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[racechick]

I think it would be cool if on one part of the track there could be a choce of two ways to go, both the the same time to get round, just different ways, and only for a short while. That would be good for ovetaking. I guess it would be really hard to get both bits as fast as each other, be good if they could though

While that is a cool idea the crashes that would cause would be bad when the two routes rejoin each other.

Not neccessarily, they could join but have to stay in a lane (like leaving the pits) then they merge back and drag it out to the next corner. Id love to see it. Also it would get much faster cars past slow ones on silly tracks where you cant overtake.

[vaptin]

Would it be mandatory for drivers to alternate between the two routes?

[Denthúl]

I think it would be cool if on one part of the track there could be a choce of two ways to go, both the the same time to get round, just different ways, and only for a short while. That would be good for ovetaking. I guess it would be really hard to get both bits as fast as each other, be good if they could though

While that is a cool idea the crashes that would cause would be bad when the two routes rejoin each other.

Not neccessarily, they could join but have to stay in a lane (like leaving the pits) then they merge back and drag it out to the next corner. Id love to see it. Also it would get much faster cars past slow ones on silly tracks where you cant overtake.

I'm not fond of that idea and your last point pretty much takes away the purpose of the racing. "I don't have the skill to get past this guy, so I'll just go a different way." Yep. Effectively, you could have poor drivers like Sato, Ide etc. placed in to a fast car and then taking an alternative route to make up places that their talent wouldn't normally allow for. If a guy in a faster car can't get past a guy in a slower car, then the solution is not to take the slower car out of the equation but work on actually making it possible to pass them. Once again, this falls back to the turbulent air generated by the cars.

[The Ram]

Not necessarily. Look on it this way.

The turbulence behind the car affects down force of the following car right.
The low pressure behind the leading car causes the following car to come close. This air may have different degrees of turbulence.
So we can have close following cars (on the straights I mean) even with turbulence, it's just that there is less downforce. The problem is cornering; when it's time to brake and go through a corner the following car will drop back because there less grip on the tyres due to the lower downforce.

Now Reducing the aggressiveness of the aerodynamics on the car to make the air less turbulent will allow the following car to gain some down-force, but it might reduce slip-streaming if the pressure of this air wake increases. So the car behind might not even be close enough at the end of the straights anyways. FOTA have been trying for years to get this balance right and it never works. So I say we should just forget it and change the tracks FIRST before we look on the cars.

The issue IMO is the time it takes to go through the turn and the physical space in the turn (not the straights). If the cars are so fast that it takes them just one or two seconds to complete a turn; there is no way we are going to see more overtaking just by changing ONLY the down-force level of the following cars. The human mind cannot safely do so many actions; thinking, braking, steering, thinking (to pass), accelerating etc..each in fractions of a second. It' just impossible, the cars are just moving too fast. Most of the overtakes nowadays are just preemptive moves, look how long it took Button to overtake Kobayashi in Brazil.. It was not because of turbulence.. it was because Button had to try then fail then think it over and over until he got lucky.. the Human mind just can't calculate passes on the fly when the car is moving at over 100mph and you have 50m to make the turn. It just aint gonna happen so often.

We have to increase the time it takes to take turns and the space for the cars to overtake. Increasing the time in the turn is only possible by making the tracks bigger or the cars slower (but lets ignore making the cars slower ). I don't watch NASCAR, but I know that is why they have more passing. If you have a 5 second turn you have gobs of time to THINK of what you will actually do in the corner. This effect is also seen in MULTIPLE flowing Turns in Formula 1, but we don't have many tracks with that feature.

The making of extra space now, is simple: Most people might say it's crazy to make the turns bigger because they will be too easy to go through and there are too many racing lines..blah blah blah etc. This is true when there is only one car on the turn...But when there are multiple cars Each driver will not only think about the turn it self.. but the positioning of your car before the turn and after the turn.. Imagine 3 cars going into a turn and leaving a turn to go battle on the straights?!! Only the man that makes the best use of space to compromise his opponents in the turn will come out in front.
This will almost gurantee more frequent passing regardless of the downforce level of the following cars..because the following car (with lower down force) can brake later (more space in the turn) or take slightly slower line and still have a chance to make up for it on the straight.

[Mike D]

problem with a track that went 2 different ways is if one route was 0.001 second quicker theyd all take that route

Mike

[Denthúl]

I would disagree, to an extent. I definitely think that the cars need to change before the tracks do, if only because it is far easier to do so.

Over time, overtaking has become more difficult, with the number of moves declining at a steady rate for most of the time, but some significant significant drops around the end of the 1980s and then again in the mid 1990s, after which point it has jumped between 150 and 250 moves per season, more or less. This coincides with two changes which, in my opinion, are quite significant.

The first of these is the demise of the manual gearbox and clutch pedal, being replaced by the now-mandatory semi-automatic gearbox. This creates far less room for mistakes that would, in the past, have allowed the driver behind to overtake. The potential for mistakes meant that a smart and aggressive driver behind could effectively pressure his opponent in to making a grave error in order to pass. Missing a gear, for example, could be a race-ruiner. Now it is much harder to make a mistake and thus, harder to apply the necessary pressure that could create an opening.

