Why F1 requires a re-think

In many ways, the last two Grand Prix at China and Bahrain were great demonstrations of precisely what is wrong, in my view, with modern Formula One.

To the uninformed viewer, there was constant action up and down the field in both races. But, therein lies my biggest gripe – there was a lot of action, but not much of it actual racing.

At China, two principal elements served to ruin the spectacle – an option tyre that was only good for qualifying, and two DRS zones that reduced the art of overtaking to mere child’s play. It wasn’t so much a race at Shanghai as a scientific experiment in which the various tyre strategies of the 22-strong field simply played themselves out.

Thanks to DRS, there was no danger of Fernando Alonso getting stuck behind a slower car as the varying strategies overlapped, making the Spaniard’s victory virtually inevitable because of the Ferrari’s relative kindness on its tyres.

There’s nothing wrong with tyre management being an element of success in F1, and Ferrari, as well as Lotus, ought to reap the rewards for designing cars that can look after their rubber better than the opposition. But, imagine how much more thrilling the race would have been if Alonso had needed to overtake Lewis Hamilton, Sebastian Vettel and Jenson Button without the help of DRS.

Were that the case, despite Ferrari having the best package, Alonso would have needed to work hard to capitalise on his tyre ‘kindness’ advantage. Had he got stuck behind another car, it would have given his rivals a chance to close in. He would have been forced to dive up the inside at turn 6 or turn 14 and hope for the best, just like in the good old days.

What’s worse, with DRS, in many cases the car ahead wasn’t even attempting to defend, knowing that they weren’t competing with the car behind. Once Vettel pitted for the final time at China to equip his mandatory option tyres with five laps to go, race engineer Guillaume Rocquelin told the reigning champion he could now race, as if to say that, up to that point, he had not been racing.

Isn’t racing what these drivers are paid millions of dollars to do, though? What we saw at China may have looked like racing, but the vast majority of the overtaking was a simple case of strategies overlapping, with the car on fresher rubber much faster, and not drivers on the limit fighting tooth and nail for every place.

Bahrain was less of an extreme as far as the tyres were concerned, but, on a track where overtaking is already eminently possible, DRS resulted in a race that was virtually impossible to follow.

The problem was that, having just been passed, a slower car merely had to remain within a second of the car ahead for the following lap in order to be more or less assured of regaining the place along the start/finish straight.

Whilst this generated plenty of action, much of it had an aura of meaninglessness about it, much like the non-stop overtaking seen in series such as NASCAR. That isn’t to say that there wasn’t 'real' overtaking to be found at Bahrain, but that just made the effects of DRS all the more maddening.

Turns 4, 6 and 8 all saw considerable action throughout the race, whilst the first couple of laps proved – before DRS was activated – that it was more than possible to overtake at the first corner without the need for artificial overtaking aids. Alonso’s comeback through the field after losing his DRS underlined that even further.

I recently watched the 2006 Bahrain Grand Prix as part of Sky F1’s ‘Classic F1’ programming, and it was a cracker of a race despite the refuelling, relatively durable tyres and lack of overtaking aids that proponents of the Pirelli/DRS formula seem to abhor. It was a straight fight between Alonso and Michael Schumacher, and the result was in doubt until several laps from the chequered flag.

Both men were on the limit throughout, knowing that their tyres would allow them to be. And, at an overtaking-friendly track such as Bahrain, plenty of passes were made up and down the field in a manner which the likes of Juan Manuel Fangio, Jim Clark and Ayrton Senna would all instinctively recognise.

If Senna was still around today, I’m sure he would lament the demise of ‘real’ overtaking and the increasing trend of faster drivers to simply wait until the next DRS zone to make their move. I would rather see ten perfectly judged, edge-of-your-seat ‘pure’ passes in a race, like the ones in Bahrain ’06, than fifty made with the help of DRS.

If it was up to me, I would ban DRS in a heartbeat. When it comes down to it, it’s an artificial solution to the core problem of cars being unable to follow each other closely enough to overtake.

A far better solution would be to adjust the technical regulations with the intent of dramatically reducing the aerodynamic efficiency of F1 cars. This could be achieved through a narrower front wing, perhaps with a mandatory single plane, or a spec diffuser. Perhaps a ban on carbon brakes would also help to facilitate overtaking by extending the length of braking zones.  

