Alright, first thing's first.
I agree with Galahad in that I am glad the importance of Saturday has diminished and that Sunday is the more important, as it should be in my opinion. However I do enjoy qualifying, especially when it's close and hard fought. By and large last year was very good in that regard, especially as cars would go absolutely flat out with no regard for Sunday, again, as I think it should be. I think there needs to be a rethink of the Saturday tyre allocation, I would like to see one set of qualifying tyres brought to each driver to enable the absolute peak of Formula 1 performance. I don't know how hard it would be to create a tyre that regains some of it's "life" once it's cooled ; I believe the Bridgestones were quite strange in that they grained early on but after a period of cooling they would regain grip and lose the graining. If we could create a tyre that lasted, say, maximum of 4 all-out-attack laps, then I would like to see that. From my seat at home I'd like a bigger difference between qualifying and the race, treat them as two different entities and make them less connected as they currently are. By introducing the qualifying tyres we could get rid of the 'top 10 start on the tyre they set their best time on' rule. I don't want to see someone looking after their tyres in qualifying. Tyre conservation and qualifying are two phrases that should go nowhere near each other.
By and large I think the rules have been a "success", but it depends by which measurement you regard success. Has it improved the spectacle? Yes, but to my eyes, only in a superficial way. A casual viewer would surely enjoy the 3 dry races more than last year's random selection of dry races. But how long before that casual viewer cottons on that those fancy rear wings are only available to the guy behind? How long before he realises that most of the overtaking he is seeing is not even being fought by the "defending" driver and are largely due to someone having disproportionately more grip than another? Would the casual viewer accept a football match in which a team has scored and then the other team are awarded a penalty because they are losing? In effect, a chance to "rebalance" the competition?
I was more than willing to give the DRS a chance before the season began but having seen it in action for 3 races, at 3 circuits that are actually quite nicely different from each other, I can generally say I am not in favour of it. It is not that it is "artificial" but that it is quite simply unfair and outside what I would consider the proper standards of sporting competition. Turbo boosts and KERS are both "artificial", yet they both carried negative traits. You'd use extra fuel by boosting, and KERS, at least in 2009, had weight balance and CoG issues that quite clearly hindered the performance of some cars at some circuits. At least in 2011, KERS has some semblance of strategic thinking. DRS, on the other hand, has absolutely no negative traits. It is categorically and wholly unfair. The argument that "it allows a faster driver to get in front" is silly and irrelevant - what crime has a slower driver acted out to warrant such a disadvantage? DRS would've allowed Fernando Alonso to get past Vitaly Petrov in Abu Dhabi last year, that's what I see people say. So what? Alonso shouldn't have been there in the first place. Tough, get on with it and make a pass if you really are faster.
Of course the current aero regs are less than desirable for overtaking but they are what they are, it doesn't - and shouldn't - mean that you need to introduce unfair advantages to certain drivers. When I saw Lewis Hamilton cruise up to the back of Sebastian Vettel it was not a matter of if he would pass him, but when. Is that really the kind of racing we want to see? You could've put your house on him passing him at some point, and what do you know, he did. Unlike most of the dispirited defending we saw in China, Vettel briefly put up a fight, and for me that was the only saving grace of their "battle". Lead changes like we saw in Shanghai may make for superb highlights fodder during the 6 o'clock news but they do not make a race fulfilling - you only have to look at NASCAR's many lead changes to see how it isn't the be all and end all.
I will accept the suggestion that over the course of the season, tyre strategies will converge and there will be more circuits that don't have a ridiculous DRS area to use - even if I don't approve it's use at all, it's existence in a smaller, less noticeable form would be better than a large zone designed to create easy passes. Once tyre strategies become more normalised I may end up being slightly happier, as there will be less of the 'signed, sealed, delivered' overtaking we saw from Lewis in China, and less chance of drivers being on radically different compounds at different stages, although the bane of the DRS will haunt me for the year round, I fear.
