[Official] Round One :Gulf Air Bahrain Grand Prix, Sakhir

[jab]

Originally Posted by frostie

Do you view Indy Cars to be the same as Formula 1 at present? They're both single seater open wheelers but no educated fan would say they are the same thing

But the most important people are not educated fans

Originally Posted by frostie

Why do you say there is such a small, insignificant group of racing nerds? I think it's pretty clear by the viewing figures that F1 has quite a loyal and large base of fans for Grand Prix.

In the grand scheme of things, the loyal F1 fanbase is not that large. Jonathan Palmer said that there are about 100,000 hardcore motorsport fans in Britain, and I should think a few thousand of those aren't interested in F1 - in contrast, GPs can get up to and beyond 50 million viewers. On Sunday there were 10 million viewers in Germany alone. These are some of the most watched sporting events on the planet. Feeling so significant now?

If it was all aimed at hardcore fans, there would be no sponsorship. F1 couldn't survive with budgets so great just to satisfy so few people

Originally Posted by frostie

I don't think making intrinsic changes to F1 is a healthy option when the sport is continuing to grow anyway

It's not going to continue to grow if races continue to be as bad as they have been for the last couple of years

[Last2LiftOff]

Originally Posted by jab

But the most important people are not educated fans

Sorry Jab, that's contrary to anything I've ever learned about marketing. You want financial suicide, try repositioning something and telling your existing fan base to take a flyer esp. when you're at the top of a food chain. Some one else will be there in a heartbeat, picking up the pieces and thank you very much. For anything I know.

[jab]

But how many hardcore fans would be so annoyed at F1 becoming more standardised that they'd switch off and not bother watching again? This is all about improving the racing which is what the majority of fans want, whether they are hardcore or casual

Who here would stop watching F1 forever if the FIA decided to standardise large parts of the aero, get rid of all the technology and generally try to improve the show for the fans?

My bet is that it's very few, no more than after than the usual "crisis" we get every year like Spygate, Crashgate or the Spa 2008 affair

[frostie]

Originally Posted by jab

In the grand scheme of things, the loyal F1 fanbase is not that large. Jonathan Palmer said that there are about 100,000 hardcore motorsport fans in Britain, and I should think a few thousand of those aren't interested in F1 - in contrast, GPs can get up to and beyond 50 million viewers. On Sunday there were 10 million viewers in Germany alone. These are some of the most watched sporting events on the planet. Feeling so significant now?

I'm confused, GPs get tens of millions of viewers and the numbers are consistently increasing yet you think the sport needs to change? Why should hard core fans feel insignificant if so many watch the sport that we clearly love? Surely we should feel immense pride that such a vast number of people also share our love?

The viewer numbers are consistant, F1 has a loyal fanbase already. There is no need to change the sport just to get people that have little or no desire to watch Formula 1.

Originally Posted by jab

If it was all aimed at hardcore fans, there would be no sponsorship. F1 couldn't survive with budgets so great just to satisfy so few people

If the sport is aimed Joe Soap on the street how will it fare? How has the idea of creating racing formulae for the everyman on the street worked out? If I recall A1GP was designed to incorperate the best of the world cup and motorsport. Get everyone patriotic and follow their country etc. that didn't work out too well did it? How about Super League where you can support your football teams car driven by a random driver....no thats not really caught on either. What makes you think F1 wouldn't fall into similar pitfalls?

Originally Posted by jab

It's not going to continue to grow if races continue to be as bad as they have been for the last couple of years

I have to say I think the racing has been great over the last few years. It's a far cry from the early 00's when Schumi was dominating and the races were foregone conclusions. The last three or four years have had great battles and close title chases. The sports growth was quite good over the last few years even in heartlands such as Britain where Hamilton has been a catalyst for growth and Brawn and Button captured the imagination. Have you seen an off season like the one we had before? Everyday I opened a paper there was F1 news, that is impressive for a sport that apparently has such a small fanbase as you attest

[jab]

Originally Posted by frostie

I'm confused, GPs get tens of millions of viewers and the numbers are consistently increasing yet you think the sport needs to change? Why should hard core fans feel insignificant if so many watch the sport that we clearly love? Surely we should feel immense pride that such a vast number of people also share our love?