That said, I would settle for a compromise whereby the number of uses of DRS was restricted, say, to ten or fifteen times in a race – much like IndyCar’s ‘push to pass’ system – and was also available as a defensive measure for the car ahead. That would certainly eliminate the ‘inevitability’ factor of overtaking in a DRS zone and make the device far more tactical.

Moving onto tyres, in an ideal world, I’d love nothing more than a return to a full-blown tyre war. Just like DRS, the idea of Pirelli creating a tyre deliberately designed to degrade over a race distance is another ‘sticking plaster’ solution to induce overtaking that would be rendered unnecessary if the powers that be took the issue of reducing aerodynamic reliance more seriously.

A tyre war would be beneficial to F1 for the same reason there would be uproar if we had identical chassis. Variety makes things interesting as different packages perform, er, differently on different circuits, in different conditions, and in different circumstances. There’s no reason why that logic shouldn’t apply to tyres as well – more variables means more unpredictability.

The effects on pit-stop strategy would be difficult to gauge, as the last time we had a tyre war without refuelling was way back in 1991. But, as long as numerous compounds were available, we’d theoretically see a variety of strategies in play ranging from perhaps no stops at all to two or three, depending on the circuit and other factors.

Sadly, the economic climate means it’s unlikely that tyre companies would be willing to plough the immense resources into the development and testing that a bona fide tyre war would require. But, even if we resign ourselves to the reality of a single tyre supplier for now, there are still some tweaks we could make to the regulations to reconcile Pirelli rubber with ‘real’ racing.

First, the rules need to be adjusted as to ensure that, on Saturdays, none of the Q3 runners opt to not set a competitive lap time in order to save tyres. The obvious solution to this, besides perhaps some kind of penalty for not doing so, would be to award each of the top ten qualifiers a fresh set of option tyres solely for the purpose of qualifying.

This would mean in turn that the Q3 drivers could then start on whichever tyres they saw fit, giving them a wider range of strategic choices rather than having to start on worn option tyres. So too would abolishing the rule that requires drivers to use both compounds in a race, as this prevents drivers plummeting down the order late in a race by being forced to use less-than-optimal rubber.

Undoubtedly, there's a balance to be struck between the sport and the 'show'. After all, the former can't occur without the millions of dollars that are generated by television deals and sponsorship. Nobody wants a return to the kind of racing we saw in the early 2000s, and admittedly the current rule-set does guard against processional racing at the very least.

However, degrading tyres and DRS in the majority of cases merely give the illusion of real racing, which, it could be argued, may be even worse than what we had before. The danger is that 'hardcore' fans become disillusioned and switch their attentions to other forms of motorsport, leaving only the notoriously fickle 'casual' fanbase which is liable to desert F1 in favour of other sports at any time.

There is no reason why F1 cannot appeal to the hardcore and casual fan alike, and the key to this is close, exciting, but most importantly real racing. That means a return to somewhat more durable tyres and the scrapping of DRS. And for that to work without leading to a dearth of on-track action, the FIA need to get tough on aerodynamics once and for all.

Bahrain Grand Prix 2013 - Report

Sebastian Vettel drove a faultless race to secure a second win of the season in an action-packed Bahrain Grand Prix. Wasting little time in picking off pole-sitter Nico Rosberg in the opening stages, Vettel soon built up a healthy margin over his closest rivals, managing his tyres whilst maintain a searing pace out front. Superior tyre preservation meanwhile enabled the Lotus pair of Kimi Raikkonen and Romain Grosjean to take the remaining podium positions.

With Ferrari and Lotus setting the pace during the weekend’s practice sessions, it came as a major surprise when Rosberg put his Mercedes on pole position in Q3 on Saturday, two tenths clear of Vettel who lined up alongside his compatriot on the front row.

The Ferraris of Fernando Alonso and Felipe Massa would line up third and fourth thanks to grid penalties for Lewis Hamilton – who was forced to change his gearbox after a tyre blowout in final practice – and Mark Webber, as a result of his collision with Jean-Eric Vergne last time out at China. This also meant the rapid Force Indias would lock out row three between them, Paul Di Resta ahead of Adrian Sutil.

At the start of the race, Rosberg made a clean enough getaway to hold the lead, with Alonso diving around the outside of Vettel at the first corner to take second. The Red Bull driver was however in no mood to settle for third place, wresting back the position mere corners later.

