Passing Down (Under) in Australian Grand Prix

It was interesting to check out Brian Lawrence's statistics this week about the number of times drivers passed each other at the season opening race. The FIA has been working like mad changing the rules and regulations in order to increase the amount of overtaking during races, and if Australia was anything to go by...then they still have a lot of work to do. Either that, or we might soon be able to conclude that single seat open wheel racing on anything other than oval tracks just doesn't lend itself to passing.

I've never been one to ask for a lot of overtaking anyway. I like the analogy that Max Mosley, the FIA president, used to employ about how F1's overtaking was like soccer with its goals, compared to, say, Nascar or IndyCar, where the endless overtaking was like the massive number of "goals" scored in basketball. (I'm not sure why Max has changed his tune on that one, and says we now must have more passing - although I think it has to do with the FIA F1 fan surveys.) Moreover, I thought the Australian Grand Prix was very good this year, even with half as much passing as last year, even if the top three finishers' results did mainly come down to race strategy. (Let's not forget Lewis Hamilton's amazing passing at the start....)

Anyway, Lawrence, who has been keeping these overtaking statistics for years, found that whereas there were 23 overtaking maneuvers last year in Australia, this year there were only 11.

As Kimi Raikkonen in his Ferrari leads the pack through the first corner at the start of the Australian Grand Prix last weekend, Lewis Hamilton, on the far right behind Raikkonen, would end up passing his own teammate, Fernando Alonso, pictured above on the far left of the photo. Photo (c) Ferrari