2008 Australian GP - Race 1/18

I saw the race. THought it was OK. The reason why I wasnt thoroughly impressed was because the leaders generally didnt battle. Lewis was pretty much unchallenged. Even when Heiki dropped from 2nd to 9th (I think it was), it was down to a safety car and not down to anybody else driving super fast.

The comments regarding TC are still coming through thick and fast, but based on what I saw today, TC didnt have much to do with the people dropping out.

People were dropping out due to colliding with other cars. TC really cant be held responsible for this. The key is that this is the first time that the drivers have raced in these particular cars and have yet to get used to their limits, when racing, wheel to wheel with other cars. This will eventually be sorted once drivers learn.

Lets go through the incidents:

Massa VS Coulthard - racing incident, nothing to do with TC
Kimi - car broke down, but his previous offs, were down to him either going off line or totally misjudging his breaking distance. Nothing to do with TC.
Nakajima VS Kubica - Nakajima simply ploughed into the back of Kubica. TC wouldnt not have prevented this.

The way Alonso was driving towards the end was looked pretty ragged. Some people may attribute this to lack of TC. This is not so. The reason why he kept kicking up dust, was because he was using every bit of track available to him. The fact that he was repeatedly doing this would suggest he was doing it on purpose to have as fast an exit speed out of the corner as possible. He almost certainly was not lifting off. The top drivers have this ability.

The opening lap where we had about 5 cars go off, all went out, not due to TC but because they were a little over ambitious. The first corner gets very narrow and accidents can happen. The fact that 'launch control' has gone means that some drivers get a good start, some really bad, so you end up having 2 or more cars, side by side, travelling at vastly different speeds. The drivers will eventually get used to starting races without launch control and learn to be more careful. Careful drivers such as Alonso and Kimi had no problems negotiating the early mayhem.

The one incident I can remember that couldve been totally prevented by TC was Massa's spin at the start of the race. Massa is the guy who I predict will struggle the most without TC. Kimi shouldnt have any problems.

In general though, I think the main problem with today's race was serious reliability problems and drivers in really bad form.
 
Arc said:
Same story again when it comes to tailing slower cars, you just can't get close enough to the car in front due to the turbulent air.
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This effect has prevented overtaking for many years now. The easy way to assist the car behind, would be to use wider, non-grooved tyres, thus increasing mechanical grip.Today's cars rely to much on aerodymanic grip.
 
sunama said:
This effect has prevented overtaking for many years now. The easy way to assist the car behind, would be to use wider, non-grooved tyres, thus increasing mechanical grip.Today's cars rely to much on aerodymanic grip.
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Increase mechanical grip, reduce aerodynamic grip and make the cars narrower and you'd have a lot more chance to overtake. I don't really see why they haven't done this already? :confused: Instead they've tried all sorts of artificial nonsense to make the races more exiting from banning tire changes to insisting on using both types of tyres.

They're banning "winglets" from next year though, aren't they? That should help some.
 
Mr Jack said:
Increase mechanical grip, reduce aerodynamic grip and make the cars narrower and you'd have a lot more chance to overtake. I don't really see why they haven't done this already? :confused: Instead they've tried all sorts of artificial nonsense to make the races more exiting from banning tire changes to insisting on using both types of tyres.

They're banning "winglets" from next year though, aren't they? That should help some.
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More grip in any shape or form means higher cornering speeds. The higher the speed when something goes wrong in a corner (bad overtake, mistake, mechanical failure) means bigger accident. More mechanical grip will mean higher cornering speeds. Downforce produced through medium to slow corners has less effect and as such means the cars go through slower.

The FIA were on a mission about 15-10 years ago to slow cornering speeds to reduce the risks involved.
 
tonyyeb said:
Do you work in F1 or done any serious racing?
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Only done go-kart racing, but not seriously.

Nullvoid said:
How gutted must Bourdais feel. In line for big points on his debut and the bloody car gives up 3 laps from the end...
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Yep.

And he seemed to be successfully keeping behind Alonso and Heiki, which is no mean feat when you compare the Toro Rosso with the other 2 cars.

Bourdais does seem to have quite a bit of experience behind him though. He has shown pace wherever he has raced. A bit too early to tell at this point though.
 
tonyyeb said:
The FIA were on a mission about 15-10 years ago to slow cornering speeds to reduce the risks involved.
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Yep. It all happened in 1994, when 2 drivers (Ratzenburger and Senna) died in a single race weekend.