Rosberg was soon under pressure from Vettel, resisting the reigning champion's advances before capitulating mid-way round the third lap. Alonso was able to pass the Mercedes at the end of the lap with the help of DRS, and although Rosberg was temporarily able to re-gain second, he gave up the place once again at the start of lap five.

The race was shaping up to be a two-way battle between Vettel and Alonso before disaster struck for the latter. On the seventh lap, his DRS jammed open, prompting an early stop as the Ferrari mechanics closed the slot by hand. The following lap, the same thing happened once more, prompting another stop with the Spaniard unable to use the overtaking aid for the remainder of the race.

This promoted Di Resta to second, who had moved ahead of Massa at the start and passed the ailing Rosberg at the start of lap 6 with the help of DRS. The Scot took the lead when Vettel pitted at the end of lap 10, staying out until the end of lap 14 in order to try and get by with just two rather than three stops during the race.

Kimi Raikkonen, who had started eighth after another difficult qualifying session, was on a similar strategy to Di Resta, pitting from second two laps later having just lost the lead to a scorching Vettel. The two-stop strategy paid dividends for the Finn, who always looked likely to capture second even if he was unable to challenge a dominating Vettel.

Raikkonen gradually caught his fellow two-stopper Di Resta after their respective first stops, passing the Force India driver on lap 34 before diving into the pits for the final time at the end of the lap. Di Resta followed suit two laps later, but was then forced to switch his focus to defending third position from the second Lotus of Romain Grosjean.

The Franco-Swiss had quietly made his way up the order from a lowly grid slot of eleventh, thanks in part to the Lotus E21’s peerless tyre preservation which made Grosjean easily of the quickest three-stopper besides Vettel. After his final pit-stop, Grosjean closed down Di Resta for the final podium spot at a rate of knots, making the pass at the start of lap 52.

Whilst Vettel cruised to a 28^th career victory, moving him clear of Jackie Stewart for sixth place in the all-time list, Raikkonen and Grosjean completed the top three in a carbon copy of the 2012 Bahrain podium. Di Resta was unfortunate to miss out on the podium, but nonetheless equalled his best finish in F1 with a fine fourth place.

Fifth place went to Mercedes driver Lewis Hamilton. It had been a very subdued performance from the Brit for much of the distance, having started down in ninth after his penalty, but Hamilton made his three stop strategy work well and showed strong pace in the closing stages – overhauling Webber in an exciting scrap for fifth position in the final few laps.

Webber was running as high as second after the first round of pit-stops, but lost out first to the two-stoppers of Di Resta and Raikkonen before then being overhauled by Grosjean on lap 44. The Australian pulled out all the stops to hold off Hamilton, but was suffering more than most from tyre degradation and had to give way to the Brit at the start of the final lap.

Sergio Perez’s McLaren then also found a way past with mere corners to go, demoting Webber to seventh. The Mexican spent much of the race fighting with teammate Jenson Button as well as a fading Rosberg, but got the better of both by avoiding having to make a fourth pit-stop.

Eighth place fell to Alonso, who fought valiantly after his early setback but was unable to effectively fight his opposition without the use of DRS. The race was little more than a damage limitation exercise for the Spaniard, and the four points he earned could prove very  useful in the final championship reckoning.

Ninth went to Rosberg, who spent much of his afternoon going backwards with severe tyre wear. A late fourth pit-stop ruled him out of the fight for fifth along with Button, who was unhappy with the aggression displayed by teammate Perez as the pair diced for position. The 2009 champion had to be content with a single point for tenth place.

Pastor Maldonado finished eleventh in a moderately competitive, if still pointless, outing for Williams, with Nico Hulkenberg’s Sauber coming home twelfth. It was a case of what might have been for Sutil in the second Force India, who sustained a puncture on the opening lap thanks to contact with Massa before fighting back to finish thirteenth.

Massa damaged his front wing as a result, but was in the reckoning for solid points until his race unravelled with two separate punctures. The Brazilian could therefore do no more than fifteenth behind the second Williams of Valtteri Bottas, with Daniel Ricciardo finishing sixteenth after struggling for pace at the wheel of the Toro Rosso.

