F1 Prequalifying

[GregUK]

Remember the days when:

• a Silverstone F1 grid would be covered by less than 2 seconds?
• when newbie teams had to pre-qual?
• when Ronnie would drift through Woodcote at 150mph?
• when a spectator could talk to a driver?
• when there was regular overtaking?
• when a driver's skill was 85% of what made the car quick?

Dear God, F1 has lost it's way!

Let's have skinnier tyres; smaller brakes; way less aero; get rid of all the hybrid stuff and fuel limitations but add a bit more bhp. How hard can it be?

[BSchneiderFan]

So long as you want the OEMs involved in F1, hybrid technology is here to stay.

[steve_r]

I think F1 qualifying times are as close now as they have been for quite some time. Anyway, not to worry, carry on with your nostalgia.

[GregUK]

Originally Posted by steve_r

Anyway, not to worry, carry on with your nostalgia.

Yeah, I know, I've turned into an old fart....

[Akrapovic]

Originally Posted by GregUK

Remember the days when:

• a Silverstone F1 grid would be covered by less than 2 seconds?
• when newbie teams had to pre-qual?

No, I do not. Silverstone 1992 had pre-qualifying. 2 cars did not pre-qualify. A further 4 did not qualify. Of those that did, the grid was covered by 7.5 seconds. This is pretty much the case for most of the 80s and early 90s.

This is nostalgia for the sake of nostalgia. Not everything was better in the old days. Cars qualifying 20 seconds off of pole is not a good thing.

[Kempi]

Remember the days when:
a Silverstone F1 grid would be covered by less than 2 seconds?

Yes, I do remember: never. This at times in the 90s was the gap between the front row and the second row. There is a reason the 107% rule exists. There is also a reason the last time it was of relevance was when Fernando Alonso and Alex Yong were driving a Minardi: One came within 107% the other did not.

[Richard C]

Originally Posted by GregUK

Let's have skinnier tyres; smaller brakes; way less aero; get rid of all the hybrid stuff and fuel limitations but add a bit more bhp. How hard can it be?

Don't we already have vintage racing? Are you asking for vintage racing as the top series in the world?

F1 is screwed up, but trying to regulate car design and racing back to the "good old days" would not work as people expect. In general engineers can't forget what has been learned. Short of having spec cars... they will not look or perform like they did many years ago.

Richard

[GregUK]

Originally Posted by GregUK

Remember the days when:

• a Silverstone F1 grid would be covered by less than 2 seconds?

• 1977 - all 26 cars that raced qualified with 1.87 seconds.

And that year, even if you were within 2 seconds of pole, you still may not have made the cut.

[Kempi]

OK, I am too young for that (born the year after), so I will concede there was a time. Was it a good race, though? And how often did that happen in the history of F1? We now have run 986 Grand Prix (according to Wikipedia as of today) so that one occurence would make about 1 %o of races. Is that something we should model our expectations after?

[GregUK]

Originally Posted by Richard Casto

F1 is screwed up, but trying to regulate car design and racing back to the "good old days" would not work as people expect. In general engineers can't forget what has been learned. Short of having spec cars... they will not look or perform like they did many years ago.

Richard

What we have now is 70% a design team competition; 20% a strategy competition and 5% a driver competition - adjust the %ages as you please and, yes, I know it doesn't add up!

The emphasis needs to shift back to the driver. How it's done, I'm not too bothered about but it needs doing quickly.

[GregUK]

Originally Posted by Kempi

OK, I am too young for that (born the year after), so I will concede there was a time. Was it a good race, though? And how often did that happen in the history of F1? We now have run 986 Grand Prix (according to Wikipedia as of today) so that one occurence would make about 1 %o of races. Is that something we should model our expectations after?

I was at that race - and certainly remembered that all the grid was within 2 seconds.

Was it a good race? I don't actually remember but the results suggest it wasn't nearly as close as the finish of the 1969 Italian GP:

https://youtu.be/cQURylYN13w

[Richard C]

Originally Posted by GregUK

• 1977 - all 26 cars that raced qualified with 1.87 seconds.

And that year, even if you were within 2 seconds of pole, you still may not have made the cut.

At 50+ years of age, I am MUCH too young to remember this race. My biggest memory of 1977 is watching Star Wars and even that is somewhat hazy at this point!

Given I can't remember, I had to look at the race report on Wikipedia to see the details. So it looks like...

