A story has appeared on Autosport.com this morning which reports on some comments that Alan Donnelly made in Italian sports newspaper Gazzetta dello Sport. In it, the FIA’s man in the steward’s room and known Max Mosley lackey attempted to rebut claims that the FIA is biased in favour of Ferrari.
What I find interesting is that the example he uses to “rebut” the theory is exactly the same example used by Max Mosley in a recent interview with the BBC. This suggests that the FIA is now running a coordinated campaign in order to re-establish its credibility as governing body.
It sorely needs that campaign. With the multitude of increasingly bizarre penalties handed out throughout this season, trust in the FIA’s systems have taken a hammer-blow. The only thing that has become clear this season is that there is no way of knowing what will get punished and what won’t.
Fans no longer trust the FIA, as you will see by dropping in to any blog or message board. Many in the media no longer trust the FIA’s stewards. Increasingly, drivers are calling for urgent changes to be made to the stewarding system. Teams have decided that enough is enough and have formed FOTA to counter the FIA’s madness. And yesterday, even Bernie Ecclestone slammed some of the penalties recently handed out by the FIA.
It looks like the only people who have any trust in the FIA any more are the FIA themselves. And any government that has lost the trust of everyone is clearly no longer fit for purpose. Now, the FIA is erratically throwing out increasingly bizarre ideas to change the face of F1 from tip to toe. Many of the changes, most notably a standardised engine, are completely antithetical to the idea of grand prix motor racing as we have all grown to know it, and Max Mosley’s vision of F1 is sure to alienate most fans.
It is a sign of the mismanagement and desperation of the poisonous and discredited little man at the top Max Mosley. He should have left his post after the Indygate debacle in 2005 when Max Mosley, in consort with Jean Todt, refused to compromise to allow the race go ahead. Since then, Max Mosley has never had my favour and the events of this year have further underlined my feelings.
Earlier this year, at the height of the sex scandal, he promised that he would step down at the end of his term next year. But as I noted at the time, he promised to resign in 2004 then changed his mind. True enough, the signs now are that he will continue on as FIA President. It is clear that he only promised to resign to help him get through the General Assembly vote. This makes him a liar. What a terrible person to have in such a powerful position.
Let us not forget that at the end of last season, the well-respected permanent steward Tony Scott Andrews left the role which had been seen as a relative success. In his place, a new consultant to the stewards was appointed. That man was Mosley’s mate Alan Donnelly. Donnelly’s company, Sovereign Strategy, based in an FIA-owned building, used to list Ferrari as one of its clients on its website. The Ferrari name mysteriously disappeared when Donnelly was appointed in his new role.
Mosley and Donnelly are now trotting out the following “proof” of why the FIA is not biased in favour of Ferrari:
You just need one example to debunk that theory: at Monaco the stewards noticed that on Raikkonen’s F2008 the wheels had not been fitted before the three-minute mark as allowed in the regulations. So the stewards penalised Kimi with a drive-through in a track where you can’t overtake.
That would be an inadequate argument anyway, as I already wrote when Mosley came out with it on the BBC. But it is even worse than that. As Don Speekingleesh pointed out in the comments, the Sporting Regulations clearly state that such an infraction should actually result in a driver starting from the back of the grid.
When the three minute signal is shown all cars must have their wheels fitted, after this signal wheels may only be removed in the pit lane or on the grid during a race suspension.
Any car which does not have all its wheels fully fitted at the three minute signal must start the race from the back of the grid or the pit lane. Under these circumstances a marshal holding a yellow flag will prevent the car (or cars) from leaving the grid until all cars able to do so have left to start the formation lap.
It would be funny if it wasn’t so pathetic. Alan Donnelly’s own “proof” that the FIA is not biased in favour of Ferrari actually appears to support of the conspiracy theory. It is clear that, according to the letter of the rules, Kimi Raikkonen should have started the race from the back of the grid. As it was, with just the drive-through penalty he never fell lower than 6th before crashing into Adrian Sutil.
What a mess the FIA is in. It is no wonder stewards’ decisions are so erratic and unpredictable. The FIA do not even appear to know what their own rules are. This is shown in the FIA’s embarrassingly wrong-footed attempts to debunk the Ferrari International Assistance theory. What a cock-up.
Following the controversy of the Belgian Grand Prix, they needed to do it. And thankfully they have — the FIA have finally clarified once and for all exactly what they expect a driver to do if he needs to use an escape road.
