Qualifying Tyre Rule for 2010

[Muddytalker]

Not yet fully ratified, but expected to be brought in - Start on what you qualify with for the top 10 only.

Reading the story, there are a few things that really annoy me and identify how the team owners really can be out of touch, at times.

McLaren team principal Martin Whitmarsh said on Monday that he hoped the ban would prove a positive for F1.
"Inevitably, when you make a change, there are pros and cons," he said. "Regarding the pros, it arguably makes qualifying purer because the fastest car/driver combination will be setting the fastest times, and the public can understand that."

Yet this is a contradiction of the story/reporter's supposition that:-
"This will open up the possibility of teams gambling on sacrificing the best possible time in Q3 by running a more consistent but less quick tyre so as to have a better chance in the race."
So it won't necessarily be pure. It will still be influenced by strategy and pit stops. Further, MW goes on

"Secondly, in the race itself, overtaking was often being planned and implemented to occur as a consequence of strategy, and therefore happening in the pit lane and not the circuit.

"In the absence of that effect, drivers will have a greater incentive to overtake. There have been occasions in the past where a driver hasn't had that incentive because he knows he will be running longer and can get past the car ahead strategically through the pit stops."

But the non-circuit overtaking will still remain, because Johnny Steadydrive on the harder tyres will still be waiting a few laps for Jurgen Sprint to pit and change his wrecked soft tyres.

I'm getting tired of saying this, and it applies to the points change also: If a quicker car cannot overtake because of the inherent car design philosophy, then it's not going to happen. It doesn't matter what extra points you offer, or what gimmick you introduce.

MW also goes on to say

"On the negative side, it's possible that if all of the above is managed equally well by every driver, then we'll have lost one of the strategic campaign interests that the more avid fans enjoyed in the sport".

As an avid fan of the sport for nigh on 30 years, I always have, (and always will), wanted to see racing on the track. Strategy is for chess, if that's what the team managers want to do, then why not give them all a PS3, a copy of F1 2010 and see how they get on 'optimising their theories' whilst we watch the real racing.

 

[FB]

Muddytalker said:

As an avid fan of the sport for nigh on 30 years, I always have, (and always will), wanted to see racing on the track. Strategy is for chess, if that's what the team managers want to do, then why not give them all a PS3, a copy of F1 2010 and see how they get on 'optimising their theories' whilst we watch the real racing.

With you all the way Muddy. Not only am I against fuel stops but tyre stops as well. The people that run F1 keep tinkering and tinkering; why don't they just leave it alone, make the race take place on the track rather than in the pits and then we will see who the fastest driver is. And, here's a thought, if they had to make a set of tyres last the whole race it would slow the cars down, increasing braking distances, removing marbles from the track and giving the drivers a better chance to overtake.

 

[cider_and_toast]

There used to be two schools of thought when it comes to qualification in the no re-fuelling era. The first school of thought is the balls out in qually and take it from there approach and the second being the I know I can't get much out of this car in qually trim so I'll set it up for the race and take it from there. Maybe the greatest exponent of the latter theory being Niki Lauda who failed to put his car on pole once during the 1984 season but still took the drivers title.

I disagree with your point about strategy because I think it is important in F1 to have a game plan. The problem as I see it is that there isn't enough things to alter to make the strategy that different between each team. That's why the powers that be have to engineer things into the race to try and balance that out. So now the guy who get's pole is going to have less choices to make about his race day set up than the guy who puts it 11th and outside of the final session. Some reward for finishing on pole then? What happens for example if the guy who sticks it on pole puts in a cracker of a lap in a bit of an upset (Fisi last year for example). He is then prevented from optomising the car for then next day. Say he completes that lap on hards and the following day the track temp is down and softs is the way to go. That's not exactly fair is it?

The modern F1 tyre is far too consistant for this idea to work. The days of tyres lasting 95 percent of the race before the driver has to nurse every last mile out of them are long gone. Now it seems a drivers idea of his tyres going off is losing a few tenths a lap.

I still argue the less regulation rather than more regulation is the way forward.

 

[Muddytalker]

Tyre and car management is still relevant, (see your own Niki Lauda example above), but that is different to what MW is talking about, and that's a pre-programmed strategy, i.e. calculating when to pit having assessed when others will pit, before the race has even started.

Yourself and FB can see it, I can see it - Make the tyres last and then we do away with pitstops as a necessity, they become an option only.

