New race weekend format 2021

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nzjrs
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Re: New race weekend format 2021

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Wonder if ticket prices will immediately go up for those weekends. That would be a laugh.

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hUirEYExbN
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Re: New race weekend format 2021

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jjn9128 wrote:
28 Apr 2021, 11:25
graham.reeds wrote:
28 Apr 2021, 07:53
What's the betting that one of the sprint races will be Monaco?

Why the need to make a race on the Saturday is beyond me. The fans at the track get to see Porsche and F2/3 racing.

I would of thought RB and SD would of stopped this dead in its tracks.
This whole idea seems to be coming from Brawn (assuming RB= Ross Brawn and SD= Stefano Domenicalli). That's the most worrying thing about it.

The 3 races have already been announced Silverstone, Monza, and Interlagos (if it happens).
I would think that Ross Brawn and Stefano Domenicalli would not like this format change and would want to kill it and the idea of it quickly. Maybe that's the point, have the test events at venues where there are a lot of more traditional F1 fans, fans that will not like the change. Brit and Italian fans seem quite unlikely to approve of such a change, so maybe they will complain the most and the idea will die quickly.

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bitpushr
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Re: New race weekend format 2021

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I actually really like the new format. Am I the only one?

i70q7m7ghw
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Re: New race weekend format 2021

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El Scorchio wrote:
28 Apr 2021, 14:46
That is a good point- I mean, you'd be mad to try and make a risky overtake in the sprint race for fear of losing a bunch of place or even retiring from it so it does make sense to try it on places where overtaking is theoretically easiest, but I can't see the cars which are strongest in 'regular' qualifying on the track not also being strongest in the sprint race as well, so aside from the start, will all that much be going on? I can only see a hugely out of position driver being particularly ambitious, but then you have to hope they drive responsibly toward the other drivers.

Anyone with anything to lose will be taking supreme care of their car. Hamilton and Verstappen (nothing to gain and everything to lose) are not going to get into any sort of tussle over first place. My worry is that Bottas or Perez or Leclerc (or a n other) will try something over ambitious resulting in great cost to either Hamilton or Verstappen. An incident in the sprint race could lead to major ramifications in the title race which I am sure is not how any of us want to see it decided.
That's why I think the sprint race should be de-coupled from the main event, it should be a standalone race that doesn't impact the grid. Just an extra opportunity to earn some points. The format of the sprint race can then be a lot more flexible. I think people would be more open the the reverse grid if it was standalone and didn't decide the grid for the GP.

My view is the reverse grid race should award points for overtakes (as per my previous post) as well as for the top 3 positions, as that turns the negative of the WDC starting at the back in to a positive i.e. most points available. They'd have to test it out with a low number of points on offer initially to see how much it impacts the WDC. You wouldn't want the sprint race to become the single race that decides the WDC.

aran.vtec
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Re: New race weekend format 2021

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I predict allot of carnage in the first few laps, Positions 11-20 will no longer have the advantage of a free new tyre choice in the main race so will do everything to gain those extra places to get into top 10 from the sprint race.

Also top teams will no longer have to gamble with harder tyres to get into q3

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El Scorchio
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Re: New race weekend format 2021

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nzjrs wrote:
28 Apr 2021, 20:50
Wonder if ticket prices will immediately go up for those weekends. That would be a laugh.
It's probably too late now, but I guarantee if there was time, then absolutely- you'd see a huge increase in the price of both friday and saturday tickets. (and probably weekend tickets)

The only positive I can see is that places like Silverstone or Monza may get some extra financial help they need to keep hosting races, which I think we all hands down want to see. (In fact, are they co-incidentally the two 'classic and much loved' races most at risk right now?) It's come too late for Germany, I guess.

Edit- what was general admission for Silverstone for Friday or Saturday only in the past? This year it's £99 for Friday and £149 for Saturday!

Just_a_fan
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Re: New race weekend format 2021

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This video explains the new format quite well I think.



