Former Formula 1 driver David Coulthard has shot down claims that the championship needs a lot of overtaking for it to be exciting.
A new set of regulations has arrived in F1 this season, with one of the goals being to open up more opportunities to overtake. The cars are smaller and lighter than the previous ground effect era cars, and the active aerodynamics, which have replaced DRS, along with the electric boost that drivers can use, are intended to increase overtaking.
But after the drivers shared their initial thoughts during pre-season testing in Bahrain, there are some concerns that this may not be the case.
“If you have the fastest car qualifying in the front, why would you expect anyone to overtake it? You know, the whole thing about Formula 1 is fast at the front, slowest at the back. The race starts, the slowest guy is never going to come through and win,” Coulthard argued on the Up To Speed podcast.
“So you just need to look at the history of the sport. Be the quickest. As a driver, I wanted to be in pole position because, especially in Monaco, if I led into the first corner, 90% of the work was done.”
Co-host and former F1 TV presenter Will Buxton added: “They haven’t been able to overtake in Monaco since the 1920s. So 100 years on, there’s still not much chance of that happening. But the hope with these new regulations is that overtaking will be a touch easier, that the racing will be a touch more exciting than it has been.”
Start of race
Coulthard likened a race to a football match, arguing that if a fan’s favourite team won 1-0, they would walk away saying it was an exciting game.
“But I don’t get it, though,” the former Red Bull driver responded. “A football match, if your team wins 1-0, you go away saying ‘that was a good match’. You don’t see 100 goals or the points in basketball and things like that. So it’s not about how many things happen.
“I remember Mansell going around the outside of Gerhard Berger in Mexico in ’88. It stands out in my mind because, I probably got the year wrong, but it was an amazing overtake.
“Or I remember Senna’s qualifying lap in Monaco being a second quicker than Alain Prost. It’s about those memorable moments rather than having so many of them. It’s just like a social media feed.”
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