Attempting to discuss things about Monaco has proved a frustrating experience. I am accustomed to being in discussions and even arguments about contentious bits of the race. I am not accustomed to major events happening in a race with seemingly only me noticing. 

Firstly, the crash that caused the red flag. It has been established that it was a complicated mess, but what sparked it? I've seen blame put on several people, primarily Adrian Sutil. What none of those blaming Adrian seem to have noticed was that he took damage in a collision three laps earlier with Kamui Kobayashi. This is clearly demonstrated in Adrian suddenly falling into the clutches of the midfield pack that was in process of being lapped.

He was one second than usual on lap 65 (the lap of the pass - note that all lap numbers on the graph are transposed by one lap), became 3 seconds slower than usual on lap 66 (the lap after Kamui passed him) and 4 seconds slower than usual on laps 67 and 68. On laps 69 and 70, Adrian is 20 seconds a lap slower than usual - but both include pit stop time for replacing tyres. This indicates progressive damage. Given that Kobayashi hit the right rear tyre and it was this tyre that ended up in need of a replacement, it is perfectly reasonable to consider that a weakness in the tyre (underinflation from a slow puncture would be most likely) contributed to Adrian's crash.

I cannot begrudge Kamui his 5th because he was overdue one, but I do not feel that this exempts him from having his race properly analysed.

Secondly, the whole raft of complaints about being able to change tyres/wings/springs on the grid and Pastor Maldonado's removal from the results by Lewis Hamilton. While I see a point to the complaints about the Lewis/Pastor crash in particular, all three debates have missed the most important point - that Article 18 of the General Prescriptions prevented the restart from happening in the first place.

Article 18 of the General Prescriptions (link in PDF) has three cases concerning red flags. Initially I'd thought this was in the International Sporting Code, but it appears this particular rulebook also applies to every international racing series (Article 1). Article 18 describes mid-race stoppages using Cases A, Case B and Case C. These will be familiar to those who recall the contents of 2003-era F1 Sporting Regulations documents. For the people who haven't done so, the cases refer to when the red flag is flown and determine what happens thereafter.

Case A is for when the red flag flies within the first 2 laps. Basically, the race is treated as if it never began.

Case B is for when the red flag flies between 2 laps and 75%. The race is restarted on a 10-minute procedure when possible and the running resumes from the lap where it ended.

Case C is for when the red flag flies between 75% and the end of the race. The race result is called then and there. No restart is attempted even if it would be easy to do so. The race is deemed to have finished when the red flag flies, though there is a countback rule.

72 laps out of 78 is 92.307% of the race, which is considerably more than 75%. Clearly this is a Case C situation.

The inclusion of the General Prescriptions in the list of regulations applicable to F1 on the FIA's website means that the document must be taken seriously. Nonetheless, the General Prescriptions is overruled by the F1 Sporting Regulatoins and the International Sporting Code if there are contradictory clauses.

However, no such clauses exist in either document on the question of Case C restarts. There is nothing in either the International Sporting Code or the F1 Sporting Regulations that allows for a red flag beyond the 75% mark to be interpreted as anything other than the end of the race.

Even Article 41 of the F1 Sporting Regulations (the regulation most often cited as justifying the restart) doesn't do that because Article 18 of the General Prescriptions says the race ends when the red flag is flown in Case C situations. Article 41 doesn't mention anything about the definition of a red flag or end-of-race signal changing. Therefore a Case C situation falls under Article 43 (the regulations for finishing). The lack of mention of Cases A, B and C in the F1 Sporting Regulations (they was removed in 2005) does not suffice to negate the power of General Prescriptions Article 18. Article 1 of the General Prescriptions specifically says that precedence only applies in the case of contradictory regulations.

So a lot of the arguments of yesterday should have been null and void. There should have been no argument over tyre or wing changes because there shouldn't have been any laps in which to use them. Pastor and Lewis shouldn't have crashed because there shouldn't have been any time for them to crash in.

Pity the powers-that-be didn't care about their own regulations - again. Double pity that even people like Ted Kravitz (in BBC TV's coverage of the race (iPlayer link; expires 5 June 2011)) and Joe Saward presented Article 41 as if it was the only relevant item, even though it proved not to be especially relevant. When none of the people at the circuit appear to care, how can anyone else be expected to do so (other than stubborn people like me)?

Today's blog entry was inspired by a ;remark by Andy Hone at Sidepodcast's   F1 photographers versus the democratisation of media

Do you honestly think that if the gates are open to anyone they  will go to obscure places on the circuit? No not a chance they will all want to be at the prime locations and it will just be even more uncomfortable for everyone.

