Formula 1 drivers urged the operators of the Interlagos circuit to improve the new surface they laid ahead of this year’s event.
The 4.3-kilometre circuit was fully re-laid ahead of last weekend’s Brazilian Grand Prix. However the new surface was so bumpy in places that parts of the track became undriveable, said race winner Max Verstappen.“It was still very bad,” said the Red Bull driver. “In some places you could not even drive because you would bottom out quite heavily, even in the wet.
“So definitely something needs to be done for next year to make it better.”
During Sunday’s rain-hit race Verstappen told his team he did not want to risk driving off-line to cool his tyres because of the bumps.
“I know a lot of people put a lot of effort in it, it’s not to talk bad about the people, I know they always try to do the best they can to put the surface down, but for the cars that we are running currently, it’s definitely too bumpy,” he added. “Something needs to be done about it.”
Esteban Ocon, who finished second, said the new surface was better in one respect. “I think the grip is actually very good,” said the Alpine driver.
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“It’s just some bumps that we run with these cars – probably if we were back in 2021 or 2020, it would have been fine – but these cars run super-low and all the hit is basically straight into the chassis, so there’s no suspension in there. It’s much better than it was in terms of grip, but just the bumps needs to be improved.”
Sprint race winner Lando Norris agreed the nature of current F1 cars makes them more sensitive to bumps and believes tracks must change to suit them.
“I don’t know how the tracks are made exactly but in how the cars are forced to be made nowadays every driver on the grid has complained,” he said. “The cars we had a few years ago, you could get away with more of these things and you noticed it a lot less.
“The cars are made to be low. That is the regulation. The teams have to make them like that and therefore, other things have to change around it. One of those things is the tracks, because how it was [in practice] especially, made things pretty difficult for everyone.”
“The FIA know and they’re not happy with it either,” he added. “I know that they want to improve things for the future, and they work with us to try and do that.”
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2024 Brazilian Grand Prix
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Alesici
8th November 2024, 14:16
If the cars were allowed to run flexible skirts around the sides of the floor, so many problems would be solved – greater ground clearance, a smoother ride, no need for billiard-smooth tracks constantly needing resurfacing, less sensitivity to aquaplaning, more consistence downforce even when following in a car’s turbulence, yielding more exciting racing. The vortices created by the floor edge flicks only provide an invisible skirt wall sealing the flow if airflow is undistrurbed.
But no, they’re giving up on ground effect for another 40 years and taking the regulations back to 2007.
I just wish someone would create a McMurtry Spéirling Pure single make racing championship – it combines a big fan with a flexible skirt (admitedly inboard of the floor edge to reduce roll sensitivity). It would run rings around F1 cars at low speeds, and not lose downforce even when following very closely. It would show the entire racing world that it’s been doing it wrong for over 40 years.
pcxmac (@pcxmac)
8th November 2024, 17:00
the range on those cars at F1 speeds would be pretty uninteresting, gasoline/petro is far more energy efficient than lithium.
electric cars are great at low speed because they are SO HEAVY, but the problem is, a refillable F1 car made in 2008 would probably smoke one of those cars at an avg speed over 220 kph.
F1 is trying to go to electric, making the cars heavier, introducing sprint races in order to cut down on the range, so they can backdoor batteries in to the series, saying that the longer format isn’t fan friendly or what ever.
Electric sucks, at least so far as using batteries as an energy store. The people ‘in charge’ want people stuck to meters, taxing every mile. So they can literally control everything. These people only have faith in their own greed and priorities, the last thing people who want an electric only future is competition.
mantresx (@mantresx)
8th November 2024, 17:26
More than flexible skirts I would also like to see active suspension back in F1, with the current state of sensors, actuators, gps and processing power, cars could be made nearly impervious to bottoming out.
Some might say that’s a driver aid but it could be programmed to only prevent bumps that go above a certain threshold and not react to any “normal” irregularities like chicanes.
Probably the lap time gains wouldn’t be as high as with skirts but it’s definitely a more road-relevant technology.
MarkWebber (@markwebber)
8th November 2024, 17:58
Cars cornering like they’re on rails is the opposite of what we want
Alesici
9th November 2024, 17:20
You have all missed my point, and started arguing against something not particularly relevant.
Range of the Mcmutry’s electric battery could improve in time. But I suspect that its fan and skirt are more energy efficient at producing downforce than F1 cars’ drag coefficient of 1.0, which is broadly comparable with a barnd door or a brick. So that should help the case for an electric fan skirt car. But electric is not the part of that car I am really talking about (though its great low end torque does eccentuate its low speed downforce).
Active suspension would help a skirted fan car be more consistent, but on its own, wouldn’t significantly help a current F1 car in its quest to retain downforce when following another car.
And I apprecente the important point about cars cornering on rails being undesirable. I agree. So maybe skip the active for a skirted fan car. Like I said, it’s not the key point I was trying to make.
S
9th November 2024, 4:33
It’s funny how some things have turned a full 180 in F1.
It used to be that the cars were set up for each individual track that they visited – but now the focus is all on engineering the tracks to suit the cars; to make all the circuits homogenous so that everything can be perfected and nothing at all remains organic or uncontrolled.
I wonder how much fun they think it would be if they actually got what they wanted? Or more to the point – how long that enthusiasm would last when both the driving and the competition are as perfectly boring as they can be.
W-K (@w-k)
10th November 2024, 0:06
It does seem that the FIA has got it wrong again.
The car specifications should be such that they can drive safely on all tracks, not that tracks should be re-engineered every time the car specification changes.
S
10th November 2024, 10:01
The cars can be driven safely on every track, though. Even on tracks that don’t have Grade 1 certification.
The driver is wholly responsible for how the cars are driven – they are the ones who determine what is safe and what isn’t.
Why does everything have to be the FIA’s fault?
This isn’t actually about safety, though. It’s about drivers and teams wanting ‘perfection’ from the track surface in order to go faster with less effort and fewer compromises.
W-K (@w-k)
11th November 2024, 18:15
The problem with wanting ‘perfection’ from the track, is that, you are fighting ‘Mother Nature’ and are always going to lose.
Better to have a specification, and build accordingly, for cars that will cope with track variations.
And I’m not convinced that the drivers are “wholly” responsible for how the cars are driven.
Mayrton
10th November 2024, 10:05
Never mind the surface, since there is a need to address the conduct of RaceControl firstly. There were at least 3 cases during the race alone, that warrant further investigation because they certainly appear to be guilty of competition distortion.