F1 Singapore GP: formula 1 overtaking 0

Hamilton was supreme and won the race. Button doggedly consolidated his world title hopes by recovering from a poor qualifying session to finish ahead of team-mate Barrichello. Those were the headline messages from the 2009 Singapore Grand Prix. But, after all the talk about the race-fixing that went on at this circuit last season, this correspondent was determined to probe a much more fundamental question: What was the quality of the racing on show? Or rather, apart from the special atmosphere created by this being a night-time race, what was the real excitement value?

The absolute measure of excitement in F1 is the amount of overtaking, the amount of honest, wheel-to-wheel racing that achieves changes in position: this is what should make the sparks fly. Having touched on the lack of overtaking in F1 in one or two previous posts, now it was time to sit down for a race - with notepad rather geekily at the ready - and record the hard(-ish) facts. How many genuine overtaking manoeuvres were clearly visible to the average viewer watching the 2009 Singapore GP on television? We can exclusively reveal the answer to be ... wait for it... None. That’s right - a big fat, nothingy, zilchy None.

We should clarify that our count does not include changes of position owing to first-lap jockeying for position off the starting grid, exciting as this is. Nor does it include a host of other possible reasons for changes in position, including: pit-stops, differential fuel/tyre strategies and drive-through penalties; a driver profiting from a mistake or a technical fault that slows a driver ahead of him; a backmarker being lapped; or a driver letting another through in order, for example, to make up for a transgression for which he hopes to avoid punishment after gaining an unfair advantage. There are, admittedly, grey areas: Is, for example, a “mistake” a simple driver error or the result of concerted pressure from behind?

In Singapore there were just three cases where it appeared (to this viewer, at least) that some overtaking might be taking place: incidents involving Raikkonen apparently taking Buemi for 12th place, a dispute between Trulli and Rosberg over 13th, and Rosberg taking Alguersuari for 15th. But in at least two of these cases, it looked as though a mistake might have been involved. Nor were any of the incidents (again, at least as far as this viewer was concerned) sufficiently well framed or explained in the coverage to be clear-cut sources of overtaking enjoyment. (Added to which, a quick Rosberg had in effect found himself artificially out of position, relegated down the field after serving a drive-through penalty. And Alguersuari and Buemi were quite possibly suffering from brake problems - a technical disadvantage).

It is perhaps no great surprise that Singapore is not a place where there is an abundance of overtaking. It is, after all, a street circuit, and street circuits are notoriously difficult for overtaking - Monaco just about gets away with it because of all its glamour and F1 tradition. The first obvious conclusion is: no more street circuits than we have already, please. The trouble is, there’s not a whole lot of overtaking at other tracks either, so we shouldn’t just pick on Singapore and its glittering skyline. More broadly, as an F1 fan, it is finally time to tell it like it is: it is imperative that more be done to facilitate overtaking in the sport. The new technical regulations introduced for this season may have helped a little bit, but not nearly enough.

We can only hope that there is an Overtaking Working Group out there still conscious of the need to make changes. Unfortunately, the outlook may not be too good. Re-fuelling is being scrapped for next season: this may promote a more straight fight but it will also - by removing the possibility for drivers to adopt different fuel strategies in each race - take away a key way of shuffling the pack. And last we heard (though we’d be delighted to hear clarification of its precise status), the KERS ‘power-boost’ system won’t be on the grid anymore in 2010 (possibly, who knows, because it would just be too heavy to have the KERS on board along with all the fuel needed to get to the end of a race without refuelling). So that’s another joker-in-the-pack gone (albeit not a very widely used or popular one). There’s just one thing for it: install spray systems at all circuits and make every race a wet race. Now that would be entertainment.

Comments

[bobby9]

I wonder just how many times Button has overtaken in the course of the season? Maybe it's time to break the connection between the teams and the drivers? Each driver gets a randomly allocated car each race (but drawn to ensure each driver has two races in each car per season). Then we would really see who the best driver and which is the best car...

[worldinmotion]

Hmmm, controversial, to say the least. For one thing - how to ensure "randomness"?

[dupin]

It's a hoary old point but what about doing away with qualifying and having a randomly allocated grid configuration?