Is F1 finally disappearing up it's own bottom?

[Hampster Gull]

I like F1 but having only 13 cars after lap one is not good. They need a wake up call that it has to be interesting for sponsors to be interested.

 

[knocky1]

Absolutely. What is sport without sponsors?

 

[Pavilionaire]

I've heard this all before - Red Bull, McLaren, Ferrari and Brawn have all dominated in the last decade and now it is the turn of Mercedes. Lotus and WIlliams have also returned from the dead and today Sauber had two in the points.

It is up to the other teams to catch up. What disappoints me is Bernie's contempt for the smaller teams, there needs to be more support because the sport needs 11 or 12 teams. As we saw today, fewer cars means less racing action on the track, so bad for the spectator.

 

[Guy Fawkes]

I've heard this all before - Red Bull, McLaren, Ferrari and Brawn have all dominated in the last decade and now it is the turn of Mercedes. Lotus and WIlliams have also returned from the dead and today Sauber had two in the points.

It is up to the other teams to catch up. What disappoints me is Bernie's contempt for the smaller teams, there needs to be more support because the sport needs 11 or 12 teams. As we saw today, fewer cars means less racing action on the track, so bad for the spectator.

I doubt if Bernie would be too disappointed if the smaller teams disappeared because it could lead to the remaining teams having more drivers competing (3 drivers/cars per team) and then you may have a more competitive sport as a result (especially if 2 teams are fairly equally matched or no team orders and each with 3 drivers in a team capable of winning the title)

The fans go to see teams like Ferrari, Mercedes and Red Bull, i doubt than many care about who the lesser teams are and who is driving for them, especially as smaller teams are never going to compete for the titles - Bigger teams with more drivers could make it more competitive and therefore increase interest and therefore revenue streams, but main loss to the sport if that were to happen though is that the lesser teams are currently a good route in for younger drivers into F1 and the sport may well suffer in that respect if they were to go.

 

[Lower West Stander]

Try watching NASCAR, far more exciting and the drivers are absolute loonies.....

 

[Stat Brother]

I've heard this all before - Red Bull, McLaren, Ferrari and Brawn have all dominated in the last decade and now it is the turn of Mercedes. Lotus and WIlliams have also returned from the dead and today Sauber had two in the points.

It is up to the other teams to catch up. What disappoints me is Bernie's contempt for the smaller teams, there needs to be more support because the sport needs 11 or 12 teams. As we saw today, fewer cars means less racing action on the track, so bad for the spectator.

I doubt if Bernie would be too disappointed if the smaller teams disappeared because it could lead to the remaining teams having more drivers competing (3 drivers/cars per team) and then you may have a more competitive sport as a result (especially if 2 teams are fairly equally matched or no team orders and each with 3 drivers in a team capable of winning the title)

The fans go to see teams like Ferrari, Mercedes and Red Bull, i doubt than many care about who the lesser teams are and who is driving for them, especially as smaller teams are never going to compete for the titles - Bigger teams with more drivers could make it more competitive and therefore increase interest and therefore revenue streams, but main loss to the sport if that were to happen though is that the lesser teams are currently a good route in for younger drivers into F1 and the sport may well suffer in that respect if they were to go.

Thanks chaps, there's plenty to consider there, from the outside looking in.

Shouldn't the sport be all encompassing?
What first attracted my interest to yesterday's result was the lack of actual cars starting, that can't be a good sign.
Although 3 Ferraris probably would be.

Then again Shirley a team ordered Mercedes 1-2-3 half a lap ahead of their nearest rivals would be even more 'boring'.

I wonder how long soccerball would last if the Champions League semi finals were always a closed shop between Real, Barca, Utd and Munich.

 

[Tricky Dicky]

Boring, boring, boring. Not much to like about a sport where you know the result before you start.

 

[Steve.S]

Is it racing or a sponsors procession?

- Just 15 cars start.
- Only 11 finish.
- No competition.
- Winning team half a circuit ahead of everybody else.
- Only 3 teams likely to be even close to the podium, all season.

It must have been a yawnfest.

Add tennis to that, characterless and boring

 

[Guy Fawkes]

Thanks chaps, there's plenty to consider there, from the outside looking in.

