I don't mind informed discussions. But how can anything be informed after a grand total of one race? Especially given that it had something that we have not seen for about a million years - an overtaking manoeuvre for the lead...

The main thing is the aero, totally. Even when Vettel was really struggling it still took a long time for cars to get beyond the 1sec gap to the overtaking becuase of the dirty air. He was probably losing 50hp equal to 2sec per lap, but that was only just enough to make overtaking possible. The drivers are too good, and the cars are too easy to keep on the track, they just don't make the mistake which will be required. Thats due to downforce.

So, refulleing ban may have made it a little worse in my opinion. But only worse from a bad place to start with.

So, to make overtaking easily due do the following

1) Cut Downforce
2) Change aero to avoid dirty air as much as possible
3) Change change rev limiters so people can blow their engines overtaking if they want.
4) Stop the consveration of parts, cars are also too reliable nowadays.

Its a bit daft the drivers aids arn't allowed on but Bernie allows celebrity no-bodys who couldn't careless about F1 on to the grid

F1 cars now look like past F3 cars

Look at these monsters

A quck fix may just be to bring back the gap in the compounds like the first few races last year. It forces guys onto unsuitable tyres which at least made it interesting to watch.

some people in here must have short term memory loss. the 2009 Bahrain GP was boring and there was barely 2 overtakes in the whole race. this years race, there were plenty more overtakes, and a twist in the race.

the obvious problem is the aerodynamics not the refueling, you can't judge the new rules until the year is over, this is just one race on an unspectacular track, people are already writing off the season

also about the tires, we need tires that have less of a range, as Whitmarsh said, the softer tires could last 20+ laps, shouldnt be possible, the softer tyre needs to last about 10 laps, and the harder no more than half distance

anyway, im not gonna jump to conclusions like others have, lets at least wait till we're a good way into the season beofre we judge

So all we can gather is that tracks that delivered boring races last year will do it again this year. Big improvement.

That Lotus is beautiful

I think people are however seeing things which will continue throughout the other races however
1) The 1-tyre change strategy
2) The robustness of the tyres
3) The dirty-air

Apply those things to the other races, and it doesn't bode well. However, it is too early to make a total adjustment. I think it's a reaction agaist the 'no-refuelling will make it better as racers will have to pass on the track, and the tyres will fall off totally' spiel we were given

Suzuka?

obviously people don't watch GP2 in this forum

Because if Vettel had been running light in qualy for pole and Alonso had more fuel in tank i would not of known who would be ahead of who after the stops evened out. Now i do.

Spot on. The opportunities were seemingly there but as soon as they close within that 1 second... back they go as their handling has gone and then started ruining the tyres.

Webber, in a much faster car, sitting behind Schumacher and then Button, didn't even remotely look like having a fighting chance. His car looked well out of order from the inboard after a few laps sitting behind them.

Same could be seen with Alonso and Vettel - the amount Alonso dropped back was simply breathtaking. This surely is somewhat concerning for race track action?!

They need to do something to tidy that air up out the back or open up the rule book and allow the teams to at least tidy it up from the front so they can protect their wheels. They don't seem to be able to do anything about it from a control tyre perspective.

I'm all for adding some elements of drivers needing to conserve their cars, but there's too much conserving going on. Saving fuel, saving tires, saving engines - this all punishes a driver for 'pushing'. You need to give them some room somewhere to allow them to fight.

I also think the aerodynamic regulations are still creating the biggest problem in terms of being able to follow closely.

So reduce the reliance on aero some more, get Bridgestone to build more reliable tires and dont have such a big gap between compounds, and get rid of the 8 engine-per-season rule(go back to the 2-race-per-engine at least).



All this is what's needed but refuelling put in a strategy element as well.

These people are supposed to know about these things - How could they get it so wrong ?

the problem here is not the refuelling/no refuelling or 11/18 sets of tires.

the problem is those huge diffusers at the back of each car...there is abs no way not to ruin your tires once following.the OWG mentioned the same things 2 years back and now we have even bigger diffusers than we had in those days

I'm confused, everyone here is saying that drivers are preserving tyres too much yet you have whitmarsh on the bbc saying the tyres are too conservative and they had few problems with tyre wear. Seems like it's the same old aero problems again.

I encourage everyone to search the AtlasF1 archive for "ban refuelling". Everytime we saw a thread in the past about suggested rule changes that one was pretty high on the priority list by my fellow posters.

And secondly - reaching a conclusion after the very first race is pretty pointless. We saw some encouraging signs btw - Alguersuari posted a fastest lap near the end of the race which means you can push when you managed your tyres better than others.

