UpdateF1 >> Formula 1 News > F1 'can be dull' says Hamilton

Lewis tells us what we know

Sep.6 (GMM) Championship leader and Belgium pole sitter Lewis Hamilton claims formula one "can be a bit dull".

The McLaren driver's comments were made to Eurosport in the wake of the European grand prix at Valencia, 23-year-old Hamilton identifying a lack of overtaking as a key concern.

"I think we put on a great show, but you saw there wasn't any overtaking," said the Briton.

A report in the June edition of F1 Racing magazine showed there were 270 overtaking manoeuvres during the 2007 season, equating to nearly 16 passes per race.

"I was working my ass off in the race and doing the best job I could," said Hamilton. "You couldn't get close to other cars (at Valencia), which is the same at a lot of the circuits we have.

"The new circuits are potentially just flat and boring."

Among the F1 teams, there is now an Overtaking Working Group (OWG), and the first fruits of its efforts will be in 2009, when new bodywork regulations, slick tyres and 'boost buttons' powered by KERS systems arrive on the grid.

McLaren chief executive Martin Whitmarsh supports the initiative but thinks F1 cars should not be too easy to overtake.

"I guess there is a point that if it was very easy to overtake during the race you would quickly put the cars in order, with the quickest at the front, and then they would just spread out over the track."

Honda's Ross Brawn, meanwhile, questions suggestions that banning pistops - thereby taking away the element of fuel strategy - would necessarily make F1 more exciting.

"I think a race could easily be very boring without the pitstops," he said at Spa-Francorchamps, pointing out that some of the enduring talking points of the recent Valencia race involved pitstop mishaps.

"I think it's quite an entertaining part of the sport and we shouldn't be looking back with rose-tinted spectacles, thinking it was all so wonderful a few years ago, because it wasn't."

Written: Sat, 06 Sep 2008 15:21:50