F1 overrated and boring?

As an oldie (watched GP’s when they raced at Brands Hatch!) I just think it’s sad that F1 has become so bad for reasons stated many times. Obviously don’t want to go back to drivers dying on a regular basis etc but please, make it exciting again.
The minute you say to anyone you like cars, they automatically ask ‘F1?’ It’s so ingrained as what people who are not interested in racing think of in the first instance.
I get my fix of real racing by going to Goodwood there days, proper cars and more overtaking than ten seasons of F1…

Professionalism in sport is inevitable when money through sponsorship and TV rights are achievable. But professionalism bring reliability and consistency. And predictability is  what kills sport as a spectacle. Let’s face it, definitively knowing who is the fastest runner this year or who makes the fastest car is a complete irrelevance to the world keeping on turning. None of it actually really matters. People watch (rather than participate) in sport for entertainment. A good film needs twists and turns and “I didn’t see that coming” moments and so does sport.

I’m not sure F1 is any worse than any heavily professionalised sports. Looking back to the 60s and 70s, the big teams such as Ferrari could be challenged by upstart oiks putting together a car in little more than a shed. Teams went bust mid season or could only get one car to the grid. Drivers made ends meet by driving more that one division/series simultaneously in a single season. The shed engineers might not be able to reliably challenge week in week out but on their day they could pull out a shocker with a bit of luck and moments of brilliance.

Professional sport as an entertainment product has been diminished by its own financial success.

I just think it’s sad that F1 has become so bad for reasons stated many times.

I think modern ‘professionalised’ F1 started in the late ’80’s and really got going in the 1990’s era of Williams and Maclaren domination. Once you’ve self-corporatised the other teams have no option but to join in, and heralded the death of the ‘garagista’ era which is perhaps a shame as there’s little opportunity for the “upstart team” to shake things up – Red Bull being the last gasp of this I reckon.

There are always specific complaints that you can make at any sport once you’re over-familiar enough with it, but the complaints about F1 being – in no particular order – overtaking is difficult, tracks are unsuitable, technical rules are unfathomable, tyres (last too long, don’t last long enough, whatever) and refuelling – to name just a few have been going on since the evolution of the sport in the 50’s. Go back and read any edition of Autosport or Motorsport from back then, and only the names have changed. That’s the nature of the beast; it’s like complaining that the TDF would be perfect if they just got rid of the bikes and ran.

I think it either appeals or it doesn’t, I don’t think it should necessarily change just becasue there’s a chorus of “It’s boring” from stage right from folks who’ve otherwise no interest in the thing

a new autonomous series kicks off in Abu Dhabi later this month. Expect slow times, many failures and strange car behaviour.

That actually sounds more interesting 😀

I dont watch it, I suspect quite a few posting dont as well

Everyone who described it as 70 laps…  yesterday’s race was 53!  FWIW I don’t watch it as I don’t have Sky.  It can be pretty dull, but so can lots of sports.  I do follow the overall results and watch highlights (usually online).

It doesn’t have to be a binary choice of “dominant car and driver travels the world winning the majority of races” or “mass death”.

But then you are planning to invent rules to stop one team dominating and making TV better (which has been done before and no doubt will again) – that upset the “true fans” because it is being dumbed down for the masses.  Similar issues happen in cycling and other sports.  The constructors championship can actually be more interesting than the individual drivers, especially if you ignore whichever team is dominant at the moment.

If you think F1 is dull – have you ever watched a marathon?

F1s downfall imo is that the technology has made it dull as the cars are so highly developed that a driver can’t make much difference.

And yet Max is consistently ahead of Perez.

I will say though, once you’ve developed a cost-cap. the vast reams of technical regulations seem on the face of it  superfluous. If the tech. regs. are there to stop wealthy teams from spending gazillions to exploit teeny variations of specification through endless testing – then the limit on how much you can spend does that equally well.

If it was up to me, I’d make the technical specs one page (or as close as it can be) and let them have at it

@gazzab1955

OP – what is your sport of choice – you know, just so we can tear it apart and laugh at it!? 🙂

I think of it more as a soap opera than anything – if you follow it for a few years and see the politics going on behind the scenes, there’s a lot of drama running through each season, even if individual races are often pretty uneventful.