Charles Pic led home the battle of the backmarkers in seventeenth thanks to some sorely needed upgrades for the Caterham, narrowly holding off Esteban Gutierrez, who lost time with early contact with the second Caterham of Giedo van der Garde. The Marussias of Jules Bianchi and Max Chilton rounded out the finishers along with the Dutchman; Vergne’s Toro Rosso sustained damage with an early puncture and was the only retirement of the race.

Chinese Grand Prix 2013 - Report

Fernando Alonso made the best use of a competitive Ferrari to take a dominant victory at the Chinese Grand Prix. The Spaniard, starting his 200th race, showed tremendous pace to effectively lead more or less throughout whilst the various pit strategies played themselves out. Kimi Raikkonen finished second in a damaged Lotus ahead of pole-sitter Lewis Hamilton.

In something of a damp squib of a final qualifying session - only eight of the ten runners went out at all, doing just a single lap - Hamilton came out on top narrowly from Raikkonen, Alonso, Nico Rosberg in the second Mercedes and Felipe Massa's Ferrari. Jenson Button was the best of the cars starting on primes in eighth, with Red Bull's Sebastian Vettel in ninth having not set a time.

Hamilton made a great start from pole as the lights went out on race day, with the Ferraris of Alonso and Massa both making superb getaways to move immediately into second and third. Raikkonen meanwhile was rather tardy off the line and fortunate to hang on to fourth place, ahead of Rosberg and the second Lotus of Romain Grosjean.

Hamilton found himself under immediate pressure once DRS was activated. Alonso made his move at the end of lap 4, making use of the latter zone along the start/finish straight to seize the lead of the race into the first turn of lap 5. Massa also dived up the inside of the Mercedes at the same corner, moving into second.

Hamilton was the first of the leaders to head to the pits to switch from option to prime tyres, doing so at the end of the fifth lap along with teammate Rosberg, with Alonso and Raikkonen pitting the following lap. Massa and Grosjean lost time by pitting a lap later, getting stuck behind several drivers who had started on primes.

This meant that Sauber driver Nico Hulkenberg was now in the lead, having made his way past fellow prime runners Vettel and Button in the opening laps. Once the young German pitted along with Vettel at the end of lap 14, Button assumed the lead until he was passed by a charging Alonso at the first turn of lap 21.

Hamilton and Raikkonen - who sustained minor damage to his nose and front wing in a botched attempt to pass Sergio Perez's slower McLaren at turn 6 - made their second stops together at the end of that lap, with Alonso returning to the pits for a fresh set of primes on lap 23.

With Button making his first pit-stop at the same time as the Ferrari driver's second, it was Vettel who then took the lead of the race. Alonso however caught the championship leader rapidly with the help of his fresh rubber, moving back into the lead in a brave overtaking move at the unusual location of turn 13 on lap 29.

Meanwhile Hamilton picked off Button to re-take a net second position at the first corner, with Raikkonen doing likewise at the turn 14 hairpin to move up to a net third a couple of laps later. In order to attempt to overhaul Hamilton, Lotus emmployed the 'undercut' strategy, Raikkonen making what would be his final stop at the end of lap 34.

With Hamilton pitting three laps later, the Mercedes driver resumed behind Raikkonen and would have to wrest back second place on track. Despite closing to within a second of his rival, Hamilton appeared to lack the pace on the prime tyre and would have to soon switch his attentions to safeguarding third place.

Having made his second stop on lap 31, Vettel was back into the lead of the race when Hamilton, Raikkonen and Alonso (who made his final stop on lap 41) all pitted. Still with the option tyre to run, Vettel stayed out until lap 51, relinquishing the lead at the start of lap 43 to Alonso.

Now equipped with a brand-new set of the soft compound tyres combined with a relatively low fuel load, Vettel set about reducing the 14-second gap that stood between him and Hamilton in the remaining five laps. Catching at a rate of around three seconds per lap, Vettel had closed to just over a second behind when his bid was derailed by backmarking traffic.

That meant Hamilton would narrowly cling on to the final podium position behind Raikkonen and Alonso, who cruised to a 31st career victory which draws him level with Nigel Mansell in the all-time winner's list. Vettel would have to be content with fourth, Red Bull's strategy of not setting a Q3 time failing to pay dividends, with Button coming home a solid fifth for McLaren with a two-stop strategy.

