Why was overtaking so scarce this year? Okay, its not just this year. Its been a problem for a while but this year was supposed to be different. The new rules were supposed to do one main thing. Increase overtaking.
We've heard lots about it this season with the introduction of KERS and the new aero. As Nick Heidfeld says in his blog, the new aero rules were a great solution to eliminate the 'dirty air' problem. But then came the double diffusers and the dirty air was back too.
Here's an interesting statistic. There were total of 244 overtaking moves in 2009 and this only counts 'proper' overtakes. Not those which happened in the pits or when the car had a technical problem, etc. Of these 113 were in first 3 races. That's an average of 37.7 per race. The only late race that came close was Brazil with 25. These were the races when only 3 teams had double diffusers. Next race many teams put on interim diffusers and there was no more overtaking.
If you think its down to the Tilke tracks, then this video will show you how exciting a Tilke track, namely Turkey, can be. Its a truly epic GP2 race and is exactly the kind of thing that we want in F1.
So I put forth, the double diffusers are the problem. Ban them for 2010 and we'll see action like the old days again. Your thoughts?
Last edited by McLaren Rulez : 14th November 2009 at 19:50.
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