* 11 cars didn't even qualify
* 26 cars taking the start
* 12 cars retired during the race. This is nearly half the field. This includes cars that were running as high as third at time of retirement.
* 6th through 15th was from 1 to 6 laps down at the end.
* Leaving five cars spread out on the lead lap.

So qualifying was close, but apparently the cars were crap? The excitement of the race was to see who could make it to the end? Maybe a bit of a battle between a select few drivers? How is that better than now?

I am a bit over the top with my comments, but it's easy to cherry pick statistics to say how good it was in yesteryear. Cherry pick another set of statistics and it reads like amateur hour compared to today. Fix F1, but don't try to replicate the past. It is a bit uglier than we think it is/remember it being.

Richard

[Richard C]

Originally Posted by GregUK

What we have now is 70% a design team competition; 20% a strategy competition and 5% a driver competition - adjust the %ages as you please and, yes, I know it doesn't add up!

The emphasis needs to shift back to the driver. How it's done, I'm not too bothered about but it needs doing quickly.

I would say that something like aircraft and racing car design have progressed in a similar way. Early on... the designers didn't know what in the hell they were doing. So extraordinary talent in drivers/pilots were able to extract the absolute performance. Some could make it work, others couldn't.

Today, the engineers generally know what they are doing. It is much less an "art", but rather a "science". Best bet is to let pre-school children and drug addicts who are stoned out of their minds design the cars so that they are appropriately "screwed up", difficult to drive and with poor reliability. That will sort out the boys from the men when it comes to who can manage to get them over the finish line first.

Richard

PS: I am not advocating for pre-school children who ARE drug addicts. It is one or the other but not both!

[GregUK]

Originally Posted by Richard Casto

At 50+ years of age, I am MUCH too young to remember this race. My biggest memory of 1977 is watching Star Wars and even that is somewhat hazy at this point!

Given I can't remember, I had to look at the race report on Wikipedia to see the details. So it looks like...

* 11 cars didn't even qualify
* 26 cars taking the start
* 12 cars retired during the race. This is nearly half the field. This includes cars that were running as high as third at time of retirement.
* 6th through 15th was from 1 to 6 laps down at the end.
* Leaving five cars spread out on the lead lap.

So qualifying was close, but apparently the cars were crap? The excitement of the race was to see who could make it to the end? Maybe a bit of a battle between a select few drivers? How is that better than now?

I am a bit over the top with my comments, but it's easy to cherry pick statistics to say how good it was in yesteryear. Cherry pick another set of statistics and it reads like amateur hour compared to today. Fix F1, but don't try to replicate the past. It is a bit uglier than we think it is/remember it being.

Richard

You can't help being born too late!

At the time, Silverstone was limited to a maximum of 26 cars to start the race.

In 1977, 36 cars were entered. Compare that with this year!

There was pre-qualifying and 6 cars were eliminated through that, leaving 30 cars to chase the 26 available places. The slowest 4 didn't make the grid. Of these, the slowest was Emilio de Villota (father of the late Maria) who was just 3.04 seconds away from James Hunt's pole time.

This was also the race in which David Purley GM almost met his maker when the throttle of his LEC Cosworth jammed open and his hit a wall at 173kms/hr and survived a 180g stop.

Cars in that era were less reliable for sure - race cars and road cars (DAMHIK!) - but even Silverstone this weekend saw Hartley fail to qualify because of a car failure.

Different times for sure, but just 20 cars on a grid and, realistically, only 6 cars in with a shout of winning doesn't make for great racing. It needs to get better.

[Kempi]

This year we had a 2.4s difference between first and last in Q1.

We had a roughly 4s difference in fastest laps and everyone that finished were on the lead lap. The retirements were mainly due to crashes.

If you read it that way it does not read much different to 1977. The difference is two things: the overall grid is much more competitive than it was 10, 20, 30 40 or 50 years ago. During those time the wins by "small" teams were outliers as they are today, most of the time caused by the more frequent retirements of the faster cars.

The cars are almost bulletproof, thanks to the regulations and quality control. It will not happen as often that fast cars break down and this mixing up the grid and the results.

The old times look nice, feel nice in memory but were not better.

[morninggents]

Originally Posted by Kempi

We had a roughly 4s difference in fastest laps and everyone that finished were on the lead lap. The retirements were mainly due to crashes.

If you read it that way it does not read much different to 1977. The difference is two things: the overall grid is much more competitive than it was 10, 20, 30 40 or 50 years ago. During those time the wins by "small" teams were outliers as they are today, most of the time caused by the more frequent retirements of the faster cars.