I have deliberately not clarified "they" in the quote as this itself appears to be a point of disagreement. Suffice to say for the purposes of this entry, it's photographers wanting to take photos of F1-related things who don't currently get trackside access to do their photography.

The broader problem sparking this comment can be separated into separate pieces (links below go to specific comments so you don't have to wade through what at times was a very heated argument):

1. There  aren't enough photographers in place to record every important events at Grands Prix
2. There are sufficient photographers for the idea of extra ones to cause tension bordering on fear  
3. The main thing that causes 2), other than potential loss of livelihoods, is doubt over the quality of the incomers
4. The market for blog photography is heavily underserved
5. The situation described in 4) applies despite the likes of Paul-Henri Cahier making inroads into the sector  
6. The market is starting to use other methods to bridge the market gap alluded to in 4).

What we have here is a classic disruptive market opportunity. There's an information gap (1), a demonstrated resistance to the most obvious remedy from current providers (2), a barrier that could be removed to lower that resistance that the current system doesn't help remove (3), customers for those who exploit the information gap even if they aren't 100% successful (4), proof that it doesn't have to be an outsider who serves the market (5) and signals that the window of opportunity will close by itself if not appropriately exploited (6).

That last point is important. Without it, the resistance to the idea of providing for the bloggers' market would make provision there a niche at best. There's a reason why point (5) mentions only Paul-Henri Cahier. With it, the needs have to be served - by the current providers of photos if they're willing (with the potential for suitable recompense), by newcomers (or by piracy) if not. 

The experiences of other intellectual media (music, writing, movies) has shown that underserved markets will find ways of satisfying their needs. What F1 photography needs is a method of serving those needs in an economically satisfying way that respects the list of limitations and conditions given previously?

Wonder if tiered passes would work? The photographers with a excellent and extensive track record would get a particular level of pass (call it gold for the sake of this discussion) that would allow them to access all areas and have priority in any location.

Less experienced photographers who'd nonetheless demonstrated their skill could have a different pass (silver, maybe) that would allow them into any photographer-suitable trackside area (though perhaps not the paddock, which invariably seems to be full) but only if nobody with a gold pass was there at the time. If anyone with a gold pass decided to go there afterwards, the silver pass people would be asked to leave (extra marshals may be required to help, but at Grands Prix that shouldn't be too much of a problem). 

Newcomers could get a further different pass (bronze) and be assigned a spot in a place where past experience showed neither gold nor silver pass-holders went. Allowance would be made for the occasional gold or silver photographer who wanted to take photos from there. It would be especially useful for those photographers who are only able to reach one or two circuits in a given calender, because these would be the ones getting the least practise at shooting F1 and having them in set places would enable better scrutiny - not just of quality but of behaviour. 

Photographers would move up and down the scales based on what they were producing and the audience they were getting. I would anticipate the bronze-silver transition to be primarily done on quality and the silver-gold one to be mainly based on how many people and from how wide a range of sources were looking at their content.

The system would give newcomers a chance to prove themselves and perhaps to experiment with the photography model for bloggers and other places that need low-quality images, allow the experienced people to get "the shots" and go where they see fit, and also provide a method for transitioning between the two states as people get more confident in their skills and perhaps want to have a go at getting the big time.

No system is going to get everyone who wants to be a F1 photographer through the gates, nor need it do so. What this system does is meet a demonstrated need/desire in the market while still maintaining the quality of F1 photography and also not changing the system so sharply that current practitioners have no chance of competing. Yes, the current brigade will need different skills to thrive, but that's a different blog entry altogether.

Following my DRStrategy entry, Lonny made a comment which reminded me that I'd forgotten to do something important. While I had glanced at the statistics for how many people had finished where they'd started, I hadn't analysed them. This would be a good time to remedy that situation.

For the first four races in 2011 and their equivalents in 2009 and 2010, I have cross-referenced the starting and finishing positions for each driver. Taking into account retirements (but not drivers who finished/were classified after encountering major difficulties), the list is below. Bracketed places are where the driver finished.