Ideas like opening up the rules for more technical freedom sound good on paper, but that’s why the sport go so expensive and has been dominated by a handful of teams/technical directors. Thirty years ago, the big teams had a fraction of the resources they have now, if you look at the front wing of the 1994 Williams, it’s extremely simple compared to modern designs.

If you want closer racing, you will need to highly restrict the aero, but then it will basically become a spec series like Indycar.

I think F1 would be better if they stopped pit stops under the safety car and got rid of DRS.

Don’t have Sky so only watch the recorded highlights, if its dull there always the fast forward and you don’t have to watch the RedBull cheerleaders club.

I have no interest in football and its worse since womens football got it rightfully status as there’s twice as much football. I just avoid watching it. All media playing devices have an off button you just have to use it.

Don’t winge on here just do something that you don’t consider boring.

edit- change of plan, staying out of this thread for my mental health

and got rid of DRS.

Then there would be even less overtaking than there is now.  Certainly it’s fake (and was designed to be a stop-gap) but if you take away this then you have to design in something to replace push-to-pass that opens it up to allow safe* and effective overtake in formulas as tightly regulated as F1, both Indycar and formula-E both have/need an equivalent

* One of the side benefits to DRS that everyone forgets is that it was also implemented to limit (it clearly hasn’t stopped it altogether) the talentless lunge up the inside from 30m back, or the kamikaze late braking attempt that ends up with either drivers in the hospital or the cars having to be rebuilt every race, or both.

If you think F1 is dull – have you ever watched a marathon?

Lifelong runner here, 25 years or so, once was in the Grandstand at the finish line of the London Marathon watching the end of the elite races. The mens elite was a course record and 8 seconds shy of a world record.

Dull as dish water.

whilst it remains a driver and technical team sport, it will always be like this.

All motor “sport” is the same – dull as anything and I’m a bit of a petrolhead. I just can’t get excited by any of it… That said, I think watching bike racing is the same.

Think they both suffer from the same thing – its ace to be there, taking part as a driver/rider but it just doesn’t translate to being a spectator sport very well.

I think F1 would be better if they stopped pit stops under the safety car

There’s some obvious issues there: Car 1 and 2 have a collision resulting in bits of car or other debris on the track.  Car 3 picks up some of that debris and gets a puncture OR was due to pit anyway and has dodgy tyres.  Can’t pit so is “encouraged” to stay out with an unsafe situation or forced to retire needlessly.  If the original incident was caused/contributed to by a change in weather it may be particularly likely that forcing cars to stay out is bad.

As it IS a tactical game, the team who can adapt to the emerging situation adds interest to the competition.

and got rid of DRS.

I think the tactics of DRS would be much more interesting if you had a set number of uses per race.  Do you want to use one of them now or keep it for later?  Has the car behind still got DRS options left and will he use it on me this lap etc.

Think they both suffer from the same thing – its ace to be there, taking part as a driver/rider but it just doesn’t translate to being a spectator sport very well.

I’ve never been to an F1 race, but I have been to some other motor sport and indeed cycle events – I think just being there as a spectator can be better than the TV experience, although if you want to see the whole event TV is potentially better (golf is similar – there is an ambiance at the big competition which you don’t get on telly, but on telly you can actually see what happened).    Sailing – despite being a sailor I’ve never enjoyed watching from shore or on TV.

One of the side-effects of live F1 is (counter intuitively perhaps) is that its much more confusing to watch unless you have circuit commentary – which most have via FM radio broadcasting, as you often get the leaders lapping to quite high up the running order (Verstappen lapped the 11th place finisher at the weekend) and it very quickly ends up with just a mass of cars going around and around…It’s loud and noisy at the start, but only after a few laps it becomes surprisingly dull. It’s actually much better on telly.

I will say though, once you’ve developed a cost-cap. the vast reams of technical regulations seem on the face of it  superfluous. If the tech. regs. are there to stop wealthy teams from spending gazillions to exploit teeny variations of specification through endless testing – then the limit on how much you can spend does that equally well.