I'm pretty sure with today's rules we wouldn't have seen those two Imola races of the past when Schumacher followed Alonso (and vice versa in the following year) and neither of them was able to overtake the other even with 2 seconds of laptime advantage.

Man it sucked....

Gonna have to rely on WSB and Moto GP of decent racing this year!!

Both are consistant. The tyres didn't degrade much, yet the drivers were still conserving them in case they did (becuase they didn't know), and becuase there was no huge incentive to push compeltely becuase there was little to be gained by it.

People probbs used to think banning refuleing was a good idea and maybe back in the lat 90s it would. but its only now that its gone i relise it was the most intreasting part of moden day f1 and i miss it.

Well they don't want refuelling because they want the drivers to push but how can you push when you are saving the tyre? With two stops, the drivers can spend less time on looking over the tyre and spend more time pushing the guy in front of him.

Reading all these comments it looks like they are coming from people who never watched F1 prior to today. Go look at last years gp where Vettel spent the whole race stuck behind Massa despite being much faster. Or Spain, or most of the races over the last decade. Its the same thing regardless of the rules ffs. You all act like the problem just suddenly started. Look at Australia last year where Button cruised and dominated the whole race. The only thing that I dont like is everyone conserving the tires too much instead of going flat out but that doesn't make any difference to the overtaking or spectacle because we really wouldn't notice the difference. I think the action will get better at the end of races and would have today without Vettel's problem.

everyone will just stop at the same time, it will make zero difference

How much faster are the option tyres compared to the primes? If there were no two tyre rule might we see 2/3 stints on the softs compared to 1 on the hard?

It's really a shame that in a year with not refueling that the kers regulations we had killed it's involvement in the sport. Had there been no limits on it's use it's possible some teams might have considered kers with it's weight and balancing penalty against how much fuel it could save them carrying. It's something I would love to see in F1 but doesn't really fit in with the cost saving agenda.

Sure it's been there for countless years but aren't the changes designed to address these shortcomings though? My concern (as it stands) is they seem to have made it actually worse to follow a car than better and the risk/reward ratio is way off. I do hope i'm wrong and you're right.

how long have you been doing that then? when has F1 been so good that you didn't have to rely on WSB and Moto GP?

btw, MotoGP is less eventful than F1

Are you kidding? Rossi in one signal race provides more action than an entire season of F1. His pass at Barcelona in the final corner was the highlight of the year for me.

Basically if the guy is fairly close behind you and stops, you stop the next lap. It's not rocket science.

I don't believe the ban on refueling had anything to do with today's race being boring. I personally feel it has more to do with:

1. Focus on engine reliability ... drivers feel they have to look after their engines to much and keep revs low, baby it etc.

2. Front end design of the current cars not having enough downforce allow a driver to try and attempt a pass. Narrow fronts is ridiculous!

3. Multiple Compounds of tires .. and forced to use all of them. Either show up with 1 dry, 1 intermediate and 1 full wet or show up with multiple dries (soft, medium, hard) but let the teams decide which ones they want to run. No forcing them to use all the compounds.

4. Sequential paddle shift gearboxes. Drivers never make a mistake and when they do, electronics prevent and correct it. Not much can be done about this realistically.

I personally feel engine reliability and decreasing front end grip are really hurting F1 at this point. As is the stupid tire rules.

Too many detailed restrictions, too much aero dependence and sensitivity, too much resource saving and thinking about the next race.
They can't even have some 200-300 revs above for the time of an attack. Engines, the heart of motor racing, are frozen to a dead point, aero again consumes a lot of time, effort and money for gaining tiny advantage or even if not advantage in speed, at least make impossible for the guy behind to follow closely.

I say with now fixed number of engines per season why keep the rev limit? Let teams manage their engines. Surely they won't go at 19000 for a whole race but if a driver needs to overtake to prevent his strategy being destroyed by hanging behind another one, he could use some extra rpm for a short time. If a team feels a given race is crucial, they could risk spending a little bit more of an engine life and compensate on another not so demanding race. This is risk taking and is a part of any competition.

For me the keyword is freedom, even if small. There's no freedom now and every one inevitably finds one and the same approach to be the optimal.
Mandatory usage of 2 compounds also has it's share in killing the racing.

true that.it was always going to be this way since they were planning massive diffusers.people keep blaming OWG for everything but infact had their ''no diffuser whatsoever'' advice been applied and the brawn solution wasnt allowed last year,we may not have that problem.
inspite of that in general,the race was a lot more interesting that last year.people settign fastest times at the end of the race suggests those who'll keep ntheir tires in good shape will the chance to motor on in the last stages.

lets see if the overtaking does get a little better on more favourable tracks

i dont wanna bring MotoGP into an F1 thread, but i feel i just gotta say this. claiming MotoGp is more interesting than F1 is surely a Joke. MotoGP is F1 in the 2000-2004 era. one driver wins it all and theres not enough competition

i'll give you World superbikes, saw highlights of the race at Philip Island and it was good

How about a simple u turn on no refueling from the next race ? Even if the tanks are big enough, if they all decide , its the same weight for everyone. Today's race was ruined by no refueling - just cancel that.

