My guide to making #F1 great again

I love Formula 1.  I still watch every race (live, whenever I can – or recorded and following a painstaking effort not to find out anything about what happens beforehand if necessary) and I will continue to do so.  But I can't deny that, in some ways, it's not as thrilling as it used to be.

I am not going to go into a discussion here of which era of F1 was 'the best'; I have already written about how fruitless it is to compare actual statistics across different eras of the sport, so attempting to come to an objective conclusion as to when the sport was 'best' would result in little more than many hours of wasted prattle.

But so that we are clear, for me the 'best' time for F1 was in the late '90s and early-to-mid '00s.  "But Schumacher dominance!  But boring!  But wahh, wahh, wahh…!"  Nonsense.  Shut up.  In the decade between (roughly) 1997 and 2007, we were privileged enough to see Formula 1's greatest ever driver at the very peak of his considerable powers, schooling a field of drivers which included most of those whom we now consider to be the most talented on the grid – as well as being treated to races which were exciting (but organically exciting, rather than scripted by Bernie and cajoled into being 'exciting' like an episode of a soap opera) and cars which were actually fast.

So I am going to set out a few points here which I think would elevate Formula 1 back to that level of excitement and intrigue.

1)  Faster cars

Former Red Bull driver Mark Webber said in a recent interview that F1 cars should be on 'a different level' from other categories.  Pointing out that GP2 cars (the category below F1), and sportscar racing both tend to have very similar lap times as current F1 cars – and that all the F1 lap records were set five to ten years ago, with the current formula 'miles away' from those sorts of speeds – Webber, described the situation as 'not right'.

I agree.  The modern F1 cars are simply not quick enough and not challenging enough for the drivers.  When I say 'faster' cars, I mean genuinely quicker in terms of raw pace.  More 'overtaking aids' or other fanciful gimmicks simply won't cut it.

The creeping advance of car design gimmicks over actual horsepower has made cars less challenging for drivers, and races less interesting to watch; ten years ago, genuine defensive driving skill meant that good drivers could keep a much quicker car behind them for a significant number of laps – and this in turn meant that strategy was even more important.  Planning pit stops, for example: get it wrong, and your man will be stuck losing time behind a slower car for goodness knows how long!  In modern F1, it doesn't matter, because with DRS he will simply breeze past competitors within a couple of laps and be on his way.

DRS allows cars to be 'shuffled' into a predictable order quickly, even after incidents or pit stops.  Maybe the actual number of overtakes performed on track has increased as a result of the introduction of DRS, but the quality of the overtaking has almost certainly decreased, as drivers no longer have to rely simply on their own racecraft to make a move on a rival stick.  Removing artificial gizmos like DRS will mean drivers and teams pay more dearly for mistakes, and skilful driving carries a greater reward.

2)  Tyres that work

Let's stop hiding behind the euphemism that the current specification of Pirelli tyres are 'deliberately high-degradation' or something.  Let's call them what they are: rubbish.  Deliberately so, yes – but they are still rubbish.

"Hey, let's make the cars have engines which are designed to blow up half-way through a race!" 

"I know!  How about a front wing assembly which may or may not fall off the car at any time, and the driver never knows if his wing will remain intact for the full length of the Grand Prix or not?"

Ideas like these would be laughed out of court.  (Or so I sincerely hope, at any rate!)  So why do we put up with this sort of idiocy when it comes to tyres?  Formula 1 is supposed to represent the very pinnacle of driver and engineers skill, but also the pinnacle of technological advancement; having any part of the car which is actually designed to fail is pretty stupid.

The rubbish tyres were brought in as part of an attempt to 'make the racing more exciting'; they have done anything but.  Racing is now dominated by tyres.  Discussions about tyres, inquiries about tyres, analysis of tyres.  Tyres, tyres, tyres.

Drivers no longer push their cars or themselves to the limit, or race as hard as they know they could or as hard as they would like to.  They are terrified of the rubbish tyres, and the majority of racing strategy is now concerned with managing tyres, conserving tyres, etc.

Does it seem like I'm saying 'tyres' a lot?  Yeah, well that's what every Grand Prix weekend is like, now.  And it gets pretty 'tyring', doesn't it?  (See what I did there…?!)

Once again, this wasn't an issue ten years ago.  Back then, we had a 'tyre war' – more than one tyre manufacturer supplying teams, and teams could choose who to go with, which promoted better tyres as the tyre companies competed for the teams' business.  Maybe this is nostalgia talking, but I would love to see that return.

