Carlos Sainz feels that the best way for F1 to end the boring processional races is to bring in softer tires during races, as that would help create pace differentials to pull off overtakes. The current set of regulations was introduced with the primary motive of trying to improve wheel-to-wheel racing.
To do that, we saw a return to the ground effect era, and immediately in 2022, it was obvious that there was a drastic difference between the kind of racing F1 often saw and what we had that season. Unfortunately, however, as the regulations have matured, teams have found ways to add downforce on the upper body by exploiting loopholes.
Once that started happening, the key selling point of these regulations went for a toss. Now, we’ve reached a point where overtaking has become just too hard. One of the biggest examples was the race in Suzuka, where Carlos Sainz’s former teammate Max Verstappen could just manage his pace as the chasing McLarens just couldn’t close down the gap to him and pull off the overtake.
Lando Norris could not even get within the DRS range throughout the race, and one of the major reasons behind this happening was the fact that you just can’t follow these cars closely enough. Talking about the ongoing issue of processional races, Sainz claimed that F1 needs to look at bringing softer tires to the races, as that could potentially help introduce decent pace differential and hence make it easier to overtake.
“I think first of all, fair play to Pirelli. They’ve done a step—we’ve always asked them for the tyres to degrade less and be less sensitive to overheating. They’ve done a step, and this year so far we can push more in the race. Now we’re back into one-stop races and we are complaining that there is not enough deg and we want more deg. So first of all, I think F1 needs to get all together to kind of follow up with the same narrative,” Carlos Sainz said (as quoted by PlanetF1).
He added:
“Because we asked for one thing, the product improves, and then suddenly we all complain again. It’s a bit of a mess, if you ask me. What creates overtaking in my opinion is to have a delta to the car in front. If you’re only one tenth quicker in F1, you’re never going to pass. You need to be five, six, seven tenths quicker than the car in front around Suzuka to overtake. And the only way to generate that in Suzuka is with degradation. You cannot generate anything else.”
Carlos Sainz on the benefit of having a two-stopper
Carlos Sainz talked about how the current tires are just too durable, and hence drivers can continue to push throughout the race. When that happens, there’s not much of a performance differential, and hence pulling off overtakes becomes harder.
To prevent that, he feels a softer compound of tire that also forces drivers to stop twice during a race is arguably the best approach. He said:
“So I would be happy if they’re going to maybe go a step softer in compounds. Given that the tyre is more robust, going softer in compound will increase degradation and increase a bit the chance of overtaking. But if you go with the three hardest compounds on a track like Suzuka, for example, you’ll have flat-out racing with the three compounds and pit stop laps always more or less the same way.”
“We all stopped on one lap. I think you will not get a tyre delta or an overtaking delta. So for me it’s more about trying to make sure the race is always between a one- and a two-stop, because like that you will have teams trying to do one-stops with high degradation and other teams running faster on a two-stop to try and overtake and make it to the flag,” Carlos Sainz added.
The suggestion given by Carlos Sainz appears to be something that Pirelli is implementing, as the race in Miami would have a step softer tire. It will be interesting to see if that tire does make a significant impact or not.
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Edited by Tushar Bahl