I agree with Galahad in that I am glad the importance of Saturday has diminished and that Sunday is the more important, as it should be in my opinion. However I do enjoy qualifying, especially when it's close and hard fought. By and large last year was very good in that regard, especially as cars would go absolutely flat out with no regard for Sunday, again, as I think it should be. I think there needs to be a rethink of the Saturday tyre allocation, I would like to see one set of qualifying tyres brought to each driver to enable the absolute peak of Formula 1 performance. I don't know how hard it would be to create a tyre that regains some of it's "life" once it's cooled ; I believe the Bridgestones were quite strange in that they grained early on but after a period of cooling they would regain grip and lose the graining. If we could create a tyre that lasted, say, maximum of 4 all-out-attack laps, then I would like to see that. From my seat at home I'd like a bigger difference between qualifying and the race, treat them as two different entities and make them less connected as they currently are. By introducing the qualifying tyres we could get rid of the 'top 10 start on the tyre they set their best time on' rule. I don't want to see someone looking after their tyres in qualifying. Tyre conservation and qualifying are two phrases that should go nowhere near each other.
By and large I think the rules have been a "success", but it depends by which measurement you regard success. Has it improved the spectacle? Yes, but to my eyes, only in a superficial way. A casual viewer would surely enjoy the 3 dry races more than last year's random selection of dry races. But how long before that casual viewer cottons on that those fancy rear wings are only available to the guy behind? How long before he realises that most of the overtaking he is seeing is not even being fought by the "defending" driver and are largely due to someone having disproportionately more grip than another? Would the casual viewer accept a football match in which a team has scored and then the other team are awarded a penalty because they are losing? In effect, a chance to "rebalance" the competition?
I was more than willing to give the DRS a chance before the season began but having seen it in action for 3 races, at 3 circuits that are actually quite nicely different from each other, I can generally say I am not in favour of it. It is not that it is "artificial" but that it is quite simply unfair and outside what I would consider the proper standards of sporting competition. Turbo boosts and KERS are both "artificial", yet they both carried negative traits. You'd use extra fuel by boosting, and KERS, at least in 2009, had weight balance and CoG issues that quite clearly hindered the performance of some cars at some circuits. At least in 2011, KERS has some semblance of strategic thinking. DRS, on the other hand, has absolutely no negative traits. It is categorically and wholly unfair. The argument that "it allows a faster driver to get in front" is silly and irrelevant - what crime has a slower driver acted out to warrant such a disadvantage? DRS would've allowed Fernando Alonso to get past Vitaly Petrov in Abu Dhabi last year, that's what I see people say. So what? Alonso shouldn't have been there in the first place. Tough, get on with it and make a pass if you really are faster.
Of course the current aero regs are less than desirable for overtaking but they are what they are, it doesn't - and shouldn't - mean that you need to introduce unfair advantages to certain drivers. When I saw Lewis Hamilton cruise up to the back of Sebastian Vettel it was not a matter of if he would pass him, but when. Is that really the kind of racing we want to see? You could've put your house on him passing him at some point, and what do you know, he did. Unlike most of the dispirited defending we saw in China, Vettel briefly put up a fight, and for me that was the only saving grace of their "battle". Lead changes like we saw in Shanghai may make for superb highlights fodder during the 6 o'clock news but they do not make a race fulfilling - you only have to look at NASCAR's many lead changes to see how it isn't the be all and end all.
I will accept the suggestion that over the course of the season, tyre strategies will converge and there will be more circuits that don't have a ridiculous DRS area to use - even if I don't approve it's use at all, it's existence in a smaller, less noticeable form would be better than a large zone designed to create easy passes. Once tyre strategies become more normalised I may end up being slightly happier, as there will be less of the 'signed, sealed, delivered' overtaking we saw from Lewis in China, and less chance of drivers being on radically different compounds at different stages, although the bane of the DRS will haunt me for the year round, I fear.
