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Archive: speed

Coulthard’s comments are anti-racing

3 July 2010 00:17

Categories: *, Formula 1

I suppose it is inevitable, but I dislike the blame game that has gone on since the horrendous crash between Mark Webber and Heikki Kovalainen during the European Grand Prix last week. The most important thing after an incident like that is to take stock. I was in awe of the extremely high safety standards demonstrated during that crash, but lessons need to be learned. Fingers don’t need to be pointed.

For me, it was a racing incident, in which both drivers could share a portion of the blame. Heikki Kovalainen probably tried to defend more than was really justified against a hugely superior car. Meanwhile, Mark Webber tried to catch a bit more slipstream than was necessary. Both made a mistake, and the result was that both were punished. That’s racing.

But BBC pundit and Red Bull Racing “Ambassador” David Coulthard was among the first to start pointing fingers, during his post-race analysis on the BBC. The comments about “A-class” and “B-class” teams that were being bandied about on the BBC were rather crass in my view.

Given that he is paid by Red Bull, David Coulthard’s comments perhaps shouldn’t have been surprising. For him, Heikki Kovalainen should have stepped aside, rolled out the red carpet, and allowed the Red Bull car to pass without a fight.

In fairness, it is not just his link to Red Bull that might have made him say this. David Coulthard has a history of suggesting that the “slower” car, should move over for the “faster” car. I have never forgotten his whining following the 2001 Monaco Grand Prix, when he was unable to overtake Enrique Bernoldi whom he was racing for position. You still hear him moan about it from time to time.

The idea that, when cars are racing for position, the car behind needs to overtake the car in front, has always appeared to evade Coulthard’s grasp. Formula 1 should award the drivers with the most skill, not just the engineers who can design and build the fastest cars. Overtaking is exciting because it is a skill, and if drivers of “slower” cars were to just stand aside, viewers would soon flock to another sport.

Yesterday David Coulthard went further still, blaming the crash on the slower speed of Heikki Kovalainen’s Lotus car. As Keith Collantine points out, the difference in speed is hardly alarming. Certainly, by historical standards, the pace of the new teams is actually very quick.

There has been a lot of talk about the reintroduction of the 107% rule, coming next season. Had the rule been in place for this season, the new teams would only have been caught out a handful of times. But in the mid 1990s it was a fairly regular occurrence for a Forti, Minardi or a Tyrrell to fail to qualify. Before then, to have cars that were several seconds off the pace was frankly the norm.

The only reason a car 2.5 seconds off the pace is considered “too slow” these days is because the standards in F1 have greatly increased over the past five or ten years. Of course there is a reason why chronically slow cars should not be allowed to race. But when we are talking about teams that are on the margin of 107%, the issue seems overblown. It’s not as if the Hispania cars are performing like the Mastercard Lola.

I get the feeling that David Coulthard thinks only “fast” cars and “fast” drivers should be allowed in F1. Of course, Formula 1 is an elite sport. But every single one of the cars on the grid this year is an elite car. The new teams (the first real new teams since 2002) have done an incredible job to be so close to the pace so quickly. Hispania is an elite team, as are Virgin and Lotus.

Of course, David Coulthard had the advantage of always racing for “fast” teams in F1. His F1 career began at Williams when the team was reaching the height of its mid-1990s dominance. When he moved to McLaren, they were never terribly far off the pace. Even when he raced for Red Bull, they weren’t exactly backmarkers.

Maybe if he had done a stint with a smaller, less well-resourced team, he would have a bit more sympathy for the tailenders that are every bit as important to F1 as the front runners.

3 comments

Focus on Ferrari's engines

25 August 2008 00:26

Categories: Report

Unfortunately the Valencia Street Circuit did not come up with the goods. There was excitement in some quarters about the possibility of overtaking in Valencia, but the race was in fact one of the most processional we have seen all year. The only decent overtaking move was Coulthard on Piquet very early on in the race. Coulthard was later caught out by an over-optimistic move on Adrian Sutil.

However, there are a few talking points coming away from the European Grand Prix and they all centre on Ferrari. I can’t work out who has got the upper hand in the championship battle between Ferrari and McLaren. But definitely think that the ball is in Ferrari’s court. It’s theirs to win or lose.

