Sainz: Fans can’t see how tough wet races are

F1 Fanatic Round-up

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In the round-up: Carlos Sainz Jnr says it’s difficult for fans to appreciate how tough and dangerous racing in the wet is.

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Dennis led McLaren to titles for three decades
It’s the end of an era at McLaren:

When Ron stepped back in 2009 you could still kind of feel his presence lurking in the background. Now it looks as though he will have to maintain total hands off.

Just speaking of the McLaren F1 team structure it looks to be a huge and difficult beast to reshape/restructure/rebuild to get back to a successful level. While the team has achieved far better results in 2016 it still seems lacking in many ways for a team with such huge resources. Much like Ferrari in that regard, great resources do not always add up to even good results.

If Ron Dennis could not tame the beast McLaren F1 team, who can? Ross Brawn does not want the job, that is for sure. Eric Boullier is apparently doing a pretty fine job with what he has, but he is probably best in his current position. The politics that have led to the departure of Ron Dennis will likely weigh heavy on whomever replaces him. There again a correlation to Ferrari and their woes due in large part to a game of political pressures that become a hindrance to running a proper racing team despite massive resources.

Having been a fan of Bruce McLaren in the 1960s when he began this great and historic team I would still love to see them be successful again someday. That success, or failure, is now in the hands of someone other than Ron Dennis. A new chapter is being written. We will see what the new regime brings.
@Bullmello

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Keith Collantine
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47 comments on “Sainz: Fans can’t see how tough wet races are”

  1. I think that Sainz’s comments probably highlights the difference between die hard F1 fans like most of us on this forum and the casual viewer, who has very little knowledge of the sport… I can’t recall how many times I spent educating casual viewers who rocked up to the Australian GP to watch the race, most of these people don’t know the drivers or teams, outside of the big names, they may remember things from years ago, such as refueling when pitting and other such odd bits of information that isn’t current. The thing that strikes me is that most casual viewers of motorsport, seem to think that driving a race car at speed is the same as their daily commit to work, that it isn’t hard at all…

    IMHO this is the ultimate problem and complexity of motorsport, if you are a casual viewer, you won’t appreciate it for what it is, instead, you look at the surface of the racing, such as crashes, the overtakes, the podium celebrations, and the glitz and glamour, everything in between seems to be lost. So when a race is red flagged, its not about the safety of the drivers, its about the selfish motives of the people who bought tickets to watch cars stopped in the pitlane…

    1. “daily commit to work” should be “daily commute to work”

  2. @keithcollantine I’m not sure if you meant it, but you have Mark Gallagher’s tweet twice.

  3. Chris (@tophercheese21)
    16th November 2016, 2:59

    F1 drivers and teams do a lot of talking about how seemingly dumb the fans are. Perfectly understandable things are referred to as “How are the fans supposed to understand that?”. Things like the engines, ERS, DRS, and tyres are all subjects that F1 teams seem to think that fans are incapable of understanding.

    Seriously, how stupid do they think we are?

    1. They are reffering to the casual viewer who’s just switched the television on because they’ve been theres an exciting race on channel ____ .

      1. Casual viewers are not fans. They’re just casual viewers. @tophercheese21 is quite right, most fans know exactly what’s going on. There’s nothing I don’t understand in F1, and yes, I consider myself a fan.

        1. Chris (@tophercheese21)
          16th November 2016, 22:20

          Thank you! This is exactly the case.
          The casual viewers are not fans. Sure they may be marginally interested in Formula One, but they’re not going to tune in every week and take the time to invest their time in the sport.

    2. I don’t know, if we were that stupid we wouldn’t even know about Carlos sainz Jr.

    3. I think Sainz has a press adviser and whenever he is interviewed after meetings he says logic things, but sometimes the press catches him in between meetings and the logic goes out of the window.

      I certainly can appreciate how difficult it is to drive in the wet. I mean, I slow down whenever it rains or if there is any fog because I can’t see anything, and these guys have to floor it either way.

