To ensure any form of racing is more exciting, increasing the levels of unpredictability will deliver this to a greater or lesser degree. There has been almost a universal clamour from all quarters of the F1 paddock to ‘improve the show’, yet peel back the layers of superficiality and a truck load of self interest lies behind each new suggestion.
F1 is having an identity crisis at present and Williams’ Rob Smedley queries, “Formula 1 really has to decide what it is, like football has to decide what it is. Is it a sport or is it entertainment?”
As suggested, unpredictability will always up the entertainment value – but there is a fine line between a contrived set of rules for competition, and a level playing field.
Back in ‘the day’, Formula One had natural levels of unpredictability as prototype designs of engines, suspension and other components regularly failed – because boundaries were being pushed. This year, McHonda have demonstrated how frustrating it often was when your favourite team pushed the boundaries of technology, but repeatedly fail to make the finish – or even the start – line.
In the FIA’s push for cost reduction, reliability in F1 power units has been forced to improve. Yet the counter side of this mission is that predictability has also increased. Add to this the threat of a 75 place grid penalty drop, and the Q&A department of each F1 team have grown quickly in their importance. Further, F1 power unit manufacturers regularly restrict their possible power output to ensure longevity, though at the the cost of pace right now.
Statistical probability has permeated each and every department of each and every Formula One team, such that the notion of durability now reigns complete over those of risk and increased speed.
One way to improve unpredictability in Formula One has been via the tyres. Pirelli have a mandate to construct tyres that degrade to such a level, that the teams are forced into changing the wheels on each car two or three times each race. This mandate from year to year has been met with varying degrees of success and relatively, 2015 has been a failure.
That said, Pirelli’s opportunity to test is almost zero, unlike the teams who have several hours at each GP weekend. The Italian tyre manufacturer has had to fight tooth and nail to be given a post season tyre test, where the new extreme soft tyre for 2016 will be tested.
“To be honest, it’s not nearly enough,” says Paul Hembery. “It’s just one day, but at least we have top teams and a lot of the top drivers who will be testing to give us some feedback to the changes we’re making”. The Pirelli super-soft, soft, medium and hard compounds used will remain the same for 2016, though Pirelli intend to implement certain structural changes to the tyre, to ensure when its life is over – the teams cannot continue to run it for lap after lap.
In the pursuit of planned unpredictability, Pirelli should be lauded – because the last time they changed the structure of the tyres – they became the subject of a Red Bull witch-hunt that eventually saw the 2013 tyres altered mid-season.
However, even Pirelli are not prepared to allow ‘unfettered’ unpredictability. Earlier this year, Force India brought a suggestion to improve the entertainment in F1 by allowing the teams to choose the two tyre compounds they run for a given race weekend. However, Pirelli have made it clear, they do not wish this to be a free for all and are now recommending Pirelli identify the three best tyre compounds for any given F1 race weekend, and the teams can choose to run two of these.
Further, the new ‘extreme soft’ tyre has been introduced to offer more pace for fewer laps with the possible result of a smaller team gambling on selecting these tyres – though inappropriate for the race – but to nail pole positon in qualifying. This surely would bring new levels of excitement for the dwindling TV audiences on Saturday.
The softest compound available this year was used just for Monaco, Canada, Austria, Singapore, Russia and in Abu Dhabi. The result was that a number of these events saw low tyre degradation together with just 1 pit stop races. Yet Pirelli is now suggesting, the new extreme soft tyre may only be allowed for the three street races in 2016.
Should Pirelli just let the teams choose freely from their dry tyre range – or control th selection and therefore reduce the unpredictability as they propose.
Has f1 gone soft?
Extreme soft from next year, it seems…
Freedom is a must have. It’s only a bit shitty when nobody grabs that freedom. So, having two tyre manufacturors is shit. But having four or more would be nice. Dreaming is nice.
Freedom to choose is one thing. The freedom to change (adapt) is when things get interesting.
Four engine manufacturers hasn’t worked out very well for competition because supply contracts are locked in, as is relative performance. Thus, boring.
Let them pick. Teams could take it a step further and design a world beater on the super softs with the trade off being poor performance on hard compounds. However this could let a team like force India shine for a weekend or two a year, get some more sponsors and hopefully move up the grid.
If it was up to me, I’d give them something like 20 sets of each dry tyre at the start of the year and they decide when they use them. Then someone like Manor could go all out nuts in Melbourne and use 10 sets of their supersofts up to try and get a good result at the start of the year.
You would also see some teams play the long game, like trying to get through a whole weekend at Monaco on one set of hards only, banking other tyres for later in the year.
Also someone like Force India this year while waiting for the B spec car they might have just plodded around the back on harder tyres saving all the soft ones for later in the year when they knew they had a better chance of scoring points.
I know there would be some massive logistical problems with this, although if teams nominated in advance which tyres they wanted to use at each event, the amount of tyres going to each event would probably be less than it is now, as they would only have on average 5 sets of tyres to use at each event.
Tires should not fail on the drivers, even if the teams push them beyond recommended limits. They should not fail in such a catastrophic manner.
The issue with giving options will be good for tracks where they use the hard tires already. The tracks like Monaco wouldn’t see a huge drop in performance going from soft to hard because of traffic. I think what you would find is a Sochi 2014 where Rosberg pitted on lap 1 and drove to the end on the other set. Yesyesyes I know he made that mistake but I know I don’t want to see that again.
I’m more for the Alonso Spain 2013, 4 pit stops pushing 100% of the time.
Or Schumacher Hungary 1998…
With all the compounds pirelli has made, why bother altering the tyres. Keeping the tyres the same as this year should reduce costs. Just let the teams use whatever they like and run them at whatever pressure they like.
The problem with that is the teams will push the boundaries, then when a tyre blows up Pirelli will get the blame.