This week’s column is a big deal for me, but I trust readers of The Roar to create a safe space in which I can express what I think is a pretty significant feeling.
Here goes nothing: I think the strategy group may actually be doing a good job.
There, I said it. It might be, it’s true. It’s doing at least a decent job, but even saying this much elicits a strange involuntary twitch I can’t explain.
Yes, that body that approved both double points and refuelling before rescinding both decisions seems to have found the straight and narrow after almost two years attempting to turn Formula One into a caricature of itself. Miracles can happen.
When we look back on the history of the sport and try to pinpoint the crossroads, we may find ourselves analysing the 2015 British Grand Prix and the release of the first strategy group press release not to be immediately universally condemned.
Its contents? Surprisingly sparse. It dropped refuelling and reaffirmed the select teams’ commitment to tweaking cars for more spectacle in 2017. Wider tyres, tweaks for more power, and moves to adjust the aero rules – nothing overly dramatic, but enough to make a difference.
This week, though – perhaps craving a second hit of this new emotion called satisfaction brought about by validation – the strategy group confirmed it had done something ‘wonderful’: it had consulted.
After what felt like eons of rules being referred to the FIA from this select group of the sport’s most powerful (and wealthiest) teams, much to the disappointment of those excluded from the clique, the strategy group moved to canvass the opinions of the teams’ technical directors for guidance on, well, technical matters.
The result, announced yesterday, was a recommendation to move towards ground effect, an aerodynamic philosophy of years past, that generates downforce by sealing the underside of the car to create a pocket of low pressure to suck the car to the ground.
The beauty of this solution is that it creates far less dirty air in the car’s wake by relying less on the car’s rear aerodynamics – and it is unsurprising that a change to the profile of the rear wing has also been alongside ground effect.
There’s more to get excited about, too. The loss of downforce and subsequent tyre degradation when slipstreaming will also be addressed in the following car by reducing its reliance on aero grip generated by the front wing.
In sum, Formula One cars will be able to race closer together.
For too long the strategy group and the sport as a whole misdirected its energy to buzzwords like “more power” and “louder engines” without realising that none of these things would have any material effect on the racing itself.
At last the sport appears to be collectively acknowledging the fundamental problems – though I use ‘problems’ lightly – with the current generation of cars. While they are still capable of competing at close quarters and of creating great racing, and one needs to look no further than the last round in Hungary for evidence of this, they could do so far more readily with an aerodynamic profile that isn’t so biased towards qualifying.
And that’s the key – Formula One isn’t broken, it has only ever needed fine-tuning. Refining the product should always have been the focus rather than an attempt to reinvent the wheel by adding fireworks and double points.
For sure there are still some meaningful regulatory changes on the table – cost control chief among them – and it’s also true that ground effect was initially proposed to be introduced in 2014 before being consigned to the too hard basket, but this week the strategy group is showing promise.
So it is with deep ambivalence – with a strange mix of happiness and surprise, shock and satisfaction – that I can say today that the strategy group is doing its job. Whether these rules are introduced in 2017 or pushed back to the more manageable 2018, the Formula One world can rest somewhat more easily knowing that they will have come about through consultation and cool, even-handed judgement.
I know; I can hardly believe the words myself.
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