Shouldn't the sport be all encompassing?
What first attracted my interest to yesterday's result was the lack of actual cars starting, that can't be a good sign.
Although 3 Ferraris probably would be.

Then again Shirley a team ordered Mercedes 1-2-3 half a lap ahead of their nearest rivals would be even more 'boring'.

I wonder how long soccerball would last if the Champions League semi finals were always a closed shop between Real, Barca, Utd and Munich.

There is a similar thing in football now with the same few teams dominating the top leagues nearly every season, probably as a reusult of the Champions League money helping them gain an edge over the rest of their domestic league competitors. (Bayern Munich in Germany, Real Madrid & Barca in Spain, Man City (thanks to rich owners) Chelsea, Arsenal & Man Utd in England, Celtic (& Rangers when they get back there) in Scotland (but not so much a result of CL money) etc......

If you think of these few dominating clubs as F1 drivers, then its very similar in that respect, increasing the number of competitive drivers by adding a 3rd driver to tems could potentially be like having 3 Bayern Munichs in the league instead of 1.

 

[Mr Bridger]

Reinvent the sport. Drivers should be armed with banana skins and torpedo turtle shells.

Good shout, add to that Ben Hur style wheel slashers and James Bond style number plate machine guns

 

[RandyWanger]

I'm so glad I didn't get up early to watch it, I've been an F1 fan for years, but I'm starting to drift, this season I've not watched any pre season testing, not even read who's in what car. I was surprised to hear Carlos Sainz was in F1, then I realised it was jr

If you're into cars going round and round but are bored of F1, BTCC season starts soon, lights out to checkered flag action, anyone can win on any day, race 3 is usually carnage too.

WEC is also a very exciting form of prototype racing, even after 24 hours you've usually got all the remaining P1 cars on the lead lap and within 2 minutes of each other.

F1 is dead.

 

[Bold Seagull]

F1 has been like this for years and years. It is only blanket 24hr media coverage, dedicated tv channels, live coverage of testing, practice laps etc. that are revealing more information than ever before, but there are only ever a handful of truly memorable F1 seasons when cars have been more evenly matched. There have been seasons past going back 15 or 20 years when the lead car would pass and lap the entire field.

Think we need to sit back and enjoy the fact a British driver is behind the wheel of the stand out car at present.

 

[mejonaNO12 aka riskit]

I've been a follower of F1 since I was 10 or so and I have to say, at 28 I'm DONE with it.

Don't get me wrong, I want Hamilton to win and I'll look at the results.....but I'm not wasting 2 hours of my Sunday to watch it anymore.

It's a shame because the coverage is often EXCELLENT but there is one HUGE flaw with the sport.

The WHOLE POINT of F1 is the SPEED, POWER and OPTIMUM abilities of machines being pushed to their LIMIT.

However, on TV this does not come across.....until someone crashes. So when sitting there, watching cars PLOD around a track in the same order as they started, you COMPLETELY lose any sense of the speed, driving ability and danger involved.

It sucks away the whole USP which is a shame because the drivers and the machines should be really respected. They say "oh the cars are faster this year". So what? On TV that doesn't matter. I would rather watch SLOW COMPETETIVE racing than a FAST PROCESSION.

I watched the qualifying for the Aussie GP and the moment it was obvious the mercs were the only cars challenging I switched off. The fact the tv coverage ALREADY referred to the "battle to be the best of the rest" was the final straw.

 

[GingerBeerMan]

I've been a follower of F1 since I was 10 or so and I have to say, at 28 I'm DONE with it.

Don't get me wrong, I want Hamilton to win and I'll look at the results.....but I'm not wasting 2 hours of my Sunday to watch it anymore.

It's a shame because the coverage is often EXCELLENT but there is one HUGE flaw with the sport.

The WHOLE POINT of F1 is the SPEED, POWER and OPTIMUM abilities of machines being pushed to their LIMIT.

However, on TV this does not come across.....until someone crashes. So when sitting there, watching cars PLOD around a track in the same order as they started, you COMPLETELY lose any sense of the speed, driving ability and danger involved.

