Why do people think that F1 never used to rely on strategy?!
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I have found that increasingly (over a few websites) this season, people are arguing that they dislike these new Pirelli tyres because they make the GP all about strategy rather than about outright speed of the car. Which I personally think is ridiculous and hugely irritates me, since strategy has been an integral part of F1 ever since you were allowed to change tyres through the race or re-fuel. Strategy is an integral part of any sport, especially F1, and its the reason many people find F1 so interesting because it brings together huge driver skill, engineering skill, and strategy. It involves thinking, taking risks, and is and always has been central to racing!
If people would rather there was no strategy involved, surely we should just have a two or three hour qualifying session where there were no requirements apart from setting the fastest time possible. That is the only way we would see cars racing purely for outright speed. I say that a race is a competition to see who crosses the line first, which means they have a larger number of challenges to overcome than simply who can set the fastest lap! More often than not, the car which crosses the line first is the fastest car, but there is a huge amount more to it than just making a fast car.
Strategy is good for F1, good for the spectators, and does not in any way detract from the drivers getting the cars across the line as fast as they can. It means they have more to do than drive fast. For a simpler style of racing, go and watch Nascar. They turn left. But even they still have some strategy involved…
+1
We had a great mix of strategy in Malaysia and we still got a lot of overtaking rather than overtaking from pitstops.
Like a million times. The only downside I think is that we haven’t got to a point where strategy can be used to win a race, except in changing conditions. Soft, Soft, Soft, Hard looks like being the standard strategy for all the races this year (I’m sure there’s innuendo in there). Sauber have been clever about it by tweaking set-ups to make a 1-less-stop strategy work, but I doubt it can be used by the front runners to win a race.
At the end of the day, being first makes you fastest, not the other way around. people complaining about strategy getting in the way of being “the fastest” should remember that and appreciate the novelty of this season. For years I watched F1 where every single weekend it was the same case of procession after procession and that was before Schumacher dominated. How was that any better?
There are complaints about “purity”. this is Formula racing. It’s not called “Unlimited One Racing”. You race to a set of rules, not to some ideals.
Agree with everything above!
The sheer amount of variables that go into an F1 race make it as exciting as it is. Speed in my opinion is a cheap thrill. Don’t get me wrong, the speed of F1 cars is a wonderful thing but it’s not what ‘sells’ the sport to me.
I was watching the Malaysian GP just last weekend with my girlfriend, she said the cars were travelling slower than she had seen previously. I pointed out that a contributing factor was the drivers being concious of high tyre wear. She found it boring they weren’t flat out. I found it exciting that they had to consider tyre wear.
F1 has many attractive qualities but no sport polarises itself more with them. Downforce/drag vs. straight line speed. KERS boost vs. added weight (though not as big an issue as it was in 2009). High tyre-wear vs. tyre longevity. I could go on.
Speed is perhaps the biggest attraction for the casual fan and that’s fair enough. But for us lot, in the majority, it’s just not enough!
The reason people think that there never used to be strategy involved is because it’s not mentioned in depth in season summaries, youtube compilations etc, and because they are idiots, they make the erroneous conclusion that strategy was not present because it wasn’t mentioned.
It ties back into that rose tinted glasses thing. Some people think that the 70s/80s and early 90s were the golden era of F1, and compare several seasons of highlights to the previous two or three races this season. Because more stuff happened in 3 seasons long ago than what happened in 3 races this year, today’s F1 is “boring.”
There’s a channel on justin.tv that plays old F1 races, it’s a great opportunity to see just how boring some old races where, like the ones where Senna was “brilliantly” 30 seconds clear of everyone else for the entire race…how exciting!
France 2004. Schumacher won with a 4 stop strategy, whilst others had done less. Strategy was very important in that race. In that year Michael dominated but it wasn’t just his and the F2004’s speed, but also thanks to strategy. This and last year the performance of the cars is much closer and strategy can be fundamental to decide who will win.
Well, I guess they draw a conclusion from the end of the season standings etc, when championships were a bit tighter and more than 2 teams fought for the title. But yeah, strategy was an important part of Formula 1 ever since pitstops became important part of every GP.
https://www.racefans.net/2008/08/29/a-brief-history-of-pit-stops-in-f1-video/
There is definitely a good opportunity for innuendo there. As is there with arguments about who can last the longest on their rubber…Hamilton is know as one who goes for it pretty aggressively and often his stints will last less time than say Button, who is really great at lasting along time…on his tyres. haha I am sure all these have been done many times years before, but that doesn’t make them any less amusing! Fast cars bring out the immaturity in all of us!
p.s. I heard that the Virgin cars really struggle to last very long at all, even with fresh rubber. Last season they didn’t even manage to finish most of the races…
I like those Movement!
Also, a lot tend to forget that Senna’s 1993 Donington victory was a victory for…strategy. First lap aside, it was his better choice of when to come in for tyres that won him the race.
Any sport you care to think of has loads of tactics and strategy. Its just in F1 strategy is obvious with tyre changes, kers use etc so its difficult to ignore. Where as in a lot of sports you can ignore the strategy and admire the skill of the people running round after a ball or chasing each other you cant in F1.
I don’t think there’s any more strategy now in F1 then theres ever been, but this year its harder to ignore and pretend its not happening since we now have more obvious strategy with pirrelli tyre
For a football manager to change strategy for his teams requires instant communication. For F1 it’s a little more obvious as it can result in a pit-stop or turning your engine down.
Strategy can be good and bad. It’s good when people are free to choose different things, and there is more than one solution to a problem.
It’s bad when it’s limited and mostly prescribed, which is what we have at the moment. The forced tyre change and forcing of people to start on their qualifying tyres means soft, soft, (optionally soft), hard strategy is always going to be favourite. Then there’s also the enforced rule of the same tyres on all 4 corners. I have no idea why this is (it used to be open). A single tyre supplier doesn’t help either. With a tyre war you’d get a good mixture of tyre options and more emphasis on the driver’s skill of choosing the right one.
If drivers had complete freedom, we’d probably see Perez and Button doing hard, hard and others doing soft, soft, soft, soft, soft. Sadly we’ll never know.
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