The weighty issue F1 needs to find a balance with

Formula 1’s rare run of consecutive street races in Monaco and Baku could have not have provided more of a contrast in drama terms. From an incident-free and relatively calm Monaco Grand Prix, the streets of Baku produced some tyre-shredding, carbon fibre-crunching thrills, spills and an unforgettable weekend of drama.

Sure, there were some common themes that ran across both weekends – like Mercedes’ inability to switch its tyres on, and Ferrari absolutely flying on single laps on the soft – but it was the differences across the venues that were perhaps more interesting. And there were none bigger than the number of crashes we saw.

In Monaco, widely regarded as one of the biggest challenges of the year, it was remarkable how few drivers got it wrong over the weekend. Mick Schumacher had his shunt in final free practice on the exit of Casino Square, with Nicholas Latifi binning it at the exit of the Swimming Pool in the same session. Later that afternoon, Charles Leclerc had his hugely costly moment there too in a shunt that secured him pole position and ultimately wrecked his race chance.

But aside from a few other barrier brushing moments, the scale of incidents were nowhere near as much as we saw in Azerbaijan last weekend. Drivers were frequently down the Baku escape roads; the barriers at Turn 15 claimed no end of victims over the weekend and qualifying was red flagged four times.

The scale of crashes was out of the norm and prompted some interesting suggestions from drivers about just why there had been so many incidents.

The damaged car of Lance Stroll, Aston Martin AMR21

Photo by: Mark Sutton / Motorsport Images

Fernando Alonso reckoned that parc ferme regulations, with drivers knowing they had a get out of jail card of free repairs and a nice fresh car if they crashed, meant some were going well over the limit.

Sebastian Vettel suggested that the famous Baku wind (it's known as the City of Winds) that channelled itself down sections of the city streets, meant sometimes drivers were caught out by late gusts.

"I think the way the cars have evolved, all the time that you can make, it is all in braking. I guess everyone was pushing the limits at that time" Esteban Ocon

But it was Esteban Ocon who offered a more illuminating idea about what we had seen in Baku. He suggested that a recent shift in performance focus in F1, where there is bigger bang for your buck in finding lap time gains under braking, was at play.

“I think the way the cars have evolved, all the time that you can make, it is all in braking,” he said. “I guess everyone was pushing the limits at that time, and there was a bit more wind as well in qualifying.

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“To that extent, there's been many, many drivers going over that limit, and we haven't seen that often in qualifying. So it was very surprising that so many things were happening in quali.

“I think it's just a characteristic of how the cars are. I didn't drive in 2019, but I drove in 2018 and my feeling comes from that. Yeah, I mean, looking at it, if you are on the limit of the brakes and just making the corner, that is the fastest way.”

Ocon’s comments certainly offer an explanation of why a driver like Daniel Ricciardo has suffered so much this year in adapting to the McLaren. As a driver who is well known to being so hooked up on corner entry, and better than his rivals in being last of the late brakers, a deficit here would become obvious.

Esteban Ocon, Alpine A521

Photo by: Andy Hone / Motorsport Images

What the increasing shift towards braking performance is a likely consequence of is heavy cars, and the way that F1’s machinery has fattened up massively in recent years.

From around 640kg at the end of the V8 era, the cars have steadily crept up as a consequence of both the turbo hybrid engines and new safety features, like improved crash protection and the Halo. In 2016, they went past the 700kg limit, and now are nudging 750kg. Next year, they look set to reach a whopping 790kg.

In an era of downforce limitations and standard tyres, it’s a no-brainer to understand that if you can slow down a 750kg beast better than someone else, then there are more tenths of a second in it than doing a better job with a 600kg car.

The bigger and heavier cars that we have now bring other consequences too. First of all, they have outgrown some circuits – especially Monaco. This was something that Lewis Hamilton pointed out in Baku last weekend when asked about F1’s evolution in car weight.

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“The lighter cars were more nimble, were nowhere near as big, naturally, and so racing, manoeuvring the car, was better,” he said. “On the tracks we’re going to, they’re getting wider – like here it’s quite wide in places and of course it’s narrow in other places.

“Monaco was always relatively impossible to pass, but now the cars are so big that it’s too big for the track. As we get heavier and heavier, that’s more energy we’ve got to dissipate – bigger brakes, more brake dust, more fuel to get you to the locations. So, I don’t fully understand it.”

Lewis Hamilton, Mercedes

Photo by: Steve Etherington / Motorsport Images

Hamilton also questioned how, in a world where sustainability is everything and the push is about lighter cars, F1 seems to be going in the opposition direction.

“I don’t understand why we’re going heavier,” he said. “I don’t understand particularly why we go heavier when there’s all this talk about being more sustainable – just as a sport going in that direction.

“By going heavier and heavier and heavier, you’re using more and more energy. So that feels that’s not necessarily in the right direction or in the thought process.”

Is it time for a rethink about the direction that F1 car design is going in longer term before we end up with grand prix machinery that weights little less than Le Mans prototypes or touring cars?

Heavier cars impact other elements too: for they put tyres under tremendous forces. Pirelli’s challenge in producing rubber that can cope with the most powerful and fastest machinery ever is certainly made more difficult by the current car weight.

So on a weekend where Lance Stroll and Max Verstappen’s tyre failures have put the spotlight on the robustness of Pirelli’s products, should the issue of how heavy the cars are be something that F1’s chiefs now look at? Is it time for a rethink about the direction that F1 car design is going in longer term, before we end up with grand prix machinery that weights little less than Le Mans prototypes or touring cars?

Sure, the clock cannot be turned back in removing many of the safety features that have contributed to the weight increases in recent years. But there must be a middle ground where F1 machinery can be put on a diet and some of the benefits we had from the old agile cars can return.

Sebastian Vettel, Aston Martin AMR21

Photo by: Andy Hone / Motorsport Images