F1 has never been an overtaking fest as many have stated. HOWEVER we have been spoiled as of the past few years by some very exciting on track action. Many more have called the first race of 2010 a bore than exciting. So who is the MOST at fault? Yes I believe all parties hold blame for one reason or another, but if you had to pick culprit number 1 who gets your vote???

Listing Bernie and Tilke seperate because I see it as Bernie picks the WHERE and Tilke the HOW.

No option for the teams?

Well, not Tilke at least.

Not all participated but was not the OWG the creation of the teams? Didn't see it necessary to put teams seperate but will if more find it needs to be added.

The teams
Bernie because Bernie gave the teams the power to stop/control rule changes

Blame died single.

A weak FIA doesn't help.
But a strong FIA doesn't help too: safety at all costs...

FIA under Max tampered with regulations until they lost control. I feel the only way out of this mess is to start F1 from a clean sheet, say in 2014 or 2015. Then there will be enough time to write new regulations and everyone will have time to prepare.

Ha, beat me too it! Ok ok teams added.

Bernie because he started using team against team for political reasons. When the teams saw the sway they could have they played back. Now it's Rule Makers VS Rule Followers.

Hmmm, 2 votes so far for Tilke

Cars can't get within less than 1 second behind another car without losing downforce and making it impossible to drive. Is that the track designer's fault ?

Cars can't race because they can't get close to each other, that's not Bernie's fault and that's not because of the track either, it's because those cars are built to be fast when they're alone but can't be when they're not. We can blame FIA, TWG, OWG, FOTA and Teams (before FOTA was created), they're the ones who come up with these cars and rules and change the rules to accept almost any aero device the engineers come up with. They're the ones who are responsible for creating cars that can be fast only when they're alone.

and as always the teams will veto it. Just like they have done on all other rule changes, Why do you think the FIA had to resort to stupid rule changes under the guise of safety?

Let's all blame it on Mosley.. why not..

All joking aside, remember last year after Australia when Kubica and Vettel crashed at the end.. I recall everyone in here complaining that the tires were a joke because they only lasted for a few laps.. however this provided lots of overtaking . Now we have Martin telling us that the tires in Bahrein needed to be reconsidered because they were too consistent and lasted for a very long stint without any degradation..
What if comes down to is that no matter what the FIA implements, people will always complain..

I voted the FIA because if the intention was to simplify airflow over and around cars by reducing aero components then DDD's should have been banned for this season. If teams continually find ways and means of grabbing back what is being taken away from cars then the technical regulations should be tightened to exclude them. It would have been wrong to ban DDD's last season as they were not illegal. In a similar vein it would be wrong to ban McLaren's development this season, but it should be banned for next season.

I would choose a double vote including the Teams. It is a bit rich that Martin says the first race was a bore and calling for change. Maybe he should volunteer that the snorkel should be banned. It did not seem to give McLaren much of an advantage but it certainly may have played a part in MW not being able to get anywhere near passing JB all afternoon.

Sort of a Catch 22kph procession at the moment. The teams fought the medal system hard so why give in to the refueling ban? Surely they knew this would happen....?

refuelling, it stops people to fight on track, instead they wait for pitstops

oh, wait...

Need an option for 'all of the above'.

Have you read Dodgy Business? They day they put shortcuts on the tracks is the day I won't watch a single more GP.

Bahrain might be in the middle of an otherwise sandpit where nobody turns up to watch races, but the track is wide and there are at least 3 decent straights ending in slow corners. If you need to be 2 seconds quicker, or more, to do some overtaking even there, then something is very wrong with the cars as far as racing is concerned.

+1

The overtaking is fine. In the 1st part of the race yesterday there were some nice moves from the midfield cars and backmarkers, such as Rubens with Buemi, and Glock with the Lotus cars. What's lacking is the wheel to wheel racing when the cars can get really close to one another through the bends, especially at the front of the field. There are probably a number of reasons as to why the racing has become poor, the tyres, sometimes the circuits, but I think mainly the aerodynamics are to blame for the lack of racing. If the diffusers were taken away there would probably be a lot more wheel to wheel action, which is what people want to see, so I would blame the aerodynamics.

That's actually a misconception, diffusers rely far far less on clean air, as opposed to wings.

Why? So the poll ends up 1547=everyone 15=all other options??? See we can all b***h and moan about it, but who should we really focus our frustration on??? Each owns part of the blame, but we have to start somewhere. So we fix ........... first?

This was the question I most looked forward to on the FOTA survey. Too bad MY version didn't ask!

The drivers.

All eyes are on the drivers and what they say. Bad aero has been here since early 90s, over 10 years we've had this problem of people preferring to pass in the pitlane rather than on the track.

