Some musings on the Chinese Grand Prix

Sunday's Chinese Grand Prix produced one of the most frantic, action-packed races (certainly in the dry) that F1 has seen for many a year. A combination of tyre strategies, KERS, DRS and some good old-fashioned wheel-to-wheel racing kept us guessing right to the very end. There were a couple of intriguing asides to this race that occured, which I will attempt to cover here.

Cycling-style 'echelons' in F1?

DRS appeared, at least in China, to produce a secondary effect alongside its raison d'etre to produce more overtaking. Around the middle of the first stint it was apparent that the field had broken up into distinct packs, that were not necessarily due to slower cars being out of position holding up a train of rivals behind. 

Here is what I believe is happening. After two laps the DRS system is activated. By this point, the natural field spread of the pack of cars means that each driver is spaced roughly around a second or so apart (the aero of the cars this year allowing drivers to run much more closely to each other - interestingly, in amongst KERS/DRS and tyres, this point seems to have been lost slightly). Crucially, the DRS activation point is set up for cars being within a second of the one in front.

So say driver A is at the front of a pack, with drivers, B, C and D all being within that one second window, but driver E is 1.1 seconds behind D. Assuming A has the quickest raw pace (a reasonable assumption), drivers B, C and D (who now have DRS activated) gain in lap time due to deploying DRS and concertina behind A (while the principal effect of DRS, to aid overtaking, is negated). Meanwhile, driver E cannot use DRS and so loses the propensity to gain that extra half second or so, and so falls back. It essentially allows the (slower-in-raw-pace-terms) cars B-D to run at car A's quicker race pace, while E misses the cut.

It's analogous to the race patterns in road cycling, particularly of the so-called echelons that form in crosswinds. Being in echelon formation (a line of riders across the road, sheltering from the effective wind direction) allows the riders to utilise the lower wind resistance to maintain their position. But fall from the pack momentarily and suddenly being exposed to the extra resistance and get dropped quickly and never regain that position therein unless the pace eases in front.

This was apparent in China, as after about 10 laps there were about four distinct 'groups' on the road, all running nose-to-tail within those groups, but the groups themselves spaced a good few seconds apart. We had:

But-Ham-Vet (covered by 2 sec)
...3 sec gap to...
Ros-Mas-Alo (< 1.8s)
...7s...
DiR-Sut-Kob-MSc (2.2s)
...3s...
Pet
...4s...
Alg-Bue-Hei-Per-Web-Bar (2.6s)
...and the backmarkers

Of course, the tyre strategy had a greater bearing on the final result, in reality, but is an interesting side point none-the-less.

Strategy begins on Saturday

Well, in truth it has done (in various guises) for a number of years - fuel levels, tyre choices and the like have often had to be set before qualifying. But here, qualifying strategy is becoming so integrated with the race strategy, especially with the three-part system affording drivers the opportunity to save fresh sets of tyres for the race. Mark Webber's stunning drive showed the importance of doing so (as, to some extent, did Lewis Hamilton's race). 

This gives rise to some interesting quandries. For instance, is there any real advantage to starting 10th over 11th? If a driver makes the top-10 shootout, might he elect not to even set a time in Q3 and save a set of tyres - particularly if he does not expect to get much higher than 7th or 8th? On tracks with high tyre wear it might be an advantage to use a set of primes for Q1, a set of options for Q2 and save four sets of fresh tyres for the race. In fact, in Canada, one might envisage doing Q1 and Q2 (and potentially, but unlikely, Q3) on the same set of tyres (qualifying...wherever) and have five sets of tyres fresh for the GP itself. After all, if tracks like Melbourne and China are producing three-stop optimum races, then Canada must surely see four stops (at least!). 

Also, is the fabled 'undercut' (where you pit a lap earlier than your rival on track - often at the end of the first stint - thus gaining a 2-3 second advantage with that out lap on fresh tyres) even worth it this year? Surely at some point you have to pay that lap back, perhaps by making your final stop a lap earlier, at which point the situation might turn on its head at the end of the race if your tyres fall off the performance cliff on the last lap when your rival's don't.

