Has F1 made overtaking too easy?

There have been five grands prix so far in the 2011 Formula 1 season and every single one of them, in its own way, has been a cracker.

The introduction of faster wearing tyres from new supplier Pirelli, the DRS overtaking aid and the return of Kers power-boost systems has led to a perfect storm of close racing, overtaking and pit stops.

This has made for an exciting season even though Red Bull driver Sebastian Vettel is running away with the championship after four wins and a second place in five races.

Yet there is disquiet in some parts of the Formula 1 paddock.

There is a purist view that what the world is seeing is some kind of pale shadow of what F1 really should be. Superficially the racing has improved, some are saying, but is it real? Is this F1 or a tainted, cheapened version of it?

After years of complaints about overtaking being too difficult in F1, about races tending towards the processional, about a general lack of entertainment, it might seem a somewhat perverse thing to say.

But the sense, in some quarters, is that in trying to spice up the show, the sport has veered a little too far towards showbiz and lost some of its true essence.

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He is careful about he expresses it, but Vettel's team-mate Mark Webber is one of the chief exponents of this view.

Ironically, Webber has been one of the biggest beneficiaries of the new rules so far.

In China, where he qualified close to the back, the Australian used a clever strategy to benefit from the huge grip differences between new and old, hard and soft tyres, as well as the DRS, to climb up to third place by the end of the race, just seven seconds behind winner Lewis Hamilton.

So great was his pace advantage over his rivals in the latter stages that had the race been three laps or so longer Webber would have won. From 18th on the grid. In a race in which there was only one retirement. Even allowing for the superiority of the Red Bull, that is astonishing.

And yet Webber said afterwards that it felt a little hollow. Sure, he had enjoyed himself, and he was pleased with the result. But passing tough, world-class competitors such as Fernando Alonso so easily when they were effectively defenceless did not feel quite right. The racing, he says, is "less intense" than it was.

Webber brought up the subject again in Spain at the weekend, pointing out that the lap times F1 cars were doing on worn tyres and high fuel loads were only eight seconds faster than those of the GP3 cars, two categories down the motor racing ladder.

"We still need to be the pinnacle," Webber said. "We need to be able to push the cars to the limit throughout a grand prix and have very strong lap times, man against machine.

"Pirelli are working hard but we need to make sure the degradation and pace is still of a sensible magnitude and the cars can be put on the limit and not get too far on the showbiz side of things."

It's not just Webber, either. Last week, influential Ferrari president Luca di Montezemolo weighed into the debate, too.

Di Montezemolo said: "Listen, I want to see competition, I want to see cars on the track. I don't want to see competition in the pits.

"A little bit, yes - but in the last race (Turkey) there were 80 pit stops. Come on, it's too much. And the people don't understand anymore because when you come out of the pits you don't know what position you're in.

"I think we have gone too far with the machines, too many buttons. The driver is focusing on the buttons, when you have the authorisation to overtake. We have gone too far."

Much of the criticism has, as Di Montezemolo said, focused on the DRS. This is a clever device that moves a part of the rear wing, reducing drag, and therefore increasing straight-line speed.

A driver can use it in a specified zone on the track, on the longest straight, when he is within a second of the car in front at a predetermined point before the DRS zone. The driver defending his position cannot use it.

The idea was to make overtaking easier - but not too easy. The problem is that people have looked at the Turkish race, and the number of times drivers sailed past rivals down the long back straight, and concluded that DRS is making overtaking like driving past someone on the motorway.

That, though, is a misunderstanding of what is actually happening. In Turkey, as in so many of the other races, what promoted the overtaking was the differing grip levels of the tyres at various stages of their lives.

As Charlie Whiting, the race director, points out, in a lot of the cases in Istanbul, the driver behind already had a massive speed advantage over his rival even before he got to the DRS zone. Because his tyres were providing him with so much more grip, he could slingshot out of the preceding corner so much faster.

In those circumstances, the pass would have been easy regardless, DRS or not.

"Our view has always been we shouldn't make it easy, we should make it possible," Whiting says.

"In Melbourne we didn't have quite enough length (in the DRS zone). I think it worked perfectly in Malaysia and China. But we're all learning here. I definitely don't think we've made it too easy.

