'The essence of what the new cars were supposed to be about have been blurred'
General
- Cas van de Kleut
In terms of excitement, so far it has not been the season many Formula 1 fans had hoped for. The RB19 of Max Verstappen and Sergio Perez has so far been far too strong for the other teams. Sky Sports F1 ' s podcast talks about on how Formula 1 racing could be improved.
Overtaking harder again
Indeed, in addition to Red Bull Racing's dominance, there is now increasing speculation that pre-season rule changes are making it harder to overtake. This while the rules introduced in 2022 were supposed to allow for closer racing, resulting in more overtaking.
Former Formula 1 driver Martin Brundle also sees this happening now: "Something that is hitting quite hard this season as well is as the teams have loaded the cars up with downforce, and maybe the regulation change to get rid of some porpoising, I think it's undoubtedly harder to follow and stay close and generally race around another F1 car. The essence of what the 2022 cars were all about is beginning to fade away."
'Making use of all tyre compounds'
Tyre strategies are also discussed during the podcast. Former Formula 1 driver Karun Chandhok does have an idea on how the FIA could make races even more exciting: "I still think we should have a regulation where you have to use all three tyre compounds in the race. I got told by engineers that they couldn't have done that in Miami because the soft tyre wasn't good enough but so what? It would have done five or six laps and at some point they will have all had to use it for six to eight laps and it would have jumbled things up around the pit stops." In Imola, qualifying will be done with all tyre compounds for the first time. As a result, it is hoped that qualifying will also provide more spectacle.