Dutch Guy said:
.....One of the reasons overtaking is so difficult in F1 is the fact that if they go 1 meter off the racing line the car understeers off the track when braking, perhaps that is because the tyres are just too sticky and if they go "over the edge" a little they immediately spin out or overshoot the corner by several meters.
The reason they can't over take is the fact that in their quest for a safer, slower but "entertaining" F1, Max and his FIA muppets removed a large amount or mechanical grip (by adding grooves in the tires) forcing to teams to try and re-coup the lost grip using aero-dynamics. The cars rely so heavily on the airflow over them that when they come close to a car in front to overtake it, the smooth airflow is destroyed and the aero parts work much less efficiently. As a result they have less downforce, meaning less grip and reducing their ability to out brake an opponent.
The FIA realised that this reliance on aerodynamics was causing problems and instead of bringing back full slicks, reducing the aero area permitted and increasing the minimum ride height they decided to keep the grooves and reduce the aero area. Course everyone goes off and hires out wind tunnels for increasingly long periods of time, some teams build their our (in Ferraris case, 2). Soon the safety/speed reducing changes haven't made the slightest bit of difference to the speeds (in fact the cars get faster) but the increasing role of the aerodynamicist has killed the overtaking.
Its a ridiculous situation whereby we now have cost reducing measures in place to curb the costs which the FIA are in part responsible for.
There is less grip off the racing line due to dirt, marbles, oil etc. but if the car could actually run closer and take overtaking opportunities then these areas wouldn't be so bad as they would experience more traffic. Other forms of motorsport venture off-line all the time without (too much) problem.
Furthermore, the single lap/2 session qualifying which no one likes or can agree on how to run was introduced to avoid the situation whereby we have 40minutes of looking at cars in the pits then 20mins for frantic action with the pole lap usually going right down to the wire because they wanting to improve the entertainment value. Where was the entertainment on Sunday?!
@Flibster: Top post!
@Dutch Guy: With the utmost respect most of your posts in the thread have been slightly misinformed and add little to the debate. Perhaps you work for the FIA?!
sorry!
Cheers
