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Renault's Daniel Ricciardo doesn't believe that Formula 1 benefitted from introducing faster cars with more downforce in 2017.
A shake-up in the technical regulations saw the cars go a handful of seconds quicker from 2016, while the development of the cars over the last three years has only made the cars even faster.
In 2021, F1 will once again change up its rulebook, with the new technical regulations aimed at reducing the gap between the field and also allow them to race more closely at the circuit.
"The cars look big, sexy and wide," Ricciardo said. "They look awesome and better than they did in 2016. But my concern was the width itself, the tracks weren't made wider.
"There was less room to overtake. Not even overtake, just in F1, you look for the tiniest bit of clear air if you're following another car.
"If he's on the apex kerb, you're trying to take a bit more apex kerb to get some clear air on your front wing.
"But having wider cars, it's harder to find that clearer air. That alone for me, taking the downforce out of it, them taking [up] more track makes it harder to follow.
"So that was maybe not the best thing to do. I don't want to say we'll learn from our mistakes, but we'll learn and move forward."
When questioned on whether or not the ease of going wheel-to-wheel racing would make overtakes less dramatic in 2021, Ricciardo stated that drivers will be defending harder than ever.
"When others are passing one car, I'll be passing two at once!" Ricciardo affirmed. "That's the way you got to look at it.
"It puts more on us to defend better as well. I don't think it's going to be easy to overtake, it's not going to be like everyone can do it. Everyone will be trying to defend harder.
"Having more opportunities available will mean better excitement for everyone."
I'm glad drivers and principals are coming to grips with the reality that overall speed is not the ultimate goal. Ultimately, the cars from any previous age were a lot slower, especially those supposedly golden ages of the sport 80's, 90's.
I'm very optimistic about the changes in sporting regulations for 2021. I hope they also fix the corresponding political inequities like the Ferrari veto, and unfair prizes distributions. If we can do both, I think the sport will get a massive uplift in every sense of the word. I can see a few new manufacturers wanting to come in like Porsche and Aston Martin
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G. Zhou
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Racing was never about speed.