Barrichello . Silverstone. Mega.
How long before Formula 1 dies?
- Thread starter mariachi-19
- Start date
Let's hope Max can save the sport
Best driver loses again, my last season watching this shite, signing out.
2010 was an excellent season to be fair with Webber Vettel, Hamilton and Alonso all competing fiercely. Since then it's been horrendous.
The sport seems to have gone far too bureaucratic. Refueling used to add so much variability to strategy, reliability was worse which made races much more unpredictable. The gravel traps and walls punished mistakes. Now all these challenges are being eliminated, as well as the removal of classic tracks. There's barely any wet races anymore. I'd like to see them bring back Imola, have Hockenheim and Nuremberg GP's every year. Maybe add a second British GP and make Interlagos the last GP of the season again. Stop punishing drivers with penalties for taking risks, its' ruining the enjoyment. And allow the drivers to show their passion.....all the racers out there seem like robots besides Kimi, Vettel, Verstappen and Hamilton. It's a far cry from the early 2000's when there was Hakkinen, Schumacher, Montoya, Alonso, Fisi, Trulli - even Sato. Not to mind when the sport was prestigious back in the 60's or 80s.
The sport seems to have gone far too bureaucratic. Refueling used to add so much variability to strategy, reliability was worse which made races much more unpredictable. The gravel traps and walls punished mistakes. Now all these challenges are being eliminated, as well as the removal of classic tracks. There's barely any wet races anymore. I'd like to see them bring back Imola, have Hockenheim and Nuremberg GP's every year. Maybe add a second British GP and make Interlagos the last GP of the season again. Stop punishing drivers with penalties for taking risks, its' ruining the enjoyment. And allow the drivers to show their passion.....all the racers out there seem like robots besides Kimi, Vettel, Verstappen and Hamilton. It's a far cry from the early 2000's when there was Hakkinen, Schumacher, Montoya, Alonso, Fisi, Trulli - even Sato. Not to mind when the sport was prestigious back in the 60's or 80s.
Not a fan but tuned in to the end of it as I thought there might be some excitement and it's nice to see people achieve their dream and 'lose it' emotionally. How wrong I was...I've been to wakes with more excitement - a new champion crowned but absolutely zero passion or charisma from anyone. A lot of PR instructions no doubt but I was pretty amazed at how bored everyone looked.
So dull.
So dull.
I still remember the heartbreak when Schumi's car died at the last GP when he was leading, and Alonso won the title.
Those were the days. Accidents every races, but boy was it fun.
Those were the days. Accidents every races, but boy was it fun.
I mean, yeah. Apart from Schumacher i dont know anything about f1
you do know Schumacher hasn't raced for years right
Lewis is a fantastic figurehead for the sport. He might not be to everyone's liking, but neither was Schuwi.
edit: sky beat me to it
you do know Schumacher hasn't raced for years right
Lewis is a fantastic figurehead for the sport. He might not be to everyone's liking, but neither was Schuwi.
edit: sky beat me to it
Yes i know. I stopped following f1 along time ago due to no names to connect to.
Not that i follow it closely, but at least i know something about f1 due to Schumacher.
Oooh I member.
I think bringing back fuel stops would be brilliant for the sport. nothing better than more potential strategies, with weather thrown in it makes the races that bit more unpredictable imo
It's got to the point where I look at Bernie's sprinkler idea and think, "you know what..."
I love it. There have always been dominant teams and drivers, that's the nature of F1. If you want to watch drivers fight it out in equal cars then there's the Indy series or many others. Having said that, the management of rules and regulations has been comical at times, and racing on tracks in virtually barren places with no atmosphere doesn't help either.
Why did they take them out? Surely fuelling strategy was one of the big things in the sport?
I think they took it out to stop all the overtaking being done with one car in the pits on a different strategy.
Exactly this.
I've been watching since I was a child, I can remember watching the tail end of the 1993 season as a 3 year old so from my experience you effectively had the following:
Williams having the dominant car/engine package from 1991-1997 (Senna's talent in 1991 mixed with unreliability for Mansell. Schumacher's talent being the force against it in 94/95, plus possibly some Benetton/TWR shenanigans in 94)
McLaren in 98 and 99 (again with Schumacher being the fighting force against it).
Ferrari from 2000-2006 (with Alonso and the tire war being the difference in 2005-06.)
McLaren having it in 2007 and 2008 (screw ups and in-fighting cost them the title in 2007 when they really should've won it)
Red Bull being dominant from 2009-2013 (double diffuser getting Brawn over the line in 2009 but RB had the best car from the second half of that season onwards).
Mercedes from 2014-now.
McLaren were obviously the dominant force just before I was born for much of the late 80's and very, very early 90's.
Anyone's guess who will become the dominant force in 2017 onwards but one team will have undoubtedly the best solution to the rules, it's just whether there's a reason why they screw up or another team has someone with enough talent to fight against them.
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I haven't seen a sport with more elitist attitude than F1 apart from may be polo and no one gives a shit about polo.