The cars are almost bulletproof, thanks to the regulations and quality control. It will not happen as often that fast cars break down and this mixing up the grid and the results.

The old times look nice, feel nice in memory but were not better.

Of course all the finishers were on the lead lap - there were two quite long safety car periods - the last one not too far from the end of the race.


Of course it is different from 1977 - in those days and for many years before and after cars could overtake each other on the track and not just due to 'pitstop strategy'.


Of course the cars are now almost bulletproof - the regulations are so restrictive that just about the only way to get an advantage is to ensure they are so reliable they will always finish.


Of course the old times looked better - because they were - the racing was much superior to todays follow my leader until a pitstop farces.


I will grant that yesterdays race was one of the better ones of recent years because of Hamilton's assisted spin and great recovery but was there much on track overtaking?


I will say that the racing today is so much safer than it was 20 plus years ago and that is a good thing. I can't say that anything else compares to what formula 1 used to be like. Look on YouTube for the 1971 Italian GP - brilliant racing.

[Mike Harte]

Originally Posted by Kempi

This year we had a 2.4s difference between first and last in Q1.

This is not a fair comparison as it is highly likely, in fact probable, that the fastest cars such as the Mercs, Ferraris, etc. weren't giving it 100% in Q1, unlike qualifying in the past when there wasn't an elimination process as now.

Originally Posted by Kempi

We had a roughly 4s difference in fastest laps and everyone that finished were on the lead lap. The retirements were mainly due to crashes.

Again, an unfair comparison as yesteryear there was no safety car to bunch up the cars, and in some instances allow cars/drivers to unlap themselves. And in this years race, there were two safety car periods late in the race which had a dramatic effect on both the result and how the cars all finished on the same lap.

Originally Posted by Kempi

The old times look nice, feel nice in memory but were not better.

On the whole, I agree with you, although certain aspects of the racing was better back then because it was man and machine racing whereas nowadays there is too much reliance on machine. And I can only remember that race in Italy that produced such a dramatic finish. Oh, and the Monaco race when Mansell was climbing all over who I can't remember for lap after lap to try to win the race.

[Akrapovic]

If we're going to use one specific event in history to prove all of current F1 is broken then I'm going to go the other way.

1977 German GP, the one directly after the British GP, the cars that qualified were spread by 4 seconds. The entire grid was 6. That's much more than what we see in 2018.

I agree F1 is a bit broken, but not using these metrics.

[GregUK]

Originally Posted by Mike Harte

Oh, and the Monaco race when Mansell was climbing all over who I can't remember for lap after lap to try to win the race.

1992 - Mansell chasing down Senna.

Senna won by just 0.215 seconds

[Mike Harte]

Originally Posted by GregUK

1992 - Mansell chasing down Senna.

Senna won by just 0.215 seconds

Thank you. All I could remember was how gripping it was, and how they had to lift Mansell out of the car (again!) after the race was over.

[morninggents]

Originally Posted by Akrapovic

If we're going to use one specific event in history to prove all of current F1 is broken then I'm going to go the other way.

1977 German GP, the one directly after the British GP, the cars that qualified were spread by 4 seconds. The entire grid was 6. That's much more than what we see in 2018.

I agree F1 is a bit broken, but not using these metrics.

At this year's Spanish GP there was a spread of 4.239 seconds for race fastest laps, and that was only 20 cars.

[Akrapovic]

Originally Posted by morninggents

At this year's Spanish GP there was a spread of 4.239 seconds for race fastest laps, and that was only 20 cars.

Yes, that's my point. You've chosen a single example that fits the argument. Now I'll go choose another one that invalidates it. Then there will be another single example that fits it, etc etc.

[Akrapovic]

Originally Posted by Mike Harte

Thank you. All I could remember was how gripping it was, and how they had to lift Mansell out of the car (again!) after the race was over.

Nigel was always good with the silly drama. He'll even fake an injury to get lifted from the car.

Man, I miss those days.

[crmalcolm]

Originally Posted by Akrapovic

I agree F1 is a bit broken, but not using these metrics.

What are we using as a judgment basis for F1 being broken.
The OP seemed to suggest that statistics indicate this:

Originally Posted by GregUK

There was pre-qualifying and 6 cars were eliminated through that, leaving 30 cars to chase the 26 available places. The slowest 4 didn't make the grid. Of these, the slowest was Emilio de Villota (father of the late Maria) who was just 3.04 seconds away from James Hunt's pole time.

