The FIA, governing body of Formula One has come up with a decent idea. They have proposed a revolution in rear wing design. Instead of having a full wing over the rear of the car, they have proposed that there should be two mini wings over the rear tyres. The net effect would be that the air behind the car would be less disturbed, so cars behind can follow more closely and allowing for more overtaking. This would result in a much more spectacular viewing experience for Formula One fans around the world. I think that this is necessary as at the moment; it is hard for cars to overtake, despite being much faster as they can’t follow behind closely in sweeping corners as the ‘dirty’ air off the car in front makes the front of the following car unstable. It’s not very often that I agree with anything that Max Mosley and the FIA say or do, but I wholeheartedly agree with this, assuming that the system works as proposed. But I fear that the teams, especially the leading teams will not ratify the idea as it’s not in their best interests, but I keep my fingers cross that it will become a reality. If the teams do agree; this new wing design could be implemented as soon as 2007, Formula One needs to be more exciting as apart from the last couple of races, overtaking has been rare, which makes for a boring race from the spectators point of view. All this came about because of a worldwide survey that the FIA; in association with AMD commissioned to find out what F1 fans wanted, and overtaking topped the list with 94% of people voting of more overtaking! Well that my 2 pence worth added, read more about it here (BBC), here (FIA) and see the plans here (1.27MB JPEG), and here (1.46MB JPEG).
Qualifying format changed yet again
Seems that a new proposal for qualifying sessions has been agree by all 10 teams, Bernie Ecclestone [FOA] and Max Mosley [FIA]. The new qualifying session will comprise of three ‘knockout’ sessions in a one hour period, two 15 minutes sessions, followed by a final 20 minute session. The first of the 15 minute sessions will consist of a free-for-all for all cars; the slowest five cars will drop out of the next session, and take positions 16 – 20 on the final grid according to lap time. In the second 15 minute session, the remaining 15 cars will compete and a further five cars will drop out, taking up positions 11 – 15 again according to lap time. The remaining 10 cars will compete in a final free-for-all session for positions 1 – 10 on the grid, obviously being ordered by lap time. Now that’s the technical stuff out of the way, here’s my opinion; I can’t help thinking that it’s overly complicated, why go through all this palaver when all that is needed is to revert back to old format of a 60 minute free for all, which was by far the most exciting format I have experienced. Obviously the new format ‘could’ be better, but I doubt it somehow, guess I will have to wait until next season to find out. But it can’t be any worse than the current single lap qualifying which bores me to the point of losing the will to live, not that I have watched it this season because of working every Saturday; which is probably a blessing in disguise! [BBC News Article]
Update: The new rear wing design has already been agreed subject to technical feasibility studies by the team’s technical boffins in the meeting between the F1 teams, FIA and FOA, and will appear in 2007 assuming that its possible to integrate it with current car design!
