'Wide cars' not helping overtaking cause - Ricciardo

Daniel Ricciardo, the boldest of Formula 1's drivers when it comes to overtaking, believes the width of the current spec cars isn't making his already difficult task any easier.

The sport introduced its wider, high-downforce machines at the start of the 2017 season to promote speed but the faster lap times have clearly come to the detriment of overtaking.

The issue was underlined once again last week, in the opening round of the world championship in Melbourne, during a race where only a handful of legitimate overtakes were recorded.

Drivers have pointed to the effects of downforce and the subsequent turbulent air left in a car's wake as the culprits for the reduction in overtaking opportunities, but Ricciardo also sees the current cars' width as an impacting factor.

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"I feel now with the wide tyres and wide cars, they already take up a lot of space on the track," the Red Bull driver told Motorsport.com.

"It's hard to find clean air. It's getting to a point where I think some racetracks are going to be hurt by the racing. There's not going to be much.

"I think narrower cars were great. It's like motorbikes, because they're so narrow there's always room to get past. And they lap 30 seconds slower than us.

"I think it proves it's not necessarily about the laptime. We do need the raceability, because that's the spectacle."

The Aussie questions the need for cars to be faster to produce a more thrilling show for the fans, insisting a better balance is perhaps required between speed and the ability to overtake.

"It's at a point now where at Barcelona, we were going 'fast'," added Ricciardo.

"Turn 2, 3, was full, Turn 9 was full. So it's impressive, but the faster we go, the harder it's going to be to overtake and the harder it's going to be to follow close.

"So do we want to see cars doing 1m22s as opposed to 1m25s, but not being able to race on Sunday? Or do you want to see slower cars but they can race?

"Sure, they still need to be fast but there's a balance."

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