First of all, it is now crystal clear that Ferrari have gained a huge performance advantage in the engine department. This is astonishing given that there is a supposed “engine freeze” whereby development on the engine is not allowed. It looks like Ferrari have been utilising a loophole whereby they can change parts of the engine on reliability grounds.

This is demonstrated by the sheer pace of the Ferrari engines at the Valencia Street Circuit with some long straights. Through the speed trap during the race, the top five fastest drivers were all using Ferrari engines. This ranges from Sébastien Bourdais’s top speed of 313km/h down to Sutil with the fifth-fastest speed at 311km/h. It’s been the same story all weekend.

It seems clear that most other engine manufacturers have been using this loophole, albeit perhaps not quite to the same extent as the Scuderia. It is equally clear that Renault have barely lifted a finger when it comes to developing their engine this season.

You can see this in the advantage Toro Rosso now have over Red Bull. They both have an identical chassis, but Toro Rosso use a Ferrari engine and Red Bull use the Renault. Toro Rosso have moved forwards while Red Bull have moved backwards. Frank Williams said in the September 2008 edition of F1 Racing that he had heard a rumour that one of the Red Bull drivers drove a Toro Rosso and was amazed at the pace of the Ferrari engine. More and more evidence mounts that Ferrari have a major engine advantage over Renault.

You can point the finger at Ferrari if you want to (and yes, I do want to). But the fact is that Renault have failed to exploit a loophole. This is a cardinal sin in Formula 1. Renault have taken the engine freeze at face value and failed to look for the loopholes which is what every other team has done. It’s amazing to think that this is effectively the same team that bent the rules to breaking point in the mid-1990s when Michael Schumacher drove for them in the Benetton days.

At the start of the season Renault blamed their woes on aerodynamic deficiencies. But it is clear now that they are hurting more in the aero department. It would be funny if it was mainly down to aero because if anything Renault have moved forwards as the season has progressed while Red Bull are steadily sinking towards the bottom end of the grid.

However, one has to wonder if Ferrari’s ability to find so much engine pace within the bounds of the rules is so healthy. Teams are allowed to develop new engine parts on the grounds of reliability. However, as I think Keith pointed out in the liveblog for the race, Ferrari’s engines have become more unreliable if anything.

This has culminated in two spectacular engine blow-ups in two consecutive races — one for Massa in Hungary, and yesterday’s blow-up for Räikkönen. The FIA ought to be asking Ferrari some probing questions about their engine development. Why are they able to use this loophole to make their engines less reliable?

Like I say, I can’t decide if Ferrari have the upper hand or not. They clearly have the fastest car now. However, the unreliability must be a major worry. Despite not being on the pace for the past two races, Hamilton has extended his lead after both races — and it’s all because of Ferrari engines blowing up.

It’s worth pointing out that the next two races put huge strain on the engine. Spa has long, fast sections and Monza is the fastest circuit in the calendar. If any period of the year demands a reliable engine, it’s this period. Ferrari will be looking hard at their engine to make sure they don’t blow up in Belgium and Italy.

2 comments

Meanwhile, in America

28 May 2007 14:20

Categories: Current affairs, Entertainment, Formula 1, Sport, Television

While Britain has been jizzing over yet another safe drive to second from Lewis Hamilton in Europe’s most prestigious race, it will have escaped many people’s attention that a Brit has gone one step further and won America’s most prestigious race — the Indianapolis 500.

Scot Dario Franchitti is experienced enough in American open-wheel racing having spent a number of years in Champ Cars and IndyCars. Yesterday he caught the jewel in the crown, and took the most sought-after victory on the other side of the pond.

But is it meaningful? He certainly has his place in the motor racing history books, in between the 2006 and 2008 winners of the Indy 500. But American open-wheel racing has been in disarray since the IRL–Cart split.

And these days it is unthinkable that an IndyCar driver would be offered a seat in Formula 1. A few years ago it was fairly common, but drivers like Jacques Villeneuve, Juan Pablo Montoya, Cristiano da Matta and Antonio Pizzonia, proved to be ultimately underwhelming or sometimes even downright dangerous.

