More Overtaking Won’t Improve Racing

in EDITORIAL by admin — March 27, 2010 at 11:16 am | 2 comments

More overtaking won’t improve the racing

The general consensus from the season opener in Bahrain is that the racing was lacking in a certain something - overtaking. The new/old (!) voice of the paddock, Michael Schumacher, even said that it felt like a procession and the only opportunity to overtake was when someone in front makes a mistake. The only problem with modern F1 cars is that even in that situation it’s not guaranteed you can take advantage owing to the extreme turbulence. F1 is a balance between technology and tradition, between growing bank balances and fan bases. The real question is whether F1 has driven itself too far down both of these negative tracks.

The technology in F1 is undoubtedly one of the main reasons people watch the sport. The opportunity to see the peak of engineering in such a global and (sometimes) exciting sport is only shared with perhaps the Vendée globe or America’s cup. This technology has to find its counterpoint with tradition; the tradition of wheel-to-wheel racing and pushing the cars to the limit has, in my opinion, been lost. What must the 20 returning former world champions have thought about this new sport, using the F1 name? Their tour of the Sakhir circuit, proudly waving to the thousands of fans that showed up and the tens of thousands of seats of the fans that didn’t, must have been a sad indictment of the sport they left behind. F1 fans are traditionalists. Avoiding the obvious excitement at the head of the grid, teams and fans up and down the strip were talking of a return to F1 for lotus and the Senna name. Something tells me that if there was as little overtaking at Spa-Francorchamps as there was this weekend, not half as many people would have complained.

I understand the cyclical nature of F1 finances but surely if you travel to the right venues, the crowds will come, too. F1 fans want excitement, drama and a spectacle. There’s no better sound than the revving of a 2.4 litre v8 engine in F1, except when you can hear the crowd over the top. Memories of Monza in the Tifosi’s pomp or where the natural amphitheatre of Interlagos set the stage for a Felipe Massa victory still ring in the ears of many F1 fans desperately clinging onto a sport that can one day raise itself back up to the excitement of a bygone era.

Classic racing is a created by a combination of factors, of which overtaking contributes just a small part. Historic tracks, fantastic scenery and full grandstands will surely bring F1 back to life, back to an era where heroes like John Surtees, Graham Hill and Ayrton Senna fought the cars as well as each other and back to a time where all of us watching on TV were wondering how we could get tickets, not what was on another channel.

Richard Soddy