2009

Australia (3)

Button (1st)

Barrichello (2nd)

Heidfeld (10th)

Malaysia (3)

Button (1st)

Webber (6th)

Sutil (17th)

China (2)

Vettel (1st)

Barrichello (4th)

Turkey (4)

Trulli (4th)

Massa (6th)

Piquet Jr. (16th)

Bourdais (18th)

Mean number of people finishing where they started = 3.0

In 2009, the front of the field was frequently the pole-sitter, at least in the early stages of the year. However, things tended to get very mixed up behind the leader. This led to a combination of mild complaints about the front being predictable once the novelty of it usually being Brawn wore off and excitement because nobody could be quite sure what would happen in a race.

2010

Australia (3/1)

Rosberg (5th)

Kovalainen (13th)

Chandhok (18th)

Malaysia (0/0)

Nobody

China (3/1)

Hulkenburg (15th)

Senna (16th)

Chandhok (17th)

Turkey (7/5)

Schumacher (4th)

Rosberg (5th)

Kubica (6th)

Massa (7th)

Barrichello (14th)

di Grassi (19th)

Chandhok (20th)

Mean number of drivers finishing where they started = 3.25

It is also notable that most of the drivers who finished where they began are towards the back of the grid, where the grid was most spaced-out due to the new teams' arrival on the grid. If you took them out, you get:

Mean number of drivers from established teams finishing where they started = 1.75

This is considerably less predictable than 2009, which was already considered good.

2011

Australia (8/6)

Vettel (1st)

Hamilton (2nd)

Massa (7th)

Buemi (8th)

di Resta (10th)

Heidfeld (12th)

Trulli (13th)

d'Ambrosio (14th)

Malaysia (1/1)

Vettel (1st)

China (7/2)

Massa (6th)

Petrov (9th)

Trulli (19th)

d'Ambrosio (20th)

Glock (21st)

Liuzzi (22nd)

Karthikeyan (23rd)

Turkey (8/6)

Vettel (1st)

Webber (2nd)

Hamilton (4th)

Button (6th)

Pérez (14th)

Alguersuari (16th)

Trulli (18th)

Karthikeyan (21st)

Mean number of drivers finishing where they started = 6

This is 25% of the grid finishing where they started. Taking out the sophomore teams:

Mean number of drivers from established teams finishing where they started = 3.75

A bit better, but still larger than the number of drivers who finished where they started in 2010 or 2009 under any counting system. The pole-sitter generally remains in the lead throughout but so do many of the other places throughout the grid.

China is an unusual one. It has 8 people who finished where they began. Five of these were the five people qualifying behind Webber. They were unaffected by his rise to 3rd (with the people between being shunted one position downwards as Mark regained his natural position). If we consider Webber and Buemi's rises from low positions to high ones, we will see that there are people who would have finished where they began had it not been for their out-of-position qualifying. I didn't include them in the core statistics because people qualified well out of position long before 2011 ever started, but here's who finished one place below their qualifying spot in China and Turkey due to Mark and Sebastien:

China (3):

Rosberg, Petrov and Maldonado

Turkey (2) d'Ambrosio and Karthikeyan

Raising overall mean number of drivers finishing where they started to: Overall = 7.25 Established teams only = 4.5

To my mind, this proves the relatively static nature of grids in F1 this year. We may have more overtaking, but even in sum it's having less influence on the results. It's just who's figured out that the one who uses the least tyres before the race and conserves them best in the race wins.

This entry has taken me some time to figure out how to write. Something's been bugging me about recent F1, primarily since the Turkish Grand Prix. However, it was only when Duncan Stephen wrote his item on why he was finding 2011-spec F1 not to his taste that I figured out how to write my own objections to what's been going on. My first reaction to the piece was:

Hurrah! Somebody doesn't think that the current F1 is a) the bee's knees or b) only ruined by excess overtaking.

For me the proximate problem (i.e. the one that's directly causing me dissatisfaction with F1) is meaningless overtaking. In Turkey in particular, the method of generation of overtaking caused lots of zero-sum exchanges - lots of passes but most of them were never going to affect anything in a month of Sundays. They were just going to get re-passed later in the corner sequence or else in the DRS zone the following lap.

DRS foreshortens the process of passing even when it's producing a reasonable net increase of overtaking. This makes it less skilful and also less significant in the context of a race. Those comparing Turkey 2011 to Japan 2005 have forgotten, among other things, that many of the overtaking moves in the latter took laps to set up. Yes, it was normal for cars to be innately 1-2 seconds faster or slower than each other that year, making things difficult enough for complaints, but that still shows planning and skill were important.

If pressing buttons is the new hot skill for F1, why aren't all the F1 drivers being sent on evening typing courses? Why aren't fit typists with clean driving licences being considered for F1 testing roles over the heads of those who have toiled in F3 and GP2?