During the drivers’ regular meeting with Race Director Charlie Whiting, it was made clear that drivers who cut a corner will not be allowed to challenge at the following corner as Hamilton did to Räikkönen at La Source in Belgium. This will come as a relief to fans and drivers alike who were previously left in the dark as to what the precise limit is.
On Thursday David Coulthard called for clarification in the rule. Meanwhile yesterday his Red Bull team mate Mark Webber expressed his relief saying, “generally, it is pretty clear for people to probably not attack immediately again, which wasn’t mega, mega clear in the past.”
Moreover, the solution is a broadly sensible one as it is relatively easily defined and fans and drivers will now know more clearly when a driver has pushed the rules too far. For this, the FIA should be applauded.
However, Charlie Whiting apparently raised eyebrows as during the meeting by revealing that this rule has actually been in place for two years! According to Ian Phillips (Director of Business Affairs at Force India) commentating during Friday Practice 2 on Radio 5 Live Sports Extra yesterday, Mr Whiting was adamant that the rule was originally clarified two weeks ago — but team principals could find no written record of the rule. It has already been established that neither the Formula 1 Sporting Regulations nor the International Sporting Code mention what a driver is expected to do after cutting a chicane.
Given Charlie Whiting’s apparent certainty of the rule, it does raise the question: why did he initially give the Hamilton move the “okay” in Belgium? Ian Phillips speculated that Charlie Whiting was only saying some things during the meeting because an FIA bod was also present in the room at the time. Whatever, it is another interesting twist in the story of Charlie Whiting’s behaviour surrounding the infamous incident in Belgium.
After this news emerged, we were discussing in the liveblog the implications of the new rule. Robert McKay made a very good point (at 1:25 during Friday Practice 2).
it’s also an interesting “rule” because there are some tracks where the definition of a “corner” is not clear – when Brundle says “some teams call this turn 5, some 6″ or whatever.
This was a particular issue at Valencia, where some small kinks in straights were given a turn number. Take a look at the map. Let us say, for the sake of argument, a driver cuts the chicane at turn 5. Can he scream up behind a driver through turn 6 then go on the attack at turn 7? Or should he wait until turn 8? I know which would seem fairer — waiting until turn 8. But under the strange definition of a “corner” applied to the Valencia Street Circuit, it’s not exactly clear cut.
Also, Charlie Whiting’s “clarification” only appears to clarify what should happen when a driver is on the attack. What about a driver who is defending, such as Michael Schumacher was during the Hungarian Grand Prix in 2006? Should a driver in this situation let the driver behind by? Because Schumacher didn’t — and he didn’t get punished for it.
Today’s clarification makes the situation with cutting chicanes much clearer. But even under the new situation, there is still scope for another controversial incident to occur one day.
I have some concluding thoughts about the incident which I have gathered after seeing how the debate has unfolded on blogs and forums. Basically, the problem boils down to the lack of clarity in the regulations.
First of all, I notice that people keep on referring to what the rules are. “The rules say he needs to let him past”, “The rules say he needs to lose any momentum he gained”, blah, blah, blah. What is interesting is that no-one can ever actually find these rules. That is because they don’t exist.
In comments sections I have referred several times to the wording of the stewards’ decision and the rules that it cites. I will do that here so that you can see what I am talking about.
The stewards, having receieved a report from the Race Director and having met with the drivers and team managers involved, have considered the following matter, determine a breach of the regulations has been committed by the competitor named below and impose the penalty referred to…
Facts: Cut the chicane and gained an advantage Offence: Breach of Article 30.3 (a) of the 2008 FIA Formula One Sporting Regulations and Appendix L chapter 4 Article 2 (g) of the International Sporting Code Penalty: Drive-through penalty (Article 16.3(a)), since this is being applied at the end of the Race, 25 seconds will be added to the drivers’ elapsed race time
During practice and the race, drivers may use only the track and must at all times observe the provisions of the Code relating to driving behaviour on circuits.
Appendix L chapter 4 Article 2 (g) of the International Sporting Code (available from this page) says:
The race track alone shall be used by the drivers during the race.
Note that the regulations and the Code say absolutely nothing about gaining an advantage. If the stewards are to apply the letter of the law, every driver who ever ran wide or cut a chicane whether or not he gave any gained positions or momentum back would be penalised. That would have probably meant almost every driver in the Belgian Grand Prix getting penalised.
