I'm a huge F1 fan, but……

Moto gp starts soon thank god….

You'd have all been leaping up and down saying how exciting it was if Button or Hamilton had won. How he'd driven a fantastic tactical race and given a display of touching the envelope driving. But as Alonso won in one of those red ones… .

hardly the most interesting track to judge it on imo, i'm sure things will pick up once people get into it, how they can use the tyres etc and once we get to a decent track.

[quoteYou'd have all been leaping up and down saying how exciting it was if Button or Hamilton had won. How he'd driven a fantastic tactical race and given a display of touching the envelope driving. But as Alonso won in one of those red ones… .[/quote]

Nope, was pleased Alonso won – I highly rate him and Ferrari. Still was a very very dull and lifeless race.

It's become the perfect sport for radio
Or spreadsheets

just swap GP2 with F1

I'm a massive F1 fan but I think F1 Administration have scored the biggest own goal in years.

There has never been a better line up in terms of competitive drivers in competitive cars.

THE RACING WAS SHIT!YOU'RE DOING SOMETHING WRONG!!!!!

Motor racing fans will look elsewhere.

Even Martin Whitmarsh is saying it's rubbish. He reckons the tyre regulations need looking at asap.
http://www.autosport.com

I've worked in F1 as a designer for the last 8 years and even i couldn't manage to stay awake through the whole race yawnnnnnn!!!!!

I'm with Goon budget cap and open up the rules so us designers can really spice up the racing with some inovative designs!!!

You just can't beat Moto GP for the racing.

I too was really looking forward to the start of the season, Four world Champions and new teams with a bunch of rule changes. This was going to be an ace race. It wasn't.

The FIA have broken F1

I too was really looking forward to the start of the season, Four world Champions and new teams with a bunch of rule changes. This was going to be an ace race. It wasn't.

The FIA have broken F1

my feelings exactly – Martin Whitmarsh is right in that autosport article, changes are needed ASAP, because that was a shocking race, and with the current rules i cant see it improving…

Have to agree amazingly dull. Everyone just driving on %'s to eek the engine and tyres out for the races / race. Brakes overheating and having to be nursed too cos the cars are so heavy full of fuel. ZZzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz…………. Its not racing is it? The only overtaking manouvers happened because an exhaust pipe broke.

Don't think the track helped. The new twisty bit is just stupid, making the cars far too slow in the mid section

I am a fan of moto GP but that is going the same way only 16/18 bike grids a first corner pile up leaves sod all to see for 40 minutes apart from 3 or 4 riders who are good and a few riders miles down on time

I think some of you have rose tinted blinkers on about how things were in the past, and you're also looking for instant gratification from one single race
the first race of the season was always going to be a nervous, cautious affair
give it a chance
I didn't think it was too bad anyway

One of the most painful GPs I have even watched. highlights were some backmarkers passing each other. A couple times. Nothing interesting happened up front. Apart from vettel's problems, I think there was ONE position change (bar the first lap) up at the front (Hamilton on heidfeld, due to the 50mt rule thing!).

With points spread out over 10 places, and an extra 2 races on the calender, and with reliability a critical factor…. none of the top drivers are actually going to race. Qualifying will pretty much determine the race day result, bar drivers cocking up, mechanical issues.

How many spins were there? How many drivers went off the track? That shows that they were driving at 90%…

hopefully as the season goes on, the teams understand the tyres and strategy options, and the drivers are less worried about "nursing" the cars…. we might see some racing….

Oh, the championship will end like this…

1. Alonso
2. Vettel
3. Massa
4. Hamilton
5. Webber
6. Heidfeld
7. Schumacher
8. button.

I'll be very surprised if it is much different from above 🙂

@Conor be very surprised… heidfeld isnt racing… rosberg is though.

Tyre regulations and aero advances killed F1. Back in the 80s everyone had big soft rubber and didn't have swanky CFD to analyse every last bit of aero without building anything. Pull the wings right in, make the tyres a free-for-all.

I'm with the optimists, the season will get better. Seeing the top guys haul ragged tyres round Monaco ought to provide some entertainment…

For me, technological advances, and to a certain extent health and safety, have killed most motor sport.

F1 – enough said!!! Crap.

Rallying – Only a couple of manufacturers interested, no night stages, short rallies (remember when it was the RAC Rally over 5 days and nights). And it's not Rally GB it's rally wales.

Touring Cars – They do their best with weight penalties, but when they started using space frame chasis and a body that looked a bit like the car it was supposed to was the death of it for me.

MotoGP – Even my beloved MotoGP gets it wrong. Traction control and start assistance on a bike is just wrong. It might be safer for the rider but does nothing for us poor suckers watching it.

WSB and BSB – Is probably my favotite, but even they started getting it wrong and messing about with what they could do and still call it a 'production' bike.

Haven't seen the race, from the comments above I don't think I'll bother, either!

But MotoGP's been pretty crap for the past couple of seasons, the last time it was good was when Hayden won…

That was the worst motor sport spectacle I have ever seen, thank god I recorded it and could fast forward through lots of it, seems that it's a case of once the first guy pits for tyres everyone else will, very dull

cullen-bay – Member

@Conor be very surprised… heidfeld isnt racing… rosberg is though.

Oops!! It was that boring I didn't even catch the names…

It's all about overtaking stats…

1983-4-5 Overtakes about 650 per season….

2007-8-9 Overtakes about 250 a season…

Hmmmm, statistics can be made to show anything, most of those 80's overtaking are the turbo 1.5lt cars going bat-shit fast past the NA 3.0lt ones time and again and again and again and again….

"Formula" motor sport…Any formula motor sport if you rely on complex technical innovation and regulation rather than basic parameters will recede to a procession eventually

It will improve . I hope. Was a massive let down today though.