Besides all that, DRS should never have been experimented with in a race weekend. It should have been tested properly prior to use, and then implemented equally and effectively in all races.

Despite the emphasis on changes to the racing, qualifying has now become the be- and end-all of F1. The only reason it's not become the only non-accidental deciding factor is because many teams haven't worked out it's merely a question of getting your single lap per session faster than those around you. It's no longer possible to waste tyres doing two runs. If you're first into the first corner, DRS means you'll be able to pull out a big lead and protect your tyres as you will while everyone battles behind you. I felt like kicking Lewis Hamilton and Jenson Button when they did their little duel at the start; by focusing on each other they lost time to Sebastian Vettel and wore out their tyres, which made it impossible for either to do anything about the race leader.

That's right, to get exciting racing for the lead in this system you need a team to qualify both its drivers right behind the lead one (without the pole-sitter's team-mate or any other team being in between) and then execute firm team orders on lap 1 to stop them from attempting to race each other. The "no. 2" would be tasked with staying 1.1 seconds ahead of 4th place and then keeping a consistent pace to remain 1.1 seconds ahead of 4th place, preserving the invisible barrier. "Good" thing systematic team orders are permitted this year, else every race win would be unsalvageable.

If you're not a potential race winner, qualifying is still vital and still has to be done as a single-lap run for each of the three sessions. This would be one set of tyres for Q1 and Q2 and then a second set for whichever session is believed to be the final one. If you get through to Q3 when it wasn't expected, simply sit out the session to preserve your strategy. This is because if you can't look after your tyres, the best strategy is to have as many new ones as possible. If you can do that, it's irrelevant whether you can pass the people around you (with gimmicks or not) because you'll probably gain a pit stop on them - especially if your car is relatively kind to tyres like the Sauber is). Even if you don't, you'll gain considerable amounts of time and flexibility.

It's bizarre that the strategies dictated by fragile tyres and ease of DRS-based tactics mean that the act of passing - DRS-based or otherwise - is almost irrelevant to the results.

The trick is to evenly space out all tyre changes according to when your car will need them, which should be quite straightforward to determine based upon performance in the first stint. It doesn't even need anyone to bother doing a pre-race equation - it's simply a question of chucking tyres at a car when it needs them. Pit strategy outside the options a car may deny has now got so little relevance that the discretionary laps can be deployed whenever the team wishes. All the strategy divergence is down to two factors: a) due to the tyre philosophy being new, different cars treat them very differently and b) many teams do not appear to have figured out what's going on yet, so haven't even taken the obvious step of going single-lap each session up to this point.

So we now have the single-lap qualifying some people have called for. It's not improving the racing - it's taken it away. Duncan Stephen has called it "one step away from fixing the result". I wish I could be so reserved on the matter. As far as I can see, it is fixing the result to whoever happens to be the fastest one-run driver/car combination in qualifying, and for most of the top 10, stupidity and extreme tyre wear permitting, they are fixed in the positions in which they qualified.

KERS doesn't seem to do anything to help the sport - it just seems to be something tagged on to keep the stupider elements of the environmental movement a little more content. It's in F1 in a form that will never be utilised on the road (road KERS will be a very gentle addition for all accelerations, not a big boost done occasionally), delivering power in a way that makes overtaking more difficult (which may be protecting us from even worse problems with DRS) and with a lack of freedom which places it firmly in "gimmick" rather than the "feature" it is about to become in sportscar racing. That it's not facing a campaign for removal at this time shows just how much of a problem DRS presents.

One of the things which worries me - and I think it's one of the things that's made it difficult for me to blog - is that so many people don't seem to see the medium-sized picture let alone the big one. They see lots of passing, lots of energy, lots of confusion - and start cheering. They do not see that it's causing very predictable strategies, very predictable results and a very samey feel to races. Energy and confusion might have got many into the sport but if it had kept being those things at the expense of everything else - especially the surprise element - they'd have stopped watching within a season because there'd be nothing to grip them with. If I wanted to know the winner 24 hours before the race and the result of a race for most of the field on lap 15, I'd put on a season review DVD. At least then there'd be decent camera direction...

