<!--[if gte mso 9]><xml> <o:OfficeDocumentSettings> <o:AllowPNG/> </o:OfficeDocumentSettings> </xml><![endif]--> So very true!!
The driver stood up in the Grand Prix Drivers Association meeting and asked (and I’m paraphrasing because obviously I wasn’t there and have been told the tale by someone who was):
“So how did we allow this to happen? When did we become circus performers just putting on a show rather than F1 drivers racing flat-out?”
The target of his ire was Pirelli and though it’s fair to say he’s been one of those most competitively disadvantaged by the behaviour of the latest rubber, and therefore his impartiality might be questioned, he makes an interesting point.
The subject is a bit of an old chestnut and was in the news this time last year when Michael Schumacher said driving on Pirellis was “like driving on raw eggs”.
It painted the picture rather well.
Michael’s complaint was that he didn’t feel much like a racing driver when having to drive to a delta time for a significant part of the race, just in order to keep his tyres alive.
The complaint of the 2013 generation of tyres is that their graining or wear is so totally car-dependent, there’s nothing the driver can do about it.
He does the pace dictated by his car’s tyre management and the race plays out accordingly.
Because this gives a different competitive order than the measure of one-lap pace that is qualifying, so it plays out to give a race in which there are plenty of place changes.
It still looks like racing to the casual spectator. But from inside the car it doesn’t feel like it. It feels like you are just sitting there driving below the car’s potential and having the race just play out almost independently of your efforts. It feels to him like he’s a non-critical component in a championship for suspension kinematics.
Which isn’t what most fans assume they are watching…
“You can take the quotes from the last two seasons,” says Pirelli’s Paul Hembery, “and, in the first three races, it’s exactly the same. There tends to be a phase at the start of the year and, after six to eight races, it all changes.
If we look back at the type of comments that you had at the start of the year when everyone is trying to find out where they are, and how to maximise the combination of chassis and tyre performance, it tends to start like this.
But then it starts to move away when people get used to it. We don’t see the need to make any changes. We’ve just had the most exciting Melbourne in years. Do you want us to make boring races?”
Well, there are your two choices.
Most fans are loving the Pirelli era of races.
They make for a great show – and Sunday’s grand prix in Malaysia was a case in point: wheel-to-wheel thrills and a good dose of controversy into the bargain, triggered by the tyres.
If all the cars were on all-out performance tyres rather than rubber deliberately configured with chemical limitations, the Red Bulls would be winning races by a lap.
That’s the estimation of Pirelli itself…
They see the fast-corner loads of all the cars. Those of the Red Bull simply use up more energy than the tyre has available for any length of time. Instead the drivers, not just of the Red Bulls, drive up to 2s off the pace for big parts of the race.
So if the participants are telling you that what you’re watching and being thrilled by isn’t what you think it is, that it’s just an exercise in tyre conservation and that the real competition is between the suspension engineers, what do you think? Some hate being told and close their eyes, put their fingers in their ears. Others lament it.
It comes down to whether you view F1 as a sport or as entertainment. Sometimes it cannot be both.
<!--[if gte mso 9]><xml> <w:WordDocument> <w:View>Normal</w:View> <w:Zoom>0</w:Zoom> <w:TrackMoves/> <w:TrackFormatting/> <w:PunctuationKerning/> <w:ValidateAgainstSchemas/> <w:SaveIfXMLInvalid>false</w:SaveIfXMLInvalid> <w:IgnoreMixedContent>false</w:IgnoreMixedContent> <w:AlwaysShowPlaceholderText>false</w:AlwaysShowPlaceholderText> <woNotPromoteQF/> <w:LidThemeOther>EN-AU</w:LidThemeOther> <w:LidThemeAsian>X-NONE</w:LidThemeAsian> <w:LidThemeComplexScript>X-NONE</w:LidThemeComplexScript> <w:Compatibility> <w:BreakWrappedTables/> <w:SnapToGridInCell/> <w:WrapTextWithPunct/> <w:UseAsianBreakRules/> <w
Bookmarks