Scrapping tooth and nail for grid slots and burning up new rubber seems to be less worth it in 2011-spec F1 when overtaking is demonstrably possible. Furthermore, the differential in lap times available to fresh-tyre runners (Webber, for instance, was lapping at up to 3 seconds a lap faster than his teammate in the final stint) appears to be overcoming the advantage of being a few slots up the grid and the gaining few seconds of field-spread in the earlier stages of the race.

We shall, of course, see in due course.

Tour Of Flanders

The last hour or so of the 2011 Ronde Van Vlaanderen produced probably the most exciting racing to be found all year, indeed perhaps in many a year. I joined the race coverage at this point, with Sylvain Chavanel in the lead, having just dropped his fellow escape artists Edvald Boasson Hagen and Lars Boom.

Here, back home, cup of tea was made as I waited for the Fabian Cancellara show to begin. Then, in just that short time, boom! (No, not Boom). Tom Boonen attacked. Quite why he attacked, with his teammate in the lead, I don't know. Perhaps even Tornado Tom himself doesn't get that one, since all it achieved was to draw out Cancellara into the inevitable counter punch. Cleverly, he used the ailing Boasson Hagen and Boom (who were going backwards quickly) as a buffer, skipping round the pair on a narrow, crowd-lined section of road - thereby blocking the way for the following Boonen. Tom had no response. The Tornado, it seemed, had blown.

Cancellara, (the hurricane in all this meteorological metaphor) was on a charge. Still with 50km to ride to the finish line, he decided that this was the moment. Was this the error? Did Fabian simply believe his own hype, his own invincibility? Whatever, Fabian did what Fabian does. He hammered at the pedals, rapidly eating up the ground between him and the still-leading Chavanel. Our frontrunner relented, and the catch was complete as Fabian took over the pace. A flick of Swiss elbow yielded no response, as Sylvain did the only sensible thing and lock onto the wheel of Cancellara.

And so it was that the greatest pursuit match of them all began. Cancellara versus the world, versus the peloton, versus the climbs, the cobbles, the works. BMC, a squad boasting some of the finest classics men in the field, committed almost their entire workforce to the chase, and even they struggled to bring him back. The gap hovered at a minute. Still Chavanel clung on to that wheel for all he was worth, and he was worth a hell of a lot today.

The writing, it seemed, was on the wall. And, in a sense it was, for the Wall of Geraardsbergen and its cracked cobbles cracked Fabian, aided undoubtedly by the man of the moment, Phillipe Gilbert (and that BMC TTT effort). Unperturbed, Cancellara went again over the top of the climb, forcing a selection of five. Most of the names were present - enough, surely to carve the spoils between them?

Again, they were foiled. Enter (stage left) a Welsh Dragon, young Geraint Thomas, who pulled and then pulled some more for his man Flecha who had missed seemingly the crucial move. The chasers poised to bridge on the Bosberg, but then Gilbert went for glory. The group imploded on the berg, and Cancellara was beaten. Even then they wouldn't work with him, as Scheirlinckx followed his every sway and stagger with laser precision, as Chavanel once more flew free over the summit in chase. Gilbert was brought back. That man Thomas once again hauled himself back into the second group of chasers, then brought that group up to the leaders.

None of these riders, by the way, would win the race.

Today everyone said ‘I am Spartacus’. A flurry of attacks followed from the twelve-strong lead group, perhaps buoyed by the great man’s infallibility, before Cancellara summoned (from where I do not know) one final effort to reduce the final selection to three (as if to say, ‘No, boys, this is how you do it’). In the selection was Fabian himself, of course, plus the indefatigable Chavanel and a previously anonymous Nick Nuyens. Cancellara and Chavanel shook hands, proving that the kinship in survival and suffering overcomes competition and corporate clothing. That so, a race was still there to be won. Comrades no longer, Cancellara found himself (where else?) but hung out to dry on the front as the race entered its final turns. He had no choice but to go early - too early - as Boonen broke free of the chasers and threatened to unleash his formidable finish. As he opened up the sprint, all those efforts - the break, the catch, the counter, the chase - all that pain seeped into Fabian's sizeable quads and he began to falter. A man of that frame punches a big hole in the air, and sprinting behind Cancellara must be like sprinting in free space. Suddenly, free space was all Nick Nuyens could see in front of him. Then a finish line. Then a win, no, the win.

And the best bit? Next week we do it all again. Roubaix waits.