A great F1 passing study (must read!)

[mrluke]

Why are you attributing the overtaking difficulties to dirty air? I have not heard a driver mention this as a problem since the new aero regs in 2009.

I think this is fairly well established, what might ring a bell is all of the talk of drivers tyres wearing out quicker when they are following another car closely. If there was no aerodynamic impact from the car in front then this wouldn't be the case.

[Tim.Wright]

Its not "well established" it's merely repeated on internet forums ad nauseum.

Drivers following each other will eat their tyres because battling for position requires more energy from the tyres due to the following driver being more aggressive on the brakes and throttle than he would on a normal lap to try and overtake. The leading driver does the same to try and defend. Effectively they are trading track position in for overall laptime and tyre life because of their more aggressive movements.

I'm not saying that there is no effect from aero on a following car. There will be of course, but its wrong to say 'conclusively' that it is responsible for all the difficulties of overtaking.

Additionally, given the explosion in overtaking we have seen since 2009 you are pushing a solution to a problem that doesn't even exist.

[marcush.]

in a few words -there are guys who have racecraft and some who bury the nose of their car in the back of the opponents gearbox.
Ever tried to overtake on a road when you closely follow the car to be overtaken ? It´s a dodgy move at best even if you have a powerful car -you simply have no excess power for acceleration and build speed advantage.

Some guys racing seem to ignore physics and complain .but in reality you need to prepare a overtake ing move long before it takes place...you will always see the same guys making it happen without making contact.
Others can only wrestle their way by an opponent playing chicken at best...

Today we have too much reliabilty and too evenly matched cars not provoking mistakes (automated shifting anyone?) Monaco without missed shifts was not heardoff before John Barnards semi automatic shifting .....

A wing flap more or less will not reinvent racecraft.
BTW Hockenheim in the good ol days was notorious for processional races ....I remember 1 grandprix ,maybe 1978 with not even one overtaking the hole race....boring nothing else..

[Andres125sx]

What you are missing is a brake system is (almost) always more powerful than the tyres.

Have you ever driven a car where it was impossible to lock up the brakes? Do you think this is an acceptable solution safety wise?

They would be able to lock up the brakes.... depending on the speed.

Right now I don´t know for sure as it will depend on the aero config and track, but I think first instant they hit the brakes at full speed they can´t lock up the brakes either, and as they slow down and downforce decrease, brake pedal must be released to avoid the lock up

But even if they can lock up the brakes right now at top speed, if brakes must last for a whole seasson the only difference is they could hit the brake completely at full speed, and then they´d have to release it as they slow down to avoid the lock up

Don´t see any problem, and much less safety wise

[mrluke]

Its not "well established" it's merely repeated on internet forums ad nauseum.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0oahSrUMOW4

0:45, Mr Ross Brawn.

[Andres125sx]

Drivers following each other will eat their tyres because battling for position requires more energy from the tyres due to the following driver being more aggressive on the brakes and throttle than he would on a normal lap to try and overtake. The leading driver does the same to try and defend. Effectively they are trading track position in for overall laptime and tyre life because of their more aggressive movements.

If that would be the case, then they could keep close to the car in front and simply wait for a mistake. But they don´t, they need to leave a gap of around 2 seconds to do not destroy the tires, rejecting the option to attack if the driver in front make a mistake

The only reason to reject that chance is dirty air

I'm not saying that there is no effect from aero on a following car. There will be of course, but its wrong to say 'conclusively' that it is responsible for all the difficulties of overtaking.

I think nobody said that, there are more reasons, but this is the main one so if you want to increase the number of overtakings this is the aspect to improve first and what FIA is missing continuously implementing patches like DRS and ignoring the root of the problem

Additionally, given the explosion in overtaking we have seen since 2009 you are pushing a solution to a problem that doesn't even exist.

