TBK-Light.com

Full article here - http://plus.autosport.com/premium/featu ... 1423160073

Any chance of posting the full article? I'm not a member.

What makes me angry watching F1

After heading into F1's summer break with high hopes for the rest of 2015, GARY ANDERSON was a frustrated fan during the Belgian GP weekend

By Gary Anderson
Technical consultant


F1, Spa, start

After the Hungarian Grand Prix, which was a battle royal from lights to flag, I was looking forward to the rest of the season.

I thought if any team could just close that little bit more on Mercedes, it would have to start glancing over its shoulder, and when that happens, that's when the silver team starts to make a few small errors.

So batteries fully refreshed and bored with F1's August break, I sat down to watch Friday's first free practice session. I was very quickly brought back to reality with a thud.

Mercedes was still well ahead of the rest; McLaren-Honda's much-vaunted major upgrade proved to be a damp squib and things hadn't changed.

At that point, my viewing criteria changed. With all this talk of how to improve F1, I thought about ways it could be changed to make it more viewer-friendly. After all, someone will eventually find that magic button to spice up the show.

Practice sessions are all fairly confusing. From a viewer's point of view, we have no idea of fuel loads, engine modes, tyre life, or, on some occasions, what times were done on what tyre.

I have tried, and failed, to get FOM to put up the tyre that the driver has set his time on, in the left-hand column where laptimes are shown on-screen.

For me this is very simple and very informative for everyone. As an example of this, during the first qualifying session, the two Mercedes were the only cars not to use the soft tyre and yet nothing told us that.

Even the commentators were saying that McLaren was only two seconds off the Mercedes, and this was rubbish.

That's what the screen said, but the reality of it was McLaren had used the soft tyre and Mercedes had only run the medium, so you can add another second if not a second-and-a-half to that deficit.

Please, someone at FOM, believe me: the screen needs to tell the whole story.

The other thing that annoys me during qualifying is when a driver has a grid penalty and it is known before the session. That grid penalty should be allocated at the end of each qualifying segment.

If that penalty bumps them out of competing in the next session, then that is part of the penalty.

Take Max Verstappen, for example. He got through Q1 in 15th place but because he was getting a five-place grid penalty he had no intention of running in Q2. That robs us, the viewer, of another car taking to the track in that segment.

During Q2 we had a red flag when Kimi Raikkonen ground to a halt. Do we need this around the whole lap?

I know after Jules Bianchi's accident at Suzuka that safety for everyone involved must come first, but drivers who were on a fast lap and had already passed the incident zone lost the laptime, and consequently a set of tyres, because they would have to come directly into the pits.

It really wouldn't take much thought to come up with a system that allows the red flag to be shown from the incident area around the track backwards to the start line.

That way, the cars approaching the incident area would be prepared to stop and the ones already past it would be allowed to finish that timed lap.

Track limits are a joke for the commentator and viewer.

Both in qualifying and the race, drivers ran across the white lines at the side of the track, and as an ex-commentator and now a viewer I find it very difficult to know what is right and wrong.

The FIA says it will take action if it thinks a driver is gaining an advantage. Well, I can assure you that the only reason a driver will do it is because it is faster, so please - we need consistency in this area.

We are a long way away from that, and if you look at Spa it seems to have got worse. F1, GP2, GP3 and even the Porsche Supercup were all exceeding the track limits without any hint of a penalty.

While I'm on about track limits, I listened to Sebastian Vettel's rant after the race about Pirelli tyres, and, yes, he has something to say, and I would be the first to back him up if I had enough information around me to make a well-enough-informed decision on what happened to his tyre, or Nico Rosberg's failure on Friday.

But I don't have the facts, and neither did Sebastian when he verbally abused a very necessary supplier to Formula 1.

One thing he did say that I believe was rubbish was that neither he nor Rosberg went off the track prior to their tyre failures.

I suggest he has a look at the replays, and if he still sticks by what he said after the race I will personally get him an appointment at an optician.

When we go to Monza, we could very easily have the same problem. Personally, I doubt if any driver will ever stay between the white lines on the exit of the Ascari chicane.

Will that be deemed legal or illegal?

And if someone picks up a cut tyre while running out there in the marbles because it is faster, will they blame Pirelli too? Of course they will. Drivers are basically spoiled little kids and on the first page of the excuse book is 'find someone else to blame', never take the rap yourself.

If I was in a position to influence the regulations, I would look at the track-limits behaviour and these tyre failures as one problem.