Which teams would actually choose to run the current models of Pirelli tyres over, say, a more durable Michelin alternative?  Pirelli would have to raise their game, and provide better tyres if they didn't want to be shoved out of the sport completely – and then maybe we would have racing which wasn't so focussed on tyre management and gingerly eking out the life of one set of Pirellis for as long as possible…

3)  A complete overhaul of penalties, and their application

This season, penalties (and particularly grid penalties) have become ridiculous.  Once again, misguided attempts to 'make' F1 'more exciting' have ended up harming the quality of the racing, and shifting the focus of a race weekend away from wheel-to-wheel action and more towards petty technicalities and minutiae.

I am certain that stringent overregulation is hurting Formula 1.  Restrictions on testing and engine development, and ridiculously harsh punishments for changing engines or gearboxes, only exacerbates the difference in quality between the cars at the front of the field and those lower down the order.  Uncompetitive teams are forced to remain uncompetitive because they can't develop their engine package, and are punished for fixing issues on their cars, pushing them even further behind and making racing less close and less interesting.

At the Belgian Grand Prix a few weeks ago, McLaren were given grid penalties totalling 105 places.  This exorbitantly pernicious move meant that an already struggling team had to write off their race before it had even begun.  I'm sure there were people in the McLaren garage thinking they may as well not have bothered to turn up in Belgium at all.

Of course the rules are the rules, and need to be applied fairly and consistently to all.  We can't expect the FIA to make exceptions for a team because we feel sorry for them.  But this rule, and the associated punishments, are clearly counterproductive – this is making racing less competitive, less exciting, and instead encumbering the sport with restrictive overregulation.

And speaking of applying the rules fairly, can we get a definite clarification about the 'track limits' rules, please?  The rule is concerned with 'gaining an advantage' by going outside the limits of the race track (as defined by the white lines at the side of the circuit – not the run-off areas), but it is unclear exactly how that is interpreted by the FIA, or by the stewards.  The only time this rule is really applied is when one driver overtakes another by going outside the track limits – he then has to give that place back, as he deemed to have driven unfairly (which is absolutely correct).

But overtaking is not the only way a driver can 'gain an advantage'.  If a driver is consistently going outside the track limits in order to prevent another car from overtaking him, that is every bit as unfair as overtaking the car ahead by driving off the circuit – and yet we see far fewer punishments for this infringement.

Even if there are no other cars around, a driver can still 'gain an advantage' on lap time, which will then affect strategy in terms of pitstops and tyre life; consistently running wide (cutting a corner) over several laps might gain a driver a second or two in time (as well as meaning he has to use his brakes slightly less, therefore putting less wear through the tyres and preserving their usable life for a lap or two longer) – and that could be the difference between emerging from a pitstop just ahead of a rival driver, or just behind him.  If we are going to punish drivers for using more track than they are allowed to, then we should do so consistently and fairly – not just when overtaking is involved.

One other point about penalties I would like to make is that the current trend of using time penalties after the race has finished seems to me to go against the ethos of F1.  Formula 1 has never been time trial racing – it is about drivers fighting with each other on the track.  In theory, you might think there is not a lot of difference between having twenty seconds added onto your overall time after the race has finished, or having to drive through the Pitlane during the race (which will cost you roughly twenty seconds of laptime), but this is a mistaken way of thinking which ignores the fact that drivers are not just racing against themselves or against the clock, but against each other.

If you are twenty seconds ahead of your nearest rival, and you get a twenty second time penalty, you only have to push a little harder in the closing laps of the race to ensure that even after your overall race time is adjusted to reflect the penalty you are still ahead of your rival by half a second or so.  If you have to take your punishment on track, before the race has finished, it thrusts you into a battle for places which was previously twenty seconds behind you – it forces you to race your rival, your the clock.  There is a fundamental difference between time penalties and penalties taken during the race, and Formula 1 needs to revert to the latter.

4)  A 'hands-off' approach from the bosses

Following the three steps laid out above will make Formula 1 a much closer, more exciting, more challenging sport, and will bring racing back much more in line with how it seemed in the halcyon days of my youth.  But none of it will matter if the current attitudes of those in charge of the sport remain unchanged.

