2018 Canadian Grand Prix, Montreal June 8-10

[carisi2k]

The front wing and the lower rear wing are the issues. I think the new front wing regs in moving the wake over the tyre instead of around it is a good start. The barge boards are the next thing that needs to go and raising the rear wing to 2009 to 2016 era level while thinning the wing cord and retaining the width should also help.

[carisi2k]

If Red Bull had pushed Ferrari and Mercedes by changing to the ultras instead of the supers I think canada could have been a more exciting race. Especially since pit time in canada isn't as bad as other tracks and a 2 stopper should surely have been possible.

[Fulcrum]

Which option is the best compromise between safety and cost?

- Refuelling.
- Increasing pit lane speed limits.
- Pit lane entry/exits that short-circuit the circuits (where possible).

[makecry]

If Red Bull had pushed Ferrari and Mercedes by changing to the ultras instead of the supers I think canada could have been a more exciting race. Especially since pit time in canada isn't as bad as other tracks and a 2 stopper should surely have been possible.

Impossible to overtake. 2 stopper would be useless as a result . If they thought it would be better, they would have done it., they have way more information at their disposal than you or me.

[f1316]

The front wing and the lower rear wing are the issues. I think the new front wing regs in moving the wake over the tyre instead of around it is a good start. The barge boards are the next thing that needs to go and raising the rear wing to 2009 to 2016 era level while thinning the wing cord and retaining the width should also help.

So what you’re saying is basically do exactly what they did in 2009?

The consensus of opinion was that this did not improve overtaking to any meaningful degree - if they could run closer, they still weren’t close enough to make an overtake - and it wasn’t until the introduction of DRS and, moreover, the high-degradation Pirelli tyres in 2011 that overtaking improved.

Make no mistake: if you introduced those 2011-2013 tyres on these cars, overtaking would skyrocket; but then we’d all be moaning about tyre lotteries and drivers having to race to (very slow) deltas to make the tyres last.

The purpose of 2017 regs was to have fast cars, that looked good and for Pirelli to make tyres which meant they could push throughout the race. Yes, it’s even harder to follow, but the answer is not to revert to what we’ve already tried and which was largely decried as false.

I’ll say it again: making tyres with the intention that they degrade - whilst also contradictory to the whole purpose of tyre production - was never a consideration until they removed refuelling in 2010; there followed a season with very hard Bridgestones, meaning very few pit stops, and the typical F1 knee jerk reaction was to get some tyres designed to ‘spice up the show’ (ironically, the blueprint was the 2010 Canadian GP where the tyres degraded more than expected).

But this ceases to be required - and tyres cease to dominate the conversation - if refuelling is allowed; despite all the fan surveys always asking for its reintroduction, the rule makers seem to know better about what fans actually want..

[Big Mangalhit]

...These days literally every strategy is a mirror copy of the other...

The teams have the computational power to calculate everything, and hence they all converge on the same strategy.

Also, the teams have the ability to build cars that are very reliable. How often do we see an engine blow up? It hardly happens anymore.

Engines are rare but turbo's, mgu-k's, batteries, electronics and gearbox's are still causing issues. Maybe it is time for the FIA to start taking computers away from the teams instead of reducing the amount of engines used in a year.

This and maybe limit FP so they don't gather as much data could maybe help a lot. Maybe change the FP for a sprint race with grid order of the reverse championship and less points given

[TwanV]

Was overtaking really a problem here? The way I see it the cars were in their position according to pace. Naturally gaps open up and nothing happens but that can occur with any set of cars or rules.

EDIT: except for lap 15-30, that was an awful fuel saving bonanza

[TwanV]

The teams have the computational power to calculate everything, and hence they all converge on the same strategy.

Also, the teams have the ability to build cars that are very reliable. How often do we see an engine blow up? It hardly happens anymore.

Engines are rare but turbo's, mgu-k's, batteries, electronics and gearbox's are still causing issues. Maybe it is time for the FIA to start taking computers away from the teams instead of reducing the amount of engines used in a year.

This and maybe limit FP so they don't gather as much data could maybe help a lot. Maybe change the FP for a sprint race with grid order of the reverse championship and less points given

You think that'll work? to stop allowing teams to use laptops? not a lot of computer power is required to find out the best strategy; you can do it yourself in excel if you have the data. The high tide of strategy (because overtaking was as hard/harder as it is now) was in the Schumacher years at Ferrari and those races were boring as hell 90% of the time. Williams in those days thought it "not-done" to win on strategy instead of raw pace.. so Ferrari won a lot of races. That's not happening anymore in this day and age, everybody's good at strategy meaning we're back to raw pace again.

Also what's the point of cars breaking down? The only way to get "exciting" races is to make sure that the faster guys are not in front of the slower guys. I prefer old-school F1 myself, it's terribly boring sometimes but at least it means something if a slow car wins, not all this artificial stuff.

and that magical points tally: 10-6-4-3-2-1-nothing.

ok, done with being sentimental

[Big Mangalhit]

Engines are rare but turbo's, mgu-k's, batteries, electronics and gearbox's are still causing issues. Maybe it is time for the FIA to start taking computers away from the teams instead of reducing the amount of engines used in a year.