The viewer numbers are consistant, F1 has a loyal fanbase already. There is no need to change the sport just to get people that have little or no desire to watch Formula 1.

Just because lots of people watch it doesn't mean that it's not horribly flawed

People will get bored eventually. You only have to look at how many people have posted in this forum to say "That was rubbish, I'm not bothering again" to see that. They're not complete idiots - if they don't enjoy it, if there's no action, then they won't bother. The loyal fans will watch forever in the hope of the odd good race but casual fans don't have that much patience, and F1 cannot survive on loyal fans alone. The reason why the FIA reacted to the Schumacher years in the way they did was because viewing figures were declining, and despite those glory-hunters who were jumping the Schumacher bandwagon as well

To say there's nothing wrong because people are watching is burying your head in the sand. F1 has major issues

Originally Posted by frostie

If the sport is aimed Joe Soap on the street how will it fare? How has the idea of creating racing formulae for the everyman on the street worked out? If I recall A1GP was designed to incorperate the best of the world cup and motorsport. Get everyone patriotic and follow their country etc. that didn't work out too well did it? How about Super League where you can support your football teams car driven by a random driver....no thats not really caught on either. What makes you think F1 wouldn't fall into similar pitfalls?

F1 is a completely different case, because it's called F1. It's nothing like trying to set a new series up like A1. Completely different

Originally Posted by frostie

I have to say I think the racing has been great over the last few years.

No. The championships have been great as a whole, but the racing and the races have been, by and large, of a very poor standard. Processions are the norm now

Take a look at how much overtaking has declined in the last 3 decades - ignore 2010 as it is an anomaly due to it only being down to Bahrain, where there were loads of overtakes from recovering drivers passing new team cars, but the rest is pretty conclusive

[Last2LiftOff]

Originally Posted by jab

But how many hardcore fans would be so annoyed at F1 becoming more standardised that they'd switch off and not bother watching again? This is all about improving the racing which is what the majority of fans want, whether they are hardcore or casual

Who here would stop watching F1 forever if the FIA decided to standardise large parts of the aero, get rid of all the technology and generally try to improve the show for the fans?

My bet is that it's very few, no more than after than the usual "crisis" we get every year like Spygate, Crashgate or the Spa 2008 affair

No contest Jab; frankly, I couldn't get past the most-important-people-are-not-your-educated-fans bit, when experience tells me if you start thinking about your hardcore fans - I think you called them? - as anything other than your primary market, it's (very likely) already too late and you're in big trouble. Surely, that's not the case here i.e. mit Formula 1.

And there, now you see Jab, I've gone and taken this thread way off topic. My apologies.

[Super Hans]

Originally Posted by frostie

I have to say I think the racing has been great over the last few years.

I agree.

I think the problem is that people watch cherry-picked clips from the 70s and 80s (Dijon '79 and the like) and think that it used to always be like that. The fact is that F1 has always been largely processional, interspersed with the occasional tyre-banging battle.

[frostie]

[QUOTE=jab;2654254]F1 is a completely different case, because it's called F1. It's nothing like trying to set a new series up like A1. Completely different[?QUOTE]

But the only reason that F1 is so revered is because of the qualities that you would like to see changed. F1 is the only class of single seater racing where the competitors have to design and build their cars. That is why it is the pinnacle of the sport. If changes are made in that regard it would only be a promotional tag and F1 would lose its credibility. You would probably see that for a while it wouldn't make a drastic difference to the stature of the sport but over a period of time F1 would become just another class of racing and not the top of the mountain

[Born Racer]

Maybe that's true Super Hans, but the cars have to be able to follow each other. And it could be so much better. That's what's so frustrating. I almost have to laugh so as not to cry that this debate has been going on in F1 for as long as I can remember.