If it was up to me, I’d make the technical specs one page (or as close as it can be) and let them have at it

Some of the tech spec is there for safety, to drive towards a slightly more environmentally friendly option or to make for better TV.  But regardless of budget, if you remove them, a team will invent a feature and keep it secret whilst dominating the racing and it becomes dull; a cost cap with no tech spec may long term lead to great engineering, but short term will mean some times do stuff that fails and make for poor competition.

 if you remove them, a team will invent a feature and keep it secret whilst dominating the racing and it becomes dull

Isn’t this essentially the advantage that Red Bull have now though? I’m not sure it’s ‘secret’ in the strictest sense of the word, but they’ve certainly exploited their advantage to the detriment of the racing spectacle. I agree with what you’re saying though, we do need regulation to drive safety innovation or environmental changes, and those regs will need to be tight, but I certainly think that by having a limit on spending places teams in pretty much the same position that the endless minutiae does now.

“a team will invent a feature and keep it secret whilst dominating”

How about an open day? Say twice a year after the end of a race, parc ferme is open season for engineers from other teams to crawl all over the other cars, verniers and camera in hand. The software side would be harder mind. I’ve seen this happen in particular open class sailing categories. Other teams would go in looking for rule breaches they suspected (poacher come gamekeeper stylee- they were better at looking in dark corners than the official scrutineers) and for specific ideas from the way the opposition performed.

Limit wings/limit downforce/reduce the weight and do away with DRS and everything else follows.

You get lower cornering speeds, more movement so you can see the drivers working at the lower speed and the braking zones are much longer so overtaking is more realistic.

Trouble is that F1 is the pinnacle of motorsport and has to be the fastest or they lose their USP.  If you want good racing go watch some classic racing or tin tops but then they’re not the best drivers (if you can count F1 drivers as the best given a lot buy their way in).

Personally I’m over F1, there’s too many races, too many street circuits, night races are crap and at best should be an occasional novelty, there’s too much radio bitching and we don’t need to see every detail of of the telemetry.  The Yanks obsession with stats is infuriating and it’s just become like watching a computer game, which I assume is why the child is so damn good at it.

I’m happy to just watch the F1 highlights and even that seems too long most of the time

How about an open day? Say twice a year after the end of a race, parc ferme is open season for engineers from other teams to crawl all over the other cars, verniers and camera in hand

This is brilliant 👍

Used to love F1 in the 80s, still watch it now but more out of habit than anything. I think it’d be great to see a pre-race lottery to decide who drives which car, but that’ll obviously never happen.

I went to see original Beetle Cup racing in the early 90s at Brands Hatch; they were slow comparatively, but it was so thrilling as several cars would have the back end hanging out at once, all going through the same corner, and it was like motorsport ballet. That said, it was fun because the drivers would run out of both grip and talent mid-corner, that’s never going to happen at elite levels. Maybe the nature of elite sports means it’s destined to be less interesting, Formula Ford is exciting wheel-to-wheel racing, but it’s never going to be on TV.

I also think part of the killer for modern F1 is that the cars are now so reliable. I recall several races where most of the front runners would conk out (petrol or mechanicals) on the last lap so it was an unknown who was going to win, right to the flag. But though it was a lottery, it wasn’t necessarily down to skill, which I guess it’s meant to be.

The problem with most of these ideas is that the teams will never agree to them.

Limit wings/limit downforce/reduce the weight and do away with DRS and everything else follows.

All of the teams struggled to get down to the weight limit of the new rules. The hybrid systems are heavy, but that’s there to try and make the sport seem relevant to road cars. The safety rules have added some weight, notably the halo. The larger wheels also added some weight. It’s fine to say, “reduce the weight, ” but where exactly do people think that the teams can shed 100 kg or more without compromising safety?

Award points for hot lap qualifying – aka fastest driving contest

Then reverse the grid for the main race, award points for finish position, or even positions gained over starting position – aka best racer contest

Combine the points from the two events for the manufacturer competition.

Then reverse the grid for the main race, award points for finish position, or even positions gained over starting position – aka best racer contest

Don’t need it .There was eleventy-three overtakes at the weekend, mostly becasue the teams (sometime even individual drivers within teams) were on different tyre strategies. LeClerc on a one-stop, the Mercedes on a one stop (but as it turns out, a two stop) and the racing was interesting exciting and evolving the entire race. It turned out to be the “best car/ driver/strategy/tyre wear/overtaking/under-over cut” competition we’ve seen in ages – Verstappen still pranced off, untroubled, into the sunset though. 🙄

Then reverse the grid for the main race, award points for finish position, or even positions gained over starting position – aka best racer contest

Also remember F1 teams employ some very smart people – they’d quickly work out the best combination of where to qualify so they can maximise the net result and you end up with people trying to qualify 7th or 8th rather than aiming for the front row and the whole thing becomes a joke. It’d be like that awful time cut off quali they tried a couple of years ago, it sounds good on paper but in practice it falls apart.