This and maybe limit FP so they don't gather as much data could maybe help a lot. Maybe change the FP for a sprint race with grid order of the reverse championship and less points given

You think that'll work? to stop allowing teams to use laptops? not a lot of computer power is required to find out the best strategy; you can do it yourself in excel if you have the data. The high tide of strategy (because overtaking was as hard/harder as it is now) was in the Schumacher years at Ferrari and those races were boring as hell 90% of the time.
Also what's the point of cars breaking down? The only way to get "exciting" races is to make sure that the faster guys are not in front of the slower guys. I prefer old-school F1 myself, it's terribly boring sometimes but at least it means something if a slow car wins, not all this artificial stuff.

Yes that is what I meant no more laptops, only macbooks at best.

I think a lot of computer power is used to know the best strategy. But don't be naive, strategy is not only about when to stop or 1 vs 2 stops. It's very complex things like which lap time should you aim to be the faster over a stint, or if the car behind is catching up you let him caught up a bit by using less battery and have it completely full when he is on your rear and use the full beans to defend after you leave the corner where OT is more likely to happen whilst leaving him with dirty air. You think they use an old asus to compute all this?

And yeah I guess limiting computer power is tough to do that is way it is probably easy to limit data gathering because I think that is way everything is so optimised nowadays, they use tyres on FP simulations and then know very well what they have to lap each lap of each stint to do the perfect strategy. Their models are so good they can even do that in low power modes and have good correlation to the race. I think we generally have better racing when it rains on FP and teams are a bit starved of data which adds a degree of unpredictability on the grid.

[TwanV]

I disagree. Do you think that they use anything other than Monte-Carlo simulations? Maybe a least-squares algorithm somewhere.. but they're not doing CFD or anything that requires a big set of nodes.

[Sierra117]

Refuelling, tyres, all these factors are eventually worked around and it's back to a procession. In my view, the only real way to get more overtakes is to remove artificial intelligence from the actual racing and introducing more human elements. For instance, remove the throttle mapping element so that it's purely the driver's skill, timing and instinct that determines the pace of the car instead of software figuring out when best to apply energy at what turn of which track. Computers have no emotions and emotions are what bring unpredictability to human behaviour and influence their choices. Drivers feeling the track and fully controlling the car. As long as the driver is in control of when and where to apply any extra power instead of a computer, then any amount of extra features you throw at them will not hamper competition in any significant way.

[zac510]

NASCAR has limits on data logging (well, it did a couple of years ago, last time I was following it). There are still dominant cars and drivers. I guess they just move to more vehicle in the loop simulators.

[tranquility2k4]

To me putting aside the inherent issues with the aerodynamics of the current generation of cars that do not lend themselves to racing, the biggest issue we have this year is yet again the Pirelli tyres 'heat sensitivity'. I really enjoyed the racing throughout last year and even though overtaking had been reduced, it was noted that drivers really had to earn their overtakes and when one was pulled off it was more spectacular. It was a little bit more like how it was before DRS back in the 2000s.

The other obvious factor was that drivers seemed on the limit for most of the race - I remember Spain as an example where Lewis and Seb were pushing each other to the limit, to the point where Lewis was out of breath on the radio. This year the tyres are much more sensitive - they do not degrade very much, but they overheat (or underheat). It was fundamentally agreed going into 2017 that Pirelli would stop making tyres that were so sensitive to overheating because it was causing drivers to go deliver pedestrian lap times in the race to keep them 'in the window' and also because drivers complained they could not race because their tyres would overheat too easily. This year all of that has been lost - we're not seeing as much racing for one because the tyres are not lending themselves to it, and at most races we are seeing drivers lapping off the pace. All Pirelli need to do is make tyres that degrade in a normal way, so there's no benefit to going slow, they will just degrade per lap largely speaking. But the whole heat management thing just means drivers can usually drive off the pace to stop degradation and as such everyone drives to the most favourable pit strategy and it's so predictable. I really do not understand why they've had to go back on what they came up with last year - they've just undone all the good work and gone back to these pathetic heat sensitive pieces of rubber. I honestly have doubts as to whether they can actually produce tyres that have standard deg or wear without the heat issues. It just seems that fundamentally the Pirelli tyres have always caused everyone a headache with their heat management needy nature.

[F1Krof]

It seems like we're all forgetting that two years ago Overtaking was not rarity, rather it was a Norm. But yeah, hey how do we stop Mercedes? Let's f...ing change the entire rules! Yes that would do it. --->NOW WE HAVE THIS. Enjoy it.

[Bill_Kar]

If it is true that a bird was caught in LH's brake ducts in Q, I must say I'm sorry for the name-calling on him. It may had contributed big time in his lock ups.