Alarm bells are ringing after the Canadian and Spanish Grands Prix produced less wheel-to-wheel action than ever, writes Alan Henry
So finally Bernie Ecclestone and Max Mosley, the two most powerful voices in Formula One, have conceded what most spectators have known for many a season. Overtaking is – wait for it – “probably a bit too difficult”.
Judging by the most recent races in Barcelona and Toronto, that is a candidate for understatement of the year. The Spanish Grand Prix last month featured only one overtaking manoeuvre – for seventh position. Fans will soon be reclaiming ticket money under the Trades Description Act.
Mika Hakkinen had to pick his way through a barrage of spins, crashes, collisions and penalties to score his convincing win in the Canadian Grand Prix a fortnight ago.
The number of incidents during the Toronto race added fuel to the current debate about the cars’s grooved tyres; specifically, the lack of grip they generate and the way they aggravate the aerodynamic instability of these narrow-track cars when running in close company.
But Mosley, the president of the governing body, the FIA, dismisses suggestions that the sport is facing a summer of boring traffic jams. “The first four races of the season were absolutely riveting,” he says. “Now suddenly people are panicking and saying it is the end of the world because the fifth one was not so good. Top drivers can still overtake when they need to.”
Top drivers are not so sure.
“Passing is now more difficult than at any time I can remember in Formula One,” says McLaren’s David Coulthard. “When I started [in 1994] a one- or two-mile-per-hour advantage was enough to overtake someone, using the slipstream. Now you can’t even get close to a Minardi in a fast corner because it takes your air.”
Ten years ago the late Ayrton Senna famously ran centimetres behind his team- mate Alain Prost through a daunting 208kph corner, known as 130R, at Suzuka, an unforgettable moment which, if possible then only because of Senna’s particular skill, would be unthinkable now (the spectacle, incidentally, ended abruptly at the following slow corner when the two McLarens collided after both men refused to give way).
Ecclestone, the FIA’s vice-president, admits: “There is a lot to do to make sure that drivers can overtake. I want to see them getting right under the back wing of the car in front, then running wide to get past.”
These days most overtaking takes place in the pits, with drivers sometimes less responsible for a race win than the strategists perched on the pit wall and the pit crew hidden behind their fireproof goggles.
The driver’s biggest input may be his start, his dive for the first corner representing the one real chance of making up places on the track. A bad start and your race can be ruined.
Witness Michael Schumacher, who spent the first 24 laps of the Spanish Grand Prix boxed in behind Jacques Villeneuve watching his chances of winning disappear. Not surprisingly he recalls it with a wince.
“The general direction we have gone in over the last two years with the tyres seems to make things worse on a track like Barcelona,” he says.
“I hope people recognise that and do something about it.”
The inability to overtake is caused by the “dirty air” a Formula One car creates behind it.
The trailing car’s aerodynamics are disturbed, it cannot run at top speed in a straight line and it does not have as much downforce through corners.
The situation has been exacerbated by regulations introduced at the start of 1998 and enhanced this season, making the cars narrower and requiring them to run on grooved tyres more closely related to road tyres, which offer reduced adhesion and even less chance of staying close to the car in front.
Although some drivers are critical of the changes, the paddock is split.
“These cars are so dependent on the aerodynamics that if there is a crosswind of 6mph [9.6kph] they are bloody impossible to drive,” says Damon Hill.
Ferrari’s Eddie Irvine for example is supportive, to a point anyway.
“The cars are probably not as bad as everyone thinks they are,” he says. “When they are running on their own they are OK; in fact the Ferrari is great.”
But even Irvine concedes the problem with overtaking.
“The difficulty comes as soon as you’re close behind another car. You arrive at the corner and the car doesn’t want to turn, because the tyres are harder and we are having to generate a lot more downforce than if we were on slick tyres. The more you run in dirty air the more grip you lose.”
Sadly for fans who long for wheel-to-wheel dices, changes in Formula One tend to happen slowly.
Although Mosley has indicated that aerodynamics may be restricted “at some point”, he has denied that grooved tyres are the root of the problem.
“The problem we have at the present time is that Formula One cars are aerodynamically extremely efficient while running on their own,” he says.
“The difference between their performance in turbulent and non-turbulent air is greater probably than it has ever been. It is up to the team owners to decide what we want from the cars in terms of overtaking possibilities, and then their technical people must work out how to do it.”
Ecclestone, however, may be in the mood to decide for them – against Mosley’s wishes. The sport’s ultimate ringmaster maintains: “I have never been one for making big changes to the tyres.
“The theory has been that we need to slow the cars down in the corners for safety’s sake. It has always been Max’s ambition to do that with the tyres, but I don’t know why myself.
“His idea is that an accident at 200mph [320kph] is more dangerous than one at 160mph [256kph], but people can be killed at 40mph [64kph]. We must go back to wide, slick tyres to get more grip and more overtaking.”
Only in extreme cases can the Formula One rules be changed without the teams’ unanimous agreement. And that, in a hard- nosed world where everyone is trying to steal an advantage, is no easy task. Moreover, the FIA has a deal with the teams not to change the chassis specifications until 2001 at the earliest.
Fans of close racing can only hope Ecclestone is moved to declare a state of emergency and act before then.