Driver difficulty is different, for sure, but probably not reduced. Some things are easier (shifting gears) but some things are harder (braking distances shorter, corner Gs much higher etc). The driving standard is now just sky-high and there isn't the big difference that there used to be.

Hmmmm, statistics can be made to show anything, most of those 80's overtaking are the turbo 1.5lt cars going bat-shit fast past the NA 3.0lt ones time and again and again and again and again….

what the forumla needs is a bigger differential between straightline speed and corner speed – this means lower/remove aero stuff

super fast on the straight then have to scrub loads of speed into the corner and have to accelerate after the corner – opo for last braking and battles to get out of the corner – better slip streaming and allow for cars to follow/get cloer to each other

Give them all karts. Now that would be exciting and worth a watch!

whatever you do don't start watching the bike racing its really dull & boring, I'm sure the rugby & tennis are great to watch though 😉

What they need to do is take the brakes off them

well sort of
Braking distances are so short, there rarely enough time to out-brake or out-brake someone else
Reduce the the efficiency of the brakes, thus increasing the braking distances into turns

Remember, also that F1 has to be the premier Formula series that the FIA run, so any changes you make to F1 to slow it down or make it less technically complicated such as removing wings or Aero, or changing brake materials, you have to apply to F3000, F2, all the way down….

Thing is, you can pick up copies of Motorsport or Autosport from way back in say, the turbo era, or skirts, or traction control, or even just moving the engine from front to the back, and find people slagging it off, saying it's dull, processional, whatever…

1988 any-one? McLaren lead every lap bar 27 in the WHOLE SERIES, and won 15 out of 16 races, now that really was a dull year….

The last big round of aero alterations, which were combined with a return to slicks, represented a massive chunk of aerodynamic downforce being taken away and an increase in mechanical grip. There is so much money and clever stuff in the sport though that within a few races they had clawed back nearly all of the lost performance.

Give them all the same engine. Finally I must admit I sick and bored of F1. Never thought I'd say that.

Enjoyed Damo's return though 😀

You will never see the same engine in every car on a F1 grid …what manufacturer would put that sort of money into a sport only to prove they are faster than one of there other engines

The manufacturer will have nothing to gain

Engines aren't far off being equal anyway. And the quickest car of the weekend had the least powerful engine, reputedly. The car that finished up winning has the worst fuel economy too, so they say.

Yes it was duller than a very dull thing

take the wings off and give them huge grippy tyres .
and ban all driver aids .

Instead of tinkering with the aero design regulations, why not impose a maximum downforce limit? Combine that with some regulation to limit the turbulence your car is allowed to create behind it. That would enable cars to actually overtake in the longer braking areas it would create.

I must be missing something (As well as not watching the race that is).
Let me get this straight.

The drivers have to race without stopping for fuel and are restricted to how many tyre changes they can make during a race. YES/NO

So you guys are saying that the drivers are holding back and protecting their fuel and tyres so much that they arent going to have a chance of overtaking or winning.

Is there a rule to say that one of the drivers cant take a chance and see if he can push the boundaries of what his tyres/car can achieve and tell the guy on the end of the radio to go forth and multiply when he tells him to calm down.

Is this something that they have had thrown at them at the last minute? I dont think it is

So why on earth havent all the guys been practising driving their cars with full loads and protecting tyres? Surely there are drivers on the grid who will (In a few races) come to the fore and find they have a distinct talent for protecting tyres and fuel and find they are better than the out and out racer types. I thought Mr Prost based most of his career on the ability to protect his car/tyres/fuel and even though he maybe wasnt as agressive as A Senna, he still managed his fair share of wins.

I would be surprised that M Schumacer isnt sitting already plotting how he can make the most of this situation. The best talent will rise to the top. The fact that it may suit someone that isnt maybe as gun-ho as Hamilton isnt necessarily a bad thing.

I say give it time

"So why on earth havent all the guys been practising driving their cars with full loads and protecting tyres?"

I could be wrong but I thought that testing is very restricted now, so much so that this race was the first time some cars had done more than a few laps with that amount of fuel in

Surely there are drivers on the grid who will (In a few races) come to the fore and find they have a distinct talent for protecting tyres and fuel and find they are better than the out and out racer types.

It's something the current World Champion is supposed to be very good at. If it's not possible to overtake though (something which would be a problem at Borerain whatever car regulations you had), then it doesn't really make any difference. Ditto for the idea of pushing the fuel consumption/tyres.

