Are Formula 1’s new rules this year damaging its status as the ultimate challenge for racing drivers?
Listening to the sport’s top riders, it’s easy to get that impression.
“Not Formula One,” Max Verstappen said of the need to manage energy in new cars. “It’s ridiculously complicated,” Lewis Hamilton said. “The chef can drive the car at that speed,” Fernando Alonso said. “It’s not the purest form of driving,” Lando Norris said.
advertise
When four of the sport’s current world champions make comments like this, it would be foolish not to listen.
But before concluding that F1 has been ruined by the biggest rule change in the sport’s history, it’s necessary to establish a frame of reference.
Essentially, what is a race car driver’s job? It’s about getting the car around the track in the shortest possible time.
In its purest form, this means braking as late as possible into a corner, driving around the corner at the highest speed possible, exiting the corner as fast as possible and reaching top speed on the straight, and then doing the same thing again, lap after lap.
advertise
But that’s not what racers have been doing. impossible. For example, they drive differently on the qualifying lap than they do on the 200-mile Grand Prix distance.
There are tires and fuel to manage, possible problems with the car to consider, and more. It was still about getting the car around the track as fast as possible, but within the constraints of the time. There’s just a time to go all out in motorsport.
So when Verstappen, Alonso and co talk about the degree of energy management required in this year’s new hybrid engines, are they saying they’re no longer limited by grip in corners?
I posed the question to all of the above drivers, as well as Mercedes’ George Russell and Kimi Antonelli, and Haas’ Oliver Behrmann during last week’s pre-season testing in Bahrain. They both said that the vast majority of the time they were still at the limit of their grip, that this skill was still important and that faster riders could still beat slower riders.
advertise
The new car has less downforce than last year and therefore less grip, but the driver still has limited grip in the corners.
“Some of the corners on this track that were restrictions or places you had to pay attention to last year are not really corners anymore, they’re more power-limited,” Behrman said. “Like Turn 12 and Turn 7.
“So you do change the way you approach these corners. Last year Turn 12, this year you’re going 40km/h faster and it’s not really a corner anymore. It’s a bit strange.
“But for others, even if the limits are a little lower now, you’re still pushing the limits. But it’s not like it’s out of this world. Once we get used to the differences in certain corners, you just adjust your driving style. Then it feels normal.”
advertise
The balance between going all out and “gaining”
Max Verstappen drives his Red Bull for pre-season testing in Bahrain, with slower corners allowing the driver to regenerate energy better than faster tracks [Getty Images]
McLaren team principal Andrea Stella has worked as a race engineer alongside Michael Schumacher, Kimi Raikkonen and Alonso and has a deep understanding of what it takes to be a top driver. He is also interested in the topic for the benefit of the sport.
He said: “What we are seeing in Bahrain absolutely confirms that this is the ultimate challenge.
“It’s probably because Bahrain is a very rewarding circuit so you drive in a very normal way. If there were these regulations, the car would slide more and the driver’s role would be more about getting the most out of the car.
advertise
“It’s a slightly different situation in Barcelona because being a track with a relatively low harvest rate requires some special maneuvers, such as not going full speed in the high speed (corners), to balance the harvest rate and produce the fastest lap time. This means that in Barcelona you can’t necessarily achieve the fastest speed in the high speed corners.”
Stella’s comments were in reference to the need for drivers to perform what McLaren’s Oscar Piastri described as “counter-intuitive” driving techniques.
The split between internal combustion engine (ICE) and electrical components is close to 50-50, with three times the power of last year’s engine and a similar-sized battery, meaning the new engine is energy-hungry.
When fully charged, the battery drains in about 11 seconds, and will continue to drain and recharge in a circle or so. Engineers have to figure out how to best utilize the energy they recover during a lap to get the best performance.
advertise
This resulted in some unnatural techniques, such as not accelerating full speed out of corners until some distance up the straight before starting the qualifying lap, choosing not to deploy energy on some high-speed corners to reach maximum speed, and even not deploying energy on the straight at the end of the qualifying lap when the energy could be better used exiting corners elsewhere on the lap.
