Why F1's Portugal leveller isn't a reliable silver bullet

It was good to see Formula 1 visiting another new circuit in this coronavirus-affected season, especially because Portimao threw up an interesting problem that had even the best of teams scratching their heads.

Of course, this being Portugal and past the traditional holiday season, there is always a risk from the vagaries of the weather coming from the Atlantic sea. And, while the threat of rain kept the teams occupied throughout the race, after a few drops at the start brought to mind the 2007 European Grand Prix at the Nurburgring, this wasn't the major issue at hand.

Rather, it was the freshly-resurfaced track and the lack of grip it delivered. Having only been laid one month before the grand prix, the surface of the asphalt was still oozing oils, and the addition of heavy rain in the few days leading up to first practice only compounded the problem.

Drivers frequently complained about the lack of grip and difficulties switching their tyres on, leading to the unusual situation where Mercedes reverted to using the medium tyres for its second Q3 runs.

"It doesn't feel like there is any ramp up on this track, I don't know if the rubber is going down at all," polesitter Lewis Hamilton said after using two flying laps to beat team-mate Valtteri Bottas. "It's pretty much felt the same throughout the weekend, which in terms of grip, is not good. But the track is great to drive. It'll be slippery, even though we have all this downforce. These tyres don't like it here, that's for sure."

Red Bull's Max Verstappen compared it to "driving on ice" after what he called a "confusing" qualifying on the softs, where he was unable to replicate his Q1 time in the crucial pole shootout.

"Not very enjoyable to drive at the moment with the tyres and grip on the track," was his assessment. "I was here in January and I thought it was going to be amazing to drive a Formula 1 car, the grip we have.

"For me personally, you can't push. You're just driving on ice. It's a bit of a shame."

But the lack of grip in qualifying was nothing compared to the race in even colder conditions, where a brief shower meant the Mercedes pair's decision to start on the medium tyres that could go further into the race resulted in them spending the opening laps being "bothered on all sides", as James Allison put it.

PLUS: The pre-race call that gave Hamilton the edge at Portimao

Most of those cars that started on the red-striped soft tyre were able to switch them on quickly and make spectacular progress, notably Carlos Sainz Jr in the McLaren, who easily passed both Mercedes for the lead, and Kimi Raikkonen in the Alfa Romeo. The conditions looked likely to favour Verstappen but, after losing out to Bottas at Turn 3, he had a clumsy incident with Sergio Perez, who had got a better exit and was at least alongside him as they headed into Turn 4. The ensuing contact caused Perez to pit and launch a recovery drive on the medium tyre, while the ground lost by Verstappen in dropping behind Lando Norris meant he couldn't fully utilise his early grip advantage against Bottas and Hamilton.

It remains to be seen what the grip will be like at the new circuits. Portimao might have been the ideal cocktail to get the drivers and teams working hard, but F1 will have to be wary of things going too far the other way

Once the Mercedes drivers did get some heat into their tyres, they were soon in the familiar position at the front of the pack. The soft tyres lasted well on some cars but ultimately grained and lost grip. The track did rubber in over the weekend, but the drop in ambient temperature on race day and the odd drop of rain led the teams to experiment with the compounds between their drivers - although Bottas's optimistic request for the soft tyre at his only pitstop was rebuffed by Toto Wolff.

As Allison explained, the unseasonal conditions combined with the limited track grip meant everybody struggled to get the tyres into their optimal window, which in turn tends to exaggerate differences in car performances - such as those between winner Hamilton and the vanquished Bottas.

"The differences in the finishing positions were very exaggerated compared with normal," he said. "There were very substantial lap time differences between team-mates and also between teams, with much of the grid actually being lapped."

In short, teams love it when conditions are predictable and match up with the extensive simulations they undertake before each event. One of the benefits of having such a glut of new and returning venues this year is that their years of accumulating data to help inform their decision making is missing. The headline results of the Eifel and Portuguese GPs may not be too far deviated from the norm with Mercedes and Red Bull still the teams to beat, but still reflected the teams' ability to adapt in uncomfortable situations.

Of course, with the 2021 calendar reverting to what we would have seen this year before the swathe of cancellations resulting from the virus, there will only be three new/returning venues in Vietnam, Saudi Arabia and the Netherlands, the latter being moved to an expected autumn date. It remains to be seen what the grip level will be like at these circuits - Portimao might have been the ideal cocktail to get the drivers and teams working hard, but F1 will have to be wary of things going too far the other way.

In a bizarre move back in 2010, the Superleague Formula circus flew out to a track in Inner Mongolia at a place called Ordos. The Chinese authorities had built this huge city, complete with massive bronze statues dedicated to Genghis Khan, in the middle of nowhere and for some reason decided also to build an FIA standard racing circuit. The track had only been completed earlier that year and, although there had been a couple of rounds for the Chinese saloon car championship, this was the first time anything with wide slick tyres had raced there.

On the edge of the track at several sections of the circuit, there were flat kerbs and behind these, strange plastic honeycomb sections were laid into the soil. Of course, during practice, drivers were cutting the corners more and more, with the result that dirt was being dragged onto the circuit causing several spins for following cars. The two races turned into a bit of a farce as the cars negotiated increasingly slippery sections of track. Still, it was better than having no track at all...

Back in June of 1985 at Spa, long before Bernie Ecclestone owned the circuit, the Belgian authorities had made a bad call to resurface the entire track. Normally this would not have presented a problem if the work had been completed by the requisite 60-day period leading up to the event. Instead the bureaucracy had delayed the completion to just 10 days before and, with the weather being surprisingly hot, many sections of the track, including the affectionately known Bus Stop chicane, broke up badly after two of the practice sessions.

Overnight repairs on the Friday did not cure the problem and, although the Saturday practice was allowed, it was not long before there was a red flag. The track surface was so irreparably damaged that the organisers were forced to postpone the race under duress from the drivers and teams; consequently it was rescheduled for the middle of September.

It is fair to say that slippery surfaces do add to the spectacle of exciting racing. But be careful what you wish for, because there's a fine line between a challenge and a total farce...