In general, I feel like those at the top – Bernie Ecclestone in particular, and the FIA – are far too meddlesome and interfering in their approach to running F1.  Constantly tweaking and tinkering with the formula, always trying to foist some new unwieldy gimmick on the teams designed to 'make' racing 'more exciting' – this intrusive officiousness is strangling the sport we love.

I have written at length before that I would genuinely rather races were 'boring' than that they were 'made' exciting artificially, and I stand by those views now.  I think some of my previous writing on the topic bears repeating, in this context…

If a driver, or a team, is dominating proceedings, then well done to them.  This isn't a 'problem', nothing has to be 'done about it', it is an example of somebody performing well – which is what sport is all about.  Attempting to peg back the best performers in the field is the same as rigging the results; it is false – not a true reflection of the relative qualities of different drivers and cars, but a record which has been tampered with to be 'entertaining'.

Until the people in charge of Formula 1 learn that the most important thing is sporting integrity and accuracy – not 'excitement' or 'entertainment' – then we are always going to be faced with racing which is tainted by artificial rubbish.  Bernie et al simply need to 'let them race'.  Stop interfering, stop meddling, stop trying to force every Grand Prix to be 'a classic' full of 'drama' and 'excitement'.  Just let them be what they are.

It is too late for the 2016 season.  That will be another year of gimmicks, overbearing regulations, and harsh but inconsistently applied punishment.  But team bosses will be meeting soon to discuss changes to the sport for 2017 and beyond – I hope they talk sense.

#F1: Pressure's on in Monza

A few significant talking points dominated the Italian Grand Prix at Monza yesterday.  The first, and most obvious in terms of the World Championship, was how unassailable Lewis Hamilton and Mercedes look.  With Hamilton stretching the gap over his teammate to an enormous 53 points, I think there's no way anybody will catch him for the title now.  As for Rosberg, he looks a shadow of his 2014 self as the effects of being schooled by Hamilton every weekend begin to take their toll, and I am starting to doubt whether he will ever win a World Championship.

But Hamilton was also at the centre of one of the more contentious issues from yesterday's race.  Shortly before the end, Hamilton's race engineer instructed him to put in some flying laps – an odd decision, considering that he was cruising to almost-certain victory with a gap to Sebastian Vettel in second place of over twenty seconds.

Why the sudden need to hurry?  Speculation was rife that Mercedes were worried about an issue, and that they needed enough time between their man and Vettel's Ferrari to be able to squeeze in an extra pitstop if necessary – but if Hamilton's tyres were going off, he would've felt that in the car and said something to his team before they had picked it up, and if it were an engine issue the sensible precaution would be to slow down and nurse the car to the end (there were fewer than five laps to go, at this point), rather than push the machinery even harder.

All soon became clear, however, as it was revealed that Mercedes were under investigation for having left rear tyres (on both their cars) which were suspected of being below the minimum tyre pressure, as set by F1's tyre manufacturer Pirelli.  A lower tyre pressure is supposed to give the cars more performance, but Pirelli had raised their stipulated minimum pressures considerably from the previous race in Belgium, following criticism from teams and drivers regarding tyre failures at Spa Francorchamps.

As Hamilton celebrated victory on the Monza podium, in front of the usual crowd of passionate Italian racing fans, we waited to see if he would be disqualified for being 0.3 PSI below the required pressure in one tyre.

In the end, the enquiry exonerated Mercedes, and Hamilton's win was allowed to stand.  To me, though, it looks awfully like getting off on a mere technicality.  As I understood the rule, what mattered was the outcome of whether the tyre pressures were legal or not, not the procedures the team followed – and yet Mercedes were let off because they had done the right things, even though it had still produced an illegal result in one of Hamilton's tyres.  Their defence, essentially, seems to have been "well, we didn't mean to!"  That might count for something, of course – but ultimately, breaking the rules is breaking the rules, regardless.

Regardless also of the fact that Hamilton didn't actually gain an advantage from the infringement.  This was another common defence from fans on Twitter, and a point raised in Hamilton's interview immediately after the race on Sky Sports; once again, however, breaking a rule should carry a punishment, whether you actually benefit from breaking it or not.  If not, why bother to have the rules at all?

I think, though, the main culprit in all of this is Pirelli themselves.  Their tyres are simply not good enough.  I have said this before, and it remains my position that the sooner this disastrous 'high-degradataion' tyre experiment is ended, the better it will be for Formula 1.  The only reason we were in the situation at all was because tyres had failed at the previous Grand Prix in Spa, and so Pirelli had to take emergency action to make sure their shonky product didn't end up hurting anybody.  I don't see that as a tenable situation for F1, which is supposed to be a byword for the very best in the world – the best drivers, engineers, machinery, technology, and yes, tyres.