Massa's pace on the prime tyre was disappointing, the result of which being that the Brazilian could do no more than a lowly sixth place. Behind him finished Toro Rosso driver Daniel Ricciardo, who did a superb job to haul his car onto seventh place on the grid - a position he maintained with an aggressive but mature drive that saw him take his best ever F1 finish in spite of having to change his nose at his first pit-stop.

Eighth position went to Paul Di Resta, who survived an early skirmish with teammate Adrian Sutil and showed some very strong pace on the primes en route to a creditable eighth place. Sutil meanwhile had his race brought to an abrupt end by Sauber's Esteban Gutierrez, who locked up his wheels in the braking zone for the turn 14 hairpin and clattered into the rear of the hapless Force India driver.

The Mexican will take a five-place grid penalty at Bahrain for that indiscretion, while the other Sauber of Hulkenberg had to be content with tenth behind Grosjean, whose race pace again was lacklustre in comparison to that of his teammate. Perez failed to make a two-stop strategy work for him, coming home in eleventh place, just ahead of the second Toro Rosso of Jean-Eric Vergne.

Vergne's race was compromised when he was hit by Mark Webber, which just one incident in an utterly atrocious weekend for the Australian driver. A refueling issue during qualifying saw Webber run out of fuel during Q2, and subsequently unable to supply the required fuel sample to the stewards - resulting in his demotion to the back of the grid.

Webber's race started well enough from the pitlane, starting on options and ditching them after a single lap in favour of the primes. The Red Bull driver was well into the midfield after all the soft tyre runners made their first pit-stops, but was too late to commit to an overtaking move on the inside of Vergne at the turn 6 hairpin, resulting in a collision that cost both drivers considerable ground.

Whilst Vergne recovered to finish twelfth, Webber pitted at the end of the lap to replace his front wing, whereupon there was a problem fitting the car's rear-right wheel. Webber cruised during the following lap in an attempt to return to the pits, but the offending wheel detached just a couple of corners from the pit-lane - causing several cars, including teammate Vettel, to take avoiding action.

Behind Vergne finished the off-the-pace Williams duo of Valtteri Bottas and Pastor Maldonado, with Jules Bianchi continuing his unbeaten record amongst the 'new' teams in 15th place ahead of Charles Pic, Max Chilton and Giedo van der Garde. Rosberg was the only other retirement of the race, losing a likely points finish to suspension failure.

Chinese Grand Prix 2013 - Preview

After a three week absence, Formula One returns this weekend as the high-octane circus descends upon the Chinese Shanghai International Circuit.

It's hard to believe that the Chinese Grand Prix has been a fixture on the F1 calendar for nearly a decade now. But, in spite of memorable victories for Lewis Hamilton and Nico Rosberg in recent years, none of the nine races that have been held at Shanghai particularly stand out as classic encounters.

Perhaps that's because of the track layout, which, whilst being one of the most demanding on the calendar, particularly in terms of front-end grip, isn't all that conducive to overtaking. The introduction of DRS along the gargantuan back straight has gone some way to addressing this, but it has made passing into the turn 14 hairpin perhaps a little too easy.

This year, a second DRS zone is being added along the pit straight to go along with the existing one in a bid to boost overtaking opportunities. The tyre allocation meanwhile is identical to that of last year, with the soft compound making its debut alongside the medium compound, which has been at used at both Grand Prix so far in 2013.

Whilst a pecking order of sorts has emerged during the opening rounds at Melbourne and Sepang, predicting who'll be the most competitive at Shanghai is tough business. Both weekends have been affected by rain, either in qualifying or the race itself, blurring the picture even more.

After the infamous 'Multi 21' affair, the spotlight is inevitable going to be on Red Bull. I won't go into detail about the repercussions of Sebastian Vettel's actions after posting about it previously, but there's no doubt that the gloves will be off between the German and teammate Mark Webber if the pair are in a position to do battle on track again.

Red Bull may have appeared the quickest car then, but the reality isn't quite so straightforward. The evidence from the curtain-raiser at Melbourne suggests the RB9 is harder on its tyres and thus possibly still slower than its principal rivals - Ferrari and Lotus - over a race distance, who were both hobbled by circumstance in Malaysia.

Ferrari of course shot itself in the foot by failing to bring in Fernando Alonso to the pits to replace his badly damaged nose, and Felipe Massa lost ground by switching from intermediate tyres to slicks before the track was fully dry. Both drivers however were right at the sharp end in qualifying and thus should have the pace to be major contenders for victory this weekend.