      Actually IMO is one of the few things a casual viewer is able to understand, I’ve seen races where it rains with friends and whenever there is an on-board or videos of the spray, the general reaction is “How do they drive like this?”

    4. Amen @tophercheese21 I get the feeling that they think we’re invalids. Each concept involved in modern F1, be it ERS, DRS, tyre graining etc., is summarised to death by the commentators in a race in 2 sentences 20 times per race so can be easily understood by casual fans. All that fans need is to be engaged by the racing, if that happens then further interest comes from there. Interest comes from the sporting spectacle, this is the same for every sport on the planet. When will they learn this?

      The more you watch F1, the more you understand how difficult a wet race is.

      1. Even for a casual fan, a 5 or 10 second shot from the in car camera shows the difficulty of a wet race, just by pure lack of visibility. Then you have the cars handling to take into account.

        On the Sky commentary they said that each tyre is capable of lifting 60 litres of water per second (or it may have been tyres), which as a visual comparison is a little more than a standard 2′ fish tank.

  4. It’s a real shame that Dennis couldn’t do anything more to lift McLaren-Honda from where it is now, quite a sad departure, really. But remembering the sight of him beaming in Hamilton, Raikkonen, and Hakkinen times (that I only knew of) were truly beautiful moments. He is not who he was in terms of power and influence, but he has done so much for McLaren, Formula One, motorsport, and automotive industry. Hats off to this true great gentleman.

  5. Well Kevin, maybe if you and your friends could be trusted to race properly on the racetrack, then yes, we wouldn’t need these rules.
    But you can’t be trusted.
    Funny how no one messed with track limits in Brazil (the white line was bad enough!).

    1. @eurobrun Absolutely agree. How hard can it be? Keep at least two wheels inside the white line. When the white line is slippery as hell they seem to manage it! Every track shouldn’t need gravel, high kerbs or a brick wall to stop it. Yeah you might go over once or twice but these are supposed to be the best drivers in the world.

    2. Except (at the very least) Verstappen and Perez. The stewards didn’t seem terribly interested in doing anything about it here, though. And sadly, half the field doesn’t seem to have worked out that going onto the white line is a bad idea when it’s been soaked for hours.

      Until the standard of driving improves, or everyone agrees to race cars as slow as those in Formula E, track limit rules will remain a minimum requirement for F1 to exist.

  6. From the point of view of a fan with 20 years of watching every televised session going… I can sort of appreciate how hard it is.

    But I can also distinctly remember watching racing in conditions worse than those at Interlagos. I know the cars have changed and the modern breed appear more difficult to drive in the wet (maybe it’s setup, or just the tyres… or the willingness of race control to let them) but my automatic line of thought is, “If they could do it, these guys should be doing it too.”

    Perhaps that’s unfair – especially when wet races in the early days of my F1-viewing tended to have only a handful of finishers – but it’s a difficult thought process to get rid of.

    1. That said, specific to this race… Interlagos is pretty much the worse non-street circuit for rain. So on this particular occasion I was more understanding.

    2. Having done kart racing for about 9 years I get what Saniz is saying, but even then I can’t fully understand how it is to drive an F1 car in the wet as they kick up far more spray and have far more torque to deal with. I think the fact modern F1 cars don’t have a true wet-weather set up (only modifications to a dry set up) doesn’t help.

    3. @neilosjames The thing to remember is that back when they would race in conditions as bad/worse than what we saw at Interlagos it was because the drivers had much less of an influence & that they were forced to start in conditions that they really should’t have been racing in & that most of the time those races were reduced to wreck-fest’s where it was often pure luck if you got to the end or not.

      Take the 2 wet races at Adelaide in 1989 & 1991, None of the drivers really wanted those races to start but back then race control & Bernie would tell them to get in the cars & start & they would have no choice but to do so. And both of those races ended with most of the field in the wall with everyone admitting afterwards that they really should never have started.
      And there’s Suzuka 1994 a race which started, Saw 4 cars aquaplane in a straight line which brought out a safety car which when brought in resulted in one car going off & another going off in the same place & hitting a Marshall even though he was going slower than the 1st car who went off.