Well Mark Weber obviously didn't think much of it (from Twitter)

"Wow! New rules, not sure huh? Why do they keep dicking with it? Followed Mercedes power for the whole race, no chance to overtake – again"

I've been a fan since the Saudia Williams days and that was a really disappoiting race – the new middle sector meant that they couldn't follow closely without killing the tyres, the teams seemed to play it too safe on strategy (button was obviously disappointed to be called in when he was) and the field seems slightly further apart this year than they were last year and with changes designed to make overtaking happen on track the main passes in the race happened… in the pits. Let's see how it goes in Melbourne – fingers crossed!

At the end of the day safety (to the greatest degree) is what increases predictability and boredom. More downforce, better tyres = fewer crashes, fewer overtakes and fewer catastrophic driver-errors. Of course things like car impact design is important (and serves relatively little to change handling) but by capping powers, limiting tyre choice, picking specific (and perfctly possible) wing regs all they've done is set an artificially low barrier on performance that everyone is squashed up against waiting to go past. This all helps driver safety etc and no-one can argue that that's a bad thing in that sense, but ultimately it makes a motorsport less fun.

Rally is much more appealing to me personally, far more chance of making mistakes, far more varied terrain, not as predictable etc, but it was even better when it was cars that were closer to production vehicles. They all have their place, but I feel F1 is just, as mentioned above, a case of rule-nit-picking and R&D. Almost on a par with watching slot cars, without the excitement of vastly varying driver skill levels!

The idiot half-fans who crowed endlessly about refuelling got their way and screwed the racing, basically. I could never see the problem with the race being divided into fairly short flat-out sprints – certainly I'd take flat-out sprinting over slipping around gently to save fuel and tyres.

In mitigation I would say that over-caution was making things far worse. I think within a few races set-ups and approach will be a bit more aggressive, especially if Ferrari start to walk away. Plus the circuit does not help one bit. Melbourne Park is a hell of a lot more "proper" and usually produces a passable race.

I'm keeping the faith, but the signs are not exactly encouraging!

christ that was dull – was excited before, but after the start spent the time picking out a new bathroom – wc, basins and taps was far more interesting…

I'll probably get flamed for this, but…

What is the point of any 'sport' that is so massively un-ecological and environmentally destructive?

It was awful but I suspect that the blame really lies at Bridgestone's door. They're looking to leave F1 after this season and I think that they want the image to be of tyres that don't fall apart towards the end of the race and as such, the tyres are way more durable than people expected.

Various drivers said that there would have been no problem using the super soft for half distance which is clearly wrong. What you want is that the tyres start to wear out before teh end of each stint so that many drivers will actually have to consider two pit stops while some who've driven well will be able to manage on one – then you'll get difference in pace between cars which in turn will lead to proper racing.

manonsoul – think about how 13.5 million fans get to premier league footy matches every year and all the resources that go into that plus the running of the league?

Tribalchief – you're quite right, football's crap too without even looking at the violence and tribalism.

But two lots of environmental irresponsibility don't make a carbon neutral world.

The sport is dead what a waste, did they not know this would happen. I don’t remember anyone complaining about this prior, no wonder the manufacturers are leaving the sport total joke.

Senna's death was the worse thing to happen to it, because the new safety measures stopped any overtaking maneuvers almost overnight. From a selfish point of view, if you take out the risk, you take out the fun.

For me, technological advances, and to a certain extent health and safety, have killed most motor sport.

F1 – enough said!!! Crap.

Rallying – Only a couple of manufacturers interested, no night stages, short rallies (remember when it was the RAC Rally over 5 days and nights). And it's not Rally GB it's rally wales.

Touring Cars – They do their best with weight penalties, but when they started using space frame chasis and a body that looked a bit like the car it was supposed to was the death of it for me.

MotoGP – Even my beloved MotoGP gets it wrong. Traction control and start assistance on a bike is just wrong. It might be safer for the rider but does nothing for us poor suckers watching it.

WSB and BSB – Is probably my favotite, but even they started getting it wrong and messing about with what they could do and still call it a 'production' bike.

Isle of Man TT – nothing comes close for excitement (or danger for that matter).

Probably not the most TV friendly motorsport (long course, time trial format and of course, media luvvies don't like condoning rider deaths / serious injury), but that's irrelevant when you are stood at Bungalow / Creg ny Baa / Ballaugh Bridge, or innumerable other places and watching bikes going past at stoooopid speeds.

Now, how do I post video on here???

I enjoyed it immensly
After 7 laps I went out washed both cars, did some gardening and took the dog for a walk.
Came back in 2 laps before the finish and could pick it up again straight away, nothing had changed
Hadn't banked on getting anything done at all yesterday afternoon
Thankyou Bernie and Hermann Tilke for making my Sundays more productive 😆

I think comparing modern F1 with Scalextric is unfair. You can now get digital kits which allows four cars to race each other, swop between lanes AND overtake.

nope – didn't work….

Could also be dull because of lack of testing and a very long season – no need to take unnecessary risks, just gather data and roll-in and pick up your points. If you take a risk you lose valuable data-gathering time and learn nothing. Add that to engine and gearbox restrictions plus the most competitive field for years and you get a situation where it is more important to not make a mistake than to take a risk.

Notwithstanding the ever increasing difficulty of following another car closely I have not written it off yet – hey, it can only improve!

A clutch pedal and a gear stick would bring back a bit of driver error thats been out of F1 for a long time

Miss a gear and the guy behind is past…you cannot miss a gear in a modern F1 car

I would like it if you had to retire as soon as you were lapped. So some drivers could just fill up on a very light fuel load and attempt to lap the whole field – just like track pursuit cycling.