He makes some reasonable points at the end, although I'm old school cynical so will wait and see the outcome. Happy to admit I was wrong if the new format turns out to be the next best thing.
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El Scorchio
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Re: New race weekend format 2021

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Just_a_fan wrote:
29 Apr 2021, 15:33
This video explains the new format quite well I think.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TN-eoC3iTPc

He makes some reasonable points at the end, although I'm old school cynical so will wait and see the outcome. Happy to admit I was wrong if the new format turns out to be the next best thing.
It's a good explanation of the format, but he couldn't really come up with a bigger positive than 'it might be fun'!
I also think he's dead wrong about expecting overtaking in the sprint race. Only cars that have had very subpar fridays will be looking to be aggressive. Do you really want to risk an accident and starting from 20th while trying to move up with a questionable overtake from 7th to 8th? Can't think of many people not named Magnussen who would....

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RZS10
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Re: New race weekend format 2021

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RZS10 wrote:
28 Apr 2021, 20:18
I haven't seen anyone mention the fact that it's all being done under a cost cap, so not only will the teams and drivers have to preserve their limited components even more, they'll also have to look out after every single part, because every part that needs replacing is coming out of the development budget later in the season, at least for most teams - so i doubt anyone will go balls out or any more aggressive than in the main race, especially with the knowledge that they might damage further parts in the upcoming practice session and race. The big teams don't have an abundance of spare parts because of the cost cap, the small teams don't have them because they don't want to spend the money.
TIL that any damages will supposedly not be counted towards the budget cap and that teams can spend up to an additional 200k to fix things?
All teams get an extra 100k for participating and teams can spend another 50k on whatever they want that also isn't counted towards the budget.

So in theory teams might try to hide any damage on the car, start the saturday race with them and then claim those happened in the race thus getting free repairs of already damaged parts that should have been counted towards the budget.

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Zynerji
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Re: New race weekend format 2021

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As long as Knockout Q stays in the weekend, I'm willing to see how this goes.

It will be optimized to the mind-dulling extreme after a while, so the wild-west style "tests" this year should be fun to watch!

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proteus
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Re: New race weekend format 2021

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Something Youtube decided to recomend me today. It is about the reverse grid idea allready back in 2019 amd comments of three drivers. I must say i like the answers of Lewis and even more of Sebastian:
If i would get the money to start my own F1 team, i would revive Arrows

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Wouter
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Re: New race weekend format 2021

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Times are announced for the Silverstone weekend with the sprintrace.

Fr: FP1 15:30h CET ........ Qualification 19:00h CET

Sa: FP2 13:00h CET ........ Sprintrace 17:30h CET

Su: GP Race 16:00h CET
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NathanOlder
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Re: New race weekend format 2021

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Wait..... Qualifying will be 6pm local time?

Thats great news.
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El Scorchio
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Re: New race weekend format 2021

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Wouter wrote:
16 May 2021, 08:46
Times are announced for the Silverstone weekend with the sprintrace.

Fr: FP1 15:30h CET ........ Qualification 19:00h CET

Sa: FP2 13:00h CET ........ Sprintrace 17:30h CET

Su: GP Race 16:00h CET
Well that’s interesting. Bloody late for qualifying though. If there are any delays it’ll be dark before they can finish it. (Actually scratch that- just realised it’s an hour earlier than I thought in UK time)

Why are the sprint races and actual race so late? Bit of a pain as well. It’s nice to be able to go out and do things after qualifying and races. Not going to happen that weekend!

LHamilton
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Re: New race weekend format 2021

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Introduction

I've made my thoughts clear earlier in the thread regarding the new format and how I don't like it. But I'd like to give my proposition on how to make the race weekend format work. On top of that, a proposition on how to make Monaco a better race.

