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Thread: Formula 1????

  1. #1
    Senior Member steveaki13's Avatar
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    Post Formula 1????

    I am writing making this thread because I think my time has come to stop watching F1. I have watched it since the mid 1990s and I am watching the sport these days thinking "why am I watching it?" I used to be buzzing and excited for a whole weekend. Now I honestly see nothing exciting or interesting in most races. Occasionally one is OK but the sport in my opinion is dying.

    I watch BTCC and even lower level single seaters as well as World Endurance and Le Mans. The racing is a lot more pure. It is men in cars racing, pushing hard and making errors and being punished for doing so.

    I look at F1 and it is missing almost every element of good motor racing. Men battling with their cars, the art of defending (not really possible now), pushing hard in races, overtaking that means something and not DRS bullshite. No spins, no collisions and not retirements.

    People on TV coverage in the UK seem to do all they can to come up with ways to convince the stupid fans the racing is good. Today its that Hamilton is on a knife edge with problems and will he win or not. Now 10 seconds clear of everyone else.

    They all say its great we don't loose cars from the race and still have 20 runners. I couldn't agree less. Some of the best races I have watched have had 6-10 finishers. The fear of collisions and crashes puts me on edge and the survival element. Which drivers can not make any mistakes and keep it on the road was always part of motorsport but now F1 is mostly run on huge car parks like Paul Ricard today. So any mistakes are not punished. The fact that cars dominated in the past was not always an issue as they may be unreliable and so the tension of getting a car to the finish was exciting. Now hardly any cars have issues.

    All of these things have taken away from the racing. Now we have 6 cars up front in the same order as lap 2 with the drivers all cruising around saving tyres. Its rubbish. No close racing, no tension and no interest.

    Then every move is looked at and penalties because he came back on track unsafely blah blah. I would have race tracks with gravel round and if drivers make mistakes they are out of loose time. It promotes steller driving and no mistakes.

    Technology also sadly seems to make it worse. The cars are so reliable now as I said. It is no fun.

    So I think that my interest in proper motorsport must now take me away from F1. I used to post on here regularly but the lack of interest has lead to me not visiting much.

    So I wondered without driver bias and grudges to affect thinking. I want to ask. Do you guys who still watch and have watched for years like me feel the same? Do you really enjoy these races? Or all the sterile action we have?

    Maybe its just me but from a sport I would get up in the middle of the night to watch with butterflys in my stomach and re watching most races 1996-2008 many times, I now find myself barely wanting to watch. This is not all about being angry at the sport but rather sad. I feel so sad that the sport I once loved is so awful.

    Anyway. I have said what I feel. I wondered what anyone else though.
    I still exist and still find the forum occasionally. Busy busy

  2. Likes: gm99 (23rd June 2019),pino (25th June 2019)
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    I see where you’re coming from. I think that 2021 may bring the sport back to a better place as long as the rules are right. Currently cars lose 50% downforce when running behind each other, whereas the cars in the win tunnel for 2021 are only losing 5%. But yes, I must say this season is fairly dull so far. Ferrari have been so disappointing and that’s reallt hurt the sport.

  4. Likes: steveaki13 (23rd June 2019)
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    @steveaki13, I fully agree with you. F1 races used to be a bi-weekly Highlight for me, and I used to plan my activities around the F1 calender. Nowadays, I might watch it if I'm at home like today, but I certainly wouldn't postpone any other activities for it.

    Drivers aren't even going flat-out all the way, just when they are given permission by their engineers. No wonder there are so few retirements when cars aren't being run to their limit.
    Oct. 31, 1999 - one of the blackest days in motorsports.

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    Senior Member steveaki13's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by gm99 View Post
    @steveaki13, I fully agree with you. F1 races used to be a bi-weekly Highlight for me, and I used to plan my activities around the F1 calender. Nowadays, I might watch it if I'm at home like today, but I certainly wouldn't postpone any other activities for it.

    Drivers aren't even going flat-out all the way, just when they are given permission by their engineers. No wonder there are so few retirements when cars aren't being run to their limit.
    Thanks. Glad I am not the only one. I think there is a bit of a stigma about saying you like crashes etc, but while I never want anything major, most of the classic races involve them. They add to the spectacle.
    I still exist and still find the forum occasionally. Busy busy

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    steveaji13, I also agree. I've been involved in motorsport a long time and still am. But my interest now is more in the local racing. I haven't been to a F1 event in many years and have no plans for going in the future either. It's much more fun to watch the lower professional groups and especially the amateurs where $$$ doesn't rule everything. Indycar is still sort of OK because it's at least competitive, but I have no use for much else in terms of professional racing.
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  8. Likes: steveaki13 (27th June 2019)
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    No , I don't agree , Steve .

    Sure , F1 has issues , but it has always been thus .