      And the final example would be Spa 1998, None of the drivers wanted it to start when it did & most were suggesting a SC start. They were over-ruled & you ended up with half the field crashing out of turn 1 because 1 driver made a mistake & nobody behind could see far enough ahead to avoid it with those at the back in the worst of the spray blindly piling into it at full speed.

      It was after that where race control decided to listen to the drivers opinions & it was when that began to happen that we started to see more caution used in heavy rain especially because the drivers understand the conditions far more than anyone else.
      At Interlagos we only heard from the drivers saying the conditions were OK & that the SC should be brought in, Unfortunately we didn’t hear radio call’s from the drivers further back who were no doubt talking about having no visibility in the spray & who with cars producing less downforce/overall grip were at far more risk of aquaplaning than those in cars that are far easier/more predictable to drive towards the front.

    4. I’m not sure how much of the “conditions looked easier” was because the broadcasts have become brighter over the years. I recall 2003 being very dark on TV, but wet races starting to get lighter over the ensuing decade (very dark broadcasts don’t make good use of technologies like HD unless some sort of contrast is available, which live sporting events tend not to be able to guarantee).

      The brighter a screen looks, the clearer low-saturation details are (to a certain limit). However, the brightness of a screen wouldn’t affect conditions in the car…

      1. Alianora; As a working professional sports photographer, with additional experience in film and videography for many decades, I totally agree with your (pardon the pun) views on the matter. What we are seeing now on our screens IS much brighter than just a few years ago.

        Not only were the broadcasts that viewers saw on TV much darker than the actual light at the outdoor, naturally-lit events being filmed or videotaped way back then, but now with the much more low-light sensitive digital equipment being used today, the exact opposite has become the norm; … what we see on TV is very often much brighter than at the actual location being shot.

        In fact, it’s not uncommon for us shooters to often need to use flashlights and camera control illumination to get our shots in the low natural light, while the shots themselves look like late afternoon, at worst.

        And on the wet-track question in Brazil, I think that whenever any cars, especially the leaders, begin to aquaplane while taking the normal racing lines, and with full-wet tires fitted, the race should be stopped until conditions improve. And any track that cannot be designed and maintained to prevent ANY standing or running water that produces aquaplaning at normal racing speeds, should not be approved for F1 events. Waiting until someone gets seriously injured or killed before taking action is not acceptable.

  7. I think Gutierrez is probably right that it’s not fair on him, but maybe the team realised they need someone who is more experienced, and though Magnussen does not really have much more experience, he did work with McLaren and Renault who were working to get back on top of things at that time, so that seems relevant experience for the team. Also, I don’t recall Gutierrez being very good at setup with Sauber, maybe Haas just thought pace wasn’t the problem.

    1. I don’t think it’s fair how he got his deal anyway. It was clearly a Ferrari thing. It was a matter of time before he got the boot.

    2. cCrtainly not very fair but his numbers are difficult to justify: lagging 8 places behind his team mate, still with 0 points and even behind Vandoorne.

      1. @spoutnik @johnmilk The thing I would point out when looking at the points/championship positions is that Most of Grosjean’s points were picked up at the start of the season when the car was a lot more competitive & when Guttierez was suffering from a lot of reliability problems & not able to fully take advantage of the cars pace.

        Since just before the summer break Esteban has actually been matching Grosjean’s pace & often actually been the faster of the 2 but the car isn’t where it was in the 1st 2-3 races so he’s not able to get near the points scoring positions that Romain was when the car was more competitive at the start of the year.

        1. @gt-racer I agree, but regardless of points he hasn’t set the world on fire with his pace either. To me, Grosjean is just a little less than a Perez or Hulkenberg.

    3. I think it is more than fair, Gutierrez has the same amount of points as Ocon, Haryanto and Ericson.

      Haas is currently sitting in front of Renault, Sauber and Manor in the constructor, so one might conclude their cars are better, yet Gutierrez is behind Mangnussen, Nasr, Palmer and Wherlein in the standings, without mentioning Vandoorne, which has made only one race.