Format:

Friday: FP1/Constructors Race
Saturday: FP2/Qualifying
Sunday: Race

Race weekends

Firstly, let's get into the race weekends. For me, as I've said, I don't like the format as they have proposed since it makes little sense to me. I don't like the fact that they are breaking up the Saturday-Sunday format. In my proposition, that will remain the same. So on Saturday, we will have FP followed by Qualifying later on. Sunday remains the same as well, with the race being the only thing on the schedule to focus on. By doing these things, neither Qualifying nor race day loses its' charm. And that's how it should be. No non-sense of this "Qualifying-race-thing".

What will change in my proposition is Friday, and it looks to me that one of the ambitions of Liberty and F1 as a whole is to make Friday more special for the promoters. So that the promoters can promote more than just FP sessions to sell more tickets. So what I would do is to have a FP session followed by a race. The race distance can be changed depending on what people see fit. The same for the amounts of tyres and pitstops required. The race start position would be determined by the Drivers Championship Standings. So whoever is 1st, will start 1st that race. 2nd will start 2nd, etc. So there is no reverse grids and there is legitimacy to the starting positions. That being said, there is still a chance of people being placed out of order since certain cars likes certains tracks. And since there are no Qualifying for this race, there can't be a "100 percent correct order".

To not make Sunday's race lose its charm, the race on Friday have to be different somehow. Not only by the amount of points given, but also probably length, tyres required etc. So what I would do is to have this race being a Constructors race only. What I mean by that is that the points given here are only given to teams. So that means no points for the drivers that effect the Drivers Championship. The reason for this is partly due to differentiate the two races, but also since there are no Qualifiyng for the race, the drivers doesn't really have a chance of influencing their grid positions. Obviously, they do indirectly by how they are performing prior to the race weekend and the amount of points they accumulate in the Drivers Championship. But not on the race weekend itself. And I also feel like that if we start giving out points for drivers in the Friday's race, then that kinda takes away some magic from Sunday's race. Another positive thing about having a "Constructors race" (which it could be called to easier differentiate the two races) is that focus are on the team more so than the drivers, whereas Sunday's race you could argue it's slightly more focused towards the drivers than the teams, overall. So from a promoting standpoint, that argument could be made. To emphasize that it is a teamsport at the end of the day, which is something that the drivers regulary tend to point out, but also gets somewhat subdued since the focus tends to be more on the drivers.

Since there are no points for the Drivers Championship, there is a difference you make when you go racing as a driver. Firstly, and there is a downside to this, is that you don't have to fight your own teammate. And that does take a away some racing aspects of it. Instead of fighting your teammate, you will have to work with him, which introduces an aspect of which we haven't really seen before. What I mean by that is that there is no downside of working with your teammate in this scenario (from the Drivers perspective), since you can't lose or gain points for yourself. Whereas working with your teammate on a Sunday race will have an affect on your Drivers Standings. But as a viewer, we might get "robbed" by inter-team battles. One way of getting around this problem, is having the drivers on different tyres. So that would mean that one driver would have to be on for instance Softs, whereas the other car would have to be on something different to Softs, and most likely Mediums. That would theoretically mean that one driver should be faster than the other and thus we might not get into a situation where teammates are running nose-to-tail. It might create good racing scenarios. In a scenario where there is rain, no differentiate in tyres can be done, obviously. However, those conditions tends to create could racing regardless, so different tyres are not needed.

Since you are not fighting for Driver Championship points, drivers wouldn't mind being on different strategies than their teammate. So that works for forcing teammates on different tyres. It could also be interesting from a strategical standpoint of which driver takes which tyre. Do the fastest driver for respective team take the softer tyre to go for the "win", or do you go with the slower driver to not make him struggle to much. Because we have seen before that sometimes certain drivers prefer certain tyres. So there is a strategical upside there.

Others things; FP1 and FP2 should return to 1h30m long since we lose one of the sessions. Parc ferme will close after FP1, but reopen again after the Constructors race. So you could have one setup for Fridays race, and another for Sundays race. Since you only have one FP session before the Fridays race, it's important for the drivers and the teams to get another proper session in there to finetune their setup for Sundays race. This also means that if one driver/team struggles on Friday, doesn't necessarily mean that they will on Sunday and vice verse, which also could slightly differentiate the two races.

