Is the new rules of Formula 1 working so far this year? Lando thinks so.
The reasons for the changes are working and it is 100% better. I think you have been seeing better races this year.
But stay on. Not so fast, Lando. Better racing was the aim of the sweeping rule changes that were introduced this year, but the commercial rights holder Formula 1 and the governing body the FIA were specific about what they were trying to achieve.
The aim was to allow the cars to follow each other more closely, to close up the field from front to back, and to allow the drivers to push much closer to the finish line.
Ross Brawn, F1 managing director, said before the start of the season that he was confident the rules would lead to better racing. I believe these cars will perform better from the beginning.
The general order of things will not be changed by the regulations. I think it will bring it a lot closer, and I think we will see some of the teams that were challenging the middle. We will have a bigger group of competitive teams.
Is the sport a success? Let's find out.
The answer is yes, they can. The drivers all agree that it is possible to stay behind other cars for longer.
Max Verstappen thinks that the cars are better to follow. You don't have these weird moments anymore.
When you get within a second, it is still hard to follow because of the speed of the Formula 1 car. It will always be that way. I feel it is a bit nicer.
Pierre Gasly of Alpha Tauri feels that it is an improvement over last year. I am pretty happy with what we have seen. We can race closer to each other.
It is a step in the right direction. I think it has been more enjoyable. I believe the targets were matched.
To ensure that a car following closely behind has less disrupted air flow and can stay closer to a car in front, a wholesale change to the way the cars work has worked.
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The answer brings in a controversial facet of the question - the overtaking aid.
The first two races of the season featured exciting battles for the lead between Verstappen's Red Bull and Leclerc's Ferrari, which the two title contender swapped places a number of times. This was a new development.
The nature of the fights raised a question. The new cars allowed the drivers to get closer to each other, but it was too easy to overtake once there.
The new cars give the car behind a bigger advantage than before, because the DRS is more powerful.
Before this year, the idea of DRS drive-bys as a bad thing was commonplace in F1. The overtaking move is completed on the straight because the car behind the speed advantage is not on the brakes.
The Leclerc-Verstappen battle in Jeddah was very obvious, as the two drivers were standing on the brakes before the final corner so that they wouldn't be in a position to benefit from it on the following straight.
The one thing we might need to consider is the speed delta, as Leclerc said at the time.
It gives the car behind too much of a speed delta that the overtaking is done before the brakes are applied. You would rather have the overtaking done during the braking rather than passing like in the highway, which is sometimes what can happen.
It was difficult to stay close enough to follow when it was introduced in 2011. It was meant to make it possible to overtake. Many people in F1 are concerned that the sport has been on the wrong side of the line.
If you are able to overtake a lot better than in the past, then it would be interesting to take the DRS off.
It was brought in as an assistance to help overtake, but now it feels like it is the only thing that allows you to overtake at times. We have a set of regulations that allow us to follow and race.
It was not there for 70 years. 10 years ago, it was brought in to help. I think an overtake should always be an effort and not dictated by the zone you are in.
The race in Jeddah, where you had the leaders braking for the DRS line to try and be the second one to cross that line, is a different type of racing. I do not think we should go that way.
We are still early on in the project. You can follow closer. Overtaking is still hard, but it should be an effort and a reward.
The hope was that the new rules wouldn't be needed anymore. As work continued ahead of this year, F1 and the FIA came to believe that it is still necessary.
There is an acceptance that the sport is in an experimental period, and that the DRS could be changed or removed in the future.
The debate over whether it is needed, whether the balance is currently right, how the DRS could be operated differently and so on will continue.
The new rules have not been a success.
One of the complaints about last season was that only the two top teams had any realistic chance of competing for a win in a normal race. The teams were too far behind.
The only difference between this year and last is that Red Bull and Mercedes are out of reach of the rest.
The rules have not succeeded in compacting the field, in fact, it is even more spread out.
The two top teams first. On average, Mercedes and Red Bull were separated by 0.067 seconds over the course of last year. The average gap between Red Bull and Ferrari over one lap is 0.128 seconds, but excludes Imola from the calculation because of the wet session.
The third fastest car has a gap between it and the pace. In last year's qualification, Mercedes and Ferrari had an average time of 0.564 seconds. The two teams have swapped places, with Mercedes third fastest on average, but the gap has gone out to 0.839 seconds.
Last year, Mercedes and Red Bull had a fight of their own in the races, just as Ferrari and Red Bull did this year.
The spread between the three fastest teams. Last year it was 0.084seconds; this year it is 0.203seconds.
The field spread from front to back. 2.514 seconds in 2021. and 2.510 seconds so far this year.
F1 has had a change in their tires this year. The diameter of the wheels has been increased from 13 to 18 inches, and new, lower-profile tires have been designed to fit them. The aim was for them to be more raceable.
The Pirellis have been known for being heat sensitive. Push hard on them, even if that means driving flat out or trying to overtake someone.
This made overtaking even harder because drivers deliberately lapping off the pace to keep the tyres within the required temperature threshold.
The idea was to not have this this year. While Mario Isola is quite happy with the performance of the tyres, there is still some work to be done.
The tyres have made a step forward this season, but not all of the drivers agree with Carlos Sainz that it is an especially significant one.
When we get close, you burn your tires a bit more than you would like, and they heat up a bit more.
We work with Pirelli about what they would like and what they would like to improve on. It is very hard for them because it is a completely new concept.
We haven't done a lot of testing, so I think we can improve things in the coming months or next year.
Verstappen believes that tyre overheating is a limiting factor.
He says that the tyres don't allow you to get even closer.
When you have these couple of oversteers when you are following, you pay the price very quickly and that limits you to get that final bit to really overtake and race as close as possible.
Like Max said, Pirelli are working hard to improve this. They know what they need to work on in the first year on the tire, and I am sure they will come up with better ones next year.
The new rules were a starting point, not an end, according to F1 and the FIA.
It is clear that the sport has made an important step forward in certain aspects of racing, but more work needs to be done to fulfill all the sport's goals.
There are things that are not in the administrator's control. Before the season, few would have predicted that Mercedes would fall so dramatically.
It will take time for the full effect of the new rules to become clear, including the impact of the cost cap and other linked aspects of the new era, such as the sliding scale of development restrictions that allows the teams at the back to do more research and development than those at the front
Brawn is positive.
He says that the raceability of the car has to be a strong consideration going forward.
We need to keep working and understanding how we can make great racing cars and continue the development in that direction.
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