F1 – Page 23 – I Watch Too Much Racing

Thoughts on F1: Bahrain GP

Preface

In 2008 and 2009 I wrote detailed Race Reviews of each F1 race, and some IndyCar and GP2 races, featuring my reaction to events as they unfolded, which I’d taken as short notes then wrote up more fully. These were moderately popular but took a lot of work and I felt I wasn’t enjoying it any more, so for 2010 I’ve decided to give a more loose account of my general impression from each race.

Here is my reaction to the Bahrain GP which I wrote on the Tuesday after the race while away from the internet during my break in Spain. I guarantee I have not edited this so I’m pretty happy Melbourne turned out well! Thoughts on Australia will follow on Wednesday, and similar posts about IndyCar or GP2 or other races may follow eventually depending on time I have available.

Thoughts on F1 – 2010 Bahrain GP

A lot has been said about how boring the Bahrain GP was… so I thought I’d add to it. Since I was watching without live timing and limited access to online discussions – I’m normally all over these like a rash during any big race – I wondered if I was just missing the extra layer of information the internet brings.

Turns out most agreed with me, the race was a snoozefest. Now – you’re going to tell me I wrote about this a few weeks ago. ‘All races are interesting in some way’, was the message wasn’t it?

I did say that, and I acknowledged at the time that you’re always going to get the odd bad race, my main argument was people were calling races boring when they were just looking at them wrongly. I said Valencia ’08 and Abu Dhabi ’09 were exceptions to that because they were dull. We can add Bahrain 2010 to that list.

Prior to the event I’d suspected it would be a bad one after they announced it would be run on the 24-hour course, the tight twisty slow section. I’m sure they did this in response to claims the other layout was stop/start and not challenging enough – what those critics missed is that actually it wasn’t that bad, perhaps below-average but not awful. The extension made it worse by creating field-spread excacerbated by new rules which were always going to do that anyway.

I think future events will be a little better. Albert Park will be its usual self, then Shanghai and Barcelona are always boring but there will be those who pin that on the new rules too.

The problem isn’t with the fuel rules – they’ve brought even more into focus a problem most of us acknowledged in 2009 after several boring races then – the cars cannot pass each other. The new-for-09 aerodynamic rules closed up the laptimes but they did not help overtaking. This is why last year qualifying was usually more fun than the race. Unfortunately there are no quick-fixes. Adding a mandatory second stop may help a bit but as we’ve seen in DTM you’re going to have to bring in pit windows as well to prevent pitting in say the first and last 5 laps. And in DTM the drivers still wait for the stops.

The other problem is teams are preoccupied with saving engines and gearboxes for the next race. I don’t think that makes for good racing. I’m fine with saving fuel and saving tyres as long as the entire field isn’t doing it, if it is a legitimate strategy versus someone pushing.

I’m less interested in ‘turning the engine down’ just so it can be used again. I’m hoping that engines and gearboxes will be developed enough within the restrictions to eventually be able to be pushed and still last a few races.

I enjoy sportscar racing because this is where this type of fuel and tyre ‘conservation’ racing works best – over a really long race lasting many hours, the car with the best mix of speed and reliability will theoretically win. Is it suited to a 90-minute F1 race? I guess we’ll find out over the season but it doesn’t look good so far.

The other thing to note – perhaps this was a dry run while teams test out the rules to see what the limits are? Will they be as conservative by the time we get to Barcelona or will they feel more free to be creative?

I haven’t mentioned the actual performances yet. Vettel’s pace was very impressive until the car problem, and both Ferraris weren’t far behind, I hope we aren’t in for a dominant season from the trio. I thought the McLarens were supposed to be on top? Special mention for Lotus and Virgin for not looking totally hopeless, things look promising in the long-term. HRT… the jury is out but they did a professional job to test the car while staying out of everyone’s way, and they have a LOT of work to do. And a completely anonymous race for M.Schumacher…

