2018 F1 challenge r7: Canada 10 June: Discussion thread

I read that Ricciardo wants to "take the fight" to Merc and Ferrari.

This weekend in Canada, a high speed circuit with a twiddly bit, will see him smile a bit less and maybe re-think that idea.

Grid penalty no more. Apparently they fixed one of the older broken ones and were able to re-use it.

Well, wasn't that exciting?

That was Mogadon on wheels, wasn't it? Glad that Seb just drove off from a Ferrari point of view but nothing could make that a spectacle. As to Brundle whining on about Kimi being past it and looking to retire, from a driving point of view he's probably right but I'm betting Kimi sells more merchandise in a season than the lower order guys sell through their entire careers.

Apart from the aero bollocks they need to make the tyres less predictable. The reason the Bridgestone vs Michelin era came to an end was because Michelin pushed the boundaries and Bridgestone made tyres that would just go on forever and this resulted in the farce at Indy where Michelin runners just pulled off the track. When Pirelli made tyres that "fell off a cliff" in terms of performance the teams whined about it but it added something to the strategy and now we have "ultra-mega-hyper-soft" that can do over half a race distance with minimal degradation meaning stops aren't worth the time lost.

Ho hum. Three in row coming up: that should cheer the family up.....

When Montreal can’t deliver an interesting Grand Prix, Houston, we have a problem. Helmet Marko declared Montreal as a track that was tough for overtaking. It’s a sad admission, because the layout is almost perfect for racing; six heavy braking zones, long straights and a lack of fiddly corner sequences. The problem is the cars themselves; not the tyres, engines or other factors.

Christian Horner stated that tyres with heavier degradation would increase strategy variation, therefore overtaking. It’s such an F1 solution to the problem; just make dodgier tyres to spice things up. However, the drivers protest that they can’t push, so Pirelli make the tyres more durable again.

The fact that three DRS zones on the raciest circuit on the calendar couldn’t produce any excitement illustrates the crisis that F1 races. The wings have to be massively simplified. I’m encouraged by the 2019 tweaks, it’s a start. The simplification of the front wing is so overdue, well done to Liberty and Ross for overcoming the vested interests of F1’s downforce fanatics. I’m under no illusion; dirty air is dirty air, running behind another car will always be a disadvantage under braking and cornering. It is the extent of that disadvantage, and the near impossibility of getting in a position to overtake without DRS.

To not upset the downforce fanatics, it would be possible to maintain a certain level of aerodynamic performance whilst reducing turbulence for the trailing car. LMP1 cars don’t have front wings, yet have fairly rapid cornering speeds. It’s not a coincidence that following another car in LMP1 is much easier.

My personal preference is to simplify the wings, to not upset those who demand that F1 must have front wings. In addition to this, downforce would be reduced. The current level of evolution in laptime is seeing race tracks simply becoming unsuitable for F1. The higher the cornering speeds, the more sanitised the race tracks become, with greater run off-areas. With less downforce, inevitably laptimes would increase. That would be unacceptable to some. I would counter that with two thoughts. Firstly, straightaway speeds would increase considerably with less downforce, so the laptime loss would be partly neutralised. Secondly, the cars would be busier under braking, and looser on corner exit. The driver would be busier working the wheel. Monaco is the slowest track, but it looks like the fastest with how much visible input there is. People wouldn’t know the difference if the laptimes were a few seconds slower. Moreover, less downforce would see corners become corners again; Eau Rouge, Pouhon and Blanchimont would no longer be flat-out or near to flat. It would be a spectacle once again, with the driver measuring how much speed to carry, which is surely the challenge that people want to see.