I just watched the Spanish Grand Prix on my TiVo. They all went around and around for 66 laps. Now, I’m a fan of F1. I appreciate the precision and finesse that the drivers, mechanics, and engineers exhibit. I used to appreciate the technology (of course, that’s all regulated now; don’t get me started on the single ECU proposals!). But I don’t like the “parade” aspect.
Sure, it’s a parade in the sense that it’s a spectacle, a festival, etc. But it’s also a parade in that one car follows the next, round and round the circuit. In this most recent race, I don’t recall seeing a single pass, at least not for a points position. Position changes happen either off the grid, or by way of pitstop strategy. Except on a very few special circuits, we rarely get to see drivers exhibiting daring and driving strategy (as opposed to pit strategy). I’m sure that Monaco in two weeks will be much of the same.
Part of the reason there’s so little passing is that the cornering speed of the cars depends on downforce that comes from the car’s aerodynamics. The aero is so optimized that being near another car ruins the effects, so you can’t get too near other cars when you need downforce. And if you can’t get near other cars in corners, you can’t pass.
F1 regulations make it easy for teams to get away with this tradeoff. When a leader tries to pass a backmarker, a course official will wave a blue flag telling the lapped car to get out of the way. Without this, the leaders would have to pass to maintain their lead; otherwise they’d all back up behind the slowest car.
I propose that drivers have to do their own passing, even of backmarkers. Get rid of blue flags (except for disabled cars, for safety purposes). If you want to keep your lead, you’ve got to pass everybody!
Now, this will make it more difficult for the lead teams. The lapped traffic won’t necessarily make it easy for the leaders to pass. So I propose an additional facet to this.
At the end of the Spanish Grand Prix there were only 6 cars on the lead lap. After the 6th place car, Alonso (the winner) could have crossed the finish line again. I propose that he does exactly this. He’s thus the first place finisher, but also the 7th place finisher, worth 2 points. So he would score first and seventh, for a total of 12 points. Michael Schumacher finished 2nd and 8th, for a total of 9 points.
A side effect of this is that lead drivers are rewarded for pushing hard until the end of the race, for the opportunity to score extra lap points. Today it’s common for leaders to ease back on the closing laps, not wanting to jeopardize their position (or their engine — thanks, 2-race rule!) when there’s nothing else to gain. But with my proposal, they could still pick up additional points, even if they’re in the lead.
[…] I’ve written before about the F1 parade, in which cars endlessly circle, not passing one another. I had proposed a means to motivate teams and drivers to try passing. But when all is said and done, cars need the ability to pass each other. That is, they need differing performance characteristics. Traits like cornering traction, braking, straight-line acceleration determine how cars will be behaving on different parts of the course. When cars are similar in these traits, they’re all doing pretty much the same thing. Check out the FIA’s schematic of the circuit in Magny-Cours. Note that they tell us what gear the cars are expected to be in at each point. Where’s the latitude for creativity here? […]