To “fix” F1 the best thing to do is to leave the rules alone for a few years. We’ve always tended to see performance converge as teams get to grips with a set of rules, but by then someone has decided they need new rules, one team does a better job of implementing them and wins a lot and the whole cycle repeats.

If you think F1 is dull – have you ever watched a marathon?

I have watched them in the past from start to finish. I still enjoy watching the whole of a bike race  – stage or 1 day (even Milan SanRemo or Paris Roubaix). I like the whole unfolding of the event.

I only watch F1 highlights these days but that’s because I’m too tight-fisted to pay up for full coverage.

I think the reminiscing of the olden days is a bit like wanting to go back to mud bath football games or pools panel doing results. We have to move with the times

I do miss the 19000 rpm engines and the noise, maybe even the smell of Castrol R

As for saying it’s not proper sport I bet many of the drivers would have been good at any sport they took up

thols2
The problem with most of these ideas is that the teams will never agree to them. All of the teams struggled to get down to the weight limit of the new rules. The hybrid systems are heavy, but that’s there to try and make the sport seem relevant to road cars. The safety rules have added some weight, notably the halo. The larger wheels also added some weight. It’s fine to say, “reduce the weight, ” but where exactly do people think that the teams can shed 100 kg or more without compromising safety?

Tell the teams to come up with a plan to remove 100-150kgs from the car.  If it has to go to 13″ wheels and no hybrids then great. Shows what bllx it all is.  F1 should be leading not following the size and weight gain of passenger vehicles.

As for saying it’s not proper sport I bet many of the drivers would have been good at any sport they took up

That’s like saying because Ronnie O’Sullivan is reasonable club runner, Snooker is a sport! Which it obviously isn’t……

FWIW I appreciate how fit and strong an F1 driver needs to be. I quite like “motorsport” – it’s enough of a distinction to a acknowledge it’s not the same but a close cousin.

Maybe snooker and darts could be “pubsport”. And bowls “Godswaitingroomsport”.

Tell the teams to come up with a plan to remove 100-150kgs from the car. 

They’re looking to drop 40-50kg in 2026.

But a lot of the weight increase has been due to safety measures (stronger safety cell due to addition of Halo), and added weight of hybrid technology.

Halo has certainly saved one life (Grosjean) and possibly Hamiltons in 2021 and Zhou’s in 2022…

New regs…

https://www.autosport.com/f1/news/revealed-the-fias-plans-for-nimble-2026-f1-cars-and-moveable-aero/10557364/

https://www.formula1.com/en/latest/article/more-efficient-less-fuel-and-carbon-net-zero-7-things-you-need-to-know-about.ZhtzvU3cPCv8QO7jtFxQR

As for saying it’s not proper sport I bet many of the drivers would have been good at any sport they took up

Jenson Button is quite an accomplished Triathalope, and Valteri Bottas is a pretty handy Gravel rider, sponsored by Canyon.

How about an open day? Say twice a year after the end of a race, parc ferme is open season for engineers from other teams to crawl all over the other cars, verniers and camera in hand.

I don’t know if it still exists but there have been racing series where you have to sell the car/bike to a competitor at a fixed (and relatively low) cost. I’m not suggesting that HAAS could buy and operate a Red Bull but they could surely dismantle and analyse it to enhance their own cars

It turned out to be the “best car/ driver/strategy/tyre wear/overtaking/under-over cut” competition we’ve seen in ages – Verstappen still pranced off, untroubled, into the sunset though. 🙄

Which is the benefit of the reversed grid.

Currently any time you have an interesting battle for say second and third, first place gets a clear track to time-trial their way clear of the mess behind them unmolested.

