Auto Racing

The 2010 Formula One season is underway with the Bahrain Grand Prix being completed this weekend. It was supposed to be the start of a glorious season with some big teams all looking competitive and no less than four world champions on the starting grid. As is often the case, the race did not even closely live up to the hype.

The FIA has played around with different regulations in an attempt to make Formula One more exciting with more passing. One idea that was focused on for the 2010 season was to eliminate passing in the pits. This would occur when one car would run longer than the other and then "pass it" when it needed less time to take on fuel and get back on track.

To eliminate such passes, the FIA announced there would be no refueling this year. Cars would have to pit once for tires, but that was it. The basic idea was this would force the drivers to be aggressive and make passes on the track. Bahrain showed just how misguided this idea was. There was a lot of passing in the first lap, but then almost none except for back markers. The only passing late in the race occurred when leader Sebastian Vettel lost power with an engine problem and was passed repeatedly.

There are two problems with F1. The first is the tracks. Bahrain is a perfect example. The track only has one or two places were passing can occur. The new section added was bumpy and included something like nine sweeping turns in the new mile long section. It is impossible to pass in these turns as there is simply not a wide enough grove and no where to go. The tracks need to be designed with more areas for passing automatically built in.

The second problem is the aerodynamics on the car. The regulations have not dealt with this issue. The problem is the cars are still so aero sensitive that they can't pull up behind each other. If they do at any speed at all, the car in front disturbs the air and the car behind loses grip. This creates the proverbial train around the track with slower cars holding up fast cars. This is exactly what we saw with Lewis Hamilton spending half the race behind the obviously slower Nico Rosberg.