I think this scenario is a good solution for people who like to have a puriest element to it. There are no reverse grid, there are legitimacy in the order for the first race, but there is also certain different elements between the two races so they don't clash. The promoters gets another race, the drivers gets another race. Saturday-Sunday don't get touched. Whatever happens in the first race doesn't really have an affect on Saturday-Sunday. When it comes to gearboxes and potential gearbox penalties, that could be again be up for debate what fits people. You can make it so that the Friday gearbox is the Friday gearbox and in a scenario where someone would crash on a Friday, it doesn't have an affect on the rest of the weekend. I think that is the most favourable option.

TL:DR; Saturday and Sunday remains the same. A Constructors race on Friday replaces one of the FP sessions. Points goes only towards the Constructors Championship. Force drivers on different tyre compounds. Race length and pitstops can be up for debate.

How to make Monaco better

When it comes to Monaco, a lot of people, myself included, likes it because of its history. However, the races tends to be boring. Overtaking is near impossible, and there is little you could do to change this in terms of layout. And I don't know if people want to change layout.

What I recommend is that we change the race format. The format I have in mind would require ALOT from the production crew as well as the commentators. And it would require more from the team to figure out things. So instead of having a race where the winner is the one who gets to the flag first, we gonna have a Indycar oval-qualifying-esque type of race, where the driver who wins, is the driver who has the quickest AVERAGE lap time throughout the whole race, 78 laps. The most obvious part is that the winner HAVE to be on the leading lap. So people can't just tank positions in order to get fastest laps and search for clean air further back. In this way, pole will still be very crucial since you have clean air and you can lap in whatever way you want. However, this format makes it so people behind also have a chance of winning the race. I would argue that the chance of winning it goes down in steps. What I mean by that is that is the Pole sitter has the highest chance of winning. Whoever is 2nd has the second highest chance, 3rd the 3rd highest chance etc. So Qualifying will still be very much key. However, it's not impossible to win the race further down the grid. With this format, I struggle to see that we would get an outside winner (like for instance an Aston Martin or an Alpine, who are at the end tail points). We would most likely still see the top teams battling out for the win, with the one furthers forward with the most likely chance of winning it.

It is a very different format, and there might be the puriest who doesn't like this. And I fully understand that. However, it does highlight an aspect of what we like to see when it comes to Monaco and what makes Monaco special; people doing "qualifying" laps for 78 laps. Qualifying is something that everone enjoys when it comes to Monaco. It's pretty much better than the race for a lot of people. So why not translate that into the race itself as well, since we struggle with overtaking. Pole will still be very important, strategy will still play a key role. The difference is that focus goes from race positions to lap times, hence why I said that a lot is required from the production crew and the commentators. I would at least like to try this out for a race and see how it turns out.

Others things that should be focused on; No lap times during VSC/SC should be counted for saftey reasons. Should lap times include pitstops? That could be up for debate. I'm willing to do either since there are pros and cons with both of them. If you say yes, then a lot of pressure goes onto having good pistops and good warmup of tyres for the outlap. If you say no, then none of the above matter, and it's just about pure lap times. On top of that, teams could do more pitstops since they are not counted towards the average lap times, which would enhance strategy options. And as I said, winner has to be on the leading lap. So you can't go around pitting constantly for new tyres, unless the whole grid does it, which they wouldn't.

TL:DR; Change of race format. Instead of a race-to-flag scenario, where the driver who finshes first regardless of laptimes wins, we gonna have a Indycar-Oval qualifying esque type of race where the driver who has the quickest average laptime, wins. Winner has to be on the lead lap. Pole would still be very important, as would gridpositions overall. Emphasizes would be more on a qualifying style of race, on a weekend where people today probably deem Saturday to be better than Sunday. So why not transition a portion of that qualifying to the race itself?

What do you think, Good/Bad? Ideas that could better the format at hand or do you have better formats? Let me know. These ones above are not perfect. There might be obvious things that I haven't considered that would make these obsolete.

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