...and what to do about it

Yesterday, we saw Force India choose to not run in Q3 at Singapore. This is the second time this season they have taken this option. In DRStrategy, this was recommended as the solution for a team which cannot seriously compete for pole in Q3. There was no possibility of Force India managing a much higher position if it ran than if it didn't, so it was sensible to save a set of tyres to preserve strategy and perhaps pass the more profligate Mercedes team through strategy.

This may seem a rather mercenary attitude, but remember Force India is in a battle between Renault and Sauber over 5th place in the championship. Sauber is very close behind Force India, so it needs points. In addition, Renault is having a lousy weekend in Singapore, making this the best opportunity Force India is likely to have to close the gap between the two. Logically, Force India has to prioritise racing well to qualifying well.

So all is well? Not to judge from the large number of disappointed fans. The best I've seen of their reaction came from @LewisBarthaud:

something needs to be done, this 3 phase format came about to improve the show, you can't call it the "top 10 shootout" with only 7

 

You can't argue with that logic. Also, there's an emotional argument which presumably wouldn't condense into the remaining characters.

There is a massive visceral pleasure in seeing a racing car on track. When there are many racing cars doing likewise and competing powerfully with one another, the pleasure is multiplied. So to take it in reverse, removing 30% of the expected competitors will take out an average of well over 30% of the excitement (exact percentage depending on exactly who "forfeited" the session and who's watching).

This is an example of perverse incentives - the regulations, designed to provide excitement and happiness to the multitudes who watch F1 racing, create the exact opposite effect in qualifying if played out to their logical conclusion.

The first thought might be to penalise those who do not run in Q3 on purpose through a grid penalty. However, this ends up creating perverse incentives of its own. One of the main ways people have been able to overcome the zero-sum passing engendered by DRS is by having more sets of unused soft tyres. What this means is that everyone will, barring unforeseen punctures or crashes, everyone will have the same number of sets of soft tyres remaining. By insisting everyone must have the same number of unused sets of soft tyres, the racing will become even more predictable and samey - under the rippled surface of inconsequential passes. Only someone setting their fastest time with hard tyres will be able to break the cycle.

So that method of making a more exciting qualifying would make a rather dull race. However, this is not an insoluable equation. Changing the way tyre allocations work may help.

My proposal works thus:

- 3 "hard" sets given out on Friday. This will encourage race set-up and endurance work, shift tyre comparison work to Saturday, possibly encourage more teams to use unproven drivers. More importantly for the specific problem under discussion, it means a "soft" set can be awarded later in the weekend without making Pirelli bring any extra tyres. You've got to adapt to cost-cutting...

- 1 "soft" and 1 "hard" tyre set given out at the start of Saturday

-  1 "soft" and 1 "hard" tyre given out at the start of Q1. Any of the three sets of softs given out thus far may be used in qualifying.

- 1 "soft" given out at the start of Q2 - but only to drivers who set a time on the soft given out in Q1.

- 1 "soft" given out at the start of Q3 - but only to drivers who set a time on the soft given out in Q2.

- 2 "soft" and 1 "hard" set given out on Sunday - but only to drivers who set a time on the soft given out in Q3 (or Q1/2 if they were eliminated there). Q3 runners will be permitted to use this instead of the tyre they did their time on, should they be eligible to receive such tyres. Teams will hand back 3 "hard" and 2 "soft" sets of their choice, leaving them with the same number of tyres for the race as they have now.

Stewards' discretion will be used for anyone who makes a genuine attempt to qualify but has a technical issue on-track, crashes on their "sighter" Q1 run on hard tyres or during their soft-tyre run. The idea being that genuine accidents would be treated the same as people who were knocked out at the same stage but completed the soft-tyre run. Anyone of whom foul play is suspected (or had such serious problems that they  wouldn't have used up much/any of the soft tyre's longevity) will receive no such privileges and be treated the same as those who never attempted the run.

This would mean qualifying would influence how many tyres on has available in a more sensible way.

• Someone who didn't run in Q1 on soft tyres would have no unused "soft" tyres.
• Someone who chose not to run in Q2 or Q3 on soft tyres would have 1 set of unused "soft" tyres (the one they got for running in Q1 on softs).
• Someone who chose to run soft tyres in all sessions for which they were eligible would get 2 sets of unused "soft" tyres (for running in Q3).

 This should re-align incentives for the race in favour of having both an exciting qualifying and an exciting race.

