F1 2010 season abit boring?

Very interesting interview on James Allen today:

..with Frank Dernie, one of the leading F1 aerodynamicists for the past 30 years. has sent me this note, arguing that the “overtaking problem in F1″ is not the aero, but the mechanical grip from the tyres and the lack of mistakes made by drivers on gearshifts due to semi automatic gearboxes. He advocates manual gearboxes and rock hard tyres.
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I won't copy the entire article, so it's worth a read, but he's basically saying the above. Most interesting.
 
Spie said:
Really? I know there have been tweaks, but is it really right and properly that a slightly different diffuser design can give a car have such an advantage?

I say we make cars wider, tyres wider, reduce front and rear wing size and severely restrict down-force and aero work.
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Well they reduced down-force levels (circa 50% off the top of my head), banned winglets and other aero pieces, much smaller rear wing, larger front wings, brought back more mechanical grip by ditching the grooved tyres. But the teams make most of it up again so they need to keep restricting it.

I agree with making the tyres wider and further reducing rear wing size. The double diffuser is already going next season but I read that it doesn't make much difference to the air wake behind though.
 
As i posted in another thread for me it comes down to ratios:

Mechanical grip : Aerodynamic grip

It doesnt matter how big for how hard the tyres are as long as the majority of grip comes from them. In the 60s tyres were very narrow and had to last for several races but there was almost no aero grip so we had good racing.

Power : grip

Again it doent matter how powerful the engines are (though they would all be v12s revving at 20000rpm+ if I had my way) as long as there is more power than grip. F1 cars SHOULD be dangerous to drive around corners such as Eau rouge or 130R. Corners like this should be there to sort men from boys and that aint the case at the moment.

Exciting racing is NOT just about overtaking. Even is overtaking was very easy racing would still be boring after a few laps as the fastest drivers would get infront and stay there. What makes racing exciting is variation ie wearing tyres, chaanging track conditions etc.

The other problem with current F1 cars is that they are far too sensetive to drive. Its practically imposible to powerslide an F1 car as the narrow wheelbase and aero reliance means the car will spin if it gets even a little bit out of shape. Returning to manual boxes or nobbling the brakes woundn't have any effect until this is resolved.
 
saddler said:
F1 cars SHOULD be dangerous to drive around corners such as Eau rouge or 130R. Corners like this should be there to sort men from boys and that aint the case at the moment.
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Agreed.

I'd also like to see manual selection of gearchanges and the banning of those little lights that tell them when to select a gear and the systems to stop wrong gear selection.

The trouble is that wouldn't help the reliability.

I once spoke with a sauber aero engineer after the last big aero downgrade. By the start of the new season with workarounds and creative thinking they had recovered he reckoned about 80% of what had been taken away and would be back to normal by midseason.

To stop that they should have some standard aero parts and free up the engine regulations a little.

F1 should also pay tire manufacturers to play and have a tire war if they are going to continue with no refuelling.

Lets face it though they won't free it up too much because f1 is driving costs down not up. There are only really a few teams that have money now.
 
Well i didn't manage to watch this sunday as i was hanging out my arse from night before and fell straight back asleep when i came down stairs to watch it... So watched it all monday and to be honest i didn't find it boring at all.

Spie said:
F1 wasn't always boring.

Senna, 1993

Arnoux and Villeneuve, 1979

Simply awesome stuff.
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Some awesome stuff there, when ever i watch something on senna his driving style reminds me so much of LH's style. Shame LH cant show his full potential with this aggressive style.
 
finally some more people mentioning that getting rid of refueling wasn't the issue, it just highlighted the issue.

I'm fed up with races being dominated by strategy over racing. Button said the race was "easy", surely if that was the case he could have pushed harder to try and overtake? risk wearing the tyres down to much to get more points? well no, because whenever anyone got within a second of the car infront they seemed to just collapse for pace.

I want to see cars pretty much touching around corners, every lap. The field has similar pace now, it would be awesome for racing if they had the chance to keep that pace when they are right behind another car :(
 
Really do have to laugh at all the people judging this season on 1 race so far.

How about judge it at the end of the season & give the change in rules a chance.
 
It's not just a lack of overtaking that's led to a decline in individual race drama - it seems the cars are becoming too reliable.

It's been nagging me for ages that F1 races [dry ones, at least] aren't as unpredictable as they used to be. Let's face it, that unpredictability is a big part of F1 excitement, so tonight I cracked open a spreadsheet, and hit Wikipedia for the results of some of the F1 seasons through the years.

Looking at the number of starts versus the number of retirements for the top 10 drivers of each season's championship*, I came up with the average driver's retirement rate:

Code: 
YEAR     RETIREMENT RATE (%)

1970              35

1980              29

1990              27

2000              30

2007              14
2008              14
2009              11

Not exactly a thorough sample set, I know, but I thought I'd pick the opening year of the decade to start with, just to make sure there might be something in it worth pursuing. When I compiled 2009's result, I was so surprised by the difference that I compiled the previous two years, to see if 2009 was just a freak year. It appears not :(

So to those of you that feel that today's F1 is missing an element of on-track drama, you're right. Anything can happen... and it usually doesn't. Not even Murray can save us.

EDIT: Yeah, I know: "Technology in progress shocker!". But I'd swap that acknowledgement of the clever car boffins' achievements for a bit more race eventfulness any day of the week.

* Why just the top 10? Well, it was to try and counter those seasons which had a disproportionate amount of tail-end charlies [1990, for instance]. And even taking all drivers into account, there was a very similar downward trend.
 
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Those are great stats. I remember in the 90s, where having the fastest car did not guarantee you race victory, mainly due to reliability. As you say, these days it is very rare for a car to break down completely.

What would be intersting is if you made a bar chart of 'number of retirements due to car failure' vs 'year'. I'm sure you will find an even greater disparity.
 
sunama said:
[...] What would be intersting is if you made a bar chart of 'number of retirements due to car failure' vs 'year'. I'm sure you will find an even greater disparity.
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Yeah, I'd love to have those specific stats.

Unfortunately, Wikipedia's table of results only mentions 'retirement'. It doesn't go into any more detail, and I'm not so committed as to want to go trawling through the minutae of over six hundred races to sort out the engine blowups from the '... as a result of a racing incident' retirements.

Anyway... fingers crossed for rain at Melbourne.
 
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