No blown diffusers = no overtaking?

[mattikake]

From what I saw in Oz it seemed closely matched cars were having difficulty getting close, even with DRS. Yes, there was action in Oz but it wasn't all due to cars being able to follow closely naturally.

Once the top 4 fastest cars had found each other in the race, the distance between them in corners was pretty massive... and nothing happened between them.

It's early days yet, but I'm thinking the lack blow diffusers is really going to hinder overtaking this year. The upside is the differences in the cars seems to be mixing the grid up a bit, with some built for quali pace and others for race pace.

Anyone else concerned?

[Teocali]

It was my initial reaction as well but Melbourne is always a tough place to overtake.

I think towards the end of the race 6th downwards bunched up but I felt this was more down to tyres past their best.

Let hope we are proved wrong this weekend...

[llewop]

A bit early to call that after one race!

Actually I think it could be the other way round - the Red Bull had the most integrated blown diffuser last year and was on rails. The RB8, so far, seems somewhat twitchy in the braking zone.

[Vocal Minority]

I remember people complaining the DRS didn't work in Melbourne last year.

Wait and see in malaysia i guess

[anonymous-user]

Remember that the cars are new, and the drivers would not be 100% sure on how they will behave in close formation with other cars - still finding feet really so its alwats going to be cautious

[Cyder]

There was loads of overtaking wasn't there?

I remember Kobayashi slinging it up the inside (and outside) of a few people, Raikonnen overtook half the field, Maldonado overtook Grosjean etc etc.

[stephen300o]

There was plenty of overtaking.

[FourWheelDrift]

The only cars I saw having problems overtaking each other were the Red Bulls and the McLarens, everyone else was passing. Button was better on the day and could pull out a gap and Vettel, Hamilton and Webber were very evenly matched on pace. Plus of course Hamilton could use DRS as he was behind Vettel to pull away from Webber and Webber could use his DRS to keep up. Vettel was just far enough in front of Hamilton to be out of touch when it mattered.

[Phil-CH]

mattikake said:

From what I saw in Oz it seemed closely matched cars were having difficulty getting close, even with DRS. Yes, there was action in Oz but it wasn't all due to cars being able to follow closely naturally.

Once the top 4 fastest cars had found each other in the race, the distance between them in corners was pretty massive... and nothing happened between them.

It's early days yet, but I'm thinking the lack blow diffusers is really going to hinder overtaking this year. The upside is the differences in the cars seems to be mixing the grid up a bit, with some built for quali pace and others for race pace.

Anyone else concerned?

I would have thought the lack of overtaking was more due to the tyres being more closely matched this time. Last season, the difference between the option and prime tyre (as well as various degrating state) was a lot bigger than what it is apparently this year.

An example of this would be the 2nd stint, where Vettel was on the option tyre and Hamilton (slightly ahead) was on the prime tyre (just as Button was). Despite the different compounds, they were quite similar in degration and lap times I thought.

Last year, because of a bigger difference in tyres, we also so a bigger speed differential with teams on different strategies.

[chriscooke]

Vocal Minority said:

I remember people complaining the DRS didn't work in Melbourne last year.

Wait and see in malaysia i guess

100% this. The race seemed pretty good in Melbourne though to be fair with a fair bit of overtaking. Their wasn't a lot of overtaking at the front because Button was quicker than vettle and vettle quicker than Hamilton etc.