This is probably a valid concern though

Also remember F1 teams employ some very smart people – they’d quickly work out the best combination of where to qualify so they can maximise the net result and you end up with people trying to qualify 7th or 8th rather than aiming for the front row and the whole thing becomes a joke.

I’m not suggesting that HAAS could buy and operate a Red Bull but they could surely dismantle and analyse it to enhance their own cars

I bet the couldn’t/wouldnt. It’s not just a collection of parts bolted together to make it go faster, it’s an entirely integrated system, especially on the aero, so you can’t just borrow bits from other cars without making huge changes to the rest of the car, which aint cheap

I think the idea of sprint races had some merit.  Qualifying then lap times (not finishing position) determines the Sunday positions. Maybe one race longer than the other to differentiate between the soft and hard tyres, but not so long you could get an advantage by pitting.

And yet Max is consistently ahead of Perez.

A world championship with only one competitive entry and a 2nd team for it is hardly exciting.

It’s as exciting as watching a Premier League with a Man City 2nd 11 in it, but rather than a round-robin competition it’s just Man City Vs Man City 38 times, played in different locations, most of which will be at night and behind 20ft wire fencing so you can’t even look at the scenery like the boring bits of the TdF. Only to determine that the Man City 1st 11 is best.

Tell the teams to come up with a plan to remove 100-150kgs from the car.  If it has to go to 13″ wheels and no hybrids then great. Shows what bllx it all is.  F1 should be leading not following the size and weight gain of passenger vehicles.

I’m not entirely convinced, no hybrids would mean slower acceleration and less fuel economy. They might corner a bit quicker but get left for dead on the exit and have to back off to save fuel to make it to the line.

Don’t need it .There was eleventy-three overtakes at the weekend, mostly becasue the teams (sometime even individual drivers within teams) were on different tyre strategies. LeClerc on a one-stop, the Mercedes on a one stop (but as it turns out, a two stop) and the racing was interesting exciting and evolving the entire race. It turned out to be the “best car/ driver/strategy/tyre wear/overtaking/under-over cut” competition we’ve seen in ages

Is it just rose tinted glasses, or did overtaking in the old days (pre 2000) require more skill? There no enjoyment in watching someone lapping seconds a lap quicker drive past someone who’s on the “wrong” tyres.  I’d rather they just allowed a free tyre compound choice at least so teams could pick what actually worked not what’s two nominal compound ratings off optimal in order to force some overtaking.

Or ban pitting under safety cars, at least then almost everyone would go Hard->soft to try and build a gap before pitting then a scrap to the line on soft tyres so the car’s would be evenly matched.

I bet the couldn’t/wouldnt.

Yep – the top teams are the top teams for a reason.

Donkeys years ago I read an article about F3 teams and how the same top teams always won in what was a spec series. One of the things they did was with engines. I theory they were all the same, but the top teams would buy say 10 engines, strip them apart, measure and check every component then rebuild 4 engines from the best parts from each engine. So they’d have 4 perfect engines giving more bhp rather than 10 OK ones.

As as James Vowles is finding out at Williams – Williams systems are archaic compared to the systems at Merc he was used to.

I bet the couldn’t/wouldnt. It’s not just a collection of parts bolted together to make it go faster, it’s an entirely integrated system, especially on the aero, so you can’t just borrow bits from other cars without making huge changes to the rest of the car, which aint cheap

+1

There’s a world of difference between knowing how something works (e.g. a double diffuser) , knowing why it works (Bernoulli’s principle) , and being able to actually design one yourself (Adrian Newey disappearing for several weeks to figure out a retrofit that made their car competitive with a team with so little budget their fueling guy was a self employed plumber on weekdays).

90% of the already visible little winglets and protrusions probably make no sense to the other teams unless their car already had the same problem to solve.

And ignores the engineering that goes into the rest of the car. You can see someone’s novel rear wing idea that you could probably copy for a few hundred £k in a couple of months believing that it’ll solve your cornering problems, you can’t see the weeks/months of FEA time that went into making the engine block a better stressed member of the chassis.

Is it just rose tinted glasses, or did overtaking in the old days (pre 2000) require more skill?

I think it probably did, but not all the drivers actually had the required level of skill, which is why DRS was (partly) introduced – to stop drivers spearing up the inside, or lunging hopelessly from 30m out in the vague hope that the driver ahead might just get out the way in time…