Results

1. Fernando Alonso (Ferrari) 49 laps
2. Felipe Massa (Ferrari) +16.0s
3. Lewis Hamilton (McLaren) +23.1s
4. Sebastian Vettel (Red Bull) +38.7s
5. Nico Rosberg (Mercedes) +40.2s
6. Michael Schumacher (Mercedes) +44.1s
7. Jenson Button (McLaren) +45.2s
8. Mark Webber (Red Bull) +46.3s
9. Vitantonio Liuzzi (Force India) +53.0s
10. Rubens Barrichello (Williams) +62.4s
11. Robert Kubica (Renault) +69.0s
12. Adrian Sutil (Force India) +82.9s
13. Jaime Alguersuari (Toro Rosso) +92.6s
14. Nico Hulkenberg (Williams) + 1 lap
15. Heikki Kovalainen (Lotus) + 2 laps
16. Sebastien Buemi (Toro Rosso) +3 laps
R. Pedro de la Rosa (Sauber) hydraulics
R. Bruno Senna (Hispania) hydraulics
R. Timo Glock (Virgin) mechanical
R. Vitaly Petrov (Renault) gearbox
R. Kamui Kobayashi (Sauber) hydraulics
R. Lucas di Grassi (Virgin) hydraulics
R. Karun Chandhok (Hispania) accident

A lot of hydraulic problems in there. I won’t include a driver points table because it is the same as the top ten. I’m not sure whether to include results and points going forwards..

Constructors

1. Ferrari 43 pts
2. McLaren 21
3. Mercedes 18
4. Red Bull 16
5. Force India 2
6. Williams 1

Thursday Thoughts: Fan Attendance

Thursday Thoughts this this week comes from Adie at F1 Tailpipe:

What can F1 do to enhance the experience of fans in attendance at the circuit? Does the ‘exclusivity’ of the sport add to the mystique of F1 in general, or has F1 set itself too far apart from your Average Joe?

I can’t really answer the first question because I’ve never attended a Grand Prix in either a grandstand or general admission so I don’t know what is currently on offer – though I was lucky enough to watch the 2003 Monaco Grand Prix from a balcony over Ste. Devote! Perhaps the only thing I can suggest here is to lower the ticket prices. The cost of attending a race is just excessive. I’m going to the Belgian GP this year and it’s costing a lot of money, €340 for a 3-day ticket at Eau Rouge (which admittedly is one of the most expensive areas of the track). Imagine taking a family – well you just wouldn’t would you?

I suppose the subject of pricing leads into the other question, the reason for the high prices is the air of exclusivity. Bernie and FOM/FOA have deliberately spent the best part of the last 15-20 years turning F1 into an exclusive club of high-rolling teams, creating the Paddock Club for people to spend thousands to ‘be seen’ among the higher classes (and even that doesn’t grant access to the main paddock). I don’t have a problem with these – it was the right thing to do to move away from the the no-hopers filling the field – though I miss Minardi – and I hope we aren’t returning to the days of cars multiple seconds off the pace and threatening to fold.

What seems to have happened at the same time is a relentless rise in ticket prices for the general fan. While I appreciate that watching quality teams and drivers is worth paying a slight premium, we are past the point where this was a reasonable and understandable rise – and I mean a long way past, say ten years.

This has mainly come about because Bernie had the circuits sign up to high fees with an annual ‘escalator’ clause, and the only way they could get their money back was to raise prices. The problem is that while facilities for teams have improved, facilities for spectators in the main have not. At many race tracks you are still presented with a basic seat or an earth bank, a portable toilet, and a burger van. For facilities like that I wouldn’t expect to pay over £70 for a weekend and we’re being asked to part with much more.

I would say either the prices need to come down, or there needs to be ‘value added’ to make the money worth paying.

There are signs this is already happening. Many races offer concerts on the Saturday and/or the Sunday of the weekend which I think is a really good idea. For some of the names they bring in you’d normally pay £40 or £50 per ticket for a gig.

As I suggested in a previous Thoughts post, there needs to be more fan involvement in the GP weekend. Drivers should be made to hold a joint signing session in a public area of the grounds, or even more than one area, and preferably once or twice per day. There should also be a pitlane walkabout each day, whenever it can be scheduled in.

I am not sure what else could be done in terms of things that could be laid on as extras at no extra cost. More support races perhaps, but only the die-hards would care about those unless they were aimed at being ‘fun’ – let’s say we make the top F1 drivers race the top GP2 drivers in some production cars or perhaps in the Porsche Supercup cars. Do it at 10.30am Sunday, late enough for people to get to their seats but early enough that it doesn’t get in the way of GP prep-time for the drivers.

All of these are simple things that could be achieved with only a little effort and thought while retaining the cachet F1 should always have.