I would be surprised that M Schumacer isnt sitting already plotting how he can make the most of this situation. The best talent will rise to the top…I say give it time

That's what Prost said last week, in a few races the best drivers will have worked out what strategy will get them a win. Whether or not this makes a race of it remains to be seen.

I'm glad others found it dull as well, wondered why I kept dozing off… That explains it.

The top ten have to start the race on the qualifying tyres, so they were very conservative. More risks will be taken now that they know the tyres to be tougher than feared. As I said earlier, lack of testing data (none at all in hot weather) and a long season led to a cautious approach. It will still remain exceptionally difficult to overtake though, due to aero/double diffusor situation.

On the one hand I feel happy that the ban refuelling idiots have been proved wrong, on the other I want some racing!

@glenp – I'm not so sure that the refuelling ban itself is the problem. If we'd had a refuelling ban with no trick diffusers, tyres that were a bit less robust and drivers who weren't being told to slow down because their engines were overheating then maybe there would have been more of a show (but not necessarily with that circuit layout at Bahrain).

Unfortunately the diffusers are here to stay until 2011, Bridgestone don't want the negative PR of millions(?) of viewers seeing their tyres fail week after week and the teams were being ultra cautious because of the untested hot weather conditions and the fact that their Bahrain engine might have to last another 2 races.

If we'd had refuelling how different would it really have been? Alonso might have passed Vettel in the pits even if his car hadn't broken, Button might have passed Schuey in the pits, Webber might have passed Button in the pits – the teams would still have been cautious about overheating and that middle sector would've spread the field out – still not great wheel to wheel racing is it?

FWIW I don't want lots of overtaking – some of the best moments of F1 have been about the fight for a position (Mansell/Senna at Monaco anyone?). Cars must be able to follow each other closely and challenge for position, but an overtaking move between closely matched cars should be a well worked attack that's set up over a few corners, not a simple whizz past because one car's quicker than the other.

Australia might be better, but Malaysia is probably the first chance for 'real' racing – especially if it rains 😀

Braking distances are so short, there rarely enough time to out-brake or out-brake someone else
Reduce the the efficiency of the brakes, thus increasing the braking distances into turns

part of that amazing braking is down to aero as well

thepurist – I go with what you're saying to a degree, but the part that you don't take into account is that the cars are rarely running in an ideal configuration because of the weight of the fuel. With refuelling the car is closer to ideal for more of the time and can be driven harder more of the time. Carrying that extra weight for two thirds of the race is harder on brakes, transmissions and engines. I just feel that the FIA have capitulated to the ill-informed – better racing ensues when the cars are more closely matched, like they were last year.

This discussion usually comes round to the same conclusion – the quality of the racing is more circuit related than anything else. Maybe we are projecting all of the dullness onto the regulation changes when it would have been a dull race anyway.

High hopes for Melbourne, but I do agree that Sepang is usually a good circuit for a bit more action esp if it rains (rain on full tanks will separate the men from the boys – step forward LH, SV, MW, FA and Mr Schumacher!).

(rain on full tanks will separate the men from the boys – step forward LH, SV, MW, FA and Mr Schumacher!).

No mention of JB (who overtook one of the others you mention on the way to his first win in heavy rain)?

it was incredibly dull and it was a dull race last year IIRC

the powers are not going to do anything about it for a few more races but I expect Formula 1 dullness to prevail .
I will still tune in to watch but have something else to do when the boredom sets in .

they have pushed the aero to such a degree that the wings need to come off now allow inseason testing and unfreeze the engines

personally i would like to see the engine regs change to allow a bit more freedom, ie – a 2.4litre limit but relaxing the 'it must be a v8 with 2 valves per cyclinder' freeing the teams to decide which engine type suits them.

to a limited extent i would like to see some ground effects allowed – something along the same lines as the GP2 regs.

increase the size of the front tyre back to last years regs.

Interesting article below which does make sense but goes totally contrary to current accepted wisdom

http://www.jamesallenonf1.com/2010/03/getting-rid-of-aero-in-f1-the-counterargument/

Having read that Frank Dernie does make a lot of sense, and would bring driver error back into play alot more. Ditch telemetery too.

Well really the simple test of his theory in my mind is that wet races are exciting and what's the difference? Less mechanical grip (OK, also less aero because they're going slower but I'm sure the ratio of mechanical:aero swings significantly towards aero)

Very good little article, well reasoned by someone with a lot more knowledge than any of us.

