Teh Formula 1 Encyclopedia: 2018 Edition.

[CudaMan]

Even in GT3 cars, which have much simpler aerodynamic enhancements and don't make anywhere near the downforce of F1, the loss of downforce behind another car is noticeable. Not as bad as in F1 but it does make overtaking and following closely more difficult.

[Tom Servo]

I really think the only way to increase passing would be to do away with qualifying. Your starting spot is purely random chance. Otherwise, when you have cars that the best drivers in the world can drive at the limit reliably and rarely make mistakes being slotted into an order based on who's the fastest, you're automatically just not going to have a lot of passing. They basically start in the order they're going to end unless they make a mistake, and at this point the cars and drivers are good enough that they rarely make mistakes.

'Course, what top team or driver will want to take part in a series where they can have the fastest combination of car and keep getting stuck starting dead last and getting caught up in turn one incidents?

Otherwise, it's make the cars harder to drive so they start making mistakes. I think that's why rain races are so much more exciting, suddenly the cars are a lot harder to drive and it becomes much more of a contest of who's willing to push the envelope more, knowing if you go one step too far it's the end of your day rather than just going into a runoff area and maybe banging up the undertray a bit.

[dodint]

BTCC used to flip the grid at random, right?

[Crazed_Insanity]

I don't like that idea.

Winning pole position should still be something racers aspire to...

I'd say give championship points for qualifying positions just as much as race position points.

If you have awesome 1 lap pace, great!

Now, on race day, starting order would be reversed of qualifying position.

That way if we have a future Ayrton Senna driving a Sauber, he could win races by holding people up!

Anyway, this way, it'll also force higher paid aerodynamicists to design cars that can run better in turbulent air so the pole sitter will have a better chance of passing people.

[Rare White Ape]

V8 Supercars did reverse grid races all the time.

They were fucked. Heaps of accidents.

They probably still do them but I stopped watching that crap years ago so I don’t know. I’m too much of a purist to stomach TV friendly stunts like reversed grids.

The only way to encourage passing is to make the cars narrower, like as narrow as a motorcycle. Maybe take two wheels away while you’re at it. And put the driver on top in the breeze, so that they’re flung at a tyre barrier if they screw up. Should spice things up a little.

[Crazed_Insanity]

We're just bunch of crazy nuts.

Good think nobody asked any of us for suggestions.

[Rare White Ape]

As Kimi Räikkonen said, he doesn’t give a fuck if he’s two seconds off the pace in qualifying as long as they win every Sunday.

Wasn’t it CART or ChampCar who gave a point for pole position and a point for fastest lap?

Look at Valentino Rossi, objectively the greatest rider to ever tell a MotoGP bike what to do, has never had consistently good qualifying performance. Back in his dominant days, if he was on the third row you’d be assured that he’d win a race. If he was on row 1 or 2, you fear his potential for race day and pretty much give up. Nowadays where riders 15 years younger than him can out-qualify him on 2nd-rate machinery, he still finds himself in 3rd or 4th by the exit of turn 1 and on the podium at the finish. The guy is 37 years old!

It’s 01:30 on a Saturday, I’ve been driving since 3pm Friday and I’m two scotches deep. Random thoughts here, but I’m trying to say that qualifying is not the ultimate indicator of race pace, and it won’t fix F1’s passing problem, which I think is endemic to the sport. I can’t think of any year since I was born that F1 has been exciting on a lap-to-lap basis. Race-to-race, yes. Season-to-season, definitely. But no one era of F1 in the last 35 years has held anyone’s attention like CART or MotoGP has.

F1 has for a long time been a sport by-the-numbers, where a Schumacher Ferrai’s precise defeat of a Minardi is more akin to the US government dropping one laser-guided smart bomb on a primary school in Belgrade than it is a gladiatorial sporting contest between two equals. It will always be like this and drivers will always perform like fighter pilots, tasked with bumping up lap times by 1/100th of a second for the next ten laps to ensure that they come out ahead of the rival car at the next pit stop.

Everything is so tightly managed. There is probably no real room for driver involvement aside from hitting that mark lap after lap according to scientific precision. Welcome to F1.

[Rare White Ape]

Man, Ross Brawn should be held up as one of the greatest figures in F1 history. Look at the things he achieved. He helmed the greatest F1 team of all time to multiple world championships with ultimate dominance, then went off as an independent and did it again with the scraps left behind by a failed manufacturer (which went on to continue its domonance to this day). That, my friends, is pure sport.

[Crazed_Insanity]

I'd say amen to that!

[Blerpa]

Great thoughts RWA, I agree on many of them.