      Yes Haas had their share of problems, and the car is very inconsistent, they can reach Q3 and finish well inside the points and next weekend they fighting with the Manors, but on those occasions where the car was performing he failed to capitalise every single time. Haas has 29 points, all of them from Grosjean, that not only sits atop of the previous mentioned drivers, but Kvyat (which started the season in a RB) and Button as well.

      If you ask me, IMO it is way more than fair

      1. @johnmilk How Kvyat managed to get a contract at STR is beyond me as well.

        1. @xtwl he bumped his way into it

      2. @johnmilk
        Remember that Gutierrez has beaten Grosjean more often than not when they have both finished the race. Gutierrez also seemed to perform much better than Grosjean a lot of time time when the car didn’t perform as well. Unfortuantly for him, it didn’t bring him points. But he was either a very decent driver in those races or Grosjean was poor. He has had 5 11th place finishes and I think Grosjean finished behind him in pretty much all of them if I remember correctly. Also, the car was far more competitive in the first 2 races than at any other point in the season. Grosjean did well at those 2 races but his team mate got knocked out by Alonso in Australia as well as having technical issues. He also had to retire in the next race through no fault of his own with yet more engine problems. I am sure he will have scored several points over those 2 races. If you think about it, Grosjean has scored nearly 65% of his points in those 2 races which has made his gap in the championship look huge. If it had been Grosjean retire in those races instead, the points of both drivers would be a massive amount closer. While I think Grosjean overall has done better, I don’t think it is by much at all. Either Grosjean has had a poor season or Gutierrez is nowhere near as bad as people think he is. He’s also had a fair bit more bad luck later in the season compared to Grosjean.

        However, I admit it, when the car is more competitive and both of them finish the race, he really struggles to put in a decent performance then and that is where Grosjean appears much stronger. I certainly think he should get at least one more chance in F1 though.

        1. @thegianthogweed you do make very good points, and indeed the car was much more competitive in the two initial races where Gutierrez hit some problems, but even if you take those 65% of the points, Grosjean would still be in front of the Renaults, Saubers and Manors.

          In my mind there is no doubt that Grosjean is much better than Gutierrez, even though taking into account the circumstances of the season is very hard to compare both drivers, the car didn’t make particularly easy, I just have the feeling that whenever Haas got that sweet spot on the setup or whatever it is they do right or wrong, Grosjean was there to capitalise, not Gutierrez.

          Also my opinion on Gutierrez comes from other seasons, in 2013 he wasn’t even a shadow to Hulkenberg, and giving him a seat in 2014 was pushing it already IMO, either way he was then paired with Sutil, and he all know how that season turned out for Sauber (the best position for Gutierrez was 12th in Australia, onle 13 cars finished), they were outscored by Jules Bianchi.

          At this point you can guess my surprise when Haas gives him a 3rd chance.

          And that is pretty much why I started my comment by saying it is more than fair for Haas to sack him, there are plenty of good drivers that don’t have a 2nd chance, not even a chance for that matter, and Gutierrez had 3 and failed to impress in every single one of them. He is, and again IMO, compared to the talent in the grid and outside of it, a waste of a seat.

          1. @johnmilk
            Yes, I still think Grosjean is overall a much better driver. But this season alone, I actually don’t think there has been a great deal of difference between them. But it is understandable I suppose that Hass would sack him as he hasn’t performed and got points when there has been a chance. Grosjean has done what the team wanted which it to get the most out of the car when it is competitive. But it has to be said that Gutierres has had many better races than Grosjean this season but they have been when the car is worse. And my point with that 65% was that if Grojean retired and Gutierrez didn’t, Gutierrez could well have more points that Renault and Manor as well as Sauber. I am sure he will have scored several in those 2 races, just not quite as many as Grosjean.
            But the thing about Grosjean, while he has had several good races, I think most of his races have been poor, a lot being worse than his team mate. So to me, Grosjean hasn’t had a great season either. But yes, it is points that matter, and he’s got them. But if we were on one of the old points scoring systems that scores for the top 6 drivers and Grosjean instead has retired in the first 2 races, It is quite possible that Gutierrez would have beaten Grosjean in the championship. Obviously that’s a bit unrelated as that wouldn’t have happened as we don’t use that points system any more. But bad luck for Gutierrez hasn’t helped him at all. If both of them had finished the 1st 2 races, Gutierrez will probably have been ahead of at leased some of the other teams and his end of year result would look totally different. But that won’t be the reason why the team got rid of him I suppose.