But does Dario Franchitti care? I’m sure he grew up dreaming of being a Formula 1 driver, but he can’t feel too unfortunate to be a top-running IndyCar driver. While it is tempting for us Europeans to think of Formula 1 as the global pinnacle of motor racing, Americans famously do not find F1 appealing.

Despite the attempts in recent years to unite F1 with Indianapolis, the self-styled “motor racing capital of the world”, US fans have snubbed Formula 1. Likewise, IndyCar and Cart are marginal sports here.

Take, for instance, the fact that Dan Wheldon — a Brit — was 2005 IndyCar champion. He must be one of the very few British sporting successes of recent years, yet how many people here have heard of him? Very few.

It might seem strange. After all, IRL and F1 are both kinds of motor racing, and they use similar kinds of cars. But in reality they are two different sports for two different audiences.

F1 Fanatic wrote a post in the run up to this weekend asking readers which they preferred between the Monaco Grand Prix and the Indianapolis 500. It’s got me thinking about American open-wheel racing, and why I don’t watch them.

The obvious reason is that I don’t have Sky, and Channel Five’s highlights packages are so poorly edited as to be rendered unwatchable. On Channel Five, it is not unusual to see several minutes of mundane, processional race footage which then cuts to several dozen laps later, with a change of leader and no explanation as to why there is a change of leader. Extremely frustrating to watch.

I suspect, though, that even if I was able to watch decent coverage of US open-wheel racing, I would still give it a miss. It is easy to revert to snobbery. I remember (I think) David Richards comparing F1 with American motor racing, saying it was like comparing caviar to a cheeseburger.

It is true that Americans like to be entertained by on-track fireworks rather than skill. I often get the impression that the bottom line for Americans is speed. For instance, grid orders are presented as a table of average lap speeds rather than lap times as they are in F1.

This might sound funny, but speed is not everything in motor racing. Not outright speed, at least. Americans scoff at the average speed of a Formula 1 lap, but this has something to do with the fact that Formula 1 circuits actually have corners and F1 drivers have to negotiate both left and right turns, a feat which is a chore to most racers in America.

Indianapolis Motor Speedway is an oval. The Circuit de Monaco looks like this:

Circuit de Monaco

While Americans may laugh at the relatively slow average speed of a Formula 1 car, there can be no doubt that F1 cars are technically superior. The ability to accelerate quickly, brake quickly and — most of all — corner quickly is what gives F1 cars the technical edge.

Most American races don’t have corners, so none of this applies to American race cars as much. So the most amazing aspects of F1 cars go straight over the heads of American onlookers, who have grown up in a completely different motor racing culture.

But I have to hold my hands up and say that I feel as though I might be missing something. There may be subtleties and nuances about oval racing that I simply do not understand because I have not sat down and watched enough oval races. But that is because it just looks boring.

Fans of American racing also bemoan the lack of overtaking in Formula 1. This is especially true of the Monaco Grand Prix, where it is near enough impossible to overtake.

While this is true to an extent, overtaking is special precisely because it is difficult to do. In America, meanwhile, overtaking manoeuvres are ten a penny. That just devalues them. There is no skill involved in overtaking. It just happens.

I like this comment over at F1 Fanatic by Robert McKay:

The one time I watched the Indy 500, two drivers slipstreamed each other with ease every single straight. Back and forth they went. Oval driving might require a different skill set to road racing, but passing was almost impossible NOT to acheive…

Sure there’s lots of overtaking, but very little of it actually EARNED like in road racing.

Having said all of that, I think IRL and Cart have two major plus points against F1.

Firstly, the cars get stunningly close to each other in IRL. It has to be said, those drivers have balls. When I see cars going two abreast on a banked oval, I want to shield my eyes. It must involve an incredible amount of trust in your competitors, because if the cars accidentally interlock, they’ll be hitting a concrete wall at high speed.

The second is that IndyCar racing in general seems to be genuinely open. Despite the fact that the circuits all seem to be an identical shape, different drivers and different cars win different races and different championships. None of this seven times champion or back-to-back champion pish.

In terms of spectacle, I think both the Indy 500 and the Monaco Grand Prix are dire. Quite funny that the two most prestigious and famous motor races are also two of the most boring.

7 comments