Something other than politics anyone? As I was sitting through today’s press conference at the Nurburgring I had as a personal goal to wait and watch for how long it would take to start talking politics. That category is, after all, the one I believe I now post most blog entries under.
If I am correct in my observation, it took 12 minutes before they - Paddy Lowe, Sam Michael, Adrian Newey and Pat Symonds - started speaking politics - that is, before the questions turned to politics. And just as I was about to start transcribing and talking politics in the blog, also, the press conference turned in another direction, near the end.
And it was this part that made me perk up my ears the most and struck me as being the most interesting. The politics, after all, will perhaps never be quite as interesting as when the FIA-FOTA situation is resolved - which the FIA and some of the teams think will be only a matter of days. (Any bets?)
The part that really interested me was Pat Symond’s argument for doing away with refueling next year, and linking that to its potential for inviting - or forcing, rather - more overtaking. Dumb me had not thought of that. But it was the way that Symonds said it, outlined it, that was so interesting. He linked the lack of refueling, naturally, to an end to strategy as we know it.
“Strategy has been very exciting, and I’ve certainly enjoyed working in that area, but I think it has had its day,” said Symonds. “As we have developed our techniques, as always they have become quite similar, and I think the excitement of strategy is gone. I think it’s a difficult thing to get across to the casual public, rather than the true enthusiast.
“We were talking about overtaking earlier,” he added, “and I think there is too much reliance on strategy to be used for overtaking. And this is one of the things that I think I saw at Silverstone; people had similar performance and they were thinking, well, I have a couple of laps in this car so I will just push for two laps and I will get in front of him in the pit stops. But without refueling maybe we will see a bit more racing. I think we have to keep an open mind. Let’s try it for a few years.”
He also added that the old refueling machines they have been using for years will soon need replacing, and that costs a lot of money.
Interesting stuff, and I have to think of races like Alain Prost in 1990 at the Mexican Grand Prix starting in 13th place and making his way up the pack to win. I wonder if that would have happened with today’s system in place.
Comente