Clearly, this would be a farcical situation and it is right that the FIA exercises caution when it comes to enforcing these rules. Over time it has become a convention that a driver who is perceived to have gained track position by going off the race track should give back any positions that he gained.
The problems with this are obvious though. It is almost impossible to measure what gains a driver made by going off the circuit. For instance, where does the Bus Stop begin? Is it when Kimi Räikkönen brakes? Is it the first apex? Is it when Lewis Hamilton brakes. We just don’t know — there is no set definition. This is where the arguments stem from.
So, you can argue, as Clive has done, that Lewis Hamilton was ahead of Räikkönen going into the corner. Certainly, Hamilton had the edge during the braking zone of the first apex. It is also clear that Hamilton was catching Räikkönen very quickly for a long period running up to the chicane.
But you can also argue that Hamilton braked later than Räikkönen knowing that the escape road was an option that he could take. Conversely, you can argue that Räikkönen braked earlier than Hamilton simply because he was not coping well in the wet conditions, as is evident from his sector times leading up to the incident.
The problem is that we don’t know how the stewards came to their decision. Presumably they think that under any other circumstances, there is no possibility that Hamilton would have been as close to Räikkönen coming towards La Source unless he took the escape road. This is what the argument that Hamilton should have been penalised boils down to.
But the rationale for how the stewards reached this decision is shrouded in mystery. The convention, as I mentioned before, is that a driver who gains a position by using an escape road must give it back. That is what I understood it to be.
Now all of a sudden other people are saying other things such as, “the convention is that a driver must give back a position then not attempt to overtake for another corner (or two).” Or, “the convention is that a driver must give back a position then get back into the dirty air of the other driver” (how this is supposed to happen when F1 is supposedly getting rid of dirty air next year, I don’t know). Or, “the convention is that a driver must give back a position and any other distance he gained” (how this is supposed to be measured by anyone, as I have pointed out before, I don’t know). I saw another person say that he should have given a “courtesy pause”.
I have to confess that these “conventions” are all news to me. Given this myriad of “conventions” that people have come up with, it is clear that there actually is no convention. And let me just reiterate that anyone who says that any of the above are rules is simply lying. The regulations say absolutely nothing about giving back a position or anything. It is quite clear that the rules state that anyone who goes off the race track — whether they gain from it or not — should be penalised.
The problem is when it comes to asking: where do you draw the line? The debates have shown that there is no agreed point at which the line should be drawn. And here is the problem with the FIA as many fans see it at the moment. This is where the perceived inconsistencies come from. When there is no set convention, there are bound to be inconsistencies.
When there are three different stewards at every race, this only compounds the situation. When the stewards are assisted by a man, Alan Donnelly, who is perceived to be politically close to Max Mosley and who until he was appointed in the post listed Ferrari among the clients of his company, that is when things start to become really bad. Whether the fans are right or not, they perceive there to be a pro-Ferrari bias within the FIA. You can’t really blame them.
It is legitimate to ask why Lewis Hamilton got penalised in Belgium when Michael Schumacher was not even investigated for cutting the same chicane in two consecutive laps while trying to defend his position (first at 4:20 then at 5:50).
Was that permissible because Schumacher was ahead and defending his position? Or was it permissible because his car was red? Is it a coincidence that the other car is silver?
Perhaps a better video to use is the instance where Felipe Massa didn’t get penalised last year in Fuji for this driving, when in dangerous conditions he barged Robert Kubica off the road twice before taking a wide line onto the run-off area coming towards the finish line, which gave him the speed to beat Kubica. (Before anyone starts, I was highly critical of Hamilton’s driving at Fuji last year — check the archives of my other blog.)
Was Massa given the benefit of the doubt because of the torrential conditions? Or was it because his car was red?
At the time, Martin Brundle commentating on ITV said that it looked “50:50″ between Massa and Kubica for naughty driving. It is true that Kubica cuts a chicane a couple of times as well, although he never gained anything like the sort of advantage Massa got coming out of the final corner.
I use this clip because it is an instance where both drivers were a bit naughty. This is just like what happened in Belgium. Hamilton was a bit naughty by cutting the chicane. But when he gave back the position, Räikkönen was a bit naughty by making two moves going towards La Source. Then Räikkönen was a bit naughty by crashing into Hamilton at La Source.