The engine limit is absolutely mandatory to avoid skyrocketing costs. FIA must keep it. I do not agree with you there.

In addition to your remarks, I would like to say that many forumers are putting the emphasis exclusively on aero and tyres, but they are overlooking the brake factor. To increase overtaking manouvres is also necessary to use spec brake disks or regulate materials, at least get rid of carbon fibre and ceramic.

De la Rosa said in an interview i was listening a while ago that the current brakes are so absolutely phenomenal that it is almost impossible to dive in the trajectories or make differences between drivers before the corner.

The braking zones are too narrow, so there is no space to overtake.

Also Alguersuari confirmed that. After his 1st F1 test, being asked about main difference between GP2 and F1, he said that F1 brakes were incredible. In fact, he was doing worse times than what he could because he was braking too much and too early. He had to get used to them.

Therefore, apart from aero and tyres, to impose big old brembo steel brakes would make a difference to increase overtaking, for sure.

The refueling is not the problem, it is the fact that they have to start on soft tires and nurse them so that they can nurse the hard tires to the end. Obvious solution as I see it is to allow them to use whatever tires they want in the race. 2 x hard would give them the opportunity to be more aggressive. Now it was like 25% distance on one set and 75% on the other. Of course, maybe next race they will adjust the strategy slightly, but on the other hand Bridgestone might bring completely different tires and they will in turn be unknown to the strategy makers. I am not sure how it works with the tires - does BS bring the same stuff to all the races or do they make new compounds as the season progress? For me, ideally there should be one tire that might last the distance and another that easily last the distance with one stop. That way we might see some gambling on tire management and others on raw speed.

Only thing they must get rid of fast is the rule that you have to start on the same tires as you used for your qualifying run.

I think one of the biggest problems is this silly situation where if you get within 1 second of the car infront you're effectively punished with a loss of performance. Your tyres go off, your engine overheats and you're forced to back off. So unless a car has a clear straight line speed advantage and can make a quick pass stick, it's over. So you end up with cars following other cars with no way to pass.

If we're to have overtaking, then getting within 1 second or 0.5 of the guy infront shouldn't hinder you... it should encourage you to put together a pass. Right now the drivers can't even begin to think of putting together a move, so they just sit there hoping the guy infront makes a mistake or suffers a failure. It's bad news for them and it's even worse news for spectators.

F1 doesn't seem to be about drivers taking their car and driving it quickly with skill and winning races because they're lapping quicker than the others. It seems to be about allowing the car to provide you with a it's default quickest lap by getting all the corners and braking zones right and then sticking to your lines during the race knowing if anyone gets close to you they're screwed anyway. So it's all about staying out of trouble and not messing up your qualifying laps and hope for the best. The driver is just a passenger.

I said this in another thread and I'll say it here.

What makes any event exciting is something to follow. SOMETHING TO FOLLOW!!!!

When you have refueling, you have races within the race as drivers try to gap their nearest competitor. Then you have the performance parameters of in and out laps. Throw in the variables of the pit stop and you have a lot of things going on that can affect the result. Any result. The result of your favourite driver, wherever he is in the field. That gives you sub-plots to follow throughout the race. This is very basic TV sports theory , Bernard!

With no fuel stop, and only 3 second tire stops there is no sprinting and no gaping. There is only cruising around in your overladen whale of a car until you need tires...hopefully around when your competitor needs them too. Then, as your fuel lessens your tires have degraded to you can't pass anyway.

ASININE!

But, look at the bright side. They saved a ton of money and fuel by not transporting the fuel rigs. Very green of them! I am sure that will bring a whole bunch of viewers.

Idiots.

We want racing. RACING Not environmentalism. RACING. Not all the world has to be recycled toilet paper! There is still room for the inspirational 10/10th. That's what F1 was - used - to be!

Yes. Webber had, judging from the speed Vettel showed, a very fast car but could not do anything against Button and Lewis before that could not do anything against Lewis, on a track that is supposed to be good for overtaking with it's endless straights and overtaking friendly designed turns.

Well, as I always say: Overtaking is about difference. Different strategies, different characteristics, different torque, revs... difference. F1 is going in the direction of removing the differences so we should not be surprised of the situation.