I'm quite suprised that the FIA don't commission a study to look into this – for example get one of the teams to run two identical cars but one with the wings tuned right down (eg much less downforce) and maybe the diffuser made less effective and super sticky tyres (so grippy/soft that they'd maybe only work for a few laps) and the other car with wings set to give loads of grip but with super hard tyres. Run them one in front of the other and see what the results are.

Obviously a bit simplistic but in theory it'd not be *that* difficult to get at least a reasonable idea of what would/wouldn't work.

I think that one of the problems is the teams are collectively becoming too good at working the regulations out and making the cars quick and reliable, in the so called good old days sometimes less than 5 cars finished the races and often laps behind the winner, if you want better races then the quick cars need to be at the back and drive through the problem is how to create that.
The most exiting races to watch recently have resulted from a random or unexpected Qualifying that has put cars out of order on the grid the difficulty is how to get to that situation and still end up with the fastest car and driver winning the championship.
One of the more recent suggestions was for a weight penalty that was only applied in qualifying resulting in the car with the most points carrying more fuel and therefore ending up further back.
The cars are still amazing pieces of engineering and the loads and speeds they generate are so far from everything else but it does need to get more entertaining to survive

The single lap qualifying – as mentioned in the article – would certainly stir things up most weekends
A World Superbike style 'Superpole' shoot-out would be fun

I'm quite suprised that the FIA don't commission a study to look into this

They did/do. It was (is?) called the OWG (overtaking working group).

I liked single lap quali, but the teams didn't. The teams don't want racing, they want a scientific way of getting their car fastest and keeping it at the front of the race. For the same reason they will never accept success ballast, even just for quali. Only when the global TV audience has gone away completely will they listen.

Absurd irony at the mo is that the rule introduced to cause overtaking on track rather than in pits is now the catalyst for teams calling for mandatory additional pit stops – so they can overtake in the pitstops!

When the most interesting thing about a race is the pit stops, you know it's dull. Maybe there was more interest last year with the refuelling but then the commentery became 50% speculation on when/how often they'd pit, computers predicting which lap hamilton would come in on…yawn

I love the fact that no one bothers with KERS (which was was meant to perhaps help develop green tech for trickle down), yet it's become all about hypermiling.

Really, this sport is so irrelevant to the rest of the world now.

The teams don't want racing, they want a scientific way of getting their car fastest and keeping it at the front of the race

Very true. Unpredictable variables make for interesting sport, but they seem more excited by paralysis of analysis.

They need a gun at the front of the car to solve over-taking issues and the ability to squirt oil from behind to keeps things interesting (Red Bull seem to be using that tactic already anyway)

Interesting article below which does make sense but goes totally contrary to current accepted wisdom

http://www.jamesallenonf1.com/2010/03/getting-rid-of-aero-in-f1-the-counterargument/

Interesting article, but doesn't address the small matter of cars being unable to gain any ground once they're within 3 car lengths of the guy in front.

Besides, being more reliant on mechanical grip is more exciting to watch even if there is not more overtaking. I want to see cars on the limits of mechanical traction, the driver making corrections to pull them out of oversteer etc. Aero reliant cars just look like scalextric.

They did/do. It was (is?) called the OWG (overtaking working group).

Yeah, I really meant a proper physical study rather than the OWG which suggested split rear wings (DWG – Downwash Generator IIRC) which were never taken up because they looked crap…

Interesting article, but doesn't address the small matter of cars being unable to gain any ground once they're within 3 car lengths of the guy in front

Yeah, fair comment though my solution is just to allow a very specific and narrow ground effect tunnel on each side of the plank – increase the grip which will be a lot less reliant on clean air from in front.

KERS could have been good if it wasn't re-set every lap. If they could only use it 20 or 30 times in a race then it keeps both the driver in front and the one chasing guessing as to the best time to use it.

OWG was a far reaching and and proper physical study. It just wasn't nearly as far reaching and physical as the R&D that the teams do every day. Don't know what the budget for the OWG was, but I bet it wasn't in the hundreds of millions of dollars!

The problem with the OWG was they got their sums wrong*. Came up with the wrong solution to the problem that made the whole thing worse not better.

*the wind tunnel data that they were given had some fairly serious errors in it.

Interesting article, thanks clubber