Bahrain goes for new track layout

A completely unexpected piece of news popped up today, with the Bahrain GP organizers announcing this years race will not take part in the usual 5,41km layout, but rather in an “Endurance” 6,2km version of the circuit which adds a new loop:

Map of Bahrain's new layout, the old track used the shortcut from T4 to what will be now T14

This is somewhat bizarre, because the reason the organizers have given for this change is basically to accommodate the fact there will be more cars on track, 26 instead of 20. I’ve seen GP2 fields of 26 handling it without any problem whatsoever, specially given that this is the one circuit in the world that is really bloody wide, and then there’s a sea of tarmac everywhere if you happen to go out of track. And amusingly, from the maps it seems the new section is going to be the narrowest part in the circuit.

However I’m not going to cry about it, as some fans in the forums already seem to be doing. The only harm it really does is to ruin the quick S we had after the turn 4 hairpin, which was one of the few challenging parts of the circuit, but then the new section of turns 5-6-7-8 looks quite challenging as well. The fact there’s going to be more corners will also force the teams to use a setup with a little bit more downforce, which isn’t good for overtaking, but I think the difference is going to be hardly noticeable.

Teams agree final rule tweaks for 2010

As for some completely unrelated news, and because I have no better place to put this, Scuderia Toro Rosso have announced they will launch their new car at Valencia the first day of testing in the 1st of February. And let me keep the most important news to the end: the teams have agreed on approving the new points system (25-18-15-12-10-8-6-4-2-1), without agreeing to give pole position and fastest lap points (thankfully), neither agreeing to force 2 mandatory pitstops per race as previously expected. I’m quite happy about that.

Why Newey, Whitmarsh and Sam Michael are wrong

A couple days ago I had read a news article about Sam Michael, Williams’ technical chief, complaining that F1 needs to start focusing on changing the tracks to improve overtaking and forget changing the cars. I thought he was mad, but didn’t bother much with it. Now ITV has put a new piece on their site recovering Sam’s statements and adding new quotes by both Adrian Newey, legendary designer contracted to Red Bull; and Martin Whitmarsh, McLaren’s team principal, that supports him. It’s time to analyse it, and demonstrate why this is a dangerous way of thinking.

Adrian Newey is a legend of the sport, but that doesn't mean we should agree with everything he says.

Let’s get some quotes then. These are by Sam Michael:

“One thing that hasn’t really been addressed at all so far is circuit design,” he said.

“You’ve got to ask yourself, why do you go to a race such as Barcelona where no one overtakes, and then take exactly the same cars to Monza, Montreal or Hockenheim and you get lots of overtaking.

“Those cars are exactly the same aerodynamically, yet on one circuit they overtake a lot and on another circuit they don’t overtake at all.

And these are by Martin:

“You only need to do simple statistical analysis and look at where the overtaking moves are,” he told F1 Racing.

“If, say, we race on 18 circuits with 350 corners, then 90 per cent of overtaking moves in a year would happen at just 10 corners.

“You also have to look at the preceding corner.

“The fact that overtaking is focused on such a small number of corners clearly demonstrates that it’s circuit-dependent.”

All of this is… true and well observed. You do get far more passing in Hockenheim than in Monaco or in the Hungaroring. That much is obvious. The thing is, that has been true since F1 ever existed. It’s always going to be more difficult to pass in tight street circuits with many corners, than in wide circuits full of long straights. Yet, there wasn’t a problem in old F1. At the least-overtaking friendly circuits in the calendar, even if passes were rarer, they were still possible. In fact, old F1 was so much more overtaking friendly, that the Monacos were seen as an unique challenge, instead of as the-circuit-where-things-will-be-even-duller. All of this logic also applies to when comparing other categories against F1, since we have often seen lower formulas pulling great shows where F1 had processions. Unfortunately I don’t have stats for GP2, A1GP, etc, but I do have them for old F1 vs current F1 and it shows that this all isn’t just nostalgia bias, there really was a whole lot more of passing:

Overtaking stats in F1, from 1983 to 2009

Go check the individual tables for each track and you’ll see that in the 80s, Monaco had as much passing as we have now in the most overtaking-friendly tracks, like Bahrain!!! (average of Monaco 1985-1990: 15,7 passes/race; average of Bahrain 2004-2009: 17 passes/race). The better tracks of the time had three times as many. (average of Hermanos Rodriguez 1986-1992: 46,3 passes/race). If this doesn’t show that there is a problem with the current cars, I’m not sure what does. Now there’s a big question on whether it’s physically possible to have cars that overtake as much as the old ones, while lapping as quick as the current ones, but I can’t answer that, and Newey/Whitmarsh/Michael’s arguments aren’t based in that anyway.

Let’s move on to another two quotes by Sam Michael:

“One thing that hasn’t really been addressed at all so far is circuit design,” he said.

(…) “It’s because of the circuit layout – it’s because when they lay out circuits they don’t look closely enough at the combination of slow-speed corners onto straights followed by slow-speed corners.

The Sepang circuit.

On the first quote: Really??? What does he think that Hermann Tilke has been doing for the past decade? Because it seems pretty clear to me that the last few 6 or 7 tracks to have entered the F1 calendar, all designed by the german, have all been severely compromised for the sake of overtaking.  We have been left with many dull looking, copycats of each-other, utterly uninispiring tracks all full of huge wide straights and hairpins after hairpins, all in the name of improving racing, and yet, although one or two do seem to work a little (Bahrain comes to mind), it’s still not good enough. Some actually backfired, and we have had dreadful races in them. Valencia and Abu Dhabi have been terrible despite hairpins leading into long straights into hairpins, and the last few numbers of the Sepang races have also been poor, despite it being a good layout in theory (and we all remember some pretty fantastic A1GP races there…).

...and the Shanghai circuit. Spot the differences.

So I am afraid that either changing the tracks for overtaking is a pointless exercise, or that they have been doing it wrong. Or maybe a bit of both. Maybe they should look at the fact that holding races in the middle of the desert or in the middle of an industrial park is a bad idea as the track will be super dirty… or maybe they should realise that hairpin-into-mega-straight-into-hairpin isn’t all there is about it. Back in the 80s/90s there was loads of passing in the corner at the end of the back straight in Jacarepagua, or at the end of the Hangar Straight in Silverstone – both long straights leading into a quick corner, a feature unfortunately rarer and rarer in the F1 calendar. And there seems to be plenty of passing in the hairpin in the modern Hockenheim, despite the fact that the preceding corner is mid-speed. Get rid of this kind of things, and the designers will be so limited that we’ll get a full calendar full of the exact same thing in every track – is this what we want?

Doesn’t it make more sense to change the cars? I’d rather have passing in great, flowing, classical tracks than passing in dreadful tracks, and it’s not terribly more expensive to do it anyway, it’s just that the bill would be for the teams instead of for the circuits – maybe why the teams staff are against it? There just isn’t a great will to do it in that direction any more, apparently. Common sense would dictate for them to have agreed to ban the double diffusers many months ago…