Michael: It’s the circuit not the car
November 9, 2009 by Negative Camber
Filed under People & Events, Top Story
According to Williams F1’s technical director Sam Michael, the lack of passing in F1 today is not just down to the cars. In an Autosport story Michael was quick to explain that while the Overtaking Working group has made improvements to the 2009 car from an aerodynamic standpoint, the real culprit may just lay in the actual circuit design.
“I think that clearly the changes made the cars easier to follow, however, there’s a lot of work that still needs to be done,” said Michael.
“One of the things that wasn’t addressed in the 2009 rule changes was circuit design. If you look at tracks like Barcelona where nobody overtakes, and take exactly the same cars to tracks like Monza, Hockenheim etc, there’s plenty of overtaking. The difference is circuit layout.
“Organisers need to look closer at creating slower speed corners which feed onto straights, and at removing chicanes.
“If you look at somewhere like Abu Dhabi, there are some good aspects to the circuit, but there are fundamental mistakes. There wasn’t good enough racing there and the organisers need to rectify that before next year. You can’t keep blaming car design.”
No question that F1 has been joined at the hip with Herman Tilke and his design group for many years and have relied on his expertise in providing practically all of the circuit design layout over the last decade. It also comes as no surprise that the importance of track amenities and commodities has taken a front seat to the actual track itself.
Tilke’s design have met with some criticism of late as they have seemingly accommodated the glitterati with opulent media centers, hospitality locations and facilities but the main goal to create exciting racing has taken a back seat. Circuits like Spa Francorchamp, Monza, Silverstone and Moncao still out rank all the new tracks in popularity and prestige.
Is it the circuit or the car? The palatial and over-the-top opulence of Abu Dhabi’s maiden Grand Prix this year was a real testament of bling before zing. It gave our heads dizzying images but left our hearts bereft of real racing. I’ll take the musty, beer-stained old air base at Silverstone any day over Abu Dhabi.
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If Sam Michael’s logic is to be agreed, How many overtaking moves did happen in Silverstone, Spa and Monza :-?
The answer is not many. Only time races become interesting in recent years is when it rains, otherwise there is hardly any racing.
So while I personally don’t like the TilkeDromes Statistics in favor of traditional circuit is not in favor of Historical tracks either.
This season again the cars were not of identical specs, some had DD while some had KERS. So the overtaking moves in earlier part of season were artificial. I didn’t get any goosebumps watching KERS equipped Ferrari/McLaren making places in race starts or for that matter better handling Brawn overtaking a Renault (in Brazil). Only move that was worth remembering was Button on Hamilton in Barcelona, since the McLaren car was equipped with KERS and Button still made the move stick.
Does anybody remember the Seinfeld episode when Kramer picks up “Karate” and enrolls in class of full of kids. This years cars were reminds me of the same situation.
( And in this light imagine, Leggard-Brundle-AntDavidson , going overboard when Button passed Grosjean in Brazil and were lambasting Kobyashi when he was defending his position)
And about actual overtaking on track in equal equipment didn’t we had all the overtaking moves made by JPM in 2000-2006 :-?
It might have brought joy to the fans, but did it make the team engineers happy?? Given that the Colombian got into the dirty air of the car in front and thus disturbing the aero-balance of his car.
Lets accept the teams like drivers who can drive metronomically in clean air lap after lap and help team make most of the strategy they have planned.
Anyways with Refuelling ban, the overtaking in pits tendency should curbed. Now the the variable will be – how much fuel does the car have onboard and how has the driver managed the tires. So driver doing good on this front at any point in race will be able to overtake the driver in the front.
2010 should be the watershed year, if we don’t see overtaking now then it will be never. Not to mention it will be statement on overtaking capabilities of the drivers as well.
I think the track design does have a lot to do with it. These are fairly large cars on pretty narrow tracks with curbed up chicanes and seating focused layouts. If you want “Rossi-passing-Lorenzo-on-last-lap-of-Catalunya-MotoGP” type goosebumps, something needs to change in F1…either the cars need to get smaller (not going to happen) or the tracks need to become more accomodating. Your point about lack of overtaking at the classic tracks is a good one, but at least there is the possibility of passing at those venues…