None of them ever made a big deal about it. Even Villeneuve barely broached the subject. I also give some blame to Schumacher. The guy was winning everything and everybody would listen to him. Sure, it would have been against his interests possibly (really?) but he has a duty to the sport and in this regard he failed completely.

Ex-drivers have been more critical, people like Mansell. But it takes a current driver to have the balls to say "we can't overtake, we MUST do something about this". They've been sitting on their laurels for the last 10 years. I wonder how it feels to finally become an F1 driver after years of struggling and developing your racecraft, only to find yourself as a glorified test driver because that is what procession races look like.

The OWG, I don't blame them. FFS you cannot trust the teams anyway. FiA I do blame. They looked at ground effect front wings even going back to the late 90s. Fast forward 10 years and they have achieved NOTHING.

Bernie I don't blame. By nature, all he cares about is money and nothing else. People as greedy as him fail to see beyond timespans of quarters and years.

Tilke, though he has made some horrible tracks, I don't blame. Anything other than F1 cars would be fine on his tracks. Track design is no solution to the problem and never has been. The only thing I hate about Tilke is his very unnatural tracks. He has gotten better but I could design a track far better than him, far better. No joke.

Overall I blame the drivers, the teams and the FiA.

Frankly, the fans need a bigger stake in this sport.

No, but it has often been far better than the last 10 years.




What???? I take it you are not talking about the overtaking? I take it you are talking about perhaps strategy or crashes or something else? Because we certainly haven't had much exciting on track action in the way of overtaking for over 10 years.

They ALL allowed F1 to become so tech dominated that everything else became secondary, and none of them alone can change it.

It is the tracks designers fault for making tracks that are uninspiring, have very little elevation changes, tolerate every mistake, with a tarmac that is so extremely wide that it looks like a giant car park so even F1 cars look so slow on them. Tilke thought hairpin-long straight-hairpin is the solution for more overtakings, so he tried to do this at every track. But what he didnt thought of was that cars space out alot when they are accelerating out of very slow corners, so you could have cars that are nose to tail out of a very slow corner, bu tthen in the acceleration zone for the long straight they you get a 100 meter gap between them. That huge gap cannot be closed under normal circumstances. Thats why for F1 its very hard to overtake at Tilke tracks, and its easier at traditional tracks.

At other tracks like, Spa, Montreal, Interlagos etc. even with all the aero problems and other issues F1 cars have regarding overtaking, they still can overtake on these types of tracks, because on these tracks you have medium speed corners leading to long straights, so a car that is nose to tail going into the corner, might lose a little bit of ground due to dirty air but far not as much as on a Tilke hairpin-straight-hairpin section, thats why coming out of Eau Rouge you see plenty of overtaking moves, thats why there are also alot of overtakings coming out of the last corner at Interlagos etc. Tilke followed the completely wrong concept, and because he was the only one who was allowed to make the layouts of the new tracks, he has pasted his idea on all of them, thats why Bahrain, Abu Dhabi, China etc. are all junk race tracks apart from the hotels and other surroundings.

What adds to the boringness and lack of overtaking especially on Tilke tracks is that in Monaco for example, there is also no overtakings usually, but the race is still entertaining to watch, because its just a very spectacular scenery, you can feel how fast the cars are going, Suzuka the same thing, Suzuka does have overtakings coming out of the Spoon corner into the chicane BUT its not extremely overtaking friendly either, but despite of that its a great race to watch, simply because F1 cars look awesome when they get hustled threw these tight right left right left right left fast sections with elevation changes, it adds so much to the atmosphere, a car at Suzuka or Monza that is going 300 km/h, really really looks like its going 300 km/h, at Tilke tracks 300 km/h looks like 100 km/h, it all adds up to Tilke track becoming very tiresome to watch. Then there are no boundaries or edges at Tilke tracks, a car can go off to anywhere and nothing happens.... set a tire wrong at Suzuka or Interlagos and you will crash, stuck in the gravel, spin in the gras or anything... but make a mistake and you will get punished for it, at modern tracks the circuit has no boundaries, like its not a road tarmac but a giant sea of tarmac.

The cars are too aero-dependant, brakes are too good (=too short brake distance), and there are a couple of bad tracks without ideal overtaking points.

Anyway the FIA gave the task for the OWG and accepted its work. The OWG has done a decent job, the problem is the engineers have clawed back the downforce level, especially with a loophole double-diffuser concept.

We need more mechanical grip and less aero dependency (less downforce) and less good brakes.

Isn't the point that the air coming off them is as worked and "messy" as any wing, hence when it gets to the front wing of the following car it's not helping?

What we need is more underbody downforce and less wings

I voted the teams because they showed a singular lack of improvisation and an aversion to risk-taking as they came to understand the durability of the tyres through the race. They all just 'followed the leader', no-one took a gamble, just accepted their fate. For them to now come out and start calling for 'immediate action' is pathetic.