I agree with jab on this to a large extent. Besides, it wouldn't necessarily become a spec formula. You just need more standardised wings primarily.

[jab]

Originally Posted by Last2LiftOff

No contest Jab; frankly, I couldn't get past the most-important-people-are-not-your-educated-fans bit, when experience tells me when you start thinking about your hardcore fans - I think you called them? - as anything other than your primary market, it's (very likely) already too late and you're in big trouble. Surely, that's not the case here i.e. mit Formula 1.

No, you have to take them for granted, because there are so few of them

The vast majority of F1 fans like F1 because it's exciting. How many F1 fans really actually like F1 solely because of the technology, or because the teams build their own cars?

I'm not ignoring the hardcore fans totally, because most of them will agree with me. It's only the odd person who thinks that F1 will be damaged by being less pure, especially when purity means that the racing is dull as dishwater

You can't have it both ways - either pure and boring, or a bit diluted and a lot more interest. You have to be pragmatic about it - which is going to make you the most money?

Fans will come and go. Every so often a few hardcore fans find F1 too diluted for their taste and go and watch sportscar racing or historics. But they are replaced by 10 other fresh-faced new hardcore fans. It's a constant cycle. It would be no different here

My argument is just as purist. Look at swimming. In the eyes of the purist, those special swimsuits should not have been banned, because the swimmer should be allowed to wear what he/she wants. But in the eyes of another purist, they were right to ban them because it was giving those who wore them an unfair advantage. In the same way, I consider myself a purist, because I'm arguing for more control to be given to the driver instead of on a few people in a garage studying telemetry and telling the driver to brake 5 metres early for Turn 16 in order to gain an extra 0.01 of a second

It's ****ing me off that people think that because F1 is "pure", it shouldn't be changed at all, and yet still have the audacity to complain about the racing. The racing is bad because F1 is "pure", because designers are allowed free reign. Nearly every other series has gone away from this because they have discovered this very same thing. It just cannot work any more. We live in a commercial world where the sport has to make money to survive

And F1 is not sacred. It is not pure. F1 lost its virginity in 1994 when electronic aids were banned. Or you could even argue that it lost its virginity in 1969 when the high wings were banned. Either way, this whole argument is a load of nonsense because it's based on an old myth, so people should stop being so insular about it. Accept and embrace change, don't resist it. It's this very same sort of argument that stops new roads or railway lines being built because some NIMBY nearby will get an extra 5 decibels of noise, or stops large campaigns to try and attract people to club racing because the people at the top fear they'll lose their jobs when more dynamic young people come onboard and show them how it's done properly. If you don't want change, accept the sport is going to be **** from now on until its inevitable death in a few short years

This sport is not only not pure. It's cold, corporate and completely soulless. Improving the racing, cutting costs and handing more control back to the driver will reverse this. Otherwise, people will lose interest, audiences will decline, and the sport will die. Look at the bigger picture instead of from a position of "superiority" as hardcore fans

This should be done like a table with tickboxes - if you don't get ticks in both hardcore and casual columns, it is not necessary. The most important things are cost-efficiency, aesthetics, and good racing. Anything else doesn't matter

[Super Hans]

It isn't a question of purity. I'm not being elitist when I say that I'd prefer F1 to remain a series where each entrant builds his own car. I just prefer it to spec series.

[jab]

But F1 hasn't always been a series where the entrant builds his own car. HRT don't even build their own car now

Honestly, it doesn't need to be. Yes, there need to be some constructor entrants. But limiting yourself to constructors only will always mean that you're limiting your entry numbers to a small few with facilities and you're limiting the quality of racing

[frostie]

As a 'hardcore' fan it is my business to have a perspective of how potential changes would impact the sport. While it would be one thing to give drivers back more control, that wasnt the issue I had with your proposal-it was standardising the cars and making F1 like any other class of racing.

