Involuntary overtakes
“I didn’t even want to overtake Lewis, but it’s just a matter of when the battery ‘activates’. In certain moments I don’t want it to activate, but I can’t control it. So I overtake him, then I have no more battery, so he overtakes me in an instant”. These words, spoken by Lando Norris at the end of the last Japanese GP, are becoming a case within the Formula 1 paddock and are increasingly fueling skepticism and concern regarding the current F1 regulations. If super-clipping represents above all an ‘image’ problem for the Circus, with cars decelerating in the middle of the straight despite the driver continuing to keep the gas pedal pressed to the maximum, the issue of overtaking is instead crucial from a safety point of view.
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Norris’s complaint is clear: with these ‘self-learning’ softwares, the power unit can now ‘decide’ autonomously when to release the engine’s electric power, catching the driver himself off guard, who might have had different ideas about where to use it. What happened in the battle between Norris and Hamilton at Suzuka – but it’s not the only case – is very worrying and even the expert commentator and former driver Martin Brundle has taken the words of the reigning world champion seriously.
Worried Brundle ‘calls’ the FIA
“Lando’s statement really worried me – Brundle stated speaking on the program The F1 Show – in Formula 1 there has always been a fundamental point of the regulations that is very simple and easy to understand: ‘the driver must drive the car alone and unaided’. Drivers should not be surprised by a self-learning car. They must get rid of it. The engine’s power delivery must be proportional and consequential to what the drivers are doing with the throttle. This is the fundamental point. It must be linear. This is a big problem for the FIA“, Brundle concluded.
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The risk is seeing absurd and very dangerous accidents like the one that featured Ollie Bearman right at Suzuka, who found himself ‘pushed’ by exaggerated power in a section of the track where in front of him was Franco Colapinto’s car, which instead was moving more slowly because it was in the recharging phase. The combination of these two situations generated a nasty crash for the young English driver, who stepped out of the car limping. F1 and the federation must therefore intervene urgently to bring total control of the car back into the hands of the drivers.
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