Racecar Engineering - November 2005

Straight talk
LAT
Classic overtaking manoeuvres like
this – Montoya outbraking
and ducking inside Schumacher on
the rumble strip coming into the Bus
Stop at Spa Francorchamps in 2004
– are a rarity on today’s smooth,
ultra-safe F1 racetracks
advertising is on camera for longer, but that’s surely
just a coincidence... Isn’t it?
To be fair to Herr Tilke, he’s just following a brief,
and perhaps the reason why these circuits tend to look
the same is because, by and large, they do actually
allow for more overtaking, and some of the dicing at
Sakhir, Sepang and Hockenheim has in fact been
pretty good stuff. And yet, there’s something missing.
It all seems so artificial.
Why? Well, think about the most memorable
overtaking moves of recent times: Montoya on
Schumacher at Interlagos. Hakkinen on Schumacher at
Spa. Barrichello on Raikkonen at Silverstone. What
have they in common? They all happened on real
circuits. In fact, I reckon one pass at Spa is equal to
about five at Sepang or the like. It’s because the moves
you remember best take place at tracks where to
overtake is still a huge challenge, but most
“
I RECKON ONE PASS AT SPA IS EQUAL TO
ABOUT FIVE AT SEPANG OR THE LIKE
”
importantly perhaps, at circuits where there is an
element of jeopardy if the move should go amiss. And
that’s important. At this year’s Bahrain Grand Prix
Mark Webber made a mistake and went sailing off the
track – I forget which corner, they all look the same.
He didn’t seem to fight the car, he just let it go, to save
the tyres I guess and that’s fair enough. But the point
is, nothing happened. The car just switched from one
ultra smooth surface to another – paved run-off – and
in the course of his ‘incident’ Webber almost explored
as much of the Arabian peninsula as Wilfred Thesiger.
There was not even a gravel trap to ruin his day.
Now to me this seems wrong. Drivers at the highest
level should be punished if they make a mistake,
because it’s the treading of the thin line between
success and disaster that is the very essence of our
sport. A car on opposite lock through The Swimming
Pool Complex at Monaco is 10 times more exciting than
the same at some anonymous Tilke turn with an empty
lorry park for run-off.
Some people don’t agree though. The other day I
was reading a report that said Formula 1 should even
re-brand itself as the ‘safest extreme sport in the
world.’ Only a sport as out of touch with the real world
as F1 could ever come up with something as ridiculous
as that. Why would anyone want to watch an extreme
sport that wasn’t extreme? That’s just extremely dull.
I’m not saying we should make all the circuits more
dangerous here, and there’s no way F1 would or could
for very many reasons, not least involving the legal
implications should the worst happen. But just maybe
we have gone far enough, just maybe it’s time to stop
building new circuits and to start looking after what’s
left of F1’s once proud heritage of challenging
autodromes and differing engineering challenges from
track to track. After all, in these days of increasing prerace
simulation – some of the teams have finished the
race before they get to the track – the older, real
tracks, particularly impermanent facilities like Monaco
and Montreal, offer something a baby’s-behind
smooth Tilke-drome can’t – bumpy surfaces that can
change in character year on year. Which surely must
add to the challenge from an engineering standpoint?
So then, with all that in mind, what’s my 2006
calendar? Melbourne, Imola, Monaco, Nürburgring
(funny isn’t it, we used to think that place was bad),
Silverstone, Montreal, Indy (it’s different at least), Spa,
Monza, Suzuka, Interlagos, Jerez, Estoril, Donington
(please!) and just a couple of those Tilke go-kart tracks
– Sepang and Hockenheim perhaps, but with gravel
traps instead of hard aprons.
Just a dream, of course, for the cigarette money says
we have to head east, and chances are that each new
GP will be on a purpose-built track cut from the same
cloth as all the others. Actually, some think this suits
the little big man in charge of F1 perfectly. For there is
nothing Bernie Ecclestone likes better than order and
uniformity – so maybe this is all part of his master plan
to make F1 fit the Bernie mould? If that’s the case,
here’s a cheaper way: what about 20 races, all held at
Shanghai? And maybe we could have the exact same
race each time, too – that would save us the bother of
having to tune in.
RE
28 November 2005 Racecar Engineering
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