Rate the race
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Rate the race out of ten.
I’m writing this after the Austrian race. Not the best race I’ve ever seen but also not the worst. As usual on a race day I go on F1Fanatic to see what my fellow enthusiast think about the race. Sometimes I read opinions that I agree with, sometimes I don’t. On other occasions I just don’t understand an opinion. Often I also don’t get how a certain rating fits the motivation for that rating. ‘Great race, 6/10’, what? ‘Yeah, not the best I’ve seen, 7/10’, huh, really? Before you vote this is what Keith expects us to read:
“What did you think of today’s race? Share your verdict on the Austrian Grand Prix. F1 Fanatic holds polls on each race to find out which fans thought of every race during the season. Please vote based on how entertaining and exciting you thought the race was, not on how your preferred driver or team performed.”
I didn’t read it the first time I voted. Probably also not the second time. When I vote though, I keep it in mind. We’re rating a race, not a driver, not one single performance, not one single event in the race. At ‘rate the race’ we need to evaluate the race and give it a score going from 1 to 10. I guess if at least one driver finishes it’s worth a 1 so 0 is no option.
Coming to my point, it bothers me there is no standard scale to which we vote. Everyone votes so randomly. Some people have the same opinion but sometimes vote with a difference of up to 3 on a scale to 10. That’s not really correct is it? How can somebody think of a race as great and give it a 7 whilst someone else thinks so too but rates it a 9. Obviously if a favourite driver finishes better, or wins it helps the score positively. It can of course also downgrade the rate.
So I started thinking, what can we do about that? Keep a personal record of every vote so we can compare to previous given votes? To complicated I’d say, I’m not really that good with computers anyway. However, we could link a race to every score going from 1 to 10. Then when you have to vote you have something in comparison. Still some people will increase their rating on the finishing position of their favourite driver, so would I occasionally. Here is a list of examples that fit the rating whoever won or lost according to how I use the rating. I used recent races for most ratings as we probably all remember those the best.
1. 2005 USA race, 2004 Hungarian race, …
2. 2002 Austrian Race, 1999 Spanish race, 2011 European race, …
3. 1994 European race, 2012 Monaco race, 2008 European race, …
4. 2010 German race, 2012 Belgian race, 2009 Singapore race, 2009 Spanish race, …
5. 2012 Belgian race, 2014 Monaco race, 2008 German race, 2012 Korean race, …
6. 2013 Italian race, 2014 Malaysian race, …
7. 2008 Turkish race, 2013 British race, …
8. 2008 Brazilian race, 2012 British race, 2010 Canadian race, …
9. 2012 Brazilian race, 2008 British race, 2014 Canadian race, 2011 Chinese race, 2005 Japanese race.
10. 2014 Bahrain race, 1981 Spanish race, 1971 Italian race, 1998 Belgian race, …What do we think?
I vote based on how much I enjoyed the race, so usually that means scoring one or two lower if the BBC is only showing highlights, among other factors. For example I usually end up voting for the modal average but this race I gave a 6 because they really cut it down and ruined the flow.
The stricter you are with how you vote the closer you get to the FIA’s viewpoint of DRS, butter tyres, sparks, sprinklers etc.
Does it really matter how good some people think a race is? This score is to represent how every feels about a race, not creating the exact to the decimal rating of quality. As long as everyone applies their own personal scale, no one race will be inflated. Some people also aren’t very good at explaining their opinions, so it maybe a 7 with good reasons, but they don’t want to bother explaining why.
The trouble with these polls is they are very subjective, but on the whole the result tends to be in the right area. If you look at the history of the results no one can really deny that the races in the top 10-15 have been the best since the poll started. The same goes for those in the bottom 10-15.
You of course have to consider that people want different things from the races and have vastly different standards. For some people to give a race a 10 they would need to see action from lights to flag, but another would give a race a 10 if it was a tight, tense strategic battle. Some people would also rate a race lower or higher due to its position in the calendar, which is why the Australian GP or the final race of the season tend to score quite highly. Another factor is that, on the whole, the last 7-8 seasons have been fantastic with unprecedented levels of excitement, so I think people are actually getting a bit greedy when they rate their races. I remember a lot of the races from the early to mid 90’s were total borefests that put all the other members of my family to sleep. I shudder to think what they would score these days.
Personally, if there is a good solid run of the mill race I will give it a 7 as a default. I like to think my steady 7 cancels out someone who says “urgh, that was a dull race because there weren’t cars passing each other at every corner and no one got within range to use their Proton Torpedoes on Helmut Marko, 1/10.” I’ll bump the score up a notch if, for example there is a period in the race where things are tense strategically or there is a particularly good battle for the lead or points. But at the end of the day, it doesn’t really matter. We watch he races because we love the sport, not to give them a rating out of 10.
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