It has been suggested that a lack of overtaking is also an indicator of how 'bad' things are:

Originally Posted by morninggents

Of course it is different from 1977 - in those days and for many years before and after cars could overtake each other on the track and not just due to 'pitstop strategy'.

Of course the old times looked better - because they were - the racing was much superior to todays follow my leader until a pitstop farces.

I will grant that yesterdays race was one of the better ones of recent years because of Hamilton's assisted spin and great recovery but was there much on track overtaking?

So how much overtaking actually happened in the past - this era people refer to where one or two races a season can be recalled as having lots of overtakes, whereas in fact the majority of races were just decided on attrition.

So how about some other facts to see how today's racing stacks up?

In 2016 - Max Verstappen set a new record for overtakes in a season by a single driver. His 78 was 16 more than Lauda's 32-yr record. Obviously there are more races in recent seasons, but surely this confirms that overtaking is an art that new drivers are familiar with? Verstappen's overtakes came at an average of 3.71 per race, compared to Lauda's 3.75.

The top ten (as of 31 Dec 16):

1 - Max Verstappen - 2016 - 78 - 3.71

2 - Daniel Ricciardo - 2016 - 61 - 2.90

3 - Sebastian Vettel - 2012 - 60 - 3.00

4 - Michael Schumacher - 2003 - 60 - 3.75

5 - Niki Lauda - 1984 - 60 - 3.75

6 - Felipe Massa - 2013 - 59 - 3.10

7 - Mark Webber - 2013 - 59 - 3.10

8 - Jean-Eric Vergne - 2012 - 58 - 2.90

9 - Sergio Perez - 2016 - 56 - 2.66

10 - Kimi Raikkonen - 2013 - 56 - 2.95

How about the overall field, well the list of total overtakes per season 1984-2016 reads as follows:

Year - Overtakes - Races - Average per race
1990 - 494 - 16 - 30.9
1991 - 495 - 16 - 30.9
1992 - 406 - 16 - 25.4
1993 - 392 - 16 - 24.5
1994 - 289 - 16 - 18.1
1995 - 297 - 17 - 17.5
1996 - 186 - 16 - 11.6
1997 - 265 - 17 - 15.6
1998 - 207 - 16 - 12.9
1999 - 260 - 16 - 16.3
2000 - 279 - 16 - 16.4
2001 - 230 - 17 - 13.5
2002 - 235 - 17 - 13.8
2003 - 303 - 16 - 18.9
2004 - 287 - 18 - 16.2
2005 - 207 - 19 - 10.9
2006 - 291 - 18 - 16.2
2007 - 270 - 17 - 15.9
2008 - 267 - 18 - 14.8
2009 - 211 - 16 - 13.2
2010 - 452 - 19 - 23.8
2011 - 821 - 19 - 43.2
2012 - 870 - 20 - 43.5
2013 - 760 - 19 - 40.0
2014 - 636 - 19 - 33.5
2015 - 509 - 19 - 26.8
2016 - 866 - 21 - 41.2

I understand that the high number of overtakes in recent seasons is down to DRS, and many would see these as purely 'passes' that have not required an overtaking skill. But prior to this the trend was downwards - and this is most likely down to technological advances. The organisers have introduced measures to negate this factor. Is that not what is currently being proposed by the OP?

Originally Posted by GregUK

Let's have skinnier tyres; smaller brakes; way less aero; get rid of all the hybrid stuff and fuel limitations but add a bit more bhp. How hard can it be?

It would be lot harder to get manufacturers to agree to a reduction in abilty to showcase their technical prowess!

[Akrapovic]

However we decide that F1 is broken, I'm not sure pre-qualifying and qualifying spread is a good metric...or even a usable metric.

So we want so many cars that we need pre-qualifying. But largely, pre-qualifying was used to eliminate cars which were 10sec+ off the pace. So we want a small spread, and we want more cars, and the ability to cut them off before the race begins? These seem like contradictions.

For every race where the spread was small, there's another in that time where it was large. This applies largely throughout the history of F1, and using single examples to make a point doesn't really hold any water.

F1 has plenty of issues - ranging from ugly cars, to racing that doesn't work without DRS, all the way to poor TV rights. When I watch F1, I don't immediately think "wouldn't this be better with a terrible team 10 seconds off the pace that have to pack up on Saturday!".