To be honest I think that I am looking at the 'big picture.' Changes have to be thought out and hold to the ethos of Grand Prix racing. The whims of fans that have little understanding of what actually makes F1 the purest form of racing should be ignored.

I say purest because in F1 it is all about the people charged with designing, building and driving a car. It is not like anything else where it is only about the driver getting the car setup with his engineers.

F1 is the ultimate team sport where every person is as important as the next. To change this would make all the history of the sport irrelevant and while casual race fans would think it was great how long would it last? These casual fans dont go to touring cars or junior catogories of racing so why would they have long term interest in F1? They dont watch Indy Cars or NASCAR etc and this is what you would make F1 into by having it as a stock single car formulae. How long could the past reputation of F1 be held to a high regard if it choose to negate the principles that gave it such a position?

[tblincoe]

Okay I've finished crunching the numbers from Bahrain and hopefully this will help address the firestorm of criticism regarding the Bahrain race. I think that we need to give things a bit more time before we settle on wholesale changes to the current format of Formula 1.

Here's a trend line analysis of Hamilton, Rosberg, Vettel, and Alonso's laptimes:

* Two sets of trend lines were run for Group A to address the wave of criticism regarding the new rules and the decidedly lackluster on-track action they produced in Bahrain, despite the opposite intent.
* The dashed lines for each driver/entry denote a linear trend line which, theoretically, should show the general trend in performance related to the effects of fuel burn-off. However, the linear trend lines are still slightly skewed by the strategy decisions to nurse tires instead of pushing for ultimate performance.
* The solid lines show a power trend line which display the actual performance trends which occurred during the race.
* The point? Fuel burn-off should have accounted for far greater lap-time improvements as the race went forward. Remember, the fastest lap set in qualifying was a 1:53.883 by Sebastian Vettel.
* The question that begs to be asked is why didn’t a single driver/entry attempt a two-stop tire strategy so as to maximize the performance benefits of fuel burn-off? With total pit-stop times being somewhere in the 25 second range, the numbers add up to a significant benefit to be had from the two-stop route. Possible explanations for not going down that road are: the tight and twisty section of the Sakhir circuit added in 2010 which made overtaking more difficult over a single lap; the generally cautious approach to strategy taken by teams during opening round races; and a non-linear performance envelope of the Bridgestone tires which drop-off significantly if pushed, but can consistently run for days if nursed.

As someone pointed out previously; like all sports, there will be dull F1 events and there will be exciting ones. Bahrain was a snoozer.

That being said, I think the potential is there for better racing in the current format, we just have to give it time. Just look at the mid-pack action on Sunday; there was far more overtaking down through the field than most races in 2009. Kubica and Sutil were able to overtake just fine throughout the race against cars that were quite evenly matched.

I believe that the potential is there before we advocate wholesale changes; they may be necessary, but not yet IMO.

[Super Hans]

How does it limit the quality of racing? Is the standard of racing in spec single-seater series generally higher? Surely it depends on how you define racing.

[jab]

Originally Posted by frostie

The whims of fans that have little understanding of what actually makes F1 the purest form of racing should be ignored.

Why? Because you're better than them? What gives you the right to sit up on your high horse and say "this is what I think the sport should be like and what everyone else thinks is irrelevant because I know more about the sport than you"?

Originally Posted by frostie

F1 is the ultimate team sport where every person is as important as the next.

Not really, no. Ultimately, who do the fans care more about - the drivers or the teams? Bar Ferrari, no team has more fans than the top drivers. The drivers championship is seen as far more important than the constructors championship

It is not a team sport. It is a sport involving teams but the ultimate competition that people care about is between the drivers

Originally Posted by frostie

These casual fans dont go to touring cars or junior catogories of racing so why would they have long term interest in F1? They dont watch Indy Cars or NASCAR etc and this is what you would make F1 into by having it as a stock single car formulae.

