Ask Gary: F1 must learn from CART failure

I have heard that you did some work in IndyCars in the USA in the 1980s but can't find much information about it. What can you tell us about your time there, and how did it compare to working in F1?
Sarah McCallum, via email

Yes, I did a little bit of engineering in CART as it was called in the 1980s.

It was great racing; there were a few different chassis, some very good drivers, both American and from around the rest of the world, and a great selection of tracks from the Canadian circuit Sanair, which was a 7/8ths-mile tri-oval, to Michigan, which was a daunting 245mph-average-speed oval, to Elkhart Lake, which is still one of the best road circuits in the world.

I also went back there with Reynard in 2001 when my relationship with the Jaguar Formula 1 project soured.

It was quite different then, since it was only Reynard against Lola. It was still very enjoyable and produced some great racing, but American single-seater racing was at war.

F1 should take a lesson from CART. The teams owned the formula, and as time went by they couldn't agree on which day of the week it was.

So it went head-to-head with the Indy Racing League, as that was then known. The IRL ran the blue-riband Indianapolis 500 and if CART didn't change, it couldn't race at what was the only event that mattered to some of those teams.

What is left now of Indy racing is the leftovers of what was a great series. It is now a stock chassis with a few bolt-ons, but nothing like it was in its heyday.

Perhaps F1 needs to go through the same thing, with customer cars and different engine formulas through the grid. If it did this, perhaps in 10 years something would rise from the ashes.

Gary, back in the day we were always told that reducing unsprung weight was important. The talk recently has been about wider, low-profile tyres and larger-diameter wheels. It seems to me that these would be heavier than the current arrangement. Is unsprung weight no longer an issue, or is this proposal, if accepted, going to generate unexpected negative consequences?
Wyman Pattee, via email

Unsprung weight will always be important, that's why everyone pushes to reduce the weight of the uprights, axles, wheelnuts, wheels, etc, to a minimum.

However, if the regulations change and the unsprung weight goes up, or even down a little, then it will be the same for everyone.

That said, we did some back-to-back unsprung weight tests a few years ago where we varied each corner by up to two kilos and compensated for it on the sprung weight and in the damping control. It was very difficult to detect a laptime difference over a 10-lap run.

When we had our last F1 tyre war between Michelin and Bridgestone, the Michelin tyres were significantly heavier than the Bridgestones.

Michelin wanted to have the extra weight to allow it to have an internal structure that gave a flatter contact patch and a more temperature-stable tyre.

Why are people like you not involved in the strategy group meetings? You have great ideas.
Elias Skaff, via Twitter

Elias, the people involved directly in F1 that can make changes think they are gods.

They know it all and it would be a loss of face if they were to get people in to help with the kind of restructure F1 might need.

I don't know if you are familiar with the saying "can't see the wood for the trees"? Basically, it relates to people being too close to what they are doing to be able to see what needs to be done. That's what I think is the problem for many people involved in F1.

When I look at back at my time directly working in F1, I suffered from the same thing. But when I stepped back a bit and started doing my media work, I could see so much more.

I agree with you; there are many people out there that have been involved in the sport and who could offer some very interesting ideas. But no one really wants to hear from them.

As for me, yes it would be an interesting thing to get involved with but I am afraid I would want to see some action as opposed to lots of hot air, which is all that we seem to get currently.

Concerning the reduction of downforce at present apparently under discussion: Why not replace the 'plank' with a (say) 3cm wide plank (with metal inserts to give the sparks if necessary), then legislate for the underbody to curve smoothly up to (say) 10cm higher in an area corresponding to the present outer edge of the body at the waistline of the car?

The actual width would be altered to cover the width at various parts of the car, but no part of the car apart from wheels and brakes could remain less than the '+10cm' height. It would need clear phraseology, rather than mine, but it would remove most of the present downforce-producing areas. Note that ALL bodywork, including front wings and rear underbody, would have to obey the rule. How well would that work?
George Grazebrook, via email

George, your suggestion is interesting but with all aerodynamic concepts it would need a little research before I could really comment on the detail.

What I will say is that downforce produced by the underbody is relatively unaffected by turbulence.

So if I was trying to come up with an aerodynamic concept to research that would induce better/closer on-track racing, I would be looking at retaining or even improving the amount of underbody downforce the cars produce.

The wings, and especially the front wing, are the critical area. Today's front wings are too complicated and the surfaces of them are working so efficiently (in clean air) that any form of turbulence, be it from a car in front or even just a crosswind, affects them dramatically. The following car loses loads of downforce.

Attending to this, combined with adding wider and possibly larger-diameter tyres to get the grip back, would close up the grid and transform the on-track racing.