There is no excuse for teams or drivers not following the rules – and if they don't, they should be punished accordingly.  But when those rules have been hastily cobbled together to spare the blushes of a tyre manufacture whose product ca be trusted to operate properly within the existing regulations, that hardly seems fair either.  A serious overhaul of tyres in F1 is needed.

The other main thing which seemed to be on everyone's minds throughout the Grand Prix weekend was: would F1 be coming back to Monza next year?

Sebastian Vettel's thoughts on this were pretty clear…

I agree with him completely.  This is a classic race; it is steeped in motorsport history.  If Monza is allowed to go the way of Magny Cours, Imola, Hockenheim, and other classic circuits with more racing heritage than a hundred soulless specially-built compounds in the middle of the desert could ever hope to have, it truly will spell the end for Formula 1.

#F1 - the Pirellephant in the room

Having only just finished watching the British Grand Prix (indeed, the programme - with the post-race interviews and the experts' analysis - is still on on my TV as I type this), I am struggling to understand how anyone (with the exemption of race-winner Nico Rosberg, of course!) can describe that as having been 'a great race'.  It was a fascinating race, and it was highly dramatic - but, in my opinion, for all the wrong reasons.

The performance of the Pirelli tyres was, again, a big talking-point at this race.  Frankly, the issue with tyres is getting hugely embarrassing now, for all involved with the sport - but when you see tyres (the same tyre each time - rear left - on different cars) spontaneously delaminate or blow-out for seemingly no reason, no fewer than four times, you start to think something has to be done about this issue.

The problem for me, as a race fan, is that even if you take out the actual tyre failures, the tyres have turned Formula 1 too much into a 'pot-luck sport'; that much was clear towards the end of today's race, as anyone who'd managed to get into the pits and change tyres when the final Safety Car period was announced got shuffled up the order ahead of those who hadn't had that opportunity - with fewer than ten laps to go, Kimi Räikkönen went from second down to fifth position, while Fernando Alonso came up from eighth place to finish third, and the only reason for that was the tyres.  What this means is that putting on fresh tyres in the 'free pit-stop' gained by being in the right place at the right time when the Safety Car comes out renders all the hard work throughout the rest of the race (both quick driving and astute tactical decisions by the team) pointless - essentially, it doesn't matter how good you are, or how well you race, the tyres will decide where you finish.

There is so much nonsense talking about Formula 1, about whether it's 'boring', or whether they need to make it more 'exciting' - in my view, none of that is really the point.  The tyre failures are clearly a very serious issue (and, indeed, a very dangerous issue) and that cannot be allowed to continue to happen, but from a more long-term perspective the impact these tyres are having on the quality of the racing is something about which we should also be very concerned.

The idea of creating a tyre specifically designed to wear out and degrade much quicker than you would want, in order to 'force' more excitement in the sport, is a concept with which I've never been very comfortable.  To be perfectly honest, I'd actually rather see a more 'boring' (sometimes derisively called 'processional') race in which it is clear that the winner is the driver who deserved to win, because he is the best, and/or is driving the best car, rather than a race full of thrills and spills which is ultimately won by someone who maybe shouldn't really be there on merit alone, but simply got the luck of the draw in terms of tyres.  (And just to be clear, I am absolutely not suggesting that Nico Rosberg was an undeserved winner today - he drove very well all weekend.)

Sadly, although there's been a lot of noise made about tyres this season (and I don't see that fuss dying down any time soon!) there have been relatively few people espousing this view that if a race is only exciting because they've had to make a tyre which is deliberately unreliable that drama excitement is somewhat false - not only that, but it's rather unfair on teams and drivers when the tyres are so flaky that it negates the need to perform well in qualifying, or to show good racecraft on-track during the race.

And what's the solution?  Well, undoubtedly there will be as many different opinions about the solution as there are about the problem; in my view, two things need to change - firstly, the tyre manufacturer, and second the testing regulations.  A new tyre manufacturer simply because it's time to pull the plug on the Pirelli Experiment - fairly self-explanatory, really.  But the testing regulations need to change too, because whoever comes in as the new tyre supplier must have the opportunity to test their products in representative conditions, to ensure that they will perform to a high enough level, and in the manner expected.

