...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...

Contents

In Article 28, "Homologated parts" has been dropped from the title after being added in 2010. Seems quite odd, since I had expected there to be some homologated parts.

Article 16

The stewards have been granted wider-ranging powers under Article 16.2. Stewards may now issue post-race time penalties of any length for an incident under Article 16.2 c). Reprimands, exclusion from results and one-race suspension have also been included, though all three of these powers were already granted to the stewards under the International Sporting Code. The reprimands in particular were already commonly used. However, the one-race suspension has to be for the next event, which was not previously the case (before the suspension could be applied at any time, which was useful because it allowed time for teams to appeal against unfair uses of the power).

The only completely new power is the ability to issue post-race time penalties of any length. However, the new specifics of the suspension power worry me.

Article 20

A dramatic number of additions have been made to Article 20. In 2010, there was only one sentence: "The driver must drive the car alone and unaided". Now there are four paragraphs. Therefore the following actions have been formally banned:

- Actions that could hinder other drivers
- More than one blocking move per straight
- Leaving the circuit boundaries (defined as four wheels beyond the track edges, kerbs being outside the edges)
- Rejoining the track in a dangerous manner
- Rejoining the track having gained an advantage from leaving it
- Ignoring blue flags

Those of you who have been following F1 for a while will notice that all of those things were already prohibited. This is because they are in the International Sporting Code, with the exception of defining kerbs as not being part of the circuit (it's left to the interpretation of individual series). The additions strike me as pointless repetition.

Article 22

It has been decided that "chequered flag procedures must be respected" in testing. Technically speaking, testing isn't subject to the International Sporting Code, but red flag procedures already had to be respected. It's a sensible addition, but not one that's likely to change anything.

Article 23

There have been several changes of wording in Article 23.1 a) - "shall" has been changed to "will", the first "is" becomes the grammatically-improved "will be" and the second "is" also becomes "will be", which not only corrects the tense but also the number. Pedants everywhere will rejoice.

More importantly, Article 23.1 a) now says the "fast lane" in the pits cannot be more than 3.5 metres. In wider pit lanes, this will give the mechanics considerably more room in which to work.

Article 23.1 d) has a paragraph for the order in which cars should queue up out of the pits. They must queue up in the "fast lane" only, in the order they got there, and leave in the same order unless a car is delayed. It does not clearly answer the question of what happens if someone chooses to do a practise start.

The reference for the circumstances in which equipment can be left in the pit lane has been corrected in Article 23.1 h). It's permitted only if a car has to go to the pits between the pit lane closing and the start of the race.

An important change has been made to Article 23.1 j). Teams must provide a way of knowing when a car was released from a pit stop. This must be visible from the front of the car (implying that both the driver and the on-board camera must be able to spot this indicator). As a result, expect many fewer near-collisions in the pits and less work for the stewards to do when it comes to deciding who was wrong in the remaining cases.

Article 23.2 allows the pit lane to be closed for safety reasons. An example of when this might be done is if a car has broken down in such a way as to block the entire pit entry. Cars can still enter the pits, but only for essential and obvious repair work - perhaps to replace a puncture or a broken front wing. How that would work with the above example is unclear, but the power may still prove useful.

Article 25

Article 25.1 has been updated to indicate that the current tyre manufacturer (Pirelli) will be the sole supplier until the end of 2013.

Tyres will be considered used once they've left the pit lane according to article 25.4. Since that was already being applied in F1 on an informal basis, nothing will change, but codifying informal rules into demonstrable regulations is generally a good idea.

Articles 25.4 a) and b) have been reworded to give the FIA technical director responsibility for allocating tyres to drivers in practise sessions.

A paragraph has been inserted to deal with those situations whereby a race ends prematurely but some drivers haven't used both compounds of dry-weather tyre (assuming that driver also hasn't used a wet-weather tyre). Any driver in that situation will receive a 30-second time penalty, which is the equivalent of a stop/go penalty. Completing a normal-length race while only using one dry-weather compound (and no wet-weather ones) still means exclusion.

Article 26

Cars in Q3 will no longer be weighed during the session due to a modification to Article 26.1 a) 2). It's not clear any cars were ever weighed in the 10-minute version of Q3, but it's a good safeguard.

The reason cars in Q3 definitely won't be weighed is because Article 26.1 a) 5) makes it compulsory for all cars in Q3 to be weighed at the end of the session, either with the driver on board (as per Q1 and Q2 weighings) or separately (as per post-race weighing).

Article 28

Gearboxes must last five races instead of four due to a slight change in the wording of Article 28.6 a).

If a driver cannot start a race, does not have a substitute starting the race for them and the reason is not a penalty from the stewards, that driver is allowed to have a new gearbox next race, just the same as they would have done if they had started but failed to finish. Several parts of Article 28.6 have been modified to account for this, but it is Article 28.6 a) which rules the change in.

Dog rings on gearboxes may be changed if a gearbox changed is required during the first day of practise. This will give a little bit more flexibility to teams in the latter part of the season because they can use different gearboxes for the first day's running that are not part of the main sequence.

Article 28.6 f) will allow one additional change of gearbox outside the permissions granted without penalty. This is similar to the exemption granted for the first engine change in 2007 and could signal a transition to the "X gearboxes a season" system currently in use for engines.

Importantly, Article 28.7 has gone. Teams are now allowed to change their survival cell, wheels and crash structures whenever they like after the first race of the season, subject to normal crash testing if it's a survival cell or crash structure. Hopefully, this will prevent a repeat of the F-duct situation, where the inability to modify the monocoque meant teams were using any old hole anywhere in the cockpit for the devices, to the detriment of usability and potentially safety. Also, large differences in the handling of the wheel specifications should be easy to resolve - Ferrari got an advantage on other teams from having a particularly unusual wheel psuedo-fairing that could not inspire any improved efforts from elsewhere all season.

