In piece 2 of this series im going to look at what has happened since last time in the world of F1 racing : Series 1 1. Diffusers: I think some people could write a book about what has happened in the last few weeks, me however i cannot keep up with it, so this wont be too detailed. The idea to change a regulation during the season is never a good one, especially when some cars are built around this regulation, which is the blown diffuser.The farce the FIA made could not have been much bigger , changing rules in the morning before practice, its on , its off, some can have it, others cant, no its a level playing field now, ok lets call it off back to basics, and thats where we are now . 2.Overtaking New statistics from the first 9 races show overtaking as expected is on the rise. So far there have being 623 raw passes, lapping slower cars and etc. More than the 547 from 19 races in 2010 and 244 from 17 races in 2009.” 180 of them have been DRS assisted.(2011) 3.Pirelli: The tyre that has improved racing for 2011, is now turning to a more sustainable and conservative approach , as Pirelli try to make races less gimmicky by not having huge amount of stops, and moving towards 1-2 stops. As for the wet weather tyre, we have seen that full wets cant lift as much water as the old Bridgestone full’s, But the Pirelli Inters are showing good wear rate. 4.DRS + KERS: Now we have had time to digest the full extent of DRS, we have seen when its used well its a good idea, but when its bad its very bad and leaves overtaking too easy. Now the FIA has introduced two DRS zones per race, which were run in Montreal and Valencia. The big talking point being there was only one activation point, so if you got passed by a DRS car in the first zone, the DRS car could pull away from you in the second zone. KERS, or Kinetic Energy Recovery System gives the driver the choice to use 80hp extra boost for six seconds, and has provided some great strategic battles on track. Not a lot has changed with it since last time. 5. Team Performances: Same leader, different story since last time, as Red Bulls dominance is being closed down by the Ferrari of Fernando Alonso, In qualifying trim Red Bull still look fastest, but in the race its the Ferrari of Alonso, who has the best race trim car. The Mclarens who looked to have been ahead of Red Bull in race pace at one stage, have now fell back to 3rd fastest car, but in the wet the Mclaren is a demon. 6. Bahrain: First on the agenda last time, Bahrain is now called off after many on - off parts, the right decision,even the chairman of Bahrain hit back at the teams Thanks for reading, and please leave your taughts !
Good read. I still think that DRS is unnecessary with Pirelli tyres and Kers. Like you say, when it's bad it's very bad, and I think closely fought battles (Massa and Button way back in Melbourne was a classic) are just as exciting, if not more, than an overtake. So we don't want to see drivers overtaking too quickly. I also think the double-DRS was a terrible idea and hopefully we won't see it for the rest of the season.
Good post Sportydan. The FIA made a real mess of things with the off-throttle blowing rules and I hope things stay as they are. All the team have agreed to it, so hopefully the issue won't resurface this season. I hope you got those overtaking stats from a credible source, rather than a "professional" unreliable site where members are begged for cash via account upgrades. Overtaking statistics generally do not interest me, but in this case it does show that the increased overtaking is mainly down to the Pirelli tyres. I think the tyres have been far more effective than DRS and KERS in making the races so enjoyable -- for example, this year was the best race we had at Valencia but we rated it so low because the excellent races of 2011 have put our standards so high. I might come back to this thread at another time.
I think he might be referring to a forum; where - unless things have changed - a couple of very hard working members used to spend considerable effort on researching statistics. Unfortunately the site founder let's his guys down in my opinion. On the other hand, Autosport has real credibility.
Rep for a great post Dan! I think now the FIA has more knowledge of DRS it can only get better. And for me it has already been an improvement, alomg with KERS and new tyres
Good review. I still not sure with the DRS, I think the FIA will only get better in setting it up, but I still am not entirely sure F1 needs because the tyres and KERS supply enough overtaking on their own.
Yeah it is interesting that even without DRS we would be close to the number of overtakes done in the whole 2010 season.
29% of passes might of been by DRS but I do not think that if we did not have DRS then there would be 29% less overtakes they might of overtaken them still just not using DRS. So DRS probably has given us something like (very rough estimate) 15% more overtakes, which I for one could easily go without.
How do they define DRS assisted though? DRS can be used to help keep up in order to overtake several corners later.
