I just want to turn on F1 and actually get some racing. Don't want to see runaway leaders, don't want to watch DRS trains, don't want to watch nursing of cars, I just want some swashbuckling driving. I don't know how they fix this, but F1 has been so miserably boring for so many years now, I'm starting to lose interest. We occasionally get treated to an epic season, but is it really worth the investment? Even when we have close seasons as far as points go, it still feels like there is little on track action between the contenders. I know I keep on banging on about Indycar, but the vast majority of races, I get to the end of a race and just want more!
The only way to fix this is for the teams to tell the FIA and F1 management to get lost and start an independant formula that would be open to all. I just long for the days of the likes of Jack Brabham,who designed,built and raced his own car. Even to go back to the look and beauty of Jim Clark`s Lotus,Graham Hill also in a Lotus. Great drivers like Surtees,Danny Hulme,Jochen Rindt then into the 1970`s with Jaclke Stewart in that amazing sounding Matra Ford,sheer power. Who could forget the epic battle of Niki Lauda and James Hunt in that season? Even the early 1980`s were great,Mansell and Senna.Now it`s all about saving the planet and being greener with these hybrid engines and even restricting the amount of tyres for each weekend. This the pinacle of motor sport and should not be restricted to anything.All the millions of cars in the world will be many more times poluting the air than F1 would do in an entire season,so all this feel good effort is futile.
I'm fine with F1 pushing to be greener, it's just part of the progression of motorsport. We're not always going to have oil and things move on... But, I do agree witb you on this. F1 isn't a spec series, but essentially it almost is right now with the parameters that teams have to develop in. I would love for the regs to be more open and allow for innovative and creativity as it one was. The glory days of F1 are many decades behind us. As are the real gladiators.
I'm going to bang on about Indycar again now... And while this is a spec series and the cars are almost identical, it still has the feel of old racing. There is real jeopardy in it, there are real characters in it, there are sketchy tracks, there is the occasional super speedway that are just terrifying. It just doesn't have the gloss that F1 has, and if feels real and accessible and has a grid packed with talent. I honestly wish F1 was that good
When was the last time we had a season where both Championships were comfortably wrapped up by the end of June? Unless Max DNFs in a T1 incident or through unreliability, he's going to win every race for the rest of the season. Even when Hamilton had dominant seasons Rosberg and Bottas pushed him close at least half the time. Even in 2002 or 04, Ferrari didn't win every race.
Lewis certainly on the attack with Red Bull. Lots of his interviews he is suggesting they have lost speed advantage they had with DRS - I think he is trying to prompt some sort of investigation but surely if they are now slower it's time to keep your mouth shut?
Yeah interesting- to be fair when he usually starts the little jibes it’s because they’re onto something, so it will be interesting to see what it is. I don’t think Max is too concerned given he waltzed around the Hungaroring to win by half a minute, but perhaps some clarity will come soon enough on what he is hinting at.
surely we can see from the real stats that a) it's a really short lap b) it's.more corners then straights c) Hamilton didn't have the fastest sector in his pole lap in any sector. he merely put 3 together best d) verstappen was playing safe on turn 5 and messed up. he should have walked quali. #reality e) verstappen sailed by him without drs and drove away from him laughing f) perez drove past lads on hard tyres using drs to decent effect. when on the same tyres he did likewise. I genuinely don't see anything but an improved mclaren recently. Hamilton seems quite down to be quite honest. I'd hoped his pole signalled a pick up bit he was apologising and sad all race then. the fact is Aston have not improved since the start but are still competing with mercs. ferrari are nowhere and now mclaren have zoomed past mercs they did improve with their upgrades but not enough and it's their own fault for pursuing the wrong strategy all winter. mercs should be taking 2nd and 3rd in races if they had got it right.
What is the answer? Do we start a campaign to reach out to all F1 fans to join in a letter to Liberty and FIA to change the approach that has been adopted. Liberty are no doubt making more money now, but without there being proper entertainment. No problem with the money making but we need entertainment. We need innovation. Or make every car identical and make it only about the drivers and strategy but suspect that would be a bore.
To me right now, it really doesn't matter who wins, so long as there is competition in the outcome. Max or any other driver for that matter could win every race this season and I really wouldn't be bothered if there was some quality scrapping throughout. Sadly, the seasons with a good scrap are few and far between. F1 can never truly become a spec series, it's just not what the sport is and never has been. It's always really been about producing machines, which is what makes finding a solution particularly difficult without going the ballast route. I think the biggest disappointment is the early promise that these new regs gave us. The early part of 2022 was looking like we were going to be in for a proper treat with Max and Charlie swapping blows all over the place, but that sadly fizzled out far too quickly. The only solution I see is that once we regain some form of parity, the sport refrains from implementing massive reg changes and instead implements any changes incrementally in an effort to try keep the field close. I think we all just want some close racing, but that's not a simple thing the achieve.
i suspect the first thing is to sack absolutely everyone at ferrari this season is not much worse than watching Hamilton cruise round and bully rosberg. honestly it's not. the same problems exist. it's not a sport and an entertainment. it's a vastly complex engine thst must last 500 years, its no fueling allowed, its tyre saving constantly, its more cost reductions more cost reductions. my view is that if mechanics can stand in front of a 50mph car and not be an issue they can refuel the things. thst would instantly inject some get up and go into the teams ability to play round. whoever came up with this tyre rubbish needs sacking. they in effect ruined the entire weekend in one fell swoop. why go to a Friday if this rule comes in? rule 1 folks is entertain. f1s job is not to save the planet. if it was they'd be cutting half the races.
