Focusing on the thrilling art of overtaking

Ask a Formula One driver about passing moves he is proud of, and his eyes are likely to light up as he recalls an exciting maneuvre.

Ask a driver which race he would most like to win if he could win only one, and he is likely to say the Monaco Grand Prix, the most prestigious, historic and glamorous race of them all.

It would seem to be a paradox, then, that the one race everyone wants to win, winding through the streets of the Mediterranean principality, is also the one in which it is most difficult to overtake.

“As a racer it is so, so cool when you start from 10th or wherever and have the ability to pass and come through the field,” said Lewis Hamilton, who drives for the Mercedes team and who has won the past four races this year, starting from pole position on three of those.

“I remember the last time I had a race like that was Brazil, 2010 or 2011, and I came from 18th or whatever, to third,” he said.

“That was one of the coolest races. It feels more spectacular than a win from pole position. But the name of the game is to win. You want to be pole position, you want to be quickest throughout the weekend, and you want to win. You can’t have both worlds; you can’t have your cake and eat it.”

At the race this weekend in Monaco, there may be more cars passing each other than in recent years, but not because of a change in the track, which is the narrowest and shortest on the calendar.

The cars will still run within a few centimeters of the barriers at nearly 300 kilometers an hour, or 185 mph, curving through the city streets with little opportunity for passing.

But this year, the cars themselves are different, with new turbo-charged engines, less downforce to provide grip, and electronic boosting devices of the hybrid engines.

“I think Monaco will be a very difficult race,” said Felipe Massa, a driver at the Williams team.

“We drive with the car a lot more sideways, with the engine you have, with the turbo; the torque is maybe double what we had last year. And the grip on the tires is not very high. I would say Monaco will be a very difficult race, an easy race to crash.”

The elite series is often criticised for its lack of overtaking, unlike many other forms of motor racing, such as NASCAR, IndyCar or MotoGP motorcycle racing, where there is overtaking throughout the races.

Formula One’s sinuous circuits, compared to the ovals of stock car and IndyCar races, are partly responsible for that, as is the reliance on aerodynamics, which makes it difficult for cars to get close enough to pass because turbulence causes them to lose grip.

“As a racing fan, the great races are in GP2 or in go-karts,” Hamilton said.

“Go-karts are the best races to watch; you get to see just such natural talent; everyone’s got the same car, everyone’s got similar engines, and you get to watch a train going around and overtaking from corner to corner, which is the greatest racing to watch. Formula One is different. It has different technology, it is a different competition.”

Passing was not always so difficult. In March, Emerson Fittipaldi, a two-time world champion, outlined the art of overtaking on the website of McLaren, with which he won the title in 1974.

“I used to love overtaking,” Fittipaldi wrote.

“I used to plan my moves meticulously. If I found that I was closing on a car in front, as I did so I’d watch the way the other car was moving on the racetrack in front of me. I’d analyse the way it was slowing under braking, the way it was turning in, the way it was changing direction, the way it was putting its power down, everything.”|

“As I closed up behind him, I’d begin to calculate my options,” he continued.

“Sometimes there would be one corner on the lap on which my car was significantly better than that of my opponent, and if that were the case then I’d know that that would be the corner at which I’d make my move. But, in order that my rival wouldn’t be alerted to that fact, I’d begin to 'show my nose,' as racing people tend to term it, which means that I’d make it look as though I was trying to overtake into a corner on which in actual fact I had no intention of trying to overtake, in an effort to unsettle my quarry.”

Today, racers say, this kind of approach is not often possible.

“It’s not always that easy and straightforward in Formula One,” said Nico Hulkenberg, a driver at the Force India team. “Sometimes it’s just one or two places on the track where it’s realistic to pass and the other driver knows that, too.”

In recent years, overtaking had become difficult and rare in Formula One.

So the series authorized the use of a moveable rear wing, called a drag reduction system, or DRS, that may be used on certain parts of the track to allow drivers to rid themselves of the surplus of downforce for a short spurt of speed and cleaner air to overtake more easily.

Critics say the DRS system is a fake approach to racing, but most drivers say that it helps a little. “Even with DRS, overtaking today is still difficult, and that’s as it should be: It’s supposed to be difficult,” Fittipaldi said.

“That’s what makes a great passing maneuvre such a wonderful spectacle to behold.”