The second of these is the shift from mechanical grip to aerodynamic grip around the 1998 season. Making the cars so dependent on aerodynamics and reducing the mechanical grip to such a level that makes it harder to stay glued to the track in the wake of another car would, inevitably, make it much harder to overtake whilst going through the faster corners. Now that we're (supposedly) going in the opposite direction, we might find ourselves experiencing more overtaking than we did before. At certain circuits, that definitely seems to be the case. For example, if we compare this year's dry race at the Nürburgring to the previous dry race at the same circuit, there were 10 more overtaking moves with the current regulations (18 in 2009, 8 in 2006). Similarly, there were five and four more overtaking moves this year at Monaco and Hungary than there were at the previous dry races. This year, there were 7 moves at each of those. Last year, there were 2 at Monaco and 3 at Hungary.

There are also some circuits with no change, such as Turkey and Spain, and some races where there were fewer moves, so it is too early to say anything, but if this trend was to continue, then it would be a good sign indeed.

These are, of course, only some of the things that have changed. The improvements in brake technology have meant that brake distances have been massively reduced over the past 20 years, so out-braking an opponent has become more difficult because there is so little space for it. Reverting to steel brakes instead of continuing with carbon brakes would be a short-term solution, but eventually teams would find a way to bring the distances back down once more. This is an issue that really does need to be addressed if we want to see an increase in opportunities for overtaking as it is perhaps the thing that holds drivers back the most going in to slow corners.

Now, I'm not saying that the tracks are not to blame in part, because that is not the case. However in most cases, it's not a question of track-width but rather the composition of corners that make up the track. After the horrific deaths in 1994, significant changes to the safety aspects of the sport have been made each year, resulting in more run-off areas being created allowing drivers to make mistakes without slowing down much, meaning the guy behind can't really pass. Additionally, replacing huge straights that end in slow corners with shorter straights broken up by chicanes. Now, in the chicanes, there isn't enough room for two cars to really have a go at fighting with one another. There, I will concede that a major change needs to be made and that is not widening the chicanes, but removing them completely.

[Mike D]

and just going back to my argument for removing chicanes.

if a circuit like monza or silverstone took out theyre chicanes and went back to fast corners only, the teams would all run very little wing, so theyd be able to follow much better too.

as soon as 1 slow corner or chicane is in a track, they run more wing, as a lot of time can be made up on a slow corner.

I remember in 2000 when they changed the 1st chicane at Monza, the teams all ran more wing.

Mike

[racechick]

problem with a track that went 2 different ways is if one route was 0.001 second quicker theyd all take that route

Mike

Yes I can see it could pan out that way, it would be hard to make them exactly the same but a faster car held up because of turbulence and a narrow track with no place to overtake might still get past.And if they could get them the same........

I'm not fond of that idea and your last point pretty much takes away the purpose of the racing. "I don't have the skill to get past this guy, so I'll just go a different way." Yep. Effectively, you could have poor drivers like Sato, Ide etc. placed in to a fast car and then taking an alternative route to make up places that their talent wouldn't normally allow for. If a guy in a faster car can't get past a guy in a slower car, then the solution is not to take the slower car out of the equation but work on actually making it possible to pass them. Once again, this falls back to the turbulent air generated by the cars.

Well no,Im talkin about guys stuck because of the problems with air flow and silly tracks, not because they have no skill to overtake. We've all seen it at Monaco and we've all seen Trulli trains. It is things like this that actually spoil the real racing. The "poor driver like Sato" would not gain by going the alternative route because he'd only get by if he were quicker. You dont often have all the crap drivers going round in fast cars and all the good drivers in dogs. The idea would be an alternative choice not a faster one.

[LifeW12]

Missing a gear, for example, could be a race-ruiner. Now it is much harder to make a mistake and thus, harder to apply the necessary pressure that could create an opening.

A child could drive a semi automatic. They have to have the gear stick like Champ Cars.

These are, of course, only some of the things that have changed. The improvements in brake technology have meant that brake distances have been massively reduced over the past 20 years, so out-braking an opponent has become more difficult because there is so little space for it. Reverting to steel brakes instead of continuing with carbon brakes would be a short-term solution, but eventually teams would find a way to bring the distances back down once more. This is an issue that really does need to be addressed if we want to see an increase in opportunities for overtaking as it is perhaps the thing that holds drivers back the most going in to slow corners.

Brake technology has improved in everything but the cars have also got lighter as well. Brake distances can't be increased just by modifiying the brakes. Other things like car weight, centre of gravity, tyre contact patch will have an effect. A heavier car will be harder to stop and modifying the centre of mass will alter brake performance.

Engine power is so similar that the only way to help overtaking is to make the whole track flat out in one gear where the slipstream has more of an effect. Oval racing would be something they could try.

[Mike D]

I couldnt see them going for any brakes that are less effective than what they have now for safety reasons.

I think suspension mods are the answer, if they all had a standard soft shock absorber for example, the cars would move round more, dive more under braking, which would make aero a bit less effective too.

similar to the rules in the Australian v8 supercars, they have standard shocks.

Mike

[racechick]

Would it be mandatory for drivers to alternate between the two routes?

No each time you could choose.

[The Ram]

The only way to make the cars overtake more without changing the tracks is to make them slower and or more prone to driver error as said before. FOTA could go that route but It's not in line with the philosophy of F1. Why go backwards? Changing the tracks is a much cheaper option.. Lay some asphalt here and there.. pile up some dirt over there.. A fraction of the cost of modifying the cars.. less RD, No CFD, cheaper labour, cheaper Material etc..

Think of it as an extreme: The cars are getting faster right. So imagine now, in the future the cars are going at average speeds of 300mph. Would you still run them on the same tracks? You see, the cars are changing and the tracks need to change too. Chop cut rebuild.