As ever, I know the FIA will be monitoring this Blog, eager to see my suggestions for the sport of Formula 1 (they love my Sandwich Reviews as well), so I shall stop writing now and publish, to put Jean Todt out of his misery.

#F1 - A tyre-anny of Pirelli?

Well, if you're a Formula 1 fan, you'll already be well aware of the debate raging within the sport about Pirelli's current models of race tyres.  (And if you're not a Formula 1 fan, you probably won't enjoy this post that much!)  Red Bull's Dietrich Mateschitz claims that F1 has "nothing to do with real racing any more" and that too much emphasis on tyre-management is ruining the sport - and similar complaints have been heard from some drivers in the field, as well as many of the fans.

I actually raised this issue on this Blog two years ago, in May 2011.  I didn't like the attempts to "engineer" more excitement in the sport, and I used the example of two teams mates - one qualifying in the Top 10, and one starting from the back of the grid, whose final positions in the race ended up almost reversed - to illustrate how I felt the high degradation of the Pirelli tyres were having too much influence on the results of races.

Although I still feel that way about the Pirelli tyres, I can't help but feel that Red Bull are just having a bit of a moan.  For the past three years, Red Bull have had undisputedly the best car, designed by one of the best designers in the business, Adrian Newey.  This year, their car (while still very, very good) comes in behind several of the other teams in a couple of keys areas - one of these areas in the way the car manages the tyres; Lotus, in particular, and also Ferrari to a certain extent, have managed to design a car which is kinder to the tyres than the Red Bull.

What we are seeing from Red Bull now, of course, is nothing less than the petulance and querulousness I would expect.  Every team designs their car to the same set of regulations, so in that respect everybody starts from an equal footing - rather than accepting that, on this occasion, the chaps at Lotus have done a better job than they did, and trying to improve their own car through upgrades as the season goes on, Red Bull have demanded that the tyres which all the teams have to use be changed to suit them.

As far as I'm concerned, this cannot be allowed to happen.  Much as I would prefer tyres which aren't so unpredictable, it would not be right to change things part-way through a season, just because one of the teams has thrown their toys out of the pram.  By making the tyres more Red Bull-friendly, Pirelli will be effectively making life harder for Lotus and Ferrari - in this situation, it could be Pirelli who "choose" who they want to win the Championship this year.

No, having started out with these high-degradation tyres, we must stick with them for a whole season.  By all means, change them for next season (when the regulations on engines and car design will be significantly altered anyway, and all the teams will be starting again from scratch) - but changing the tyres midway through the year would be like changing the rules of football to allow goalkeepers to handle the ball outside the penalty area, just because one of the Premier League teams reckon they'd have a better chance of winning if that rule were different.  Red Bull need to be told that if you're not doing well enough within the current regulations to win, you simply have to try harder, or take a different approach - not ask the sport's governing body to change the rules to help make it easier for you!

If Pirelli do change their tyres, in response to Red Bull's complaints, how much more are we going to see of teams campaigning for changes to rules they don't like?  In the end, Caterham will kick up an almighty fuss and demand that the points system be changed so that you can only score points if you drive a green car, meaning that they'll end up as Champions unless all the other teams repaint.

#F1: good unpredictable, or bad unpredictable?

I remain unconvinced by this idea that Formula 1 needs to be made unpredictable.  Of course, I'd hate it to be too predictable - but the idea of trying to force unpredictability is something with which I still struggle to come to terms.

I wrote about the issue of tyre wear in the new Pirelli tyres over a year ago, and explained how I didn't feel it was right to try and "plan" the so-called "excitement" of high tyre-degradation.

I love to see smaller teams taking the fight to the big boys as much as the next fan, and I'm always keen to see new, young driving talent coming through the field, challenging the old order - but this excitement and competition should be a result of huge driver skill, and inspired engineering vision, not because of dodgy tyres which have been made specifically to be dodgy to give these kinds of results.

When I saw Jake Humphrey and Eddie Jordan ask "is F1 becoming too unpredictable?" at the beginning of the BBC's coverage of yesterday's Belgian Grand Prix, I surprised myself by answering "yes".  Eddie Jordan went on to say he believes racing "can never be too unpredictable", but I disagree.  Or rather, I disagree if that unpredictability is for the wrong reasons.

So, what are the "wrong" reasons?

Well, the "right" reasons would be lots of closely-matched, highly competitive racing drivers, fighting wheel-to-wheel to win races.  But, as I've mentioned, tyre wear is now a big factor - in my opinion, too big a factor.  So are recent developments like KERS and DRS.