Gary, you wrote on AUTOSPORT last week about the confusion that led to the Mercedes strategy blunder. Do you think that, with F1 teams being as big as they are, the decision-making across the board is compromised? I'm not just talking about strategy, but car design, what to spend money on - everything.
Daniel Burton, via email

Daniel, yes I do agree the big F1 teams have become a bit like an oil tanker.

In the old days, you used to have to decide if it was raining by coming out of your pitlane prat perch, or at least sticking your hand out to see if it got wet!

Now, you contact the headquarters in Woking, Milton Keynes, Maranello or Brackley and ask them what they think. I suppose there is one positive; it stops the guys on the pitwall from getting their hair wet...

As far as design and development direction is concerned, I think that there needs to be one captain steering the ship.

I believe Red Bull showed this through its four world championships. Adrian Newey steered the vessel with a very able crew but decisions were simple - the direction Adrian wanted to go in was the direction the company went in.

Now he is 'part-time', those day-to-day decisions are not quite as easy and I think Red Bull's performance is suffering from that.

Reading back through some old racing magazines, I see that you were very often quoted in technical stories even while still working as technical director. Did you think that talking to the fans was important and is this something that the sport today could learn from?
Gary Wallace, via email

Gary, I have always thought that the fans were very important and I still do. I enjoy trying to give them a better understanding of what F1 is all about.

Everyone in F1 turns it into cloak and dagger stuff. When I was a technical director, I suppose I did the same.

It was a little different then because you had to try to protect your own package, but if someone was doing a feature and asking the questions I would do my best to give a straight answer.

Now I am not directly involved, it is a lot easier because being on the outside gives a much clearer picture of what is happening with teams, their packages and their development direction.

I never wanted to get involved in the media and when I was a technical director, I hated them!

But if you follow the news and features that we do on AUTOSPORT, then I think F1 becomes a little less smoke-and-mirrors.

Unless you are totally involved, you can never understand it all. But hopefully I can bring the fans a reasonable overview.

Jacques Villeneuve said recently that "it is dangerous to ask the fans what they want, because a lot of modern F1 is what the fans wanted". I think he is just afraid of what the fans have to say - but what do you think?
Phil Benton via email

Phil, I think he is talking absolute rubbish.

In all the surveys that have been done, no one has ever listened to the fans. If they did, F1 wouldn't be in the mess it is today.

Just look back at the changes across the years.

The overtaking working group's findings for the 2009 rules were supposedly going to revolutionise the racing. But they didn't.

Max Mosley's CDG rear wing, of which so much was made, didn't even see the light of day.

Grooved tyres, the greatest thing since sliced bread. Where are they now?

The dropping of V8 engines and the adoption of the new 1.6-litre turbocharged V6 hybrid power units for 2014? They are too expensive, don't make enough noise and so Bernie Ecclestone wants to change back. Change costs money.

The CDG wing was one of several ideas never to become reality in F1

Refuelling had gone because of cost and safety, now they want it to come back.

All this radio rubbish last year, where the driver has to drive the car alone and unaided; it's just a simple thing but look at Lewis Hamilton in Monaco.

Hamilton asks, "How's my speed through turn one?" and the engineer replies, "Can't tell you that."

Hamilton: "How's the weather?" Engineer: "Good." Do they think the fans don't look at this and ask, "Do they take us for fools?"

The driver does not drive the car alone and unaided; you could list 20 things that he may instigate but something else achieves it for him.

I could go on forever with things that have come and gone, but someone somewhere needs to think outside the box and come up with something new.

The thousands of fans that will contribute to a survey like the one that AUTOSPORT has conducted will bring some good ideas to the table. It is then down to the powers that be to filter these and come up with a package that will re-energise F1.

Do you think it's time for F1 to adopt American-style fan engagement?
@humbleflexgab, via Twitter

It's a very difficult question to answer because the fan engagement from NASCAR to IndyCar is completely different.

In NASCAR, the fans follow the driver and don't really give two hoots about the car. In IndyCar, there are more racing enthusiasts that are interested in the car technology.

Formula 1 needs the drivers and the top brass involved in the teams to be more available to the fans.

You could achieve this very simply at each race meeting by having more autograph sessions.

You could even introduce open-evening discussions with, say, four teams participating with one (race) driver and one (race) engineer. Then I am sure the fans would feel much more engaged.

I am sure Sky Sports would be only too happy to put on the same for viewers and allow them to text or email in the questions.

If you tried to get something like this through, the teams would stand in the way and claim they can't attend because of sponsorship commitments or something else.

But they need to start to realise that the only reason the sponsors are involved in F1 is because of the fans. You are actually their employer. If you don't switch on, they don't have a job.

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