Great to see F1 returning to normality after a decade of overtaking in the pits. We do need another tyre supplier though.

Id rather have overtaking in the pits then non at all and thats what i think we will get.

Agree that the race was processional, but it has been this way for years, ever since FIA started f*$^&#@ around with the regs in an attempt to undermine certain teams success - like going with one tire supplier only, or mandating that they must use two sets of tires, or a common ECU, or restricting the # of engines, etc., etc., etc.

Other than different tire compounds I don't think they should make any changes at all to the rules - this is what everyone agreed to and built their cars for.

And it's also more than a little hypocritical for certain team principals to be calling for rule changes now.

Would they be making that call if their team had won?

No, they would not.

http://www.autosport.com/news/report.php/id/82145

A race should flow not be chopped up into segments.

A snore fest. I was watching the race on replay and had to fast forward towards the end. Between the top 10 (which face it is the most focus of attention) there was next to no action. I'm going to struggle to watch races like this.

Dirty air affecting degraded tyres is going to ruin this season. The cars are too heavy for quick action.

Do away with the diffuser.

Drivers agreed it was 'boring' --> http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport1/hi/motorsport...one/8567043.stm
Journalists were bored --> http://twitter.com/CroftyF1/status/10475248166

It's not just the team bosses.

any comments from the Journos yet?

Just added 2 links to my above post. David Croft on Twitter said "No thumbs up from the media centre on today's race."

And James Allen presumably agrees: http://www.jamesallenonf1.com/2010/03/alon...e-is-an-answer/

Today was a real snore fest but probably no worse than last year. Nevertheless this is not good.

During the race I found it more interesting to look at the live timing feed to see who was pulling away from whom and at what rate rather than to actually watching the TV feed.
As many others have pointed it out I think the main problems are:

Conservation. The focus on saving the engine, tires, fuel, gearbox makes for little risk taking. The new points system should counter act this, but the long game is at this stage of the season more important. It may change towards the end.

Restricted development. With no development of the engine and tire performance etc. the result is limited differentiation to be able to overtake.

Aero rules. Overtaking is clearly not possible with DD etc. especially combined with the above.

I thought the comment from the drivers that they were not pushing was particularly alarming. Button did not even find it physically demanding anymore. The fact that they were typically lapping 6 seconds slower than qualifying makes it feel petty unspectacular. Not sure what the gap to GP2 normally has been, but Alonso’s average time was only 7% faster than the winner of the GP2 sprint race. 2:01.641 to 2:11.387. Again doesn’t feel that spectacular.

The introduction of steel brakes as suggested would probably bring the times down on par.

In terms of the snore factor I really think the venue plays a big role both in terms of overall atmosphere and run-off areas. Safety is of course important, but there must be a way of punishing drivers who go off track. At Monaco there is not much overtaking but the anything can happen even if you have 30 sec. lead, which makes it more intense to watch.

Overall I still enjoy watching. The start of a race is as intense as ever and I really enjoy the pre and post shows on BBC. However it is likely to be difficult to attract new fans or retain the less fanatic ones with this type of show.

Total rubbish.

What I wrote in the post-race thread should be more relevant here:



Frankly I thought the race was no better or worse than last year's processions. All it did was to remove some windows for passing in the pits while allowing some other minor strategies to come into play (ex: Kubica's passes on new tyres), which unfortunately didn't make much difference to the race upfront. The conclusion? F1's big problem still is the aero, clearly. Until they fix it, the races will always tend to be boring.

I think the ban on the DDD next year will help a little, but, please, call the OWG to meet again and continue the work they started with the 2009 season regs. They need to take a further radical step forward.

I agree with a lot of the comments in this thread, but surely it's better that drivers have to nurse tyres at certain times in the race. If the tyres are so good that you can be aggressive on them all the time without wearing them out, then every driver is going to be pushing 100% all the time, so you won't get any variation in pace throughout the race, which would make things dull. By having to nurse them at various points then different drivers will push at different times so that will make the race better, not worse. In fact the problem seems to be that the drivers didn't really have to nurse their tyres much. You could make the tyres worse but Bridgestone might object to that, after all it would appear to the casual fan (who are in the majority probably) that Bridgestone were rubbish at making tyres.

I agree that it was boring, it has been for years.

What I disagree with is making any rule changes now as a reaction to today's race, this is how they got in this mess to begin with.

I believe they need to look at it as a whole and evaluate every aspect of the series, and not just append another bag-on-the-side.

And perhaps FIA should grow a pair and act responsibly when someone comes up with a new super-duper thinghy that flies in the face of the spirit of the racing, like stalling rear wings and double-triple-quadruple diffusers.