The only way to make it more artificial is to bring in success ballast, but do we really want that? This is supposed to be the pinnacle of motor racing, so why keep trying to strangle competition? Oh wait [video=youtube;WCkOmcIl79s]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WCkOmcIl79s[/video]
http://www.autosport.com/news/report.php/id/107007 Apparently Porsche have scrapped the idea of any relation with F1, more car manufacturers are returning to sports car racing and parring off F1 because it is becoming less relevant to the real world! Looks like the golden era for sports car racing = the downfall of the pinnacle of motorsport. I think this is similar to why Jag did not return. And why Mercedes are close to leaving if they do not gain success in the coming years (which I heard some time last year).
Yeah looks like there will never be a return to the Manufacturers' era which is a shame although I have always been uncomfortable with those teams spending millions and getting nowhere (Honda,Toyota could even count Mercedes unless they get success this year or in 2014).
i still think they need to either give teams more tyre compounds to choose from per race or give them some reason to use both. I just think refuelling added another dimension to it because you didn't know when people were going to pit or how long those stops would be, now as soon as the first person pits other people near them have to follow or risk being undercut, or people will pit at the same time and leave in the same order because the stop times are so similar.
I've often said that they shouldn't make tyre stops compulsory, so if a team thinks it can go non-stop on one compound then they should be allowed to try. If a team does change tyres, then it has to use both compounds.
The last major time sportscars were doing well was the 70/80's, again a time when few manufacturers were in F1. They must beleive the trade off between investing in sport and road car sales is better in sportscars then F1. Look out for several road-going specials!
Granted it's artificial, but in BTCC you still get the best teams and drivers winning the championships, despite being saddled with it. Although having multiple races in a weekend does help with the implementation I realise. Or you could look at the GT's where the cars are equalised before the season opener.
I don't think F1 is the kind of sport where equalisation would work. I think a better idea would be to open up the rules a bit so theres more than one way to go about things. It could fail but it could drastically change how some cars prefer certain tracks.
I see the point, but i think that would still favour the big budget teams who can spend more on different development areas.
Could Lotus have won Bahrain and could Force India have had a podium? Lotus – same outcome as last year Last year Lotus went away from Bahrain with second and third places thinking that they could have won the race. This year the outcome is similar, but could they have challenged Sebastian Vettel for the win? It is very difficult to say whether Raikkonen would have won the race had he started in the front two rows of the grid, where the team expected him to qualify, especially after the penalties for Webber and Hamilton. Although the pace of the car in the race was as strong as any car, the problem for Lotus, once again, was the qualifying performance. Last year the car wasn’t strong in qualifying trim, this year the drivers were not able to match their Q2 times in Q3, where the grid places are handed out. Had Kimi Raikkonen simply repeated his Q2 time in Q3, he would have started fifth on the grid instead of 8th. Had he improved by a few tenths, as he did in China and as most drivers did in Bahrain, he would have started 4th in front of Massa and could have mounted a challenge for the win. From 5th he would have done the race on a three stop strategy, which was the fastest this year in Bahrain and had a go at challenging Vettel. But from 8th, he was forced to do a two stop strategy because the team knew he would be good on the tyres on long runs and the strategists wanted him to run in free air. By doing two stops you pass cars when they come in for their extra pit stops, not on the race track, so you can run at your pace for more of the time. Raikkonen’s pace and strategy were spot on and easily enough to move him through the field to second place. The Finn’s consistent driving in the Lotus once again meant that he was able to maintain performance over long stints on the tyres. Lotus didn’t have any problems with the tyres in Bahrain. Raikkonen questioned whether he had pitted too early by coming in on Lap 35, having just passed Di Resta, but the team was worried about being undercut by Di Resta stopping before them and then having to repass him on similar age tyres. He might have been a little closer to Vettel at the end by stopping a lap or two later, but Vettel had pace to spare in the final stint anyway. With his main rivals Alonso out of the picture and Raikkonen two stopping from 8th, Vettel had the race won very early on. He pushed hard in the first three stints of the race and eased off significantly in the fourth and final stint. He was able to measure out his stint lengths evenly and popped in a fastest lap just before the end to show that he could have gone faster. Di Resta vs Grosjean Romain Grosjean’s race was interesting. He started 11th, six places behind Paul di Resta, but managed to pass him before the end to take the podium. So how did that work out and could Force India have done anything to get Di Resta the podium? Grosjean had to stop earlier than planned on Lap 8 as he had a piece of front wing endplate lodged in the entry duct so his engine was overheating and so were the rear brakes. This meant that his stint lengths were lobsided, with a 19 lap second stint, followed by 13 laps and 15 laps in the remaining stints. He also had to pass a number of cars on track, so there was a lot more risk for him, but having been forced into the early stop, he had no choice but to stop three times. The further back on the grid you are, the more traffic there is, but with his car pace and new tyres he was able to come through The key was that the Lotus gets significantly better performance from its tyres from lap 10 of a stint onwards. Once the rear tyres heat up and the thermal degradation kicks in, the performance clearly drops off on the Force India in comparison with the Lotus and this is where there was nothing that could have been done to prevent losing the podium to Grosjean. Di Resta did the same strategy as Raikkonen; two stops taking new Hard compound tyres at both of his stops. Could he have beaten Grosjean with the faster three stop strategy? The answer is no. Grosjean’s advantage was that he did the entire race on new tyres (as Raikkonen did from 11th on the grid last year). Di Resta had only two sets of new Hard tyres left after qualifying and no new sets of Mediums. The pace advantage of the Lotus wasn’t the decisive factor in this outcome, it was the two new sets of tyres that swung it. Look at the plot below with Grosjean in black and Di Resta in yellow. The lap times are fuel adjusted and the lower the line on the plot, the faster the lap time. Di Resta’s times are fairly consistent, where Grosjean’s are all over the place due to traffic, but the underlying pace advantage of the Lotus on new tyres is clear. please log in to view this image Bahrain was one of Lotus’ most competitive tracks last year and they had the pace to challenge for the win this year. So the fact that Force India competed with them across qualifying and race is a positive sign for the Silverstone-based team.
Since there isn't a Spanish GP thread I'll just post in here that Lotus and Ferrari were doing aerodynamic testing today. The "unnamed team" testing at Duxford was Lotus and they were focusing on their passive DRS, with Davide Valsecchi at the wheel. Ferrari were testing at Barcelona (Idiada), testing a new aero package to be used at the next race.
I wish Lotus would give up on passive DRS. There are only a handful of circuits where it could feasibly work (China being one of them), and that's only if they can get it right, they're wasting resources in my opinion, they've been working on this for a year.
F1 2013 - Bahrain GP Team radio extra (PART 1) [video=youtube;7uiz-ykINu4]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7uiz-ykINu4[/video] F1 2013 - Bahrain GP Team radio extra (PART 2) [video=youtube;Cfc6ee4NIg4]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cfc6ee4NIg4[/video]