    4. I also feel that the dynamic between team and driver may be a factor. It’s possible Gutierrez may have a more positive view of what seems to be a fairly tense-at-least-on-the-surface relationship than his employers do. It may be that Haas needs someone who fits in a little better.

      1. Yes, you have a good point there. At Interlagos his engineer referred to him as Mariachi over the team radio after Gutierrez was justifiably complaining about the car. I thought that the tone of that was not particularly nice, and even condescending if not outright insulting.
        That being said, I think that Gutierrez would be a good fit for Indycar.

  8. Viewers of F1 (I won’t call them fans) who lack an understanding of the dangers of driving in F1 in the extreme wet are either very short sighted or have very short memories. Less than 18 months ago, Jules Bianchi finally died, following massive head injuries sustained in a crash where the major contributing factor was the wet track.

    Sure, it’s very easy to sit in your armchair and spout off on subjects about which you know absolutely nothing. But in the end, it’s just not worth risking the life of drivers for your entertainment. I’d rather see a hundred races run bhind the safety car or red flagged than see another driver killed.

    1. @mazdachris When Ocon just missed killing Kimi, I was glad to see a red flag. That was scarier than Alonso’s tumble in Australia. They used to call it “the cruelest sport” for good reasons, yet always the show goes on.

      1. @ferrox, totally agree… but if it isn’t safe to race why start at all…. starting behind a safety car is not racing.

  9. cantrecallmyusename
    16th November 2016, 17:18

    I can;t stand these safety car starts, if they need to use the cars to move the water then ok, great idea but the race has not started when they are all following a safety car and are unable to race so why does the lap counter start?

    There is nothing aside from logistics and money to stop them from getting a small fleet (locally sourced) of sweeping / blowing trucks to clear the track.

    Yes, the water might run back onto the track in places but the same can be said for using wet tires on F1 cars to do the same job.

  10. Does anyone know why don’t they use those big jet dryers like they do in Nascar?

    1. Probably money, driving them around from state to state would be a lot cheaper than flying from country to country and the required fleet would be smaller in NASCAR to clear an oval in a reasonable time than it would take an F1 track.

      And you get commentators saying stuff like “back in my day we didn’t need this, we just raced.”

    2. There is no point, the circuits are too long. Can you imaginaire them doing a couple of laps around silverstone or spa? A F1 race has a 4 hour limit from start. Most NASCAR ovals have light to drive around at night and can be postponed to another day if needed. F1 has to drive, no matter what so it makes a lot more sense to develop ways to do that with tyres. And they have rules in place if it gets to bad.

      But NASCAR also uses wet tires on road circuits like watkins glen. The titans can be used for some standing water, but will not be used for drying the track.

  11. I definitely agree with the headline re: Simona’s supercar appointment. It’d be great to see more women come in to Motorsports. Whether Wolff’s comments are on the money or not, we’ll have to wait and see. Women are way under-represented so it’s unfair I think to declare they either can or can’t compete with men. It could very well turn out to be a fact like in so many other sports that they don’t have the raw physiological capability to compete.

    1. If they can be fighter pilots i assume they can be f1 drivers

      1. Can be? Sure! I have no doubt, no argument at all. But to be the best in the world? That’s another question…

        1. Hey Tristan, we don’t live in the 50’s anymore, I believe that talent will come through to dominate the field and be the best.

          Male or female.

  12. It’s 2016 Carlos, if you are on the newest iOS app beta, you can view all onboards live. In 2017 everyone will be able.

  13. Michael Brown (@)
    16th November 2016, 20:55

    I don’t know, I think even casual viewers understand that driving with a face full of spray is hard

Comments are closed.