F1 is too easy
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Don’t get me wrong, I realise that these drivers are the best in the world and that f1 cars are nearly impossible to drive. But, how often do we see someone make a mistake? Apart from overtaking crashes and wet track mistakes, we almost never see any mistakes. Circuits are getting safer and safer, and the drivers are making less and less mistakes – should that really be the case?
And I’m sure there’d be a lot more overtaking if drivers made more errors – remember Abu Dhabi? Had Petrov out-braked himself once in the 40 laps, Alonso would very likely get through.
I found it funny when they introduced Traction control, the drivers were spinning more often than before…I think bringing back traction control would make it more difficult strangely. The best drivers will practically switch if off as to go faster and the slower drivers would be forced to turn it down to try to keep up thus naturally spinning the car. Schumacher was the master of generating traction.
Although the cars would have to be made harder to drive…
I think Keith made a post about this a few months ago, basically the power to grip ratio is well down at the moment, a combination of slicks and frozen engine regs.
Don’t get me wrong, I realise that these drivers are the best in the world and that f1 cars are nearly impossible to drive. But, how often do we see someone make a mistake? Apart from overtaking crashes and wet track mistakes, we almost never see any mistakes. Circuits are getting safer and safer, and the drivers are making less and less mistakes – should that really be the case?
And I’m sure there’d be a lot more overtaking if drivers made more errors – remember Abu Dhabi? Had Petrov out-braked himself once in the 40 laps, Alonso would very likely get through.
I think F1 drivers aren’t making many mistakes for two reasons:
1. They’re just that good. As you said, they’re the best in the world. A top-class racing driver’s powers of concentration are much stronger than yours or mine.
2. They can’t afford to. When high-profile drivers like Alonso or Hamilton make even a single mistake, they suffer all sorts of criticism. And if you’re driving for a midfield or backmarker team and making mistakes every race, you’ll sully your reputation and eventually lose your seat.
Also, what makes you think drivers are making less and less mistakes? At what point were mistakes at an all time high?
They are very good, but they make a lot of mistakes in the rain. That proves that they aren’t perfect and can make mistakes when it’s harder to drive – so if the cars were harder to drive, there’d be more mistakes.
And about making less and less mistakes, it’s not based on any evidence. I think that we have very consistent drivers on the grid at the moment, and they’re not making many mistakes – and from what I know they used to make more mistakes. But I could be wrong, just like many people were that there used to be more overtaking in f1.
They are very good, but they make a lot of mistakes in the rain. That proves that they aren’t perfect and can make mistakes when it’s harder to drive – so if the cars were harder to drive, there’d be more mistakes.
And about making less and less mistakes, it’s not based on any evidence. I think that we have very consistent drivers on the grid at the moment, and they’re not making many mistakes – and from what I know they used to make more mistakes. But I could be wrong, just like many people were that there used to be more overtaking in f1.
Drivers make more mistakes in the wet because different parts of the track have different amounts of water on it. Which means that the car could feel fine in one corner, but then the next corner has standing water and you aquaplane off the track. You can’t recreate that on a dry track. Even if the FIA decided to change the rules to make the cars harder to control, the drivers and engineers will just adapt to them so the car will be drivable.
And I really don’t think drivers of the past made that many more mistakes. Especially with the risk of death being much higher than it is now.
Another thing to consider would be that nowadays a driver rarely has to fight for position, they can sit back at 80% or 100% and still come in the same position.
I can’t help but think that one of the reasons for the fewer mistakes is that drivers are now so confident.
They feel that if they have a crash, no matter how serious they’ll be uninjured. Driving on a knife edge is hard, but doing it while knowing that if you mess up you’ll probably die? almost impossible
To add to my previous post, Senna used to pull out pole laps over a second quicker than Prost, the cars just don’t have it in them these days to have that kind of hidden potential, hence little driving at 100% and less mistakes. See Hamilton at Monza in 2009 for instance, gave it everything and ended up in the wall.
to be fair, in the past drivers could drop off their “100%” drivers would ease off if they have a cushion or it’s just impossible to catch up. not to mention the massive risks in the past. If they drove to the max all the time they would die.