Then Räikkönen was a bit naughty by running wide at Pouhon (Hamilton ran wide at Pouhon as well, but Hamilton re-joined the track much earlier than Räikkönen did. Räikkönen just carried on taking the wider line through the run-off area and this gave him the momentum to catch right up to Hamilton again). Then Räikkönen was a bit naughty by overtaking under a yellow flag (understandably, given the situation).
My point is not that Räikkönen should have been punished for anything he did in that hectic lap. As far as I am concerned, this was just tough racing. It wasn’t completely clean from either driver. Both drivers were pushing it to the limit in all senses. But not in any case was there a clear instance of a driver deliberately setting out to gain an unfair advantage at any point, nor do I think either driver ever seriously endangered anyone’s safety.
For me, this is just the sort of instance where you have to say to yourself, “these things happen in racing”. For me, it was an example of what good racing is all about. Watching the onboard video is an absolute joy for me. I think it is excellent edge-of-your-seat tension. I feel bad that it has been ruined in a way by the overly-officious stewards who somehow managed to overlook all of Räikkönen’s transgressions yet punish Hamilton’s transgression.
It’s great racing, and Hamilton got punished for it. My worry is that a driver who is 50:50 about whether he can make an overtaking move without having to take the escape road will now be more likely to hold back and settle for second. As BBC commentator David Croft and none other that Renault’s director of engineering Pat Symonds have pointed out, this penalty distorts the incentives that an F1 driver has to overtake. When F1 is supposed to be encouraging more overtaking and more great racing, this is a major retrograde step.
If anything is clear, it is that the regulations in this area are clear as mud. Since tarmac run-off areas came into vogue, this has slowly become a greater and greater problem for Formula 1. It was inevitable that sooner or later there was going to be a big controversy over the interpretation of the rules about using run-off areas.
My problem is that now too many rules in F1 are down to interpretation. The vagueness of the rules demands that this be so. But that leaves it wide open to corruption, or allegations of bias. Given the inconsistencies, it is highly possible that the drivers do not know how far they can push it. And the fans certainly don’t know. That is not acceptable.
I don’t think there is a single race that goes by when there is not some pathetic person who says things like, “driver X cut the chicane, driver Y crossed the white line, driver Z farted in the wrong place, therefore they should all be penalised so that my favourite driver can win the race.” With F1′s rules as vague and flexible as they are today, fans can craft a race result that suits them. So can the stewards.
My problem with the Hamilton penalty is that I cannot feel confident that the stewards would have penalised a Ferrari driver for doing the same thing. Many other people feel the same way. At worst, the system is open to corruption. At best, Formula 1 has become a judged competition. Slowly but surely, Formula 1 is changing from a sport where the winner is the person who crosses the line first into a sport where the winner is whoever the stewards thought did the best job. Figure skating on wheels.
Perhaps the FIA really likes that idea. But I don’t. What the FIA needs to do is sort this mess out once and for all. If there really is a need to rotate the stewards, at least have one or two permanent stewards — and make them credible. Also, make the rules on using run-off areas and escape roads much, much clearer so that drivers, stewards and fans alike know where the line is drawn. Because just now we are all guessing, and that is where the debates are coming from and that is why Formula 1 keeps on having these controversial situations.
In my previous post I concluded that Ferrari will have to look at their engines to bring a halt to their reliability woes. But following the European Grand Prix it is also clear that they will have to look at their pitstop procedures. There were two pitlane controversies surrounding Ferrari today.
First of all, Felipe Massa was released straight into the path of the Force India of Adrian Sutil. (Is it just me, or to Ferrari always seem desperate to dump on their client, Force India?) It always annoys me that this sort of thing is never penalised properly. The pitlane is the most dangerous section of the track, and lollipop men often have scant regard for the safety of their fellow mechanics in other teams.
The GP2 races this weekend saw a couple of drivers get penalised for being released into the path of oncoming cars. The pitlane in Valencia is especially narrow, perhaps among the narrowest all year, so it is more important than in most places that this rule is stuck to. So I was glad to see action taken to stop this sort of behaviour in GP2.
However, the race stewards completely bottled out of making a proper decision on Massa’s incident. They announced that they would investigate the incident, but elected to make their decision after the race. In short, the stewards bottled it because it involved a Ferrari.
In the end, Ferrari escaped with a reprimand and a €10,000 fine. I was glad that the race result wasn’t changed behind closed doors, which would have been the worst case scenario. But that only makes it all the more important that these decisions are made during the race, not after. Massa should have been given a drive-through penalty and that should have been the end of it. I certainly think that if it was Sutil who nearly ran over a cameraman and crashed into the safety car while being released in front of a Ferrari, the stewards would not have been so shy of making a decision during the race.