Lotus meanwhile suffered from poor qualifying performances by its drivers, with Kimi Raikkonen lining up seventh (before being demoted to tenth for impeding Nico Rosberg) and Romain Grosjean eleventh. This effectively removed them from contention even before the red lights went out on Sunday afternoon.

Raikkonen in particular showed some good race pace in the latter stages at Malaysia, but being caught up in battles with the likes of Nico Hulkenberg and Sergio Perez prevented him from making any meaningful inroads into the Red Bull and Mercedes-dominated top four. Lotus still have the tyre wear factor on their side and, so long as they avoid another qualifying catastrophe, will be a threat.

Therefore, we can anticipate a closely fought three-way battle between Red Bull, Ferrari and Lotus - not too dissimilar to the one we saw at Melbourne, albeit with perhaps less of an advantage for the lattermost team. All of that means that it's hard to take Lewis Hamilton's assertion that his Mercedes team are now the second strongest in the field too seriously.

The pace of the Silver Arrows was clearly no match for the Red Bulls at Malaysia, even if both Hamilton and Rosberg were marginal on fuel in the latter stages, and their three-four finish would not have been possible if not for the travails of Ferrari and Lotus. Another solid top six finish for one or both cars would be a good result for the Brackley squad this weekend.

Meanwhile, McLaren appeared to have made some progress with their troublesome MP4-28, though it's difficult to assess just how much of that was down to the aforementioned problems for Ferrari and Lotus. Jenson Button was on course for a commendable fifth place finish before a botched pit-stop put paid to a solid afternoon's work by the 2009 champion.

Getting both cars into Q3 - at the hands of two drivers not renowned for their one-lap pace - was nonetheless an achievement, and team manager Jonathan Neale is adamant that the team now have a much stronger understanding of their radical machine than at a start of the campaign.

A number of upgrades will be applied at China, but it remains to be seen how far these will catapult the Woking team into the frame. Behind the three leading teams, we can thus expect a battle between Mercedes, McLaren and Force India for the minor points paying positions.

Vijay Mallya's team have apparently got to the bottom of the wheelnut issues which forced both cars to retire at Sepang; Adrian Sutil and Paul Di Resta showed strong pace and will be looking to continue where they left off in Melbourne. Nico Hulkenberg should challenge for points for Sauber, whilst a top ten finish for one or both of the Toro Rosso drivers is a possibility if some of the front-runners run into issues.

Sadly for Williams fans, it appears the team has, at least temporarily, regressed to its 2011 status as the weakest of the midfield runners, leading to some desperate over-driving by Pastor Maldonado in both races so far. He will need to demonstrate some more patience if he is to avoid his novice teammate Valtteri Bottas, who has been quietly impressive, getting the better of him.

Another driver who was turned heads is Jules Bianchi, who has extracted more pace from the Marussia car than anybody initially thought possible. Whilst it's likely to be a matter of time before Caterham can close the gap, the Frenchman's 13th place finish at Sepang could prove very useful to the team in the season-long battle for that coveted tenth place in the constructors' standings.

Predictions - Qualifying

1. Vettel, 2. Alonso, 3. Massa, 4. Webber, 5. Hamilton, 6. Raikkonen, 7. Rosberg, 8. Grosjean, 9. Button, 10. Sutil

Predictions - Race

1. Alonso, 2. Vettel, 3. Raikkonen, 4. Massa, 5. Webber, 6. Hamilton, 7. Button, 8. Sutil, 9. Hulkenberg, 10. Di Resta

Whilst it will be Vettel who will continue his stranglehold on pole position, I believe Alonso could have been a major contender for victory at Sepang if not for his first-lap error. If the Spaniard is able to avoid such entanglements at turn one on this occasion, the superior race pace of the Ferrari will take the two-time champion to his first victory of the year, neatly coinciding with his 200th F1 start, ahead of Vettel and Raikkonen.

Massa and Webber will turn in a pair of solid performances with Hamilton unable to better sixth, though his teammate Rosberg will find himself at the receiving end of some contact with Grosjean. Further back, Sutil will bag another handful of points, with Hulkenberg just holding off the second Force India of Di Resta to take ninth.