F1

Quality of F1 races

Viewing 15 posts - 1 through 15 (of 19 total)
  • Author
    Posts
  • #302550
    magon4
    Participant

    I don’t know how long each one of you have been following the sport. It started in 1989 for me, and I have seen all races since the beginning of the 1994 season.
    And it is completely normal for a F1 season to have maybe 1/4 to 1/3 good to great races, and the rest rather dull for the casual viewer but mostly still interesting to those who really follow the race.
    I don’t need a Hungary GP every second week to keep watching – I think I even prefer not to have that kind of race every time.
    I guess my point is: the main reason to watch races is not merely to be entertained, it is to live through a race, understand the strategies and hope for the unexpected, even when it doesn’t come. There is beauty in a well driven race and well executed strategy even if there is no fight for the lead or positions.
    Just my 5 cents.

    #302555
    PorscheF1
    Participant

    I don’t need a Hungary GP every second week to keep watching – I think I even prefer not to have that kind of race every time.

    If that happend we would no longer enjoy such a race as much anyway. We need dull races to make the classics stand out.

    I also enjoy a good strategic battle even when the climax isn’t there. The thing about those battles is they always have to have a small chance of success and that has also been lacking with the dominance of Mercedes and the overall big gaps between teams.

    I don’t like the concept of FE but still enjoyed some of the races because I like racing. So even when the fight isn’t for the win, I could watch two Marussia cars go at it all day, a race can still be good. All we need to have is that little chance of something else than the ordinary to keep people interested.

    #302561
    glynh
    Participant

    I’m glad I’m not alone in thinking that there’s nothing wrong with most races, I’m quite happy to watch the cars driving hard in places like monaco without many overtakes.

    We don’t need a fight for the lead all the time when there’s plenty going on throughout the field. It’s always nice to have more races like the last ones though…

    #302576
    Michal
    Participant

    I think the problem is about ‘spicing up the show’. Look, when we have a good race everything is OK like always was. I am sure there was fuel conservation going on yesterday but no one complains about that! However when a grand prix is boring the wave of criticism is enormous. Maybe I am mistaken but in the past when a dull race happened the purity of F1 was defending itself. Not to say everyone was excited in 2002 but now it looks like it’s double-whammy – not only boring race but also artificial. And that puts the sport out of balance.

    In other words – in the past borefests were more acceptable than are now.

    #302615
    Jonathan
    Participant

    I agree with you, Michal. I can live with a dull and processional race (and a race has to be pretty boring for me to think that) if cars and drivers are at their limits as it provides them with a chance to show the levels they can perform at, which are very impressive to an ordinary F1 fan like me. By contrast, if the race is dull and artificial, with the only overtaking being achieved by means of slam dunk DRS overtakes or tyres falling apart it seems a bit hollow. I ideally want F1 to be both impressive and entertaining, but I feel the ‘wow factor’ of the level of performance that can be achieved by the machines and drivers is more important than excitement generated by artificial means.

    My expectations for some races are higher than others – for instance, I thought this year’s Canadian GP was a bit of a disappointment, whereas in Hungary I was expecting a relatively unexciting race and therefore this weekend’s action-packed and extremely unpredictable grand prix was an absolute treat.

    #302627
    Nick
    Participant

    I think one of the contributing factors to F1 seeming more boring now is that the fans have a lot more information. Watching a boring race in the late 90s or early 00s for me was boring, but I felt that races like that happened. You never really knew what strategy everyone was on, how much fuel they had, what tyres they were on. There was perhaps some more diversity in engines and tyres as well, adding more elements. If it started to rain, it wouldn’t just be more exciting because of the rain, but also meant one tyre manufacturer could lose their edge and the other came back into play.

    Right now, perhaps since 2010 or so, we’ve had increasingly more information fed to us during the race and rules have called for more uniformity. In my perception, it’s become a lot easier to ‘read’ a race, with less elements of interest and more information. On top of that, retirements have diminished to a point you could say regulations regarding limited engines etc. per year have had a completely different result than ‘cost saving’ and rather have eliminated engine and engine part failures as a common retirement cause.

    In terms of unpredictability, F1 has lost something over the past 10 years, with the past 5 years and the introduction of artificial unpredictability and push to pass, races feel different to me than they used to do.

    We can’t really turn our back on cost saving and tell the teams to run infinite engine parts again, but I do feel F1 needs to look into opening up regulations to let a little bit more variety in and keep artificial means out.

    #302686
    magon4
    Participant

    I think I disagree with that last one…
    I love having all the information, the options are still so variable. Love the F1App during the race, much better than 10 years ago depending on who is reporting the race.

    #302716
    Michal
    Participant

    Fans opinions regarding racing:

    Past:
    Not-exciting race: High-speed furious but boring procession, hopefully next time will be better
    Exciting race: F1 is the best sport in the world

    Now:
    Not-exciting race: F1 is not about racing anymore
    Exciting race: F1 is the best sport in the world

    Do you agree with that?

    #305030
    Anonymous
    Inactive

    To me the whole point of F1 (and professional sport in general) is for everyone that is competing to push to their limit and perform to the best of their ability. Since 2011 the rule makers of F1 are preventing the drivers and cars from going to their limits by mandating that the tyres must deliberately degrade or lose performance over a short number of laps to increase pit stops in the belief that it is more exciting for the spectators. It completely goes against what F1 should be about and in my view has made the racing worse as a result.

