This seems like the perfect forum for this 😉

Tell the organisers what you want rather than just putting thoughts up on here

F1 Fan Survey

As an avid F1 fan I should get involved in that – on the other hand one of the things that I dislike about F1 is constant tinkering with the formula. The equivalent of making the goal mouth larger in football to appease the non-fanatic masses seems perfectly acceptable to some. Not me.

Defending a place is just as important as seeing an overtake. Intelligent strategy and the long game are just as important as frantic charging and barging.

Done all the ones in the past and as far as I can tell they've made sod all difference

Or petition the BBC to drop F1 and take on BTTC and Rally Cross. Proper action racing rather than chess in cars.

I kind of went off BTTC but loved Rally Cross when it was on. Very happy to have more Le Mans Car coverage too 🙂

Chess would be pretty boring if you had no idea what was going on – F1 is the same. Once you get your level of involvement up and know a few of the ins and outs it is much more satisfying.

Very much like watching TdF – if you don't even realise that big tour cycling is a team game then you're going to find it hard to enjoy.

Before anyone reminds me though, I do remember that I am in the minority!

F1 is fascinating though isn't it? – the 20 most expensive drivers in the world, driving 20 of the most expensive race-cars around 20 of the most expensive circuits in the world.

and i'd still rather watch lawnmower racing…

it's fascinating how they get it so wrong.

F1 is ok, but it needs more crashes and explosions, oh and inverted sections of track – obviously.

oh and inverted sections of track

Don't forget the odd crossroads section, like in Scaletrix. That bit of track was always good for assessing commitment to victory.

I'm a through & through F1 fan, pretty much like glenp in that I'm interested in the details of the engineering & strategy as much as one car passing another on track. IMHO the 2 main problems with F1 for the casual fan are that for the past decade or so most overtaking has been done by making use of pit stop strategy and that there have been relatively few races where key positions are decided late in the race.

The first problem should at least be addressed in part by the elimination of refuelling this year, but the second is down to the length of the race. One of the questions in that survey is about changing the race length, which has already been raised in the last FIA/FOM regime. Shorter sprint races would give less time for the field to spread out so everyone would seem closer together, but that would obviously impact on the amount of income and TV exposure that Bernie gets so there might need to be two per day, but that makes TV scheduling even harder etc. etc.

I've already completed the survey. I do think that FOTA are actually keen to drive things in the right direction. I am suprised that the TWG hasn't come up with better proposals to make overtaking possible though.

I think F1's single biggest problem is selective memory. There never was an era when races were mostly decided in the closing laps – only a scant few races where that happened and those are the only races that most people remember.

Same for overtaking – sure we had times when lots of overtaking happened – because there was a massive difference in car performance between teams. These days they are so good and professional that the whole field is covered by less than two seconds. Mind you, we might get a bit more disparity this year if any of the new teams make it to the grid!

True Glenp – but that's what people think of when they say 'exciting motorsport'. The turbo era was dominated by a small number of cars & drivers, and even in the DFV days the teams weren't all that close. Back in the days of pre-qualifying there were some joke teams in the sport, hideously uncompetitive and so far off the pace that they had to introduce the 107% rule to make sure they weren't going to be a danger to the rest of the field.

These days the field is closer than it's ever been – the gap between first and last place on the grid is now sometimes smaller than gaps between pole and second place used to be – but when average joe turns on the telly and sees 15 laps without a change in the top 3 he thinks 'this is dull' and turns it off.

I'm hoping the coverage is in HD at least for 2010…

hit the nail on the head there Glenp – the teams are working to such a narrow set of rules, that there isnt really that much difference.

gone are the days when a team could experiment with tyre sizes, different compounds, 4 or 6 wheel (double front ala Tyrrell or double rear ala March (never raced))

Fuzzy, No HD any time soon.
Alonso will win the drivers Championship this year.

I hate to lay the blame at the foot of just one person, but…The era started by Bernie Ecclestone where he introduced huuuuge pots of money for a select few has, I think, done more damage to this "sport" than any amount of rule tinkering. It's a truism that F1 has always operated in a somewhat cavalier fashion, but these days the amount of bullsh*t has risen to epic levels. When respected engineers like Pat Symmonds get involved in episodes such as the Singapore GP crash, then you know there's something rotten at the heart of the place. Lets be honest here, when crashing a car on purpose mid race to get a win seems like enough of a good idea to even contemplate let alone execute, you know there's something seriously wrong with your moral compass.

I watch it, I can't in all honesty take it seriously anymore.

It is dull though…there isn't even any way of getting interested in it…it needs a serious overhaul to make it more specatator/viewer friendly…bit like XC MTBing – dull as dishwater to watch…it needs livening up somehow (admittedly driving a car at 200mph would certainly keep you awake but to the specatator – it's just watching a spec zoom round a track and not overtake or be overtaken…boring…

Get them to race without helmets and fireproof suits – will make them more wary of going eyeballs out and could be enough to make them cautious enough to make it interesting…

Personally I wish they'd limit the size of wings/max amount of downforce.

– longer braking distance = more opportunity for late braking / overtaking

– possibly less turbulence for closely following cars

– more opportunity for visually exciting cornering / corrections & slides – as opposed to looking like they're on rails

– technology more transferable to road cars

– less drag so less fuel + more eco-friendly

– lower cornering speeds so safer