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"I don't think anyone is under any illusion that it's the DRS that's allowing the overtaking. Opinions vary presumably, but tyres probably have a bigger part to play at the moment. I don't think we've gone over the top with the DRS, and we certainly don't want to. We've got no intention of doing that. We believe it's a good tool and hopefully you agree."

Although I share some of Webber's reservations, I also do not want to see fast cars stuck for ever behind slow ones just because the laws of aerodynamics dictate that drivers cannot follow closely enough to overtake. The DRS is a way of using technology to get F1 out of a hole that technology has got it into.

So, fundamentally, as long as governing body the FIA can find the right balance, I think Whiting is right on this, and the proof came in Sunday's Spanish Grand Prix.

Vettel spent the first 18 laps bottled up behind the fast-starting but slow Ferrari of Alonso. Red Bull tried to jump the Spaniard with an early first pit stop, but just failed when Ferrari responded and got out in front.

So they tried again and despite Vettel having to pass three cars on his out lap and Ferrari responding next time around, the German blasted past the pit exit just as Alonso was emerging.

Last year, with much slower wearing Bridgestone tyres meaning smaller pace differentials between the cars, Vettel would never have been able to pass three cars on his out lap, and he may well have spent the entire race behind Alonso.

At the same time, the difficulties all drivers had in passing down the main straight, the DRS zone, when they were able to pass elsewhere - around Turns Four, Five, 10 and 11, for example, where overtaking was previously very rare - proved that it was the tyres not the DRS that were making the difference.

"Barcelona had the possibility to be a drone-a-thon," Red Bull team principal Christian Horner said after the race. "Two years ago here, Sebastian drove around looking at the exhaust of (Ferrari's) Felipe Massa for the whole grand prix.

"This has really changed the dynamics of that and a track where it's traditionally difficult to overtake and produce close racing has produced an absolute thriller. The regulations have obviously contributed and created that. They're working."

It's true that the tyres' fragility is stopping the drivers exploiting the full potential of their cars all the time. This may not always be desirable but, as my colleague Mark Hughes points out in his column, this season it probably is.

If the cars were all on rubber that allowed them to push to the limit in the race, Red Bull would probably be able to tap into more of the speed that gives them such a huge advantage in qualifying. In which case Vettel wouldn't just be winning, he would be driving off into the distance. The tyres appear to be making the racing close, and introducing competition that might not otherwise be there.

Despite Vettel's domination, all the races have been close and exciting to watch and that is having a startling effect on the television audience.

You might expect, for example, that a German winning nearly everything would cause TV audiences to switch off in the UK, but in fact the opposite has been the case.

The BBC F1 audience has been up at all but one race so far this year. China had the highest number of viewers that race has ever had. During the Spanish race, the peak audience was 1.2 million higher this year than last.

But far more telling is the behaviour of the audience during the race. In the past, there would usually be a peak at the start, a significant dip in the middle, another peak at a moment of high excitement - a crash, a pit stop etc - another dip and a peak at the end.

This year, though, the audience has started higher than before - and stayed there throughout the race. People dare not switch off for fear of missing something. Far from the races being too confusing - as some newspapers have said - they are proving to be gripping from beginning to end.

I'll leave the final word to Jenson Button. He was asked if F1 had veered too far towards 'showbiz'.

"There are more positives than negatives," he said. "Of course it's a show; that's what any sport is. We need viewers to exist and the viewers have gone through the roof supposedly. I don't think we've done anything wrong. We've definitely gone in the right direction."

Source: http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/andrewbenson/2011/05/has_f1_made_overtaking_too_eas.html

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NASCAR Tickets - Gordon Makes it Rain at Texas Motor Speedway

After a 47-race drought that left Jeff Gordon thirsty as ever for a Sprint Cup victory, the No. 24 Hendrick Motorsports stock car driver finally picked up his first win of the season in yesterday's Samsung 500 at the Texas Motor Speedway, breaking his lengthy winless streak and securing his spot in first place in the current NASCAR Sprint Cup Series standings. Gordon's big win at Texas was his very first at the racetrack, and it gives this 37-year-old National Guard driver something to brag about in the current racing season.