 

[Enja]

If they wanted to keep the strategy without "engineering" the race with mandatory what-nots, they could just get rid of vast swathes of the telemetry and ban pit-to-car radio, letting the driver make the choice when he feels it needs to be made. It should be up to him when he feels his tyres are going off, whether he can hold on to the set he has on. Bring back a super-hard compound that'll last the distance and watch the genuine strategy unfold! Not this pseudo-racecraft BS we're being dealt with.

Banning PtC radio and non-essential (i.e, not "safety") telemetry systems would open up the so-called strategy a huge amount.

And it would save huge costs - there are a whole bunch of people that sit around in the paddocks at a computer screen monitoring what's going on. Get rid of them.

But they won't. They've already spent too much money on developing the systems to the point where they feel they need them in order to compete. This is a common human trait called sunk cost fallacy.

Freed from the shackles of this data the drivers would be put back in control, which is what we want.

Of course, this is far too much to consider in F1. Ludicrous. Better change the cars, the tracks, tyres, rules, regulate some here, regulate some there, tighten some loopholes, standardise the engines, the parts, remove the gravel traps, penalise the racing..




And yet I still look forward to 2010

 

[Speshal]

Now I'm not one to get in the way of a decent rant but I do believe the Martin Whitmarsh quotes were actually concerning the ban on refuelling and not the tyres idea.

It was in response to:

Q. The main regulation change this year is the banning of refuelling. What impact will this have on the racing? Will it be better, or will it result in more processional races?

 

[LifeW12]

Who cares whether they start on the tyres they qualified or not? It will do nothing to improve the show because the cars can never get close enough to each other to pass anyway. It could be easy for a driver to do a Boutsen and hold off the field for the whole race because passing at any circuit is next to impossible.

 

[Muddytalker]

Now I'm not one to get in the way of a decent rant but I do believe the Martin Whitmarsh quotes were actually concerning the ban on refuelling and not the tyres idea.

It was in response to:

Q. The main regulation change this year is the banning of refuelling. What impact will this have on the racing? Will it be better, or will it result in more processional races?

Yes, well spotted, now move along please...

 

[siffert_fan]

They need to get rid of the ridiculous "must use both types of tyres" rule. One set of tyres should be enough to get through a race. If a tyre change is necessary for safety reasons, the pit lane should be configured so as to impose at least a 30 second penalty (excluding the actual time spent changing tyres) for doing so (maybe Tilke could design all of the pit lanes. He should never again be allowed to design a circuit).

If they really want to bring the drivers back into the equation, they should:

Mandate (indeed, they should provide) a standard MANUAL gearbox (if I can use a clutch, the self-proclaimed "best drivers in the world" should be able to use one as well).

Ban rev limiters - if you miss a shift, there should be consequences (e.g. a blown or weakened engine)

Mandate standardized steel brakes to lengthen braking distances and making passing more likely.

I think that these changes would sort the men from the boys and make a WDC much more earned than today's are.

 

[Brogan]

They need to get rid of the ridiculous "must use both types of tyres" rule.

I've been saying that for a while.

Removing refuelling makes little or no difference when it's a 1 stop race as all drivers will still have to stop at least once to change tyres.

The only difference is it will take 2 or 3 seconds less to replace the tyres than last season when they replaced the tyres and refuelled at the same time.

Let the teams and drivers choose whatever tyres then want and if they can make a set last the whole race (if Bridgestone made a harder compound), then let them.
If on the other hand someone wants to use super softs in the hope that they can pull out 1-2 seconds a lap and do 2 or 3 changes, let them.

 

[GeoffP]

I will always maintain, the only way to level the playing field is to stop changing the rules - just find some you like, and stop!

The only beneficiaries of rule changing are those teams with the most analytical drivers, best software, top tacticians, etc. i.e. the only team that benefit are those at the front they're trying to prevent from romping away.

If the rules remained static then the tactics would play themselves out over a couple of seasons and all teams would have a similar starting point at each race... tactically

As far as overtaking is concerned, If you gave me a blueprint of a vehicle, a circuit the was 100% designed to be driven on by that vehicle, it wouldn't matter how many I made, they'd go pretty much the same speed in the same places, and if you got the top 30 drivers worldwide trying to be in front, it would take a lot to pass. F1 doesn't have the wrong rules, it has too many and keeps changing them, thats why we are getting more and more of a predictable procession....

Time for a happy pill imple:

 

[siffert_fan]

GeoffP-

Do you have any happy pills to spare?

 

[snowy]

This is a bad development. It was bad enough that they held on to the two tyre rule but to compound that with an even more erroneous ploy to tart up the strategic aspect of F1 is tantamount to suicide. This season has so many extraordinary and wonderful possibilities, if only they would recognise they need to employ one flawless principle "keep it simple stupid."