Autobayng News Team
If the first race under Formula 1’s new regulations gave a glimpse of some of their shortcomings, Suzuka was always going to expose them more clearly.
The fears drivers would no longer be challenged by the quickest corners on one of F1’s most demanding tracks appear to have been realised. One of them, Alexander Albon, said he feels F1 no longer has high-speed corners, only medium-speed ones.
Albon is driving one of F1’s less capable cars: his quickest lap time in second practice was 1.3 seconds off pace-setter Oscar Piastri. Are the pace-setters also driving as far away from the grip limit of their cars?
Comparing Piastri’s onboard lap to Max Verstappen’s pole-winning lap from last season, that certainly seems to be the case. Piastri’s 1’30.133 was over three seconds shy of Verstappen’s pole-winning lap, but looked much slower from his onboard camera.
His car’s speed repeatedly dipped at the end of acceleration zones heading into fast corners. At one point – approaching the chicane at the end of the lap – the difference between Piastri’s peak speed on the preceding straight and his velocity as he reached the corner was over 50kph.
Elsewhere Piastri slowed so much approaching Suzuka’s quick corners that he was clearly not challenging his car’s grip limit. At turn one, where Verstappen hit 325kph as he turned in last year, Piastri had already slowed to 295kph due to ‘super-clipping’.
Approaching Degner One, which Verstappen turned into at 294kph last year, Piastri’s acceleration rate dipped so much that he never exceeded 277kph, then dropped another 3kph before turning in. The McLaren abruptly stopped accelerating well before reaching the hairpin as well, Piastri’s speed dropped by 10kph before he hit the brakes.
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Through the final third of the lap, which features the longest acceleration zones, Piastri’s speed reduction was the most acute. His acceleration rate dropped long before he saw the 200 metre board for Spoon curve. He turned in at 286kph, well under the 300kph Verstappen recorded last year.
The most dramatic speed loss occured on the approach to the chicane. The preceding corner, 130R, has been taken flat-out for years. On his way to pole last year Verstappen turned in at 303kph, the force of friction alone sufficient to cut his exit speed to 296kph.
Aided by his Straight Mode as he approached the corner, Piastri reached a higher peak speed of 321kph much earlier on the straight. But his car ran out of energy long before 130R, which he coasted through at comparable speeds to those of Verstappen last year.
Approaching the chicane, Piastri bled even more speed. By the time he hit the brakes his speed had fallen to 265kph – a massive 56kph below its peak. Verstappen was doing 300kph when he reached the chicane last year.
Suzuka therefore gave ample evidence to back Albon’s complaint that F1 drivers are no longer being challenged to drive the cars to the limit of the available grip. As noted before, this will vary from circuit to circuit depending on the length of their straights and braking zones, and the number of quick corners.
The FIA has already imposed a lower recharge rate of 8MJ for qualifying which may improve the situation. Teams had the option of recharging up to 9MJ in practice.
While the driving challenge of Suzuka has clearly been diluted, ‘super-clipping’ may also give rise to safety concerns. This section of track has been one of the more hazardous in qualifying in recent years when drivers on flying laps have encountered others who were preparing to start theirs. The added complication of drivers slowing to harvest energy may further complicate that. There were two impeding incidents approaching 130R in practice, both involving Verstappen.
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