Gordon took the tricky Texas racetrack by storm in yesterday's race and beat out Jimmie Johnson, Greg Biffle, Tony Stewart, Matt Kenseth, Mark Martin, Juan Pablo Montoya, Kurt Busch, Jeff Burton and Carl Edwards, respectively, giving him a 162-point lead over Jimmie Johnson in the Sprint Cup series. This year's Samsung 500 gave Gordon his first win in 47 tries, but it also granted the NASCAR hero his first-ever win at Texas Motor Speedway. Gordon made a statement after winning the race yesterday, saying, "How ironic is this that when we go into this streak and we end it here in Texas, a place that's just eluded us for so long. Incredible team effort. This whole year has been amazing. What a great car. I've never had a car like this at Texas. We finally had one and put it in position."

Now that he's won a race at Texas, Gordon has but one racetrack in the Sprint Cup circuit that he has yet to emerge victorious from, and that's the Homestead Miami Speedway. In his long and incredibly successful NASCAR career so far, Gordon has won at both Darlington and Martinsville seven times, Daytona and Talladega six times, Bristol, Charlotte and Sonoma five times, Atlanta, Dover, Indianapolis, Pocono and West Glen four times, Fontana and New Hampshire three times, Kansas, Michigan and Richmond twice and Chicago, Las Vegas, Phoenix and (now) Texas once.

Jeff Gordon grew up in Northern California and was very familiar with the nearby Vallejo Speedway, which inspired the youngster to take up racecar driving at a young age. Gordon received a Quarter Midget racecar when he was five years old, winning his first race at age eight. In 1986, Gordon and his family moved to Indianapolis, where he started racing open wheel cars and quickly turned heads in the racing business. Jeff Gordon started racing in the NASCAR circuit when he jumped aboard Hendrick Motorsports in 1992, taking 14th place in series standings in 1993 and not looking back since.

Gordon has been a consistent top finisher at Sprint Cup races over the last two decades, and 2009 has been nothing but successful so far for No. 24. He was already the season points leader coming into yesterday's race, as his four top-five finishes so far in the series' first six races put him atop the Sprint Cup Series standings even before the Texas race. Jeff Gordon now focuses his energies toward Phoenix and Talladega, where he will finish out the month of April trying to repeat yesterday's 82nd career win. To cheer on Jeff Gordon to Victory Lane in the upcoming weeks and months, get NASCAR tickets online and make your way down to the nearest racetrack!

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NASCAR Tickets - Joey Logano Makes NASCAR History

Joey Logano broke a 61-year record and became the youngest driver in NASCAR history to win a Sprint Cup race last weekend, emerging victorious from a rain-shortened race at the New Hampshire Motor Speedway in Loudon to capture the first Cup win of his career. At 19, Logano captured his first Cup Series title at the Lenox Industrial Tools 301, coming in ahead of Jeff Gordon, Kurt Busch, David Reutimann and Tony Stewart, respectively, before the rain took over and caused officials to call the race after 279 laps.

Logano started off to a slow start at Loudon, even spinning into a wall on Turn 4 of Lap 184 after he was clipped by Ryan Newman. Luck was on Logano's side throughout the race, however, and he regained a lap on the next caution flag of the race (on Lap 191). By lap 250, it appeared as if rain was imminent, and the Sprint Cup drivers then played the game of waiting on a rainout, each trying to conserve gas and hold out on refueling. Ryan Newman, the leader of the pack at one point, bowed out of the running for first when he ran out of gas on Lap 264, leaving Joey Logano in the No. 1 position as the drivers kept going in circles while waiting for the call.

The caution for rain came out four laps after Newman's exit, crowning Joey Logano the victor of the Lenox Industrial Tools 301. 101,000 fans with NASCAR tickets watched Logano take his very first Sprint Cup win, also knocking off Kyle Busch's previous record as youngest Cup Series winner of a race, which was set when Busch (now 24) was 20 years old. Setting a NASCAR record after his 20th Sprint Cup start, Logano acknowledged the importance of the day's events, saying, "To get the win today, this is cool. This is where I watched my first [Sprint] Cup race, where I ran my first Cup race and where I won my first [Cup] race. I couldn't pick a better place."