It sucks away the whole USP which is a shame because the drivers and the machines should be really respected. They say "oh the cars are faster this year". So what? On TV that doesn't matter. I would rather watch SLOW COMPETETIVE racing than a FAST PROCESSION.

I watched the qualifying for the Aussie GP and the moment it was obvious the mercs were the only cars challenging I switched off. The fact the tv coverage ALREADY referred to the "battle to be the best of the rest" was the final straw.

We have an ERNEST wannabe why CANT you just WRITE normal SENTENCES?

 

[Hugh'sDad]

Finally?

I think that happened a long time ago.

This.....'sport' for twats.

 

[mejonaNO12 aka riskit]

We have an ERNEST wannabe why CANT you just WRITE normal SENTENCES?

BECAUSE I am SO angry at the DEMISE of, what SHOULD be a GREAT spectacle.

 

[Pavilionaire]

The WHOLE POINT of F1 is the SPEED, POWER and OPTIMUM abilities of machines being pushed to their LIMIT.

However, on TV this does not come across.....until someone crashes. So when sitting there, watching cars PLOD around a track in the same order as they started, you COMPLETELY lose any sense of the speed, driving ability and danger involved.

It sucks away the whole USP which is a shame because the drivers and the machines should be really respected. They say "oh the cars are faster this year". So what? On TV that doesn't matter. I would rather watch SLOW COMPETETIVE racing than a FAST PROCESSION.

I watched the qualifying for the Aussie GP and the moment it was obvious the mercs were the only cars challenging I switched off. The fact the tv coverage ALREADY referred to the "battle to be the best of the rest" was the final straw.

There's a lot of truth in this view, although the Jules Bianchi and Felipe Massa incidents of recent years are reminders of how dangerous the sport actually is.

I think if the Mercedes battle itself is competitive then that adds to the spectacle. It WAS competitive for most of last season but Lewis now seems to be comfortably ahead of Rosberg both in qualifying and in the race proper.

We KNOW that there are quality drivers in the competition - plenty of former world champions - and yet they are miles behind Mercedes. Did F1 under-estimate the extent to which one team could leap ahead of the rest? Itcertainly looks that way.

Losing the smaller teams is detrimental because they often provided a lot of the traditional drama associated with F1 - inexperienced drivers crashing off, cars on fire because of unreliable build etc. This can also result in more safety cars, so giving the rest of the field more of a chance against Mercedes.

 

[Cian]

F1 vanished up its own arse with Indygate (2005).

 

[strings]

I gave up on F1 after all of the races stopped being free to air. I didn't want to pay for sky because the F1 was the only think I was likely to watch. The first year after it went to sky, I got by with highlights and the live races that were shown on the BBC. The thing is with F1, there is a narrative to the season. I found that I didn't really like the highlights and so I stopped watching the live races too. I soon fell out of following the sport altogether.

I'll be surprised if I watch more than 2 races this season. Before it moved to sky, I had probably watched every race for over 10 years, maybe even 15 years. Its a shame really.

 

[Bold Seagull]

F1 rightly in my opinion has sought to reduce costs to reduce the gap between big and small teams, limited testing and development so that the playing field is more level plus wanting to promote technologies that can be seen in production cars i.e. kers, that continue to attract works teams.

However, unfortunately a byproduct of the evolution of the rules to suit this goal is that a single team or designer can discover an untapped loop hole to exploit. It has always been this way in F1, and you only have to look back in history to see cars that made great leaps in performance over competitors, however right now the very rules intended to level the playing field are making it hard for the field to catch up as they can't test or develop anymore than the lead competitor.

The FIA can't predict a single team will develop a huge advantage. They've countered Red Bull's dominance, and Ferrari (unintentionally or otherwise) before that with an evolution of the rules, but as when Brawn popped out of no where to win the title, you can't predict whether the whole field will be competitive, or one particular team will just get so much of their package right, no one can touch them.

Cars such as the early 90's Williams FW14, the Prost/Senna McClaren MP4/4, Schmacher's Ferraris, the Lotus F72 (my first scalectrix car) - have all dominated the sport at different times in history.

Still an interesting sport to follow, the calls of it being dead are not unlike the pronouncements of England cricket being dead every 5 years or so....