I am absolutely certain that if NASCAR got as much exposure in Britain as it has in the US, that it would be as big, if not bigger than F1 is here. It has an enormous following because it is so simple to follow and so entertaining. If it was presented as a serious alternative to F1, British people would take to it just the same. The reason they don't watch it now isn't because British people are more intelligent or sophisticated than Americans - it's because it's on Open Access 3 and F1 is on the BBC

Originally Posted by tblincoe

I believe that the potential is there before we advocate wholesale changes; they may be necessary, but not yet IMO.

I think the persistent complete lack of overtaking in places like Barcelona and Valencia is surely justification enough for action to be taken to improve racing, even if it does get better from here on (and I very much doubt we'll get overtaking-fests all of a sudden - it's only going to get a little bit better at best). And of course this means nothing when trying to justify F1 teams' spending on things like aero and electronics - they are still spending vast amount on areas that have very little relevance to the real world

Originally Posted by Super Hans

How does it limit the quality of racing? Is the standard of racing in spec single-seater series generally higher? Surely it depends on how you define racing.

Look at the amount of overtaking in F1 and then look at the same for GP2 and you tell me

[frostie]

Originally Posted by jab

Why? Because you're better than them? What gives you the right to sit up on your high horse and say "this is what I think the sport should be like and what everyone else thinks is irrelevant because I know more about the sport than you"?

I dont view it that I'm on a high horse, I view it that I've spent a long time learning about the smallest details of motorsport and the views that I have built after years of study are probably more balanced for the general wellbeing of the sport than some random punter with no interest in motorsport. I dont think I'm better than anyone else but I do think because I have an understanding of the sport that my views should carry more weight. I'll go out on a limb and say that most other fans of my standing would feel the same.

To put into context what would happen if we listen to the views of the disinterested: I know nothing about cricket but every time I watch it I think 'this is crap, it would be much better if the umpire tripped the runner' why doesnt the International Cricket Board listen to me?

It's a travesty that a person such as myself with no interest in the sport but that might sit down and watch the Ashes or some other big event when channel hopping isnt entertained to the degree that I except. If we see the wishes of Joe Public being implemented we would arrive with suggestions as crazy as mine about cricket. Is that really what you want to happen to F1?

Originally Posted by jab

I am absolutely certain that if NASCAR got as much exposure in Britain as it has in the US, that it would be as big, if not bigger than F1 is here. It has an enormous following because it is so simple to follow and so entertaining. If it was presented as a serious alternative to F1, British people would take to it just the same. The reason they don't watch it now isn't because British people are more intelligent or sophisticated than Americans - it's because it's on Open Access 3 and F1 is on the BBC

I'm not so sure on that. It was avaiable on Sky Sports for the last few years and while their ratings were solid they were not spectacular.

Originally Posted by jab

I think the persistent complete lack of overtaking in places like Barcelona and Valencia is surely justification enough for action to be taken to improve racing, even if it does get better from here on (and I very much doubt we'll get overtaking-fests all of a sudden - it's only going to get a little bit better at best). And of course this means nothing when trying to justify F1 teams' spending on things like aero and electronics - they are still spending vast amount on areas that have very little relevance to the real world

The spending has little relevance to the real world? Ferrari launched a KERS car, paddle shift gear boxes, drive by wire, carbon fibre to reduce weight. Honda used to send their road engineers to the racing division to speed up the process of training them for road car development. The spending and development in Formula 1 does trickle down to road car use.

[tblincoe]

Originally Posted by jab

I think the persistent complete lack of overtaking in places like Barcelona and Valencia is surely justification enough for action to be taken to improve racing, even if it does get better from here on (and I very much doubt we'll get overtaking-fests all of a sudden - it's only going to get a little bit better at best). And of course this means nothing when trying to justify F1 teams' spending on things like aero and electronics - they are still spending vast amount on areas that have very little relevance to the real world

You understand that you're pointing out track-specific overtaking deficiencies, don't you? DTM, GP2, even the LMS all lack overtaking at Barcelona in comparison to other tracks on their respective calendars. There's a reason why year in and year out we get better racing at certain events more so than others.