Joey Logano, the No. 20 driver of the Home Depot car for Joe Gibbs Racing and the kid known as "Sliced Bread," officially became the toast after his victory over the weekend in Loudon, and yes, the young racing prodigy has always been this good. Logano grew up in Middletown, Connecticut and began racing at age six as a quarter midget driver, garnering fame quickly as his teen years ensued. By age 15, Logano was called "the real deal" by Sprint Cup hero Mark Martin, and at 18 he jumped aboard the prestigious NASCAR circuit, becoming the youngest driver in Nationwide history to win a race at the Meijer 300 in 2008, after his third start in the NASCAR series.

In August of 2008, Logano joined the Sprint Cup Series as the No. 20 Home Depot driver after Tony Stewart left Joe Gibbs Racing, becoming a top finisher in series races ever since. Now that he's already winning Cup titles, it's only a matter of time until Joey Logano becomes the top fixture of the Sprint Cup Series. To watch him in action, get racing tickets online and cheer for this 19-year-old phenom!

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Lewis Hamilton outburst overshadows Monaco thriller

As if the Monaco Grand Prix had not already been dramatic enough, Lewis Hamilton's controversial comments afterwards will ensure it makes even bigger headlines across the world.

The McLaren driver quoted Ali G, the original spoof character dreamt up by Borat creator Sacha Baron Cohen, as he railed against the decision by race stewards to call him to explain his part in two separate incidents during Sunday's event.

Hamilton pointed out to BBC F1 pit-lane reporter Lee McKenzie that it was the fifth time in six races this year he had been called to account for his actions, and she asked him why he thought that was.

"Maybe it's because I'm black," he said, laughing. "That's what Ali G said. I dunno."

"People want to see overtaking and racing and you get done for trying to put on a show and make a move," he continued. "Fair play. If I really feel I've gone too late and hit someone, I'll put my hand up and say I've caused the incident and been the stupid one."

Hamilton described his being called to account for incidents for which he felt was blameless as "a joke", and described the rivals in question - Ferrari's Felipe Massa and Williams novice Pastor Maldonado - as "stupid".

What was he going to do about the situation? "I'll just try and keep my mouth shut," he said.

It is too late for that, though, even though McLaren went into damage-limitation mode after the race.

"Immediately after the race he was very down," team principal Martin Whitmarsh said, "and during a post-race TV interview he made a poor joke about his penalties that referenced Ali G. However, I'm pleased to say that he chose to return to the track a little while later to speak to the stewards about the joke. They accepted his explanation."

Hamilton's remarks came at the end of a weekend when nothing seemed to go right for him.

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A wrong call to do only one run in qualifying led to him starting the race from ninth place, after he made a mistake and cut a chicane on his flying lap.

Trying to make up ground in the race, a brilliant early pass on Michael Schumacher was followed by the two collisions with Massa and Maldonado.

Sir Jackie Stewart talks about the importance of ridding yourself of emotion before stepping into a grand prix car, but it looked as if Hamilton had not taken the great man's advice on Sunday.

Hamilton has made himself one of global sport's highest profile figures thanks to his inspirational driving, and cool, youthful image. And he has established himself in the four and a half years of his career as unquestionably the greatest overtaker in F1, as well as arguably its out-and-out fastest driver.

But he did not earn that reputation with performances like that in Monaco on Sunday. BBC F1 commentator Martin Brundle described his late lunge down the inside of Massa as "clumsy" and his attempt to pass Maldonado later on was similarly optimistic.

When Hamilton watches the incidents back, I suspect he might agree, as he may well regret his post-race comments when he calms down after what was admittedly an intensely frustrating weekend. It remains to be seen whether they will get him into hot water with governing body the FIA.

In the days of the former president Max Mosley, there is no question Hamilton would have been called up to answer a charge of bringing the sport into disrepute. His successor Jean Todt has taken a less antagonistic approach, but has not yet had to deal with a similar incident.

Brundle said he thought Hamilton had let frustration creep into his driving, and it certainly looked that way.

He entered Monaco expecting to fight for victory and was quick throughout practice on a circuit he adores and on which he excels, only for it all to slip agonisingly through his fingers.