    I , for one , am still in awe of the technology that goes into it , and the skill requiring everyone to be as close to perfect as they can be , or suffer the consequences .
    I don't like DRS , but all of them must deal with that variant in the rules equally .
    The same goes for the tires .

    Having lived through the Red Shoe era , where everyone and their uncle was whining about the domination , it just sounds all so boring to hear people whining about the same thing now .

    The winners aren't the only people in the race , you know .

    And , there in the background is the looming rule shuffle , in which a few of the issues you have with F1 are being addressed .

    I've been watching F1 since the time when we only got Monaco on TV here , and have always been in awe of the speed , the tech , and the drivers .


    No disrespect , Steve , but while Lewis was dominating the race , I was still sitting in fine Murray Walker form on my couch knowing anything can happen in formula 1 , and it usually does .
    I was remembering the smoke out the back of Bottas's car on the way the the grid . I was wondering if Lando's car would pop for a safety car stint . I was watching the tire blistering on a few cars .

    I would have liked a few more incidents to occur , to mix it up , and to liven this place up , like Montreal did , but I still enjoyed the race .

    And , even though there are things worth changing about the series , like there always are , I still enjoy the show .

  10. Likes: Jag_Warrior (4th July 2019),steveaki13 (27th June 2019),truefan72 (24th June 2019)
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    Senior Member N. Jones's Avatar
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    Yeah, I did a "huh?" face when Brundle said that. Everybody in the race means we get to watch half the field get lapped. While the mid field has been a good place for battles, collisions, and punishments for mistakes the race lead has been a given for many years now.
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    Quote Originally Posted by steveaki13 View Post
    Thanks. Glad I am not the only one. I think there is a bit of a stigma about saying you like crashes etc, but while I never want anything major, most of the classic races involve them. They add to the spectacle.
    Well I cannot agree more. Not only these days i don't sit in front of the TV anymore, but I sometimes don't even dare looking at anything else than a quick written race summary on the evening. When i was young(er), in the 70's the racing was so exciting, , cars would slide, drivers would do mistakes (missed gear = blown engine), drivers could win starting fro the back of the grid ... I think the sport went completely sideways : too much engineering (who cares of all this technical crap ?), too much pit-managing (telemetry + radio = as much as it takes a lot of skills to drive these beasts, the driver is now a passenger of "strategists"), too many rules (all these penalties, investigations, ... are ridiculous - if it's a sport, let the guys fight and make them respect each other, not whine constantly) - not too expensive (=lerading to the utter domination of the richest).
    the solutions are so simple that i cannot even understand why they are not implemented immediately
    - cost cap - this is how the US pro sports have managed to level the field. Sure, the big spenders were unhappy when it was implemented, but a governing body should ... govern. And whoever is unhappy is free to leave. The way they are planning to implement the cap now (1) pretty high = much higher than all the midfield's budget and 2) excluding so many things that i the end it may well double up) is totally ridiculous. If you want to pay an engineer or a driver tons of money, it is your choice, but then you have top cut expenses elswhere. After all, this is a team game, not different from any other sport.
    - no more radio, at least not anymore from the wall to the cockpit (the other way around maybe for safety purposes ?). This will force drivers to make their own decisions... and guess if something is wrong with the car.
    - no more "5 second penalties". Set the rules and it is either fine, or you are disqualified. I am sure drivers will quickly self-disciplin themselves. Eventually have drivers sit out one race as a penalty - this will allow seing new faces (aka test drivers who spend millions just to run the simulator).
    - talking of simulator, why placing a ban starting on race week ? Having Ocon in the simulator until saturday evening in Brackley is not very exciting to the casual fan and is not making all teams equal ...
    The list could go on forever - I thought Liberty would clean the mess and start fresh, they seem to be now passengers of their own business...

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    Senior Member BigWorm's Avatar
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    The technology that goes jnto F1 is very fascinating, but it's getting pretty boring. Very rarely does it produce pure racing and that's the most essential part of motorsport. I'm losing interest in this season, I don't want to say I'm going to boycott the sport in hope of a better future (naive as I probably am) but this season is really, really predictable and that's no good thing.

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    Senior Member truefan72's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by N. Jones View Post
    Yeah, I did a "huh?" face when Brundle said that. Everybody in the race means we get to watch half the field get lapped. While the mid field has been a good place for battles, collisions, and punishments for mistakes the race lead has been a given for many years now.
    I think this race the tv crew were pretty good about highlighting the rest of the field and not giving hamilton, bottas, leclerc and verstappen that much screen time.
    t was a tough call at the end to focus on leclerc v bottas fight as it was for podium, instead of the thrilling norris,ricciardo, kimi, hulkenberg scrap.
    And they did allot enough time for all the other action, except for the williams battle, which would have been nice to see and let folks understand that even with the lowly williams, these guys are still jousting at incredible speeds.
    you can't argue with results.

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