I believe that overtaking should never be 'easy' enough to make EVERY race an overtaking bonanza. If that did occur, then it would be like bikes or even NASCAR and overtaking wouldn't be nearly as exciting when it does occur. The real focus should be on producing tracks, rules, and regulations that allow for a bogey overtaking time around -1.000 so that a faster car can have a chance to pass. Anything else is contrived competition that dilutes the brand.

Look at the data from Bahrain ( http://bprf1.com/2010/03/17/inside-t...und-1-bahrain/ ) and the action through the field that the directors didn't show you. If by China things haven't improved, then I'll be right with you advocating some changes. I just don't believe the format is broken yet.

[jab]

Originally Posted by frostie

I dont view it that I'm on a high horse, I view it that I've spent a long time learning about the smallest details of motorsport and the views that I have built after years of study are probably more balanced for the general wellbeing of the sport than some random punter with no interest in motorsport. I dont think I'm better than anyone else but I do think because I have an understanding of the sport that my views should carry more weight. I'll go out on a limb and say that most other fans of my standing would feel the same.

To put into context what would happen if we listen to the views of the disinterested: I know nothing about cricket but every time I watch it I think 'this is crap, it would be much better if the umpire tripped the runner' why doesnt the International Cricket Board listen to me?

It's a travesty that a person such as myself with no interest in the sport but that might sit down and watch the Ashes or some other big event when channel hopping isnt entertained to the degree that I except. If we see the wishes of Joe Public being implemented we would arrive with suggestions as crazy as mine about cricket. Is that really what you want to happen to F1?

What I'm proposing is nothing like that. What I want to see is better racing. The majority of fans, casual or hardcore, want to see better racing. Why should F1 not implement changes to benefit racing just to appease the demands of a small minority of hardcore fans who think it's imperative that F1 teams build all of their own cars?

The vast majority of people see F1 as a car racing championship, not a car building championship. That's what motor racing is all about. That's what it should be. F1 is motor racing. In the grand scheme of things, it is just another motor racing championship - there are plenty who wouldn't have shed a tear had the split gone through last year and the manufacturers had formed their own Grand Prix World Championship not including the F1 name

Originally Posted by frostie

I'm not so sure on that. It was avaiable on Sky Sports for the last few years and while their ratings were solid they were not spectacular.

Sky Sports is a satellite channel and NASCAR was given very little exposure. There is a world of difference between that and F1 coverage here. You cannot compare it

Originally Posted by frostie

The spending has little relevance to the real world? Ferrari launched a KERS car, paddle shift gear boxes, drive by wire, carbon fibre to reduce weight. Honda used to send their road engineers to the racing division to speed up the process of training them for road car development. The spending and development in Formula 1 does trickle down to road car use.

Very little of it does. If you consider how many millions the likes of Toyota spent in F1, how much of what they spent was on elements that have gone into road cars? I'd like to see where all the millions spent on aero or on things like pits-to-car telemetry has trickled down to

Most of the genuine innovations that have tricked down to road cars were made 20 years ago. Nothing new has actually ended up on a road car for ages. Even KERS wasn't an F1 invention - the rules were just changed to make it compulsory. And now it's banned again

[jab]

Originally Posted by tblincoe

You understand that you're pointing out track-specific overtaking deficiencies, don't you? DTM, GP2, even the LMS all lack overtaking at Barcelona in comparison to other tracks on their respective calendars. There's a reason why year in and year out we get better racing at certain events more so than others.

Yes but that doesn't give F1 an excuse to not having good racing there as well. Although the racing isn't as good with GP2 in Barcelona as elsewhere, the cars still race better there than F1 cars. It should be possible to overtake there

Plus I think testing has an impact. When I did my mammoth list of demands that I posted on the other thread, one of the things I included was a ban on testing at circuits on the calendar. I still can't understand why that hasn't been implemented given how obvious it's been for years that that has been having an impact

Originally Posted by tblincoe

I believe that overtaking should never be 'easy' enough to make EVERY race an overtaking bonanza.