Article 29

Article 29.3 has had the indent removed for consistency reasons. No difference to anything on track, but much more pleasing to the eye.

Article 30

A new Article 30.3 has been inserted. Unnecessarily slow, erratic and dangerous driving is banned at all times. The International Sporting Code already bans all of the above, but this echoes and emphasises the wording used for the Article 40.5 regulation covering proper driving conduct behind the Safety Car.

More importantly, all driving between the pit exit and pit entry (defined by their respective Safety Car lines) must now be done in 145% of the fastest whole-lap time set in the first day of practise. In practise this will typically mean that nobody can do a lap in more than 150% of the time the fastest driver lapped. This appears to be designed to prevent people from trying to get severely damaged cars to the pits, doing particularly thoughtless mass blocking or doing really slow in- or out-laps (or really slow formation laps, for that matter). Laps in wet-weather running are also affected but the margin is so big that an honest lap that was too slow would indicate the session should be stopped for wet weather reasons. Note that if a slow lap is due to a problem on the main straight or in the pits (such as stalling), that delay wouldn't influence anything because of the pit straight being ignored.

Between 10 and 4 hours before the start of first and third practises, nobody from any of the teams may be at the circuit. Each team is allowed four individual exemptions per year (that is to say, four people can work overnight for one race each, or at one race a four-person squad could be present at night). It is difficult to work on a car with only four people, so all but the most urgent and straightforward all-night shifts for mechanics have now been banned. Finally people associated with teams can (usually) be assured of a half-decent night's sleep!

Article 34

Under Article 34.1, wheel fasteners may be attached and removed in parc fermé. Pitot tubes may be covered and uncovered in parc ferme but only if a change in the weather has been declared.

Article 35

The compulsory autograph signing session is now at a time and place determined by each individual promoter and does not have to happen on the first day of practise. Procedures will also be determined locally. It will be interesting to see what is done with the new freedoms.

Article 36

The 107% rule in qualifying can be found in Article 36.3. Drivers whose fastest qualifying lap is more than 107% off the fastest time set in Q1 will only be allowed to start at the discretion of the stewards and no appeals (either way) will be permitted. The stewards are at liberty to decide the order if multiple people miss the 107% benchmark and get re-admitted in the same race.

Article 38

Drivers on their formation lap will have to keep to the pit lane speed limit until they pass the pole position slot, according to Article 38.6. It's not entirely clear to me why - wasn't "greatly-reduced speed" precise enough?

An entire paragraph has been removed from Article 38.8. Cars delayed on leaving the grid may now overtake at any time prior to the pit entry in order to resume their original starting position.

Article 40

Article 40.5, which used to ban slow, erratic and dangerous driving behind the Safety Car, has been re-worded... ...but is still redundant in the face of the new Article 30.3 (and, technically speaking, the International Sporting Code that preceded both). The only difference is that behaviour that "could be deemed" dangerous is banned behind the Safety Car, while at other times only driving that is dangerous is banned.

Article 40.7 has had a couple of clauses reworded with no apparent change to their effects on the racing.

The phrase in Article 40.9 requiring the Safety Car formation to be kept as tight as possible after the Safety Car has left the scene has been deleted. This may be due to the massive pile-up in China.

Article 40.11 continues to have the clause whereby last-lap Safety Cars are not followed by green flags for the last few metres of the race.

The last two paragraphs of Article 40.14 have been modified to account for drivers being allowed to resume their previous positions on formation laps (and condensed into one paragraph in the process).

Article 42

The second paragraph of Article 42.6 has been modified to take into account the new permission to resume previous position on formation laps.

Conclusions

Most of the changes made this year are minor and repeating what already exists in the International Sporting Code. However, some important changes are hidden among them. Wider pit lanes will be nice but the mechanics will be happier with the fact that most of them won't have a single "all-nighter" all year.

Methods of identifying when a release was done should increase pit lane safety. Minimum lap speeds on track through all sessions could get interesting. However, the change I like the most this year is that the horrible homologated survival cell regulation has been thrown away.

Hopefully future years will feature less cosmetic alteration and more of the type of red-tape paring seen with the removal of certain homologated components.

Force India's performance in testing this week has been remarkable. It's difficult to draw any definite conclusions because there are only 4 teams using 2010 machinery at this time (the other three are McLaren, Virgin and Hispania). However, of those four one would normally expect McLaren to be the fastest, given that their team was second in the championship and the others didn't manage to be in the top 6. Also, there could be some variance concerning how much technologies such as the F-duct and adjustable front wing were being used. Such technologies are easy to switch on and off but cannot be used on 2011 cars.

Despite the above, Force India have had the fastest overall time at all three lunch-times so far. On Monday, despite stopping testing some time before the end of the day, Nico Hulkenburg and Paul di Resta finished Monday second and fourth, Paul then finished third yesterday and as I type Adrian Sutil is still first on the timesheet (Robert Kubica only went faster than him an hour-and-a-quarter before the end of the test - as I started typing the next paragraph down). There's only been one small stoppage (di Resta lost some time at the start of Tuesday) and Force India is close to having 300 laps under its belt. In short, Force India has outperformed even McLaren.

The running is primarily helping Force India understand the tyres better; the new Pirellis are understood to be very high-wearing, so managing that wear will be critical in the success of any team this year. The new VJM-04, due to be launched next week, should give a true barometer of how much slower a 2011 car should be than its 2010 equivalent.