As for the ease to drive thing, the power to grip ratio might have something to do with it but the drivers are getting better, as in fitter and more alert. I think the cars could be a good bit faster with more G before modern drivers start loosing concentration and collapsing on the podium again.
Forget all this ‘cars are so hard to drive’. F1 cars are easier to drive. Have a look at some in-car footage from 15 years ago and look at the car shaking and jumping around. Compare with a modern car, so smooth and balanced.
You’ll see the same thing if you drive a new car and compare with a 15-20 year old car (of a similar standard). The new car will have much more power and far better brakes, but will be much easier to drive. This is just technology of car design, improving handling and predictability of the car, etc.
The difference is even more exaggerated in Formula 1 due to the amounts of money and competition involved – a 2010 Formula 1 car costs much more than a 1990 Formula 1 car, for example. And doesn’t have a massive increase in power.
I’d agree with RFS’s initial post and ad the third point that the circuits are now so safe that even if a driver makes a mistake he is a lot less likely to be punished for it. You can run off track at turn 8 in Istanbul or the sanitised Pouhon at Spa and probably not even loose a position, if those were gravel run offs your race would be over 8 times out of 10. If Hamilton made that same mistake that he made at Monza in 2009 at nearly any other modern circuit he would have finished 3rd that day, but because there was grass and gravel he lost it and paid the price.
I don’t believe that F1 is too easy, but I do believe that circuits are much too forgiving. Cars are much more drivable but no way they are easy to drive.
In the old days there were manual gearboxes and massive turbo lag. Driving up to 90% of the limit would be crazy hard, pushing to 100% and beyond would be supernatural. A car today would be fairly easy to get to 99% but the last 1% requires immense skill. The thing is, that last 1% is hard to see without a stopwatch because it involves epic fine precision invisible to the naked eye but seen in the telemetry.
Personally, I would rather see drivers visibly wrestling a massively powerful wiggling sliding beast.
Modern cars are definitely no smoother than cars of 15 years ago, but onboard cameras today are much smoother. Compare the suspension travel on a modern car compared to something from decades ago (before aero).
Top cars are generally more balanced anyway. The RB6 is quite beautifully balanced. When Martin Brundle drove Schumacher’s championship winning Ferrari F1-2000, he was amazed by its stability. Watch an onboard lap of an HRT. Struggles at every corner.
Drivers of today are much fitter than they have ever been and pull more G’s than ever before. I don’t believe that Fangio or Piquet (at their prime) could last a full race distance in Bahrain or Malaysia (though I doubt Vettel or Hamilton could handle Fangio or Piquet’s cars).
I agree that circuits are much too forgiving. Too many crucial corners are surrounded by parking lot runoff. The bus stop at Spa should have resulted in more carnage on the first lap this year instead of all of the front runner’s driving happily across the smooth tarmac runoff. I don’t believe circuits should be deadly, because it’s nice that a driver can show up for the next race, but I do believe circuits should be punishing. Suzuka is nice that a mistake will send you far off into a gravel trap and Monaco will rip off at least two corners of your suspension. Being punishing without being deadly is possible, just look at the wall of champions in Montreal. Tarmac runoff areas need to at least shred tires to death to justify their existence.
Its been said, but its simple, the cars arnt really that powerful and make huge downforce. Back in the late 80’s turbo era some of the cars made 1000hp and had not even close to the aero of modern cars. A current F1 car makes 700 odd hp and sticks to the ground extremely well, downforce essentially ‘smooths’ out bumps.
Everyone calls the Virgin, HRT and Lotus drivers rubbish and notices their mistakes, but they are examples of cars that are very difficult to drive. They have to lift off through most chicanes the RBR cars can take flat out, and suffer from oversteer quite badly on some circuits. You never see Sebastian Vettel crash (well, thats a bit of an overstatement) because the downforce that car produces.
In summary, not enough power, too much down force. Id be keen to throw in another 200hp and see were it gets them.
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