The one thing this doesn't prevent is a team not running because they don't think they will lose anything, despite the disincentives in place. This is the frustrating position I am in with my other favourite team, AF Corse. It is in Portugul for the Le Mans Series race but due to some terrible luck involving a lorry accident, a broken tail-lift and an hastily-completed new car presenting problems, is apparently comtemplating a deliberate non-finish for its hitherto most competitive and popular car (the #51 driven by Giancarlo Fisichella and Gianmaria Bruni). It's already team champion, with the #51's drivers also confirmed as individual champions, so they not particularly worried about points. The car is in one piece and is very fast when it works, but could break at any moment and the staff all need to be in America as soon as possible because Petit Le Mans, part of an Intercontinental Le Mans Championship that the team hasn't fully secured yet, is next week and everyone on the the team needs to be there for early scrutineering. I can see the logic but am still upset with the idea a team might forefeit a race where it has somehow managed to qualify 2nd. Much as the people watching the logical withdrawal of the Force Indias from Q3 were upset about them "forfeiting" the last bit of qualifying when they were good enough to at least set representative times. 

Intellectually logical, emotionally tough to accept...

The FIA caused some unexpected action yesterday. It pointed out that several teams, particularly Ferrari, Mercedes and Force India, were in some error concerning their overalls and they were going to enforce the regulations as of this race.

It is the first and probably last time anyone outside motorsport paddocks cared about the contents of Appendix III of the FIA Standard 8856-2000. Specifically, the label confirming the suit complies with this high safety standard "must be embroidered onto the outermost layer of the outer garment". Ironically, using a different method to indicate compliance means that the FIA no longer considers those overalls compliant due to not indicating their status correctly.

By not using thread, some were saving a little weight. Ferrari, Mercedes and Force India's drivers all went to scrutineering in Germany with overalls not in compliance with the regulations in this respect. It is unclear how many teams would not have been in compliance had overalls intended for Saturday and Sunday been checked as well (drivers often use a different overall each day for freshness and weight reasons).

It may seem a nit-picky regulation, but it ensures the compliance sign is clear throughout the life of the overall. Thread is harder-wearing than even the best screen-printing, even though in the case of a F1 overall the wear difference is not really tested. The surprise is that it took so long for the overall manufacturers to come into compliance and for the FIA to notice there was a problem. I find it hard to believe that this is the first time all year someone has turned up with a screen-printed compliance logo. Maybe it just proves different scrutineers focus on different potential problems.

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.

It's high time the engine/gearbox feature got brought back for 2011, now that people have started changing them.

Engines

1 engine (15):

Both Red Bulls - both Aus/Mal

Both Renaults - both Aus/Mal

Both Mercedes - both Aus/Mal

Both Williamses - both Aus/Mal

Both Force Indias - both Aus/Mal

Both Lotuses - both Aus/Mal

Both Hispanias - both Aus/Mal

Glock  - both Aus/Mal

2 engines (9):

Both McLarens - both 1) Aus/Mal Fri 2) Mal Sat-Sun

Both Ferraris - both 1) Aus/Mal Fri 2) Mal Sat-Sun

Both Saubers - both 1) Aus/Mal Fri 2) Mal Sat-Sun

Both Toro Rossos -  both 1) Aus/Mal Fri 2) Mal Sat-Sun

d'Ambrosio -  both 1) Aus/Mal Fri 2) Mal Sat-Sun 

Gearbox

Fresh gearbox (9):

Petrov (2), both Williamses (both 3), Pérez (2), Alguersuari (2), Trulli (2), both Hispanias (both 3) and d'Ambrosio (2).

Not-so-fresh gearbox (4):

Both Mercedes (both 2), Kovalainen (2) and Glock (2).

Quite unfresh gearbox (11):

Both Red Bulls (1), both McLarens (1), both Ferraris (1), Heidfeld (1), both Force Indias (1), Kobayashi (1) and Buemi (1).

Very unfresh gearbox (0):

Nobody, seeing as there's only been 2 races so far ;)

A discussion in Sidepodcast yesterday led to the invention of a new variant of the old classic Monopoly - F1 Monopoly: Deal or No Deal Edition. 

It's just like Monopoly until you land on a Tax space or on someone else's property. Then the owner (or the banker, if it's a tax) makes you an offer. You can either accept the offer or take a card from the pile. The amount on the card is the amount you pay.

Also, instead of houses and hotels, you can buy multiple "boxes" to go on your properties.

And of course it's all themed. Purple for the FIA, light blue for Red Bull, red for Ferrari, light grey for McLaren, dark grey for Mercedes, gold for Renault, green for Force India, dark blue for Williams and white for Sauber. There are also 5 tracks that can be collected in the same way as the stations on the original Monopoly.

Hopefully it will get you through the few hours remaining until the F1 season restarts. Just 2 more things to say:

1) You have until 3 am GMT on March 26 (or the start of Free Practise 3, which is scheduled to start at that time) to put in your entries for the Pre-Season competition. Don't forget delivery to anywhere in the world is included in the prize.

2) It's my birthday on March 26. My fingers are crossed that Force India gives me a good qualifying session for a present.