Still, I'm sure they can come up with some method of preventing the problem of a faster car being unable to overtake a slower car due to the aerodynamic effect.

I believe next year, a "boost" button is being introduced, to allow the faster car behind to simply power its way past the slower car in front. The only problem is that the slower car in front, will probably also hit the boost button (especially on the straights), to ensure the car behind, stays behind.

Reliability does seem to be a problem, though we have had only 1 race, so its a little too early to tell.
 
Boost worked well in Champ Car but then all the cars were the same make and engine. It's one of those things that has to be tried even if it fails.
 
tonyyeb said:
More grip in any shape or form means higher cornering speeds. The higher the speed when something goes wrong in a corner (bad overtake, mistake, mechanical failure) means bigger accident. More mechanical grip will mean higher cornering speeds. Downforce produced through medium to slow corners has less effect and as such means the cars go through slower.
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Then don't change the tyres at all, but reduce the aerodynamics. At present, it's following cars in medium-to-high-speed corners that is the problem - reducing the aerodynamics would both cut speeds in those corners and make them less dependent on downforce.

That said, I'm a big believer in giving them a rather more open rulebook. Some of the stuff I'm involved with at work is practically Formula Libre, and is all the better for it.

tonyyeb said:
The FIA were on a mission about 15-10 years ago to slow cornering speeds to reduce the risks involved.
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Yes, as a knee-jerk reaction to firstly the speeds the high technology cars of '91 to '93 were reaching and then secondly the tragedies of Imola '94. Notice that '93 was one of the best seasons in the last 20 years for competition - 11 out of the 13 teams scored points, 22 out of the 35 drivers who took part in at least 1 race scored points. I'm told you couldn't do this nowadays....I'm really not sure that I see why.
 
Yes, I know why they introduced grooved tyres in the first place. I thought they were dumb then and I think they're dumb now. It's a classic example of the FIA worrying about everything except whether the racing is good or not.
 
tonyyeb said:
Then how can you be so certain that TC has had little to do with the incidents in this race?
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It doesnt take a brain surgeon to know that when someone goes off line, TC wont save them.

For example, Kimi was following a car, and veered left, got on the grass and went off - almost hitting the barrier and taking himself out.

Glock, simply drove very wide - TC would not have slowed him down there.

Coulthard and Massa collided - absolutely nothing to do with TC. They both wanted to occupy the same part of the track, the result of which is collision.

Nakajima put his foot down, far too hard, which resulted in him tapping Kubica. The tap is so light that even replays dont make it very clear. TC would certainly not have slowed Nakajima down.

The one incident that I can certainly say TC wouldve prevented was when Massa accelerated hard (on lap 1) and ended up spinning. TC wouldve cut out the engine, the moment that the tyres began to lose traction and wouldve slowed him down by a little bit.

Dont get me wrong, the drivers are working harder, but in all other motor sports where traction control doesnt exist, its not different.

We saw that when a driver (Hamilton) is allowed to race his own race and not mix it with other drivers, then without traction control, the race can be uneventful. Most of the problems with today's GP were down to people crashing into one another and thinking that their cars were bulletproof. Reliability was also a big problem.

It would be nice if CSI nuts could give us his thoughts on this, as he works for Redbull.
 
JRS said:
...Yes, as a knee-jerk reaction to firstly the speeds the high technology cars of '91 to '93 were reaching and then secondly the tragedies of Imola '94.
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Tut tut JRS.
San Marino.

BTW, the messiah did deliver.
He has come to deliver Formula One from all its restraints.
And I do believe that he will go on to eclipse MS's records. :p

I felt sorry for Heiki though - runs 2nd for virtually the whole race, then one pit stop puts him at the back.
 
sunama said:
For example, Kimi was following a car, and veered left, got on the grass and went off - almost hitting the barrier and taking himself out
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That incident's perfect example where Engine Braking could have helped/saved him.

Lots of drivers we're suffering thanks to loosing some of the driving aids most of all TC. All you had to do is listen to the cars especially when leaving the pit box. Noticed the McLarens were being very subtle at this.
 
sunama said:
Tut tut JRS.
BTW, the messiah did deliver.
He has come to deliver Formula One from all its restraints.
And I do believe that he will go on to eclipse MS's records. :p
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He may well eclipse Schumachers records but then will he take the same chance as Schumacher did when he went to Ferrari? If Schumacher had not done that I wonder how many times World Champ he'd have been and how many wins etc he'd have had.
 
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