I'm not saying it should either. But it should at least be possible to overtake. At the moment, it generally isn't

[tblincoe]

Originally Posted by jab

I'm not saying it should either. But it should at least be possible to overtake. At the moment, it generally isn't

That's not entirely true though jab - it is possible. Several drivers not shown by the TV were able to pass on Sunday; just because the front 8 were unable to, for whatever reason, doesn't mean that its a categorical impossibility.

[jab]

The drivers who were able to pass were passing cars running 5 seconds a lap slower. There would have to be something significantly wrong for them not to be able to overtake there

But in the positions that matter most in terms of excitement and entertainment, the drivers couldn't pass. It was impossible. There were guys a second a lap faster than the car in front and couldn't get past. That should not be happening, especially at a track like Sakhir which is usually good for passing

[craigd]

The graphs above are pretty interesting. There was clearly a lot of conservatism but then you get that in races towards their end anyway, as drivers look after the engine etc, so it's not like one would expect a driver to push their tyres all the way. I do think though that we'll find drivers pushing a bit more as the teams' gain experience with these rules. So we should wait till China at least before trying alternative rules.

On thing I would like to mention regarding those suggesting two mandatory pitstops. I don't think it would make things massively better. Yes drivers would be less concerned with preserving their tyres but I expect the strategy would work out that we'd end up with similar races. I think with mandatory two stops people have in mind of drivers doing roughly 3 equal stints, i.e. we'd get the typical two stop like strategies of old. However, I don't think this would happen. And this is why:

With full tanks, a car is always much quicker on fresh tyres. Pitting before a rival is therefore seen as the best way of tactically jumping someone in the pits (yes on-track overtaking would be better but there we go). With two mandatory pits stops it's likely that the grid will use those two stops fairly early in the race (before half distance I expect). One driver will pit early on in the life of the tyres (e.g. lap 14 in a 60 lap race) to try and jump someone holding them up. The whole grid will then quickly make their first stop to cover each other.

Then, another 14 laps later say (lap 28), another driver will attempt the same tactic, forcing the whole grid to react. By half distance we'll end up with everyone on hards and they'll be back in conservation mode to make the tyres last for the remainder of the race (like the flat part of the graph in the post above ^^). I don't think we'll get the three attacking stints of racing with two mandatory pitstops like others are hoping for. Drivers on varied strategies is the best route - i.e. no mandatory stops and free compound usage.

It would have been really interesting if in Bahrain teams had been worrying of a no stopping, hard tyred Sutil being the fly in the ointment and a Sutil train developing late in the race! Before the race, Martin Whitmarsh had said he expected Sutil to lead the race at some point, though knowing he had to stop as well (and those that stopped earlier were on faster rubber) made his strategy to be ultimately uninteresting. It's a moot point to be honest since Sutil crashed as per usual, but the reasoning is sound I think.

I guess the end of that post was better off in the Changes thread, though I guess this issue is the sole major topic of the Bahrain race!

[jab]

I don't see the whole logic regarding Sutil's potential for the race - Liuzzi was 9th after lap 1 (i.e. ahead of where Sutil started), was on hards as well, he was in the same car, and he finished in the same position he ended lap 1. So I don't see any reason why Sutil wouldn't have done any different - I'm a big fan of his but he's not that much better than Liuzzi. I think they're just clinging to some hope for the future

[tblincoe]

Originally Posted by jab

The drivers who were able to pass were passing cars running 5 seconds a lap slower. There would have to be something significantly wrong for them not to be able to overtake there

But in the positions that matter most in terms of excitement and entertainment, the drivers couldn't pass. It was impossible. There were guys a second a lap faster than the car in front and couldn't get past. That should not be happening, especially at a track like Sakhir which is usually good for passing

jab - that's simply not true. Just look at the times and track changes: the front 8 were not separated by more than 1s in pace; overtaking occurred between cars running less than 1.3s apart (lap-to-lap); Sakhir is no longer a good circuit for passing; etc.