Sport is a form of entertainment. If done properly, it will be entertaining whether or not the "show" is considered (the "show" only affects how many people get entertained and the length of the entertaining). The decade-long trend towards considering "show" over "sport" is nearly complete. But F1 is not reality TV. Reality TV tropes do not necessarily work for sports such as F1, even with extreme tweaking. The cost is that F1 will soon be unable to be called the pinnacle of motor sport, on the grounds that it will not be a sport at all. The sport needs urgent attention in order to save it, to take away the worst of the gimmicks. That way it might be possible to see how to get the enjoyment of racing to run clear again.

Though I'll let the powers-that-be tweak the "show" enough to get a competent TV direction system and crew. The current one hasn't worked since FOM took over the job and 2011 is exposing their weaknesses so much. It's even more frustrating to be watching a predictable race when perfectly competent commentators, used to having at least vaguely usable images to commentate from, find themselves clueless to things you figured out 30 laps before because you, unlike them, could see the little ticker-tape running across the bottom of the screen...

I've had a fortnight of not really wanting to blog for some reason. I promised mageshmagi this blog entry on Mercedes and Schumacher's underperformances before I went on unintended hiatus.

First of all, it was always going to be difficult for Mercedes to match its precedescor's antics. Brawn managed to win the one driver's and constructor's title it entered with considerable aplomb. Nonetheless, it had to do so with an unusual resource distribution. When the car was designed in mid-2008, money was practically falling from the sky, but by the time it hit the track the primary funding source (Honda) had reduced dramatically. It funded the season's running costs (albeit only for a much smaller operation than the one it had been when the team was called Honda), but did not fund  the creation of the 2010 challenger. Therefore the 2010 car was hamstrung by a serious lack of funds.

Then Ross Brawn made an intelligent move. By hiring Nico Rosberg, he gained a driver who is intelligent and ready to take a step up from his previous team - the plucky but gracefully-declining Williams. He'd been team leader there for two seasons and proved to be a good team leader for Mercedes.

That wasn't the plan. The plan had been for Rosberg to ably back up a seven-time world champion who would break all records and be a legendary touchstone for all at Mercedes - Michael Schumacher. He was duly hired, to the astonishment of most of the F1 community. He said the right things (though I was somewhat worried that how he said them didn't match how he'd said them before) and testing wasn't terrible for him.

Just as well it wasn't terrible for him because it was quite clear that the Mercedes W01 had suffered for its lack of development funding.  It wasn't a dominating influence or even on the pace of the likes of Red Bull. This was going to be a tough season. The engine was beautifully fast but the chassis didn't respond well to its tyres. Michael and Nico (along with Felipe Massa at Ferrari) frequently noted that the front tyres did not support their driving styles, which tend to involve quite hard braking.

Jenson Button and Rubens Barrichello, who'd been at Brawn in 2009, both have much gentler braking styles and would have suited the Mercedes W01 better. However, neither of them were options for Mercedes. Jenson wanted a fresh challenge and Rubens had been harbouring a desire to race for Williams for quite a while. Still, without a hard-braking driver to ask for tips during development, it is easy to see why this significant flaw appeared in Mercedes' first car.

What is more difficult to understand is why the 2011 car met a similar fate. After all, Felipe's 2011 Ferrari is much more to his liking. There was a major reshuffle in the factory staff towards the end of 2010, which delayed completion of the W02. There was also a decision made to start with a basic car and upgrade it a lot as soon as possible, even though that didn't really work for them in 2010 either. An upgrade can fix many things but not a fundamental weakness in the car.

Due to that philosophy, we may see considerable improvement across the season. Upgrades can fix minor problems. Even though the problems with the Mercedes' tendency to consume tyres rapidly do not constitute "minor", things can be done to reduce that flaw and fix less noticeable difficulties such as a lack of downforce compared to Ferrari and Red Bull. The engine's still strong (unsurprising due to engine sorbet regulations) but it's not enough.

Michael Schumacher does not seem to have adapted to being in an imperfect car very well. He tends to make more mistakes in that situation than we were accustomed to seeing in his previous time in F1. Hence he tends to hit cars instead of passing them, impairing his performances in an already non-optimised car. He's also started to show tendencies towards crumbling in whichever qualifying session is his last one in a given day. This is the very effect he used to trigger in other people back in 2006. It's the sign of a driver that, for all his determination, diligence and innate skill, has gone from the hunted to the hunter - and vastly preferred being the hunted.

If Michael ever wants to see a podium again, let alone a win, he needs to re-assume the mentality of the hunted - the one who leads and is forever trying to escape, willing to experiment to improve but ever holding their nerve while doing so. Perhaps Mercedes may benefit from a little of that too, but mostly it just needs to put more emphasis on getting the car right the first time.