Ferrari’s defence was also absolutely bizarre. Their excuse was that “no sporting advantage was obtained” by releasing Massa too early. As Keith points out, the FIA have taken a dim view of this sort of explanation when it has come from other teams whose name is not Ferrari.
Moreover, not only is it doubtful that Ferrari did not gain an advantage by releasing Massa early, whether or not he gained an advantage is not even the point. The point is whether or not Ferrari created the potential for there to be a dangerous situation in the pitlane. In my view there is no doubt that they did create that potential.
Article 23.1 i) of the sporting regualtions states:
It is the responsibility of the competitor to release his car after a pit stop only when it is safe to do so.
There is nothing there about whether or not a sporting advantage is obtained — only if the situation was safe or not. The FIA should not accept Ferrari’s explanation as a mitigating factor.
The FIA know that they have an image problem. They know about the ‘Ferrari International Assistance’ problem. We have heard Max Mosley mentioning it. What gets me is that whenever the FIA has an opportunity to shed this image, they fail to take it! This can only mean that they actually are set out to please Ferrari all the time.
Massa’s pitlane exit was particularly dangerous. The onboard footage from his car shows that Massa passed a cameraman who was kneeling in the ‘inner lane’ of the pitlane. Further down the road, Massa was sandwiched between Sutil and the Safety Car and Medical Car — presumably with driver Bernd Mayländer and the medics sitting in them. If Massa had crashed into Sutil here, I shudder to think what the other consequences could have been.
Felipe Massa’s “explanation” during the press conference was as low as it gets.
I think it wasn’t very clever from his [Adrian Sutil's] side as even if he went out in front of me he needed to let me by. It was a shame to fight with him in the pit lane as we were very close and I needed to back off and I lost a lot of time but fortunately the gap was enough…
I stopped behind him in the pit stop and we leave together. When he was passing me by I was leaving the garage, so we were side-by-side. But I was the leader and he was lapping.
I don’t remember ever reading the rule whereby cars that are about to be lapped are supposed to wait in their pit box until the precious Ferrari has left the pitlane. The fact is that Adrian Sutil was exiting the pitlane minding his own business just as he does after every single pitstop he has ever done. Then all of a sudden this red car is released straight towards his sidepod! I struggle to see how this can be anyone’s fault other than the ‘lollipop’ man’s.
Which brings us on to the talking point of Ferrari’s pitstops. A relatively recent innovation, from the past couple of years or so, is Ferrari’s decision to dispense entirely with a lollipop and instead use a traffic light system. Each mechanic working on the car is given a button which he presses when he is finished. Once all the buttons have been pressed the traffic light turns green and away the car goes.
ITV made a lot of Ferrari’s ‘semi-automatic’ system. But my understanding is that the chief mechanic plays the role that used to be played by the lollipop man — i.e. he doesn’t press his button until he is certain it is safe for the car to be released. In Massa’s case, the lollipop man simply didn’t do his job properly. This would have been the case whether he had a lollipop or a traffic light system.
Ferrari had another problematic pitstop that quickly focussed on the traffic light system. Kimi Räikkönen attempted to leave his pit box while the fuel hose was still attached. Pictures from Räikkönen’s T-cam show that he left the box when the lights turned amber — not green.
I don’t know exactly how Ferrari’s traffic light system works, but my guess would be that when each of the mechanics has pressed their button the light turns amber, and only when the chief mechanic presses his button does the light turn green. Presumably 99% of the time when the light turns amber it almost immediately turns green. In this instance it didn’t because the fuel hose became stuck.
I guess the majority of the blame has to rest of Räikkönen’s shoulders for going when the light wasn’t green. But perhaps Ferrari can look at their system to make sure there is no chance of such confusion in the future.
What I haven’t seen noticed anywhere else is the fact that this was essentially another fuel rig failure on the back of the four or five fuel rig failures we saw in Hungary. It’s not unusual to see a fuel hose become stuck on a car and for the mechanics to struggle to remove it, but it’s worth noting that this incident came so soon after the high-profile incidents in Budapest.
The 2009 season will bring a completely new look to Formula 1, with one of the most drastic and far-reaching overhauls of the rulebook in the sport’s history. The only comparable change I can think of in my lifetime is the rules brought in for 1998 (grooved tyres and narrower cars), but even that pales in comparison to what will happen for 2009.