However, I don't believe it is right when these other factors have a bigger influence on race results than the skills and commitment of drivers, team engineers and mechanics.  When a top driver wins one race, and then finishes outside the points in the next race - and similar things are happening to other top-level drivers - that can't be good; it's consistency which wins races, and by forcing this type of inconsistency on the racers you take the results out of the remit of driver skill, and leave the races down to the luck of whose equipment will fare best on the day.

We often praise the design of modern-day F1 cars for their hugely improved reliability (many fans will, I am sure, still remember the days when it was not uncommon for engines to blow up, gearboxes to fail, and so on, during races, and several retirements a race due to mechanical issues was not an abnormal sight) but that praise can seem slightly hollow, when the regulations practically institutionalise unreliability, in the form of tyre wear, etc.

Just my opinions, of course - but I worry that we may get a stage (if we haven't already!) where we are not allowing the true skill of these drivers (the best drivers in the world!) to shine through, because we insist on giving them sub-standard equipment, in order to "make races more exciting".

#F1 - tyred of pit-stops

As a big Formula 1 fan, I avidly watch every race of the season - and have done, for some years now.  However, I am beginning to get slightly exasperated with constant changes to rules and regulations, (which make it almost impossible to compare any two F1 seasons with each other) and with attempts to make the sport more "exciting".  Especially, this year, with the move to Pirelli tyres.

I have nothing against Pirelli as a company, and I am sure that they make very high-quality tyres.  But for this F1 season, they have specifically been asked to produce tyres which degrade quickly, and don't last very long.  The result of this is many more pit-stops per race than we have seen before, to change tyres which have worn out after only a few laps, and a need for very different team strategies from in previous years.

Now, as I mentioned, this isn't the first attempt by the FIA to make F1 more "exciting".  I've never really been in favour of this concept at all (you don't "design" excitment - that's like trying to plan spontaneity) but I think this new move, with the short-life tyres, is taking things too far.

In today's Spanish Grand Prix, choice of tyres played a big part in the teams' strategies; in my opinion, too big a part.  I'm no expert - just an F1 fan, watching on my sofa at home every week - but it seems to me that the high levels of tyre degradation are, in fact, stopping the drivers' true skill levels coming into play.

Maybe I'm just becoming sentimental in my old age (of twenty) but I seem to be missing the days when a second-place driver, in a faster car, would work hard to catch the car in front, wearing down his lead by maybe one or two seconds a lap.  Or when a driver would have to build up a lead over his rival, in order still to be in front after his pit-stop, maybe over a period of ten or fifteen laps.  This year, you'd get half-way there, then you'd have to stop to change your tyres, and all that hard work would be lost!

I think that today's Grand Prix illustrated this particularly well, with the two Renault cars showing us just how much difference new tyres can make.  Nick Heidfeld failed to qualify, and started from the back of the grid, in 24th place, while team-mate Vitaly Petrov qualified 6th, in an identical car.  The two drivers have seemed reasonably well-matched in terms of skill, in previous Grand Prix, but Heidfeld gained 16 places during the race, to finish 8th today, with Petrov dropping back 5 places, and finishing in 11th.

So, why such a difference, between two closely-matched drivers in the same car?  Tyres.  Having not done a single lap of Qualifying on Saturday, Heidfeld had six brand new sets of tyres available to him during Sunday's race - in contrast, Petrov had used some of his tyres already, getting into the Top 10 in Saturday's Qualifying, and so had fewer sets of fresh tyres at his disposal the following day.  Petrov's hard work and brilliant Qualifying drive all went to waste, while Heidfeld was (in my opinion) rewarded unduly for his lack of Qualifying performance.

In essence, it seemed to me that it didn't matter a whole lot how good a driver you were, how quick your car was, what grid position you'd managed to achieve in Qualifying, or anything - the only thing that mattered was having fresh tyres.

This was also, I felt, borne out by something BBC F1 commentator Martin Brundle said -

"As we've just seen, it doesn't matter what position you have - you're going to get nailed if you're not on the right tyre!"

So, to sum up, I seem to be missing the old days of F1 - whether this is pure sentimental nonsense, or not, I cannot say, but I certainly can't help but feel that these new tyres, and the changes to strategy that have come with them, are not an improvement.

Perhaps Pirelli can make us something that lasts a little longer, for next season?