Thursday Thoughts: Your Ideal Team

Thursday Thoughts this week comes from Journeyer who asks:

If you were a team boss with 3 vacant seats (2 race seats and 1 test seat), who would you hire?

If I were a team boss in F1 with an unlimited amount of money, I’d want to pick a fast team of drivers but also ones who will get on well with each other. There is no point having animosity in the team leading to a split within the garage, we saw the damage that did to McLaren.

I would also want two potential race winners, perhaps one faster than the other, who would go for the title while the second can back him up should he falter. That’s not to be confused with a ‘team orders’ situation where the weight of the team is squarely behind one man. I actually think the line-up that would best fit this description exists already, at Red Bull. Vettel is marginally quicker than Webber, who is still under-rated for some reason. They would both be free to win races but I’d lean toward Vettel for the title run, just as the team did last year. If I were picking two guys to work together, I’d pick these two and it just so happens they are already teammates.

There are plenty of reasons why you would hire Hamilton, Alonso, Button or Raikkonen (or even Michael Schumacher). The only one that tempts me from that list is Button, the others just seem like too much hard work, too demanding in terms of preferential treatment. Yes, even Kimi.

My test driver would be an experienced hand who’s had a long career but is maybe looking to gradually find his way out rather than stop dead, and also knows how to set up a car. That’s why I choose Rubens Barrichello. He’d be my ‘third driver’. I’d also keep Anthony Davidson hanging around for testing and development purposes, I want to put him in a race seat and if when running him I find out why Mark is under-rated I can easily slot Ant into the seat.

Being a perfect world I’d move these drivers – and Adrian Newey – to Williams. I am a fan of Williams and it is time they were championship contenders again. Rubens can do his year of racing with them and then can move into testing. Of course, if Nico H turns out to be dynamite I reserve the right to change my mind about any of this.

So that’s who I would pick if my talent pool was restricted to current F1 drivers, but that’s not answering the question completely honestly. If I truly wanted my ideal team I’m going to do something radically different.

I’m going to hire Juan Pablo Montoya and Ryan Hunter-Reay.

Again at Williams because JPM should never have left them, and because Ryan is a born Williams driver if ever I laid eyes on one. Montoya’s never-give-up attitude struck fear into Schumacher himself, and if Michael is back I want Juan back. I’ve always been a fan of Juan, right back to the CART days. I think what he’s achieved in racing is fantastic and is criminally overlooked. Plus his new-found experience of tyre-management in NASCAR, where you have to nurse them, will help massively in the new-look F1 this year.

In the second car, Hunter-Reay is arguably the best road-course racer in IndyCar right now and is American too, which is what F1 needs, and I don’t care if it screws up IZOD’s marketing plan. Have him learn F1 for a year or two and then he can take over the title challenge in the 3rd year after Juan gets bored and does something else. RHR would make a brilliant F1 driver.

Thursday Thoughts: New Tracks, Deleting Tracks

This week’s Thursday Thoughts question comes from Dylan of Triple League Racing, who asks:

What Track or Tracks not on the current F1 season calender do you want added? Also, what current tracks need to go. And finally, if this isn’t enough, how many Grand Prix’s should F1 have?

To answer the last question first, I like racing, I like lots of racing and the more the better yet despite this I’ve always felt F1 should feature no more than 19 races per year (too many is overload) and no fewer than 17 races (too few means an agonising wait between events), so the calendars we’ve seen for the last few years have had the right number of races for me. I also like having an odd number of races – I don’t know why – so that leaves either 17 or 19.

People lose interest quickly and with too few events I can see interest waning. Yet most of us like to have off-weekends in the summer months to enjoy that time of year properly, so we don’t want to bombard everyone with weekly races. I believe F1 works best with fortnightly events. Back-to-back weekends can work in some seried but I really don’t think they do in F1 more than once or twice per season, so I’d ensure most races were followed by an off-week, with the exception of some of the ‘flyaway’ races.

F1 seems to be different to other series in that it can take a week to dissect the events of a Grand Prix, and then you spend all of the next week building up the talking points for the next GP. It isn’t just ‘oh I’ll turn the TV on to watch the next one’, there’s a whole cycle and that’s why we love it.

So… which races would I drop, and what would I bring in?

Let’s list the 2010 season and mark in bold the races or venues I consider to be essential.