That frustration will be heightened by the fact that Vettel is now in what has to be considered a virtually unassailable position in the championship.

Hamilton is well aware of how good he is. He aches to add more crowns to the one he won in 2008, and even before Monaco it was obvious that the fact this season is likely to be another barren year was already bubbling provocatively inside him.

But the sooner he realises that his quest to win the multiple titles he feels he deserves will not be helped by this sort of reaction, the better it will be for him.

While luck appeared to desert Hamilton in Monaco, the angels are truly smiling on Vettel this season. And it is not even as if he needs them.

Time after time, circumstance has intervened to make the German's path to victory easier than it should have been, and Vettel has taken full advantage.

Vettel's victory in Monaco on Sunday, his first in the principality, was his fifth in six grands prix so far this season. Only Jim Clark, Nigel Mansell, Schumacher and Jenson Button have achieved that and all of them ended the season in question as champions.

Vettel now leads the championship by 58 points - that means Hamilton, his closest pursuer, would have to take two wins and a sixth place with the Red Bull driver not scoring just to draw level.

It is the sort of margin that can be closed only by a driver in the best car. The problem is that it is Vettel himself who enjoys that luxury and, boy, is he capitalising on it.

His and Red Bull's domination is being founded on their blistering superiority in qualifying. In races, as Sunday demonstrated yet again, the Red Bull is far more vulnerable.

This time, a mix-up at Vettel's first pit stop meant he rejoined on the harder of the two tyre choices, the softs, when Red Bull had been intending to put him on the super-softs, which his closest pursuer Button chose to fit at his first stop.

The mistake made, Red Bull altered their strategy, in light of a mid-race safety car period, and decided to try to make it to the end of the race on those tyres.

That meant Vettel entered the final 30 laps of the race with tyres that were already 32 laps old and with two of F1's finest drivers closing in fast on fresher rubber.

The tyres on Fernando Alonso's Ferrari were 17 laps younger than Vettel's, Button's a full 31; and with a little less than 20 laps to go the three of them were running nose to tail.

Vettel, driving brilliantly as he has all year, had held them off relatively comfortably until a big crash involving Hamilton, Vitaly Petrov, Jaime Alguersuari and Adrian Sutil brought out the safety car again and subsequently the red flag.

The 20-minute stoppage before the race was resumed robbed millions of viewers around the world of what promised to be a spectacular climax to the race - it meant all the drivers could fit fresh tyres and Vettel survived the last eight laps of the re-started race without incident.

It will never be known whether he could have held off Alonso and Button had the race not been stopped.

But McLaren managing director Jonathan Neale told BBC pit-lane reporter Ted Kravitz that by their calculations Vettel's tyres had no more than three more laps before they "dropped off the cliff", as F1 teams have taken to describing the moment the Pirellis that have done so much for the racing this year finally lose all their grip.

If Neale was right, even at Monaco Vettel would surely not have been able to hold Alonso and Button back.

Even Red Bull team principal Christian Horner admitted luck had shone on his team, saying the red flag was a "reprieve".

It was just the latest example of a recurring phenomenon this year. For all Vettel's searing qualifying pace, he is vulnerable in races, but events are transpiring to give him the breathing space he needs to keep winning.

Monaco followed Australia, Malaysia and Turkey this year as a race in which he might have faced a more serious challenge but didn't.

The championship may already appear to be a formality but the races themselves are making up for it with a combination of action and unpredictability that F1 has never seen before.

Next up is the Canadian Grand Prix, on one of the least favourable tracks for Red Bull, the long straights at the Circuit Gilles Villeneuve favouring the extra power of McLaren's Mercedes engine and Ferrari over the Renault in the Red Bull.

Last year, Red Bull could manage only fourth and fifth in Montreal, behind Hamilton, Button and Alonso, in a race that prompted the decision to ask new supplier Pirelli to produce tyres that degraded rapidly.

The unique track surface there made the super-durable Bridgestones used last year behave like the Pirellis are doing at every race this season, and prompted the most exciting grand prix of the year.

If that happened when the racing was sometimes processional, even if the title fight was thrilling, the mind boggles at what could happen there in 2011.

Source: http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/andrewbenson/2011/05/hamilton.html

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