    When I started to follow F1 in the early 2000’s it was the case that everyone was able to try their best during the whole race, it was great to watch the cars and it didn’t matter if the race was not exciting from an on-track-action standpoint because you knew you were watching them give it their all. If you did get an exciting race it was a fantastic bonus, and getting an exciting race during that period happened more often than people would like to admit. I don’t remember ever getting bored watching an F1 race at all until 2008, but even then my interest in F1 was always very high because to me it was a great sport. This has not been the case in recent years, since the rule makers mandated that the tyres must deliberately lose performance my interest in watching the races has dropped quite significantly because the cars just look slow, they don’t look like they are being pushed to the limit at any stage during the race. Even the races that are deemed to be exciting I find somewhat dull because it never looks like the limit is being reached at any stage.

    If the rule makers tell the tyre manufacturer to make the tyres to the best that they can be, I am sure the racing will improve massively. The drivers and cars can be pushed to the limit again and the races will become great to watch again. This is what is needed for my interest to come back up to where it used to be in 2010, IMO the last proper year of racing in F1.

    #305040
    dragoll
    Participant

    To me the whole point of F1 (and professional sport in general) is for everyone that is competing to push to their limit and perform to the best of their ability.

    @rob91 That’d be nice, however, F1 has never been this, in the 80’s fuel was a massive issue for the V12 Ferrari’s, tyres often played their part, and cars were down right unreliable. In the 90’s, strategy played more of a role, with varied pit stop strategies, in the 00’s we had michelin vs bridgestone and now we have the electric era… I cannot remember any era of F1, ones that I’ve watched, or have read about where drivers could push 100%, 100% of the time.

    And it is completely normal for a F1 season to have maybe 1/4 to 1/3 good to great races, and the rest rather dull for the casual viewer but mostly still interesting to those who really follow the race.

    @magnon4 I was always around F1 because my father was into it during the 80’s, but I got into it seriously in 91 and my experience has been the same. You missed the boring 92/93 seasons, where there was Williams domination via active suspension, traction control and electronic aides.

    #305197
    Anonymous
    Inactive

    @dragoll I never said in my comment that there was a time “where drivers could push 100%, 100% of the time”, just that in the past the drivers could push at any time whenever they felt they had to during the race, this being because the tyres allowed them to do that. With the tyres supplied since 2011, if a driver pushes on at any time during a race they ruin the tyres within a few laps and ruin their race, so to lose as little time as possible the driver has to constantly conserve the tyres, which has made the cars look slow and boring. Before 2011 the drivers could push without worrying about the tyres because the tyres worked properly, the cars looked quick and it was always good to watch.

    #305249
    dragoll
    Participant

    @rob91 Tyres have been an issue for years, going back to the 70’s as my dad constantly reminds me of issues in sportscar racing and in F1 where drivers were literally driving to the problems associated with wheels slipping on the rims, etc… In the 80’s drivers had qualifying tyres where they would push for 1 or 2 laps and then they were done for, sometimes they had problems getting the tyre to the end. In the 90’s there are countless races where Schumacher won on a 3 stop strategy because fuel/tyres were lighter/fresher than his competitors, even though he didn’t necessarily have the best car out there.

    I’m not suggesting your point where the manufactured spectacle that we see with the current Pirelli’s isn’t bad for the sport, I’m just saying tyres have always played their part in the sport because like the aero, and the engine, the most amount of time can be made up in maximising the adhesion to the surface from the car with those 4 black round things. This issue we’re seeing is just a different problem.

    #305271
    Anonymous
    Inactive

    I seem to be one of the few people (well compared to people on awful aggressive Facebook F1 groups) who thinks DRS and KERS/ERS made F1 more exciting – so some races that were previously very dull have become really good – Hungary this year and was it Bahrain the other year – the one where Gutierrez was flipped upside down?

    It sometimes feels we have to ‘earn’ our great races: endure a couple of tedious ones and then get repaid with an absolute gem. We’ve sat through a few dull ones lately (including a rare boring Belgian race), so I think we’re due a good Singapore race!

    #305372
    Anonymous
    Inactive

    @dragoll I don’t think that you are completely seeing my point. It is natural for things to progress and progression in F1 leads to improvements in performance and safety. The tyres used in F1 in 2010 had progressed to such a point that, had it not been for the silly regulation stating that each driver must use at least one set of each specification of the slick tyres available during the race, the cars and drivers could have completed the whole race distance without needing to pit at any time whilst still being able to push to their limit if they needed to barring any mechanical problems. They were not an issue back then and we had some great races but since 2011 the tyres have deteriorated by design, and this is completely the wrong approach for F1 to take because it completely goes against the aims of the teams to improve performance, it goes against improvements in safety and it has made the quality of the races worse. Just because the tyres were problematic in past eras does not mean they should be problematic today, it should not be acceptable to have the tyres perform in the way they do currently given what they were like in 2010.

    #305394
    dragoll
    Participant

    @rob91 I understand what you are saying. I remember when Pirelli first came in, everyone was sick of the Bridgestones that were so hard and slow. I suppose you cannot make everyone happy ;)

Viewing 15 posts - 1 through 15 (of 19 total)
  • You must be logged in to reply to this topic.