Problem is now when I see an overtaking I don´t think "hey, what a great driver, nice overtaking". Now first I think is "it was DRS, nothing special", or "what tires does he have", "how many laps do those tires have compared to the other driver". And only after that, if everything was more or less equal and no DRS was used, then I can think it was a great move by the driver

But unfortunately, these are minority, almost all of them are related to DRS or different tire strategy. This is what I call artificial overtakings. Yes we see a lot since 2009, but now overtaking is greatly devaluated, it used to be the most exciting maneouver you could see, any overtaking you saw in past days made you jump from your seat, while now you know there´s 90% probabilities the driver overtaking has very little merit if any

[Andres125sx]

Its not "well established" it's merely repeated on internet forums ad nauseum.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0oahSrUMOW4

0:45, Mr Ross Brawn.

Thanks for posting, it´s obvious if you see the races as they always try to overtake and if they can´t, then move back leaving a gap of around 2 seconds to avoid that dirt air, and when next pit-stop is close, they get closer again

But I´m sure most people will take it more seriously if it´s Mr. Brawn who say it, don´t know the reason...

[mrluke]

For the record I have little problem with the current overtaking. Sure on occasion it can appear a bit easy but we have seen some spectacular moves since 2009, many of which only occurred due to the soft tires or the DRS closing the gap on the previous straight.

[bhall II]

...we have seen some spectacular moves since 2009, many of which only occurred due to the soft tires or the DRS closing the gap on the previous straight.

I think we've seen far more numerous instances of contrived overtaking, like Raikkonen losing 10 positions over the course of two laps, because his Pirellotteri tires fell off the notorious cliff at the 2012 Chinese Grand Prix. And I've lost count of the number of times superb defensive driving has been overcome by a driver simply pressing a button. I hate that it's all become so ordinary.

Personally, I don't understand the fascination with overtaking, much less blaming recent aerodynamic advances for the lack of it. I chose three random races from the '60s, '70s, and '80s, and not one of them includes the prolific overtaking people seem to remember. I think it's been romanticized into something it never really was.







Formula One is (or was) about completing a grand prix as quickly as possible; that's it. If that includes plenty of overtaking, wonderful. If not, that's cool, too. The spectacle is (or was) the engineering, the ideas, the speed, the precision, and, heaven forbid, a little danger.

[Richard]

Formula One is (or was) about completing a grand prix as quickly as possible; that's it. If that includes plenty of overtaking, wonderful. If not, that's cool, too. The spectacle is (or was) the engineering, the ideas, the speed, the precision, and, heaven forbid, a little danger.

Exactly, although its undeniable that the number of overtakes did decline from 40 per race down to 10 per race before DRS. Now DRS and less durable tyres has pushed it back to 40 to 50 per race.

Also until 2000 it was common for more than half the cars to fail to finish a GP. A lot of drama came from reliability and mistakes. I think we're missing that nowadays and saccharine DRS is no substitute.

[Andres125sx]

...we have seen some spectacular moves since 2009, many of which only occurred due to the soft tires or the DRS closing the gap on the previous straight.

I think we've seen far more numerous instances of contrived overtaking, like Raikkonen losing 10 positions over the course of two laps, because his Pirellotteri tires fell off the notorious cliff at the 2012 Chinese Grand Prix. And I've lost count of the number of times superb defensive driving has been overcome by a driver simply pressing a button. I hate that it's all become so ordinary.

Personally, I don't understand the fascination with overtaking, much less blaming recent aerodynamic advances for the lack of it. I chose three random races from the '60s, '70s, and '80s, and not one of them includes the prolific overtaking people seem to remember. I think it's been romanticized into something it never really was.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=itfBTH6uMDQ

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7g6fv0X-LDQ

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=loDNAXJBwPo

Formula One is (or was) about completing a grand prix as quickly as possible; that's it. If that includes plenty of overtaking, wonderful. If not, that's cool, too. The spectacle is (or was) the engineering, the ideas, the speed, the precision, and, heaven forbid, a little danger.

Thanks for posting those wonderful videos! =D>

I´ve only watched ´75 Silverstone GP and sincerely, don´t get what you´re trying to say, as I´ve seen a good number of overtakings, not tones of them, but a good number...