Other energy recovery tasks include:
-
Lift and Glide, a feature that has been available for years where the driver lifts for a brief moment before braking for a turn.
-
Use a lower gear than the one with the best cornering performance so the turbocharger can keep running fast to recharge the battery
-
“Super Clip”, where the electric motor fights the engine at full speed on the straights to recover energy
But how much of a difference will it really make?
BBC Sport has seen telemetry data showing Bahrain’s car from last year ran a faster lap than this year’s car.
There are differences. Now, slow corners are slightly faster and fast corners are slightly slower. The initial acceleration is much faster, but then the acceleration on the straights is also faster. The overall lap time was a few seconds slower – as expected when F1 rules reset. But fundamentally, the traces look very similar.
advertise
Are you on track? Well, the bottom line is they still look like F1 cars. It takes a trained eye to notice the difference.
Why overtaking is expected to be difficult
Melbourne’s Albert Park Circuit, which will host the season-opening Australian Grand Prix from March 6 to 8, is an energy-hungry circuit due to its long straights and fewer braking areas. [EPA]
Still, the F1 community has been debating whether the new cars are taking the sport away from pure driving challenge, with some arguing changes could be made to reduce levels of energy management.
Currently, “supercuts” (which, frankly, is a jargon best kept away from public consumption because of the potential for confusion) have energy recovery rates of up to 250 kilowatts.
advertise
But the engine can recuperate energy with 350 kilowatts of power, and can recover energy when the driver lifts off the accelerator. So why not let them do it when they’re at full strength?
Another suggestion is to reduce the output of the electrical part of the engine, currently limited to 350kW (470bhp), to about 300kW (402bhp) or even 250kW (335bhp). The idea is to reduce overall power but allow it to be used longer, making driving feel more natural.
Going a step further, some would like to increase the amount of fuel the engine is allowed to use and rebalance the ratio between combustion and electric power, perhaps to 65:35 or 70:30.
The counter-argument is that the latter two require wholesale changes to engine design and other aspects of the car, such as gear ratios. Opponents also believe it would not have the desired effect.
advertise
A related issue is the new “overtaking” button. It replaces the Drag Reduction System (DRS) overtaking assist system, which is no longer present as both the front and rear wings open on the straights, as part of a series of adjustments made to the new engine formula.
“Overtaking” mode provides the driver with power for longer periods of time. It doesn’t make more power, nor is it any faster than DRS used to be. Therefore, overtaking is expected to be difficult.
This is another argument for reducing the power output to 300kw – then the remaining 50kw can be used in overtaking mode.
Another complication is that all circuits require different levels of energy management.
advertise
In Bahrain, the above techniques are not really needed as there are many braking phases into slow corners to recover energy in the standard way.
But Albert Park, which hosts the season-opening Australian Grand Prix on March 8, is an energy-hungry track where lifts, slides and supercuts are expected to be extensively needed even in qualifying.
Melbourne joins Saudi Arabia, Austria, Silverstone, Monza, Azerbaijan and Las Vegas among the worst circuits for energy consumption – with long straights but not many recovery facilities in the braking areas.
The team is in ongoing discussions with the FIA and F1’s governing bodies whether to take action and, if so, what form it should take.
advertise
Stella said: “There are undoubtedly situations where drivers still need to drive in ways they don’t normally drive – we just drive as flat as possible, brake as late as possible and go as fast as possible through every corner.
“When it comes to the balance between improving regulations in the current format and some of the other driving challenges, there is time to address that.
“For example, there is a way to change the way we deploy electric engines that would reduce the requirements for doing these special operations.
“So there are things that can be done in the future, but I think we should do more monitoring of some of the other circuits (before deciding what to do).”
advertise