From the start of practice at Monza, the new rule around the whole track would be that 'the complete car has to be within the white lines'.

If you exceed the track limits then you must proceed to the pits, and either change tyres or have them inspected for damage.

Rosberg's gain during virtual safety car conditions confused Hamilton and Anderson
Rosberg's virtual safety car gain confused Hamilton and Anderson © LAT
We also had a virtual safety car episode during the race, which is supposed to mean that all the cars have to travel at a reduced and preset laptime.

So during this period why was Rosberg able to close up on Hamilton? Even a time difference of a couple of seconds is a lifetime in F1.

I suppose I should be content that I wasn't only the viewer that was confused by this. Lewis Hamilton seemed as miffed as anyone.

Moving on from having a general gripe, I am a bit lost as to why Williams doesn't play to the strength of its car - straightline speed.

Spa is a funny track. In qualifying you can get a better laptime by running a bit more downforce and being fast through the middle section, but come the race you just can't use that extra speed in the corners.

You need to be fast in sectors one and three to allow you to overtake or not be overtaken. The Williams has been a rocketship in the past, but now it seems to have gone away from that sort of set-up and it is paying the price.

Williams also keeps making fundamental errors - fitting three soft tyres and one medium tyre during Valtteri Bottas's first pitstop is a fairly basic error.

I know the team will look at why and hopefully come up with a procedure that will eliminate that happening again, but it needs to look at everything because it seems to be something different every weekend.

The only reason I am talking about Williams here is that we need it to be on top of its game.

It is a strong team with a fast car and one of the only teams that, if it gets it right, can take the fight to Mercedes.

I think I maybe alone in this, but I found Max Verstappen's overtaking around the outside and inside of Blanchimont to be reckless driving. His driving style is directly influenced by modern safety standards and track limits, in that they think that nothing will befall them, the other guy has to give way to them, and if they do run wide at one of the fastest corners on the calendar that zero will happen to them.

I may come across as callous and cold hearted here, but he should have ended up in the fence and had a plane crash there. Because he had no business whatsoever putting his car there.

What further pisses me off is that that may well happen one day, and the sport has a knee jerk reaction and sanitizes the sport more because of the accident rather than saying no, the guy shouldn't have put his car there.

Surely a thin shallow strip of gravel or extremely thick astro turf to act as a deterant to stop such driving would be sufficient enough without compromising safety.

I find it amusing that some members are so deeply in mourning of drivers who have recently passed away then complain about how stale and safe the sport is these days, then suggest we go back to the "old days".

I think I maybe alone in this, but I found Max Verstappen's overtaking around the outside and inside of Blanchimont to be reckless driving. His driving style is directly influenced by modern safety standards and track limits, in that they think that nothing will befall them, the other guy has to give way to them, and if they do run wide at one of the fastest corners on the calendar that zero will happen to them.

Sticking with the Belgian GP, this happened 15 years ago today...

Now Kals, don't be a provocateur......you saw how there was gravel at the top of Eau Rouge and Hakkinen didn't straight line it.

I think I maybe alone in this, but I found Max Verstappen's overtaking around the outside and inside of Blanchimont to be reckless driving. His driving style is directly influenced by modern safety standards and track limits, in that they think that nothing will befall them, the other guy has to give way to them, and if they do run wide at one of the fastest corners on the calendar that zero will happen to them.

I may come across as callous and cold hearted here, but he should have ended up in the fence and had a plane crash there. Because he had no business whatsoever putting his car there.

Really? I mean, really? One of the best overtakes of the year, 10 times better than Hakkinen in 2000 or passing at the bottom of Eau Rouge, someone overtaking on places where it's near impossible, not using DRS, and then you just say it is too dangerous to do so and that he is reckless? You prefer trains of cars, and DRS passes on the Kemmel straight? And if it fails there, the guys just wait patiently for the rest of the lap until they are back on Kemmel for another try? Racing is passing everywhere you can. As we saw in GP2 the day before, it can go wrong too. But it can work. And a racer should always take the risk to overtake. If not, he shouldn't take the start.

Frankly, I think all drivers should first request permission to pass from Charlie Whiting. Preferably written and with clear illustrations of how they want to make said pass. Whiting then will run multiple simulations using Ubisoft's F1 to either grand or deny them to pass.

To prevent drivers from losing valuable time while Whiting is checking the request races will start at 9:00am and drivers are required to stop on the track whenever Whiting receives a request.