Sakhir, Bahrain
Melbourne, Australia
Sepang, Malaysia
Shanghai, China
Barcelona, Spain
Monaco
Istanbul, Turkey
Montreal, Canada
Valencia, Spain (European GP)
Silverstone, UK
Hockenheim, Germany
Hungaroring, Hungary
Spa-Franchorchamps, Belgium
Monza, Italy
Singapore
Suzuka, Japan
Korea
Interlagos, Brazil
Abu Dhabi

That’s 9 essential races out of a possible 19, call it 18 if we discount Korea because it hasn’t held a race yet, so that’s half. That’s much better than I thought before I started, but still not enough. If Formula 1 is to keep calling itself the world’s premiere racing series then *every event needs to be unmissable*.

Some on the list have the potential to be better if the car tech specs are changed, yet there are others that will never be good. What’s immediately for the chop with no reprieve?

Valencia – the circuit is too long, too boring and uninspiring and runs through a dockyard. I’d tell the organisers this: change the layout to run past something interesting like the Arts & Sciences building, any kind of landmark at all. While you’re doing that you can think of a circuit that does not involve 25 corners in 3.5 miles, which is as guaranteed a creator of bad races if ever I heard one. Or drop it completely – if we’re to have a second Iberian race, how about the new Portimao circuit in Portugal? Okay it’s in the middle of nowhere, but so is Silverstone. If Valencia can’t be changed let’s go to the Algarve.

Shanghai – nobody in China cares, and the races are tedious. I can’t suggest an alternative in the region, so let’s use this slot to bring back the United States Grand Prix at Indy, run on the current MotoGP course rather than the previous F1 course.

Hungaroring – the circuit has invested in upgrades continually since it first held a GP in 1986 and the circuit today is FAR better than the one we saw back then… but really, I think we’ve had enough. Let’s go to Brno instead, that’s a fantastic course.

Nurburgring – given the choice of the two emasculated German venues, I’d choose Hockenheim. Nurburgring doesn’t generate good racing, and at least Hockinhalf is wide enough for passing. We need a German race and Hockenheim is it. Plus the atmosphere in the stadium section looks awesome – it has dropped off in recent years, expect the place to be packed again this year with Schumi back and in a German(-badged British) team.

Let’s be controversial – I think there is an argument for retaining Bahrain, some races have been boring but others have created great overtaking so let’s leave it in – ignoring the proposed new fiddly loop. I also think it is too soon to make a judgement call on Abu Dhabi despite the dire race there last year – I’d give it one more year before ejecting it.

I also retain Korea on the schedule because we have to give opportunities to new venues – though we’re all sceptical because of the maps, I’d like to wait until we’ve seen a race there before we completely slate it as I have no doubt we will. I’d keep it for 2010 and be ready to remove after a couple of years.

Also unchanged of the non-bold items:
I quite like Sepang and contrary to many Tilke circuits it has evolved a character and is reputedly developing bumps, so it isn’t ridiculously smooth any more. It has always been an interesting challenge in its own right anyway and it remains my favourite of the new-generation circuits.

Barcelona stays in because we need a Spanish race and I can’t think of anywhere else suitable. The racing is not great at all, I know that, but where else do you go? Jerez doesn’t seem suitable, the Ricardo Tormo Valencia circuit is a bit Mickey Mouse for my liking and I’ve already ditched the street track..

Singapore – Today they announced they were reviewing the circuit layout for the 2011 event to make the circuit faster. I like that kind of thinking and they’d already made good changes between 2008 and 2009, so they can stay. I’d probably tell the F1 personnel to stop being so silly in staying on European time when they run on Japanese time the following week.

I’d move the races around to be more like a journey around the world, mainly to aid personnel travel. Start in Australia, stop in Asia a few times on the way back to the summer in Europe, with a quick visit to North America, before flying back out to Singapore/Korea/Japan and ending in Brazil. I’d also separate the two night races, one early in the year and one at the end.

Rules:
Albert Park to start the year and Interlagos to end it.
Monza always follows Spa.

My schedule would look like this:

Melbourne, Australia
Sepang, Malaysia
Sakhir, Bahrain
Abu Dhabi*
Portimao, Portugal
Barcelona, Spain
Monaco
Istanbul, Turkey
Montreal, Canada
Indianapolis, United States
Silverstone, UK
Hockenheim, Germany
Brno, Czech Republic
Spa-Franchorchamps, Belgium
Monza, Italy
Singapore
Korea*
Suzuka, Japan
Interlagos, Brazil