So as Sebastian Vettel continues to dominate proceedings in the 2011 Formula One season one would wonder how the viewership in F1 is at an all-time high!! Well for any motorsport fan that is quite simple – racing has become fun again. While Vettel has been in a league of his own, the battle behind him has been getting closer and closer over the last few races. In a normal year, everybody would be complaining that F1 was so boring and predictable, and switching off. The new regulations that were drafted to make it more exciting definitely seems to be working, with races this year becoming unpredictable, enthralling and nail-biting till the very end. I thought we could take a deeper look to understand how these changes have impacted F1 this year.
The combination of the new Pirelli tyres, KERS (kinetic energy recovery system), and DRS (drag reduction system) rear wing overtaking aid has given us motorsport fans what we have always craved for - wheel-to-wheel banging amongst the world’s best drivers.
In my view the rapidly degrading Pirelli tyres is the main reason for closely fought battles this season. Some drivers had to make four stops last race and three stops the race before and mind you the only time that normally happens is when the race is rain affected. The difference between the old tyre and new tyre is sometimes close to three second which means drivers can make up the pitstop time in 5-6 laps, which is what Mark Webber has been doing in the last couple of races.
Drivers have also seen the importance of saving new tyres for the race rather than using them in qualifying. In future races my worry is that qualifying will lose its appeal as the drivers will sacrifice their starting position to save the tyres for the race.
The controversial DRS rear wing which was introduced this year has definitely spiced up the races this year. Overtaking has always been really tough and The FIA (motorsport governing body) came from a position where overtaking had become too hard and DRS was introduced to make overtaking possible - but not too easy.
The idea behind it is that it opens a slot gap in the rear wing, creating less drag and allowing the car to go faster down the straight. During the Turkish GP not only the fans, but some drivers thought it made overtaking too easy. There was a lot of overtaking with cars sailing past each other on the straight and not having to take any risks. However it must be noted that only when the tyres began to wear down, the drivers got close enough to use the DRS. Webber (Mark) and Alonso (Fernando) only got past Rosberg (Nico) when his tyres were in bad shape, Alonso got past Webber the same way, and Webber repaid Alonso the favour when he had new tyres and the latter was on the older tyres. I think DRS is a great and powerful tool for F1, as long as the DRS zone is set properly. Indian F1 driver Karun Chandhok had told me at the beginning of the year that while the DRS system will be great for F1, it will be trial and error process to get it right and he was also confident FIA will make it a success.
Sadly for all the teams and drivers, the new-style F1 leaves very little margin for error. It's so close on track that the smallest margin will have the biggest effect on the race.
With that said this season looks like it will be even more interesting than last years. McLaren and Ferrari, main challengers to Red Bull’s Vettel will have to really work out of their skins to stop the German from finishing the season early.
Next week I will preview the Spanish GPO and also discuss the importance of the ‘development race’ and how that will end up deciding the 2011 F1 title.
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