indian grand prix

The Indian Grand Prix was on while I was away.

In fact it was on while I was at my Dads and so I watched it down there.

I have to confess it wasn't the greatest of races - there was very little overtaking (mostly the rubbish DRS type overtaking) and not much really seemed to happen.  I think there were a couple of reasons for this dullness.

Firstly, and probably most crucially, Pirelli brought the wrong tyres.  They basically said they were being conservative, so the tyres they brought were harder than they really needed to be.  This meant they lasted ages and it kinda took us back to the situation for the last few years.

In a way this was a good reminder of the great things the Pirelli tyres have done for the racing this year, but in a more important way it meant that they didn't really have to worry about the tyres and could all just do one stop pretty much when they wanted too.

So next year a much less conservative approach please.

Another problem was the incredible dust.  To be fair the circuit is new, so a bit of construction dust is to be expected, but I also think they've built it in a place that's quite dry and dusty, which bodes less well for future years.

The dust meant that going off line (which is what you have to do to overtake) quickly coated your tyres in dust, meaning you'd loose grip and therefore struggle to overtake.

What they need to do next year is get some of those jet washers and clean it up a bit (they even have these at Silverstone).

Another problem, I think, was it's yet another circuit where they've gone for gigantic straights.  I really don't understand the obsession with giant straights.  I mean, I guess they're okay for more normal cars which take a while to get up to top speed, but maximum straight line sped (vmax) s achieved incredibly quickly in F1 cars (and most other formulas).

I mean that's the point - they're very fast, very light cars, so they can hit top speed quickly.  The bit that's interesting is the corners - cornering speed is where you gain real lap time and it's also where F1 cars excel.  Nothing corners like an F1 car.

And of course if you're going to have some huge straights you reduce the number of corners.

Another issue was that I think they overhyped the circuit.  It's brand new and it's Tilka, who has built most of the new circuit, most of which are rubbish, but everyone was saying this layout was great and there'd be loads of overtaking, but there wasn't

To be fait it did look like an interesting circuit and elevation and super wide corners designed to help overtaking, yet in the end it just didn't seem to work.

Well it was only the first year and so perhaps next year will be better.

Note that tomorrow I'm away in Liverpool all day (it's going to be a really long day) so no post tomorrow.