Alonso’s wild resolution to F1’s visibility downside

Fernando Alonso has little doubt made and misplaced many associates since making his Method 1 debut in 2001. However his concept to unravel the issue of poor visibility in moist situations will probably transfer F1's race promoters to strike him off their Christmas card lists.

Final weekend in Spa, an 80-minute race suspension adopted by 4 laps behind the protection automotive prompted a number of opponents to complain that race management was being too conservative. Those that had taken the chance of shifting to a higher-downforce set-up for higher efficiency in moist situations have been most aggravated, for the reason that observe was already drying in a number of locations when the race was lastly green-flagged.

Nevertheless, the difficulty was not a lot a scarcity of grip as a scarcity of visibility with spray hanging within the air in harmful high-speed sections.

Alonso believes the issue dates again to the adoption of wider vehicles and tyres in 2017. However he additionally – and that is what's going to set off race promoters – believes the tracks may very well be resurfaced with a distinct sort of asphalt to scale back spray.

“I believe the tyres, the vast tyres positively made visibility worse,” he instructed reporters forward of this weekend's Hungarian GP. “And doubtless a number of the asphalt within the circuits, they're a bit bit totally different than what they have been up to now. As a result of we raced with quite a lot of water in Sepang [Malaysia] and it was at all times okay.

“And now this new era of asphalt, which may be very black and really grippy in dry situations, is sort of a mirror in moist situations. And yeah, visibility isn't good. However I do not know what we are able to do there or what the tyres can do in a really tough tarmac.

“And even a number of the highways, I've mentioned many instances that the highways, there are some that they've zero spray. So if we implement that tarmac in all of the circuits as a standard rule, we may have zero spray.

“Then will probably be an enormous degradation, in all probability, in dry situations – I do not know. However then we are able to work from that theme and have a place to begin. However I am only a driver.”

It will be an costly enterprise certainly to resurface all of the grand prix circuits prone to be affected by poor climate. And, as Alonso alludes, such a course of may have unexpected penalties.

Might Alonso's idea work?

Many international locations use specialised asphalt mixes on main highways to scale back spray. However this isn't a magic course of by which rainwater merely disappears.

Such surfaces are literally the alternative of the densely textured grading frequent to most grand prix venues. So-called Open-Graded Friction Course (OGFC) surfaces have a skinny high layer of huge, coarse combination (the particulate materials) with a a lot decrease than common proportion of ‘fines' (smaller particles). The sort of ‘open' grading is extra permeable, so water drains downwards in addition to off to the facet.

OGFC isn't used on all forms of roads as a result of it's costlier and probably much less sturdy if not laid appropriately. If the house owners of everlasting circuits continuously visited by the F1 circus have been to seek out a number of million {dollars} down the again of the couch, it might not be a magic-bullet resolution as a result of the extra open grading would have a extreme impact on tyre life and efficiency.

At optimum temperatures a tyre generates a few of its grip because the outer floor pushes in to the void between the mixture. A extra open floor would give extra work for it to do. Some circuits are already like this, notably Bahrain. That venue additionally highlights one other potential downside for OGFC surfaces: sand and different such detritus can get within the voids, lowering their effectiveness.

So in the meanwhile it exists merely as an attention-grabbing thought experiment, albeit one shared by different drivers past Alonso.

“I at all times thought Method 1 ought to, if doable, innovate and check out one thing totally different,” mentioned Carlos Sainz in Hungary.

“I believe there are specific sort of Tarmacs that should you would put them on a straight line there could be no spray, they usually exist however circuits do not have them. Most circuits do not have it.

“In the long run the most important downside for us is visibility. It is what retains us from racing.

“I believe Spa is a really explicit case the place there's been a really darkish previous at this observe. The FIA consciously took a really conservative method, they usually warned us on Thursday [of the Belgian GP] that they might take a really conservative method.

“Possibly we should always have accomplished a greater job in speaking that or they need to have communicated to the followers, to the world… only for everybody perhaps to have a bit extra consciousness.

“I do suppose we may have raced a bit sooner than what we did, gone a bit earlier after the purple flag, and the protection automotive may have lasted a bit much less lengthy. However you additionally have to put your self within the footwear of the those who press the button to say go – after which there is a large accident due to a scarcity of visibility, and one thing deadly may occur, and they're in the long run answerable for that scenario to happen should you press the button.

“I perceive additionally the conservative method they took, despite the fact that as a racing driver I want we may have raced a bit earlier.”