They tried that and it was shit. Was it called A1 or summat?
How on earth do you know who the best driver is though?
Member when there was less Mexicans?
The problem is that there is always one team that's miles better than the rest. Other teams need to pull their fingers out really. If there were 3 or 4 teams that were of the level of the Mercedes then it would be fantastic, but it's never the case.
I find Hamilton to be thoroughly detestable. To see him powerless to win a title while leading the race was great. To me at least.
The equivalent of seeing Gerrard slip and crawl after Ba.
On topic though : F1 is approaching WWE levels of Spectacle over Sport. I know there's nothing artificial on a drivers level but the sport now exists to make money for itself rather than entertain a crowd.
F1 always felt like a European sport. I mean that by it not wholly pursuing a maximum dollar profit.
It's just got to a pure revenue generation model so fast. The Champions League and EPL are on the same path. As are the WC and European Championships. It's just happening slower. There is now far less value in these sports in maintaining a level playing field. They've all worked out that it's possible to let the product degrade if the spectacle retains an important feel. Get more people. More teams. More countries.
I can't think of many sports that have seen a product really improve at a similar rate to profits. All that tells you is money is going to the wrong areas. Either disproportionately within that sport, or people are taking money out of those sports.
That's a very disjointed rant.
The equivalent of seeing Gerrard slip and crawl after Ba.
On topic though : F1 is approaching WWE levels of Spectacle over Sport. I know there's nothing artificial on a drivers level but the sport now exists to make money for itself rather than entertain a crowd.
F1 always felt like a European sport. I mean that by it not wholly pursuing a maximum dollar profit.
It's just got to a pure revenue generation model so fast. The Champions League and EPL are on the same path. As are the WC and European Championships. It's just happening slower. There is now far less value in these sports in maintaining a level playing field. They've all worked out that it's possible to let the product degrade if the spectacle retains an important feel. Get more people. More teams. More countries.
I can't think of many sports that have seen a product really improve at a similar rate to profits. All that tells you is money is going to the wrong areas. Either disproportionately within that sport, or people are taking money out of those sports.
That's a very disjointed rant.
Ban Mercedes. Ban Hamilton. Make more challenging courses so proper drivers like Max Verstappen can dominate.
So much of this thread sounds so similar to the complaints about NASCAR in the states which is seeing large drops in attendance and TV viewers.
It has been boring as hell for a good while. Good, good while.
I stopped following it closely since it went to Sky.
The last time i watched a race was 3 years ago. Before that i was a huge fan, with visiting the Spa Grand Prix and Nürburgring a few times. It got progressively boring and the rules got stricter and weirder. I just didnt care anymore at some point.
I stopped watching F1 after 2006.
The only worse form of motor sport has to be nascar for me. Both are steaming piles of dung.
Not got high hopes for next year's regulations, think it'll just see the return of Red Bull dominance and make overtaking even harder. I'll still watch it religiously until it disappears off free-to-air TV completely in a couple of years though.
Died? There's way too much money in it for that to happen. It's boring as hell but car nutters like it that way. F1, Nascar, doesn't matter. They just want to see the epitome of car technology put to the test.
Thats the thing.
Even when Schumacher and CO wiped the floor with everyone, it was still entertaining. Tracks and the cars actually looked like they took skill to drive fast. Now it seems like the only action we get is when some one cocks up in the braking zone or weaves un-sportingly. The cars sound like shit, they look like shit, its the Mercedes show and there just isn't that same level of buzz. Great tracks with tremendous atmosphere where fans were far closer to the action, have given way to large stadiums where oil money has more power than the people that support the show.
Problem is, once this goes to sky, do you really think they will keep pumping the money when nobody is watching it? Its like a government selling off all its assets to raise capital. At somepoint you run out of assets (fans) and you're left with nothing to sell.
Which is not happening! The technology is not ground braking, the WEC cars are 10x more technologically advanced. In essence they've simply taken the technology from WEC and slapped it in F1 and called it a "prototype series". The technology in f1 is nearly 8 years old in WEC.
Who is challenging now?
In all those eras you list the competitors, except the recent ones, because there aren't any.
There has always been dominant teams but they also had the best drivers in the top cars, and it wasn't luck. They made sure they were in those cars.
Williams - Prost/Mansell
McLaren - Hakkinen
Ferrari - Schumacher
McLaren - Hamilton
Now you have the Buttons and Rosbergs winning the title for no reason other than rule changes, whilst drivers like Alonso sit at the back of the grid.
It was classed a risk. I think the season or two before there were a number of instances of mechnics pulling the hose out too soon before the fuel got into the car and caused a fire.
But completely agree it was a massive thing. A lot of strategies were fairly similar as tyres have only so many laps, so in theory a lot of teams would have the similarstrategy, but it's more when there was a yellow flag / rain etc that made having these slightly different fuel stop strategies aid that extra bit of confusion almost to a race.
definitely bring it back imo
Don't follow the sport anymore but for me it's anyone but Hamilton.