Without DRS
Without different strategies
All of them with same hard tires

It´s not romanticing, it´s competitiveness. I don´t mind if there´re few ovetakings if real. Today there´re two options, the faster driver can overtake because of different strategies wich makes him at lest 2 seconds faster, or he cannot overtake because they´re on same strategy and it doesn´t matter if he´s 1 second faster, because he cannot overtake.

That´s not competitiveness, and that´s not what I´ve seen on that nice video you posted (will watch the other two when I can). Then a faster driver was able to overtake, and he didn´t need to be 2 seconds faster, if he was 1 second faster he did the overtaking really easy. That´s the difference.

PS: I don´t blame recent aerodynamics advances, I blame FIA restrictions that are supposed to keep F1 funny and competitive, but they fail to do so and trying to compensate they´re constantly introducing artificial solutions like DRS or crappy tires that suffer tons of wear because they are designed for that

[Richard]

I´ve only watched ´75 Silverstone GP and sincerely, don´t get what you´re trying to say, as I´ve seen a good number of overtakings, not tones of them, but a good number...

Without DRS
Without different strategies
All of them with same hard tires

You obviously missed the caption that says "as the circuit dried again, those drivers who had switched to wet weather tyres began to struggle"

Strategy has always been a huge part of F1, and many overtakes were due to cars with different fuel loads and newer/older tyres. Without that they'd qualify in order and process to the flag in order with no overtaking - which is why refuelling was reintroduced to counter everlasting Bridgstone tyres.

[Andres125sx]

No I didn´t miss anything..... Or they used wet tyres before raining?

I´ve seen some overtaking before the rain, I´ve seen many cars following each other really close, I´ve seen some good battles at the second group, and all of that was before raining


PS. Strategy is fine, problem is when overtaking must rely on different strategies because they´re not posible if same strategy. On this video, before the rain, they all were at same strategy with same hard tires, and even so there was some overtakings and some good battles

[GitanesBlondes]

Formula One is (or was) about completing a grand prix as quickly as possible; that's it. If that includes plenty of overtaking, wonderful. If not, that's cool, too. The spectacle is (or was) the engineering, the ideas, the speed, the precision, and, heaven forbid, a little danger.

Exactly, although its undeniable that the number of overtakes did decline from 40 per race down to 10 per race before DRS. Now DRS and less durable tyres has pushed it back to 40 to 50 per race.

Also until 2000 it was common for more than half the cars to fail to finish a GP. A lot of drama came from reliability and mistakes. I think we're missing that nowadays and saccharine DRS is no substitute.

Now all of the drama comes from the off-track rumor mill.

There was never this much drama years ago because the focus of the product was the on-track racing.

F1 has nothing unique left to offer. They just try and fix problems with quick bandaid fixes like DRS and low grip/low life tires.

Anyone who watched the races for overtaking must have been pretty bored years ago. As bhall mentions, it was never about overtaking, it was about who could finish the race in the least amount of time possible. Strategy played into it, but the attraction was the cars on track and could be the drivers as well.

Instead of focusing on what they did well, which was provide a unique open-wheel series that was so different from any other race series on the planet, they opted to focus on the casual fan, instead of the core fans who were there through it all. That's why there was this huge outcry over needing overtaking; the core fans I knew were never crying for this need to have more overtaking. It came from the casual fans who flip on a race to watch the first few laps, get bored, then come back for the final 5 laps.

[Andres125sx]

Instead of focusing on what they did well, which was provide a unique open-wheel series that was so different from any other race series on the planet, they opted to focus on the casual fan, instead of the core fans who were there through it all. That's why there was this huge outcry over needing overtaking; the core fans I knew were never crying for this need to have more overtaking. It came from the casual fans who flip on a race to watch the first few laps, get bored, then come back for the final 5 laps.

And they failed on that too. Now casual fans see it as a competition where there´s no competition because it´s always the same team winning.

That´s the reason TV audiences are falling down. And F1 is racing on new countries like Rusia, India, Singapur, Abu Dabhi.... so numbers should increase, but they decrease.

So if they were trying to atract casual fans, they´re failing spectacularly