The new rules are being brought in partly to remedy the perceived lack of overtaking in F1. The various aerodynamic devices that have appeared over the past decade or so are said to create ‘dirty air’ which makes it very difficult for one car to follow closely to another, therefore reducing the amount of overtaking. These devices will be outlawed from 2009.
Furthermore, rear wings will be made taller and narrower, and front wings will be wider. F1 Wolf has tried to describe what the new cars will look like. If you have a copy of the August 2008 issue of F1 Racing, you will see a good illustration of a typical 2009 F1 car on page 102–103.
The FIA was basically forced to admit that the problem with ‘dirty air’ had become serious when Fernando Alonso was penalised during qualifying for the 2006 Italian Grand Prix for supposedly impeding Felipe Massa. You can view a video of the full lap including the infamous incident below.
The car in front of Massa is Fernando Alonso, but he always stayed a large distance in front of Massa. But Massa stumbled on the final corner of the lap, Parabolica (at 1:05 on the video). Even though Fernando Alonso was so far ahead of Massa, the ‘dirty air’ caused by Alonso was deemed to have prevented Massa from setting a fast lap. No wonder, therefore, that overtaking is such a rarity in F1.
But is overtaking as rare as the doom-mongers make out? The way some people go on, you would think that there were only about a dozen overtaking manoeuvres all season. But according to the June 2008 edition of F1 Racing, there were in fact 270 on-track overtaking moves pulled off in the 2007 season. Interestingly enough, Felipe Massa topped the table, completing a total of 20 overtaking manoeuvres during the season. The Japanese Grand Prix alone contained 46 passes.
To clarify, this does not include positions gained in the pitlane or as a result of retirements. Nor do the figures include any passes made on the first lap of a race. Because of the methodology adopted by F1 Racing, the statistics will also omit any instance where a driver overtook then got overtaken again later on in the same lap.
My own view is that the theory that there used to be more overtaking in F1 is utter bobbins. For a start, no-one seems to be able to agree when F1 did have more overtaking. Most people talk vaguely about the past. Many people on the BBC’s 606 discussion board decided that there was more overtaking in F1 ten years ago. But an article on Grandprix.com bemoaning the lack of overtaking in F1 was written thirteen years ago — and could as easily have been written today.
Is it not possible that these people are all looking at the past through rose-tinted spectacles? It is notable to me that when harking back to the past it is often the same few races that are cited over and over again.
Yeah, so there was an ace wheel-to-wheel battle between Gilles Villeneuve and René Arnoux in the 1979 French Grand Prix. But that wasn’t emulated in any other grand prix in 1979, nor in any GP in 1980 or 1978 either. In other words, it was a one-off. Note Murray Walker’s commentary: “There has never been a more exciting battle for a major position than this one” — and that was before the real fireworks started!
You can argue whether or not F1 needs more overtaking or if it has the balance just right. We all like to see a great overtaking manoeuvre. But the reason an overtaking manoeuvre is so great is precisely because it is so rare. If you artificially encourage overtaking, it will become devalued.
Keith Collantine had a great post about this last year. The last thing F1 should do is follow the “Nascar example”. Overtaking is so common in Nascar that a move is scarcely worth mentioning — so what’s the point? I would agree that GP2 has the balance right.
GP2 does have its own boring processions from time to time. But the occasional boring race is inevitable. Unless you want your sports dumbed down to a horrendous extent like they are in America, true sporting contests are not always designed to be entertainment spectacles. A processional F1 race is like a 0-0 draw in football. We don’t like it, but we live through it for the high times.
One of the proposed changes for 2009 threatens to devalue overtaking. I have mentioned the wider front wings already. What I didn’t mention is an extra feature the front wings will have — an adjustable flap. The flaps are huge and drivers will be allowed to adjust them by six degrees as much as twice per lap.
This, to me, is just a terrible idea on so many levels. For one thing, it smacks of A1GP-style gimmickery. Formula 1 is supposed to be about pure racing — a fast person and a fast car, end of. “Push to pass”-style schemes can be left to the mickey mouse series as far as I am concerned.
For another thing it seems to me that the drivers will quickly find out where the optimal time to adjust their wing is during practice. If each driver is able to make two adjustments per lap, they will make those two adjustments at the same two points on every lap. So the cars will all go faster and slower in the same places. How is this supposed to encourage overtaking?
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