Of course your interaction with the other drivers matters... it’s about when you try to take on the driver in front, so you wait out their fuel stop and then try make the most of the crowded field, so you take a riskier inside line from their slip stream and break late into turn 4 etc.
That isn't interacting with another driver, though. You aren't running a driver off the road, or bumping their car, or anything else. They aren't doing the same. There isn't any interaction going on, merely ways to get through a lap faster and faster.
Trying to say this is anything like interaction is basketball, baseball, or football is absolutely ridiculous. In those sports, one team directly interacts with the other. You can't hit the baseball without the opposing team pitching it to you, you can't reasonably expect to score a touchdown without getting tackled and you can't score a basket without the opposition trying to steal the ball.
You clearly haven't seen Touring Car Championships.
Hell, even in F1 there's physical contact between the cars.
Thinking that drivers do not impact each others' performance applies to things like time trials in rally events but you get 20 cars on a grid, it is absolutely not just 'who can drive around the track quickest'.
Those aren't intended actions, and in nearly every race (at least those in the west), it is considered illegal and worthy of disqualification to intentionally make physical contact with another car. And actually in F1, you can't even intentionally use your vehicle to block another car from overtaking.
I haven't watched Touring Car Championships, so I am not sure what the rules on overtaking are.
Of course your interaction with the other drivers matters... it’s about when you try to take on the driver in front, so you wait out their fuel stop and then try make the most of the crowded field, so you take a riskier inside line from their slip stream and break late into turn 4 etc.
That isn't interacting with another driver, though. You aren't running a driver off the road, or bumping their car, or anything else. They aren't doing the same. There isn't any interaction going on, merely ways to get through a lap faster and faster.
Trying to say this is anything like interaction is basketball, baseball, or football is absolutely ridiculous. In those sports, one team directly interacts with the other. You can't hit the baseball without the opposing team pitching it to you, you can't reasonably expect to score a touchdown without getting tackled and you can't score a basket without the opposition trying to steal the ball.
You can't fuck with other drivers.
You clearly haven't seen Touring Car Championships.
Hell, even in F1 there's physical contact between the cars.
Thinking that drivers do not impact each others' performance applies to things like time trials in rally events but you get 20 cars on a grid, it is absolutely not just 'who can drive around the track quickest'.
Those aren't intended actions, and in nearly every race (at least those in the west), it is considered illegal and worthy of disqualification to intentionally make physical contact with another car. And actually in F1, you can't even intentionally use your vehicle to block another car from overtaking.
I haven't watched Touring Car Championships, so I am not sure what the rules on overtaking are.