Answer:
- Both, Sporting and Technical Regulations (whoever is responsible for writing those) in the first place.
- Demand for unanimous acceptance of regulations by FOTA is a second mistake.

Problem is I don't believe it's black and white like that, ie 'x' is the reason why, sort that reason and bingo it's solved.
It's (IMO) the outcome of a number of complex factors. It will only be solved by tackling the problem across a number of different areas (ie the characteristics of the car AND the track AND how the regulations impact on things). All of the above.

i cant figure out how the heck OWG manage to get 8 votes here???

they were given one session of testing ,they clearly indicate the drag from a diffuser device being much more harmful than form either of the wings and advice a ban on it...

what do we get in 09?..3 teams getting away with diffusers and then the rest the pack developing their dds over the rest of the season.

how can u possibly blame paddy lowe or the rest of the OWG when their advice was never implemented in reality?

yeah to an extend but by the same token air coming off wings is alot messier ... right angles = vortices etc. What I m trying to say is that if you took the current cars and removed the DDs they would have to move further behind the preceding car to actually function.

100% agree with the bolded part of your post

yup a rear wing used to be higher though so it pushed the air out of the way for the car behind meaning the following car had less resistance.

we really need ground effect back and wider tyres again which gives cars tons of grip without the need for massively aero packages working every cubic milimetre of air

The turbulence created by the diffusers damage the levels of downforce of the car behind it, which means they loose grip and find it impossible to follow the car in front. Hence why the racing is so bad. So thats why I wrote there would probably be more wheel to wheel racing if the diffusers were taken off, and i'm very confident that I would be proved right if they were taken away.

Is anyone philosphically opposed to steel brakes?

With the intention of extending braking zones

As long as F1 has front wings, the races are going to be boring. The problem is, the front wings probably rate about £20 million a year to the top teams, so they won't go.

yeah you don't get that removing diffusers would push cars further apart not bring them closer together precisely because the diffuser produces a lot more downforce from air the wings on the cars can't use. Plus the diffusers' mark on the wake is smaller than the rear wings' mark.Ross Brawn explained it fairly well last year at the start of the season.

PS and diffusers don't create turbulent air

steel brakes dont increase the brake zones (that much) they are just not as reliable/predictable or as light. To have an effect on overtaking you would have to all but double braking distances

No option for = 'The Cars'?

(Double diffuser, too much downforce, no push to pass button, ...)

Is there a case to be made that this is how they should be?

As in "manual" gear changes that could blow an engine?

OK, cross ply tyres might be taking it too far...

it doesn't make difference,

Lewis overtook Rosberg with a pitstop... refuelling or not.. that's always possible if you pit faster then your opponent..
and then the action is focused in the pits not on the track.

So explain to me how come the racing has been shite since the double diffusers were introduced?



Err, yes they do. Go to a physics lesson.

ground effect > diffusers

was banned many moons ago because aparently the insane cornering speeds were to dangerous but these days the walls are so far from the tracks and the run off zones are pretty much all tarmac that it doesnt matter

I'd hazzard a guess that corning speeds are higher today!

Whatever rules you put, I'm more inclined to believe this just reflects the times we live in, F1 is just too efficient, too maximized. Things that in the past weren't possible to calculate, to determinate... nowadays they have it just so predictable, everything is predicted, is a math it's possible to check the number of outcomes and be prepared in beforehand for them, they're always in the edge with these analysis and technology, and then unless there's one or other outside variable (weather, crashes, etc..) added to this equation there's not many room left nowadays pratically for one factor that was present back in the day in the majority of the parts to take into account: "the unknown".

Try a new set of rules and teams will inevitably find a way to make everything in it as predictable as possible and determinate it with all the variant ways , in the era of the technology there's not a place for what we don't know.

Whoever decided the double diffuser could stay for 2010 is to blame, it's that simple really.

Also it would be far better with a tyre war and scrapping the silly prime and not price rule.

I recall an interview with Patrick Head, sometime in the latter half of the 1990's. He pretty much outlined what you said as the most desirable option as far as F1 teams are concerned. That is to eliminate as many variables as possible via technology so that mechanical unreliability is removed and driver errors are reduced to a similar extent. I'm fairly sure he even joked (I hope) that getting rid of the driver altogether would be even better from a risk reduction standpoint.

It is actually, as simple as that.

Now, who has the will and the power to change this?

i don't see how anybody can blame tilke, he's given rules that he must obey, he does the best job he can with them :/

Indeed. Bahrain for example isn't his best track, but most definitely you can overtake on it. In the first couple of years, 2004 till even 2009, we've seen loads of overtaking on it. This year barely any, and suddenly Tilke is to blame? Shows how much people think before voting on polls like this.