out a drawback to my proposed idea other than "its a gimmick" or "their penalizing the faster cars"?
Switch fp3 to a reverse wdc position grid sprint race, around 40min+1 lap
Keep qually as it is
Combine the results of both to form the grid for the grand prix.
My only concerns are how to form the grid at the first race, and Monaco can not be included in any reverse grid as is wit 2020 cars.
Last edited by ENGINE TUNER on 01 Oct 2019, 18:30, edited 1 time in total.
I think it'll go either one of two ways in a sprint race. Either everyone will be so scared of crashing or damage and not finishing and ruining their grid position for the actual race that there will be virtually no defence put up by the 'slower' cars in front of the 'faster' cars and so they'll just breeze by to the front, or that they'll all be too cautious to take any risks in passing for fear of damage/being put out of the race and there won't be much movement.
Conversely, maybe everyone will be really aggressive in attacking or defending, and you'll end up with a tonne of incidents like Leclerc/Hamilton for the stewards to fail to sort out, or you'll have loads of crashes where someone like a Magnussen tries to defend their position too robustly or a Verstappen tries a move that'll never come off against someone who doesn't feel obliged to yield or take evasive action.
Why won't there just be a pile up at the first corner where the slowest cars are all in the way of the faster cars, where drivers can brake later and accelerate sooner? Stands to reason the faster cars will all get better starts and the field will be incredibly bunched for the first few corners, The advantage of the faster cars starting first is the field stretches out, thus hugely lessening the possibility of a mass pile up.
Also, there's no way there won't be situations where it's beneficial for an Alfa, for example, to let a Ferrari straight past but then robustly block a Red Bull or a Mercedes, or even 'accidentally' have a spot of contact. What do the FIA/Stewards do then, if teams use their junior teams to try and influence the results? There will 100% be situations where doing that will be advantageous. That opens up a whole can of worms. You can't punish Red Bull if for example a Toro Rosso collides with a Ferrari and Verstappen hugely and coincidentally benefits as a result.
There will be a new challenge for the designers, but this won't solve the problem of balancing out performance. The top six drivers will still be the top six drivers. There might be few more anomalies along the way but it won't change anything in the grand scheme of things. It won't change the gulf between Williams and Ferrari/Mercedes. It'll just take a few more races for the inevitable natural order to be established.
It'll cost the teams more. What do you do about components? Teams will undoubtedly need to manufacture and ship more parts around the world.
It won't sell that many more tickets. All the race is, is 1/2 of qualifying. Why would people make the effort to go see it when they wouldn't bother going to see FP3 and Qualifying as it stands anyway? All that happens is the same as now. It's just deciding the order of the cars for the main event. Nothing more. Nor will it create a spike in TV ratings. No-one who doesn't bother watching qualifying now will tune in, aside from the first one or two for novelty value. It'll just dilute the whole qualifying process. Now this won't decide pole by itself, and the traditional format won't either. Lower stakes means less interest.
If it's combined with traditional qualifying, then teams will quickly work out some sort of 'optimum' position to finish in the sprint race that isn't necessarily first. Winning won't be the be all and end all. If you know you can get pole in the existing format, why bust your balls and risk trying to get all the way to the front in this race when your aggregate of the two will be good enough if you finish 4th 5th or 6th. It won't turn out to be the thrilling spectacle that's being envisaged.
If you can't do it at every track, then why bother? It doesn't make the championship as a whole a level playing field if it isn't done everywhere. In fact, the very fact you can't says to me that it's not the ideal solution. Happy to see them try it out once as an experiment, but I absolutely don't think it should replace what we have now.
I hate to trot out 'if it ain't broke then don't fix it', but that's how I feel. You'll still just get the same net result at the end of the season and it won't really change anything at all. The best drivers in the best designed cars produced by the best funded teams will still win.
Can anyone point out a drawback to my proposed idea other than "its a gimmick" or "their penalizing the faster cars"?
Switch fp3 to a reverse wdc position grid sprint race, around 40mind +1 lap
Keep qually as it is
Combine the results of both to form the grid for the grand prix.
My only concerns are how to form the grid at the first race, and Monaco can not be included in any reverse grid as is wit 2020 cars.
How do you envisage the combining? My only doubt about this is the complexity, cos edit it doesn't take much complexity to cause a problem
yes the first race??? last year's wdc, hard to beat, especially after the first year when the system can kind of roll over
Monaco has to have sprinklers
Last edited by izzy on 01 Oct 2019, 20:27, edited 1 time in total.
Can anyone point out a drawback to my proposed idea other than "its a gimmick" or "their penalizing the faster cars"?
How about it will be damn dangerous.
You will have drivers in slower cars doing everything they can to hold back cars that are substantially faster, thus leading to a much higher chance of accidents. Not to mention the new 'let them race' FIA party line (yet more spectacle crap), and a black flag warning for each type of infringement, means defending drivers can use and get away with a lot of dirty maneuvers during the sprint race. This will also increase the chance of collisions.
Even if your driver of choose isn't directly involved in a collision they still might get taken out via a puncture or damage from debris, as the cars will be packed closely together for a lot longer.
The whole thing is a recipe for a demolition derby. The slow drivers at the front get a big reward (starting at the front in the actual race where points are rewarded) for keeping faster cars behind, and faster drivers in the back get a big penalty (having to start further back in the actual race) if they can't get past the slower cars quickly enough.
The entire issue will get even worse at tracks like Hungry and Singapore where their are only a few locations you can pass.
Can anyone point out a drawback to my proposed idea other than "its a gimmick" or "their penalizing the faster cars"?
How about it will be damn dangerous.
You will have drivers in slower cars doing everything they can to hold back cars that are substantially faster, thus leading to a much higher chance of accidents. Not to mention the new 'let them race' FIA party line (yet more spectacle crap), and a black flag warning for each type of infringement, means defending drivers can use and get away with a lot of dirty maneuvers during the sprint race. This will also increase the chance of collisions.
Even if your driver of choose isn't directly involved in a collision they still might get taken out via a puncture or damage from debris, as the cars will be packed closely together for a lot longer.
The whole thing is a recipe for a demolition derby. The slow drivers at the front get a big reward (starting at the front in the actual race where points are rewarded) for keeping faster cars behind, and faster drivers in the back get a big penalty (having to start further back in the actual race) if they can't get past the slower cars quickly enough.
The entire issue will get even worse at tracks like Hungry and Singapore where their are only a few locations you can pass.
Again, W series held a reverse grid race.... no big crashes. Are you claiming that the W series has a higher driver level or standard than F1? As Brundle says, the throttle works both ways. Yes, the car deltas in F1 are larger, but that should have no effect on them getting thru the first laps cleanly.
The rest can be countered with one word... professionalism. I agree that the "let them race/crash" is a nonsense philosophy, but I think reverse grids is something that will force the entire paddock to abandon this stupid philosophy.
Again, W series held a reverse grid race.... no big crashes.
First, It was a one-off non-championship race, so it means nothing. The drivers had no real reason to push or risk anything. The exact opposite will be the case if F1 uses it to set the grid in 2021. https://www.autosport.com/w/news/144904 ... er-decided
The second race of the weekend will run as an experiment as W Series seeks to confirm its full plans for its second season in 2020, with no championship points awarded.
Secondly, W series cars are substantially slower than f1 cars, so everything happens over a much longer period of time, thus giving drivers much more time to react.
For example they both ran at Hockenheim this year.
With the championships probably decided within the next 3 races, I think they should try out any reverse grid experiments this year in Abu Dhabi, but some on the midfield wcc positions may not have been decided by them.
