Sergio’s Column – #SpanishGP: Oh (no longer) So Close!

Text and images by Sergio Álvarez.

You could be forgiven for thinking that Lady Luck doesn’t like journalists; neither journalists nor long-time F1 enthusiasts, as the work conducted by Liberty Media over the past few years has paid back for them with packed grandstands and lots of VIPs within the paddock (and even trackside next to the stewards and the photographers, courtesy of the newest service of the F1 Experiences). Someone has to make room for these people, we guess… and, when you are a business dedicated to the media, why bother with fellow colleagues who come with the idea of exploiting your very same product?

Fortunately (no pun intended), Lady Luck loves a trier. As my trip to Barcelona was fully scheduled, I spent Friday goofing around the track until the blessing call from Diego Merino arrived: courtesy of him, another scrutineer from Extremadura and, of course, the rest of the good people at RACC, finally I was going to cross the doors yet one more year. And boy, how priceless these doors were: from my position I could see Turns 1, 2, the entry of three and, if I walked a bit within the fenced space, La Moreneta chicane.

You’re not welcome here: F1 peeps at work

No question then that Q3 was going to be poetry in motion to my eyes: it was so easy to perceive how everyone braked in straight line for Turn 7 or just after an initial turn-in… all bar Max Verstappen, who looked as if he was touching his brake pedal precisely at the apex, using it just to complete full rotation of the RB19 (curious how time flies, isn’t it?; to put into context how much History Red Bull has already over its shoulders, FW19 was the car of Williams’ last titles). Undoubtedly, half-a-second was a fair enough gap between first and second positions, not surprising at all. Come Sunday, and Joe Public could only say ‘hello’ with the hand from time to time when Max appeared in our sight.

A sight that makes you think, I can tell you. Watching the Red Bull lap after lap transported me into my teenage years; when Red Bull Racing had no History over its shoulder; when Peter Windsor focused a whole race report in a certain driver or reflexion, as I am willing to do in these lines even if, admittedly, more clumsily than the Master; and when comparisons of dominance were only made between the Ferraris F2002/F2004 and the McLaren MP4/4. In the middle, fairy-tale stories of closely disputed titles: 1990, 1994, 1997, 1999, 2000, 2003. And then you realise that too much attention has been paid to the on-track show weekend after weekend, and so little to the quality of each season as a whole. How many down-to-the-wire titles with different teams involved have we enjoyed throughout the past 12 years? 2012 and 2021.

Someone could argue that this is down to the advantage of Mercedes at the beginning of the turbo-hybrid era and the rest, business as usual. But the token system which limited the development of power units was soon suppressed, and Ferrari did have the measure of the three-pointed-star power in 2018, even if under suspicious practices. And now you completely change the regulations and, once again, 80% of the races are won by the same team. Who has been the real killer of hardly earned championships?

My first hypothesis points toward the era of efficiency. If cost-caps are here to stay, at least allow more technical freedom so that chances were that the cleverest would win. Nonetheless, we are witnessing a highly standardised era: 15-20 years ago, not only a tyre war was taking place, but McLaren Electronics did not supply the same ECU to the whole grid, to name an example. Nowadays even Brembo is the sole brake supplier for everyone. Is this a clue why outdeveloping a rival has become more difficult than in the old times?

Talking about sole suppliers, what about the Pirelli tyres? Well, let’s put it this way: were this a real murder, I would present the evidence against Pirelli to the prosecutor so that he can investigate how far did his role arrive. Fact is that we are analysing a problem starting 12 years ago… like Pirelli’s involvement. Back when a driver knocked out in Q2 could choose the compound to start the race with, while the Q3 bunch had to do so with used sets from qualifying, coming through the field with a fast car became too easy (i.e., Kimi Raikkönen, Bahrain 2012; Lewis Hamilton, Great Britain 2018). In Valencia 2012, I remember anticipating something great from Fernando Alonso… precisely because he was starting 12th and with an enormous tyre advantage! Equally, let’s have a look at a recent event: in Miami, Max Verstappen won from 9th with a different tyre strategy to polesitter Sergio Pérez. Yes, it was a tyre management masterclass by the Dutch, but we must bear in mind that Pérez had to cover both from his teammate’s catch-up, and from the drivers just behind him in the grid… Funny racing for the show, but the winner was the same guy as always thanks to how tyre strategies must be played in the Pirelli era. Add to this how unpredictable they are and how people have to be constantly worried of the delta time, and you have quite a few attacks against variety atop the podium.

Our third band of suspects is integrated by the teams themselves, as they have become more and more used to ditching a car which is not working according to their goals and start focusing on next season. To put it mildly, this is more widely known as throwing in the towel, and they should be reminded that they are Formula 1 outfits. Funnily enough, the trick rarely pays off (particularly when everyone not commanding the classification is trying to outsmart the competition by taking exactly the same decision). May I suggest considering again a points system by which only the x best results of each half of the year count for the World Championships? Would it be too difficult to follow by Gen Z intellectuals?

Dominance of a single team year after year, with 60-90% of the races won by the same horse, is something that Liberty should take very seriously if their executives want to consolidate the DTS wave of interest. This is a genuine political topic for F1, to be addressed by the Technical Working Group, the GPDA and the handful of commissions in which the key players talk to each other. Forget artificial overtaking: a down-to-the-wire season without Masi’s intervention would be the best recipe to foster loyalty among young fans.