My hot take? Neuter aero development and kill DRS. I was hoping the 2022 regulations which promised less dirty air and closer racing would deliver, and early signs were promising, but that fizzled out and now it seems like teams have figured out how to develop around that such that things are as bad as ever, with the added bonus that the aero makes wet running even harder. Aero development by teams offers vanishingly little to those outside F1, and it's basically impenetrable for all but 0.01% of fans who have a professional background in it, why do we have a sport which spends upwards of £250m a year on it? Give the team's a spec aero package, which gives lower downforce, less dirty air, and works in the wet, and couple it with a mandated narrower, shorter wheelbase. I'd keep the engines the same, but open up regenerative technology, battery capacity, and weight saving as the new battlegrounds. Those are all going to be relevant to manufacturers, and helps with the sports "greenwashing". DRS solved the "overtaking is hard" problem by making overtaking easy, not interesting. If after this many years they can't consistently get the activation zone long enough for it to make an overtake a 50:50 outcome, rather than the formality we see so often, then they're never going to get it right and should stop trying. Make all overtakes more challenging and something that you actually need to factor into strategy decisions.
So after three different circuits, it seems the McLaren comeback might well be real, which is great news and will hopefully give Norris a platform for the rest of the season. The race itself was relatively dull - I agree - and so the real talking point I guess is being in the presence of history. I wasn’t following F1 in 1988 and so I’d read up on the bizarre circumstances that caused McLaren to fail to complete the sweep in that season. That record has always intrigued me, in standing so long, given that F1 has become much more predictable and reliable from the 2000’s on and we’ve witnessed some cars with huge margins over their competitors during that time. I have a hard time measuring the true dominance of this RedBull, given Perez’s struggles at times, the relatively low number of 1-2’s and the fact that it seems to have a small advantage in lots of areas, rather than one real strength that is far in excess of it’s competitors. It is this last point that I suspect has led to RedBulls achievement, it’s a really well rounded car, so it’s good everywhere, but each margin is small such that the team and drivers have to optimise it, to achieve the dominance we’ve seen. From that perspective, whilst this is a team achievement, it’s worth noting that without Perez’s contribution, the Max/RedBull combination would have done this on their own and that this relationship probably now surpasses the Ferrari/Schumacher one for the best we’ve ever seen. One other interesting point of note is that both these achievements have effectively been powered by “Honda”, I feel this is a statistical quirk, given engines are effectively equalised now, but it’s something I’m sure they are hugely proud of/gutted they can’t leverage more.
On the subject of enlivening the racing, I see two avenues, which somewhat interact in the form of “remove stability” 1) Some form of performance balancing, ideally in the form of season on season changes focussed on attacking of a car’s strengths, rather than something artificial and purely punitive like success ballast. Over the last years many of the best seasons we’ve had have followed reg changes which have had the effect of neutering a dominant car’s strengths - I’m thinking, blown diffuser in the early 2010’s, the 2021 floor changes which affected low rake cars more than high rake and conversely the long periods of rules stability that gave Ferrari and Merc locked in advantages in tyre management or Power unit performance. 2) This one is very much against the direction of travel, but open the rules right up. The compete on weight element is a good shout above which exemplifies this. The min weight is a lobbied number that all the teams can hit or get very close to. The best get a bit of moveable ballast as result, but the margins available are small. If that number wasn’t there you’d have much larger risk/reward space to operate in, which might give Alfa (allegedly the lightest base car) an opportunity at certain circuits (look how they jumped forward this weekend in pure pace on a twisty tyre eater, where weight really matters). Open rules lead to more than one way to be fast and get us away from a formula where typically there is one main performance avenue and it’s about your understanding of how to optimise it. Tyre wars, different power pack configurations or technologies, new materials etc. all open up variables which can’t really be controlled on a race by race basis as performance differentiators. Another aspect is the lead time for new regs, again due to lobbying, the power pack rules are set far in advance, which means the viewers don’t get to see the steps teams make as they develop and what is put on the track is already relatively optimised and being developed for the last few percent, it’s easy to see why the corporate element wants this, but in what way is it good for the show?
there's a few things at play. First the redbull seems to take a little longer to warm the tyres, especially the fronts. i think this affects perez a bit more and affects one lap speed but after one lap the thing just sails away Others are now copying this set up as well. second perez is just being complete turd right now. that red bull is easy to drive through the pack but he is making mistake after mistake and a lot of it is probably down to snatching a brake whic is inherent in the car but he is really also just being poor.
Very interesting stuff, thanks everyone. One think that has struck me in the last few races is how close in time everyone is in quali. The cars really are quite close, for example in the last race all the cars in Q2 where within about 0.8 sec and in Q3 within 0.5 sec. The top 3 within 0.01sec and 3 different manufacturers!!! That's quite amazing on paper. So to me the cars are getting closer in quali but we still don't have much 'close racing' and 1 team about 0.5 t0 1 sec a lap faster in the race. I'm thinking that the main problem is the tyres and the amount of fuel they carry. If they where allowed to refuel - as as option not compulsory, and the tyres had a more finite life then strat would play much more of a roll and that's something that we can see on track. I do wonder if the cost cap should have some sort of success penalty but they would have to audit so much faster. Great discussion from everyone.
on the racing. 1. i remember tyre wars. thats all fine if both teams deliver but as you cycle though dominance it makes half the grid completely useless. thats how it was before and probably would be again. plus you get a tyre maker favouring one car other the others. with one supplier it has to be "fair" 2. there's always domination in F1. always. close racing has to be through the pack. there is far too much saving and management and eeking out of things. 3. engines, too costly and too complex. they are locked in yes but they are a barrier to entry. IMO we simply don't have enough cars on track to entertain. ad 6 more cars and the thing at least will pick up a bit. 4. top aero, beam wings blah blah blah. in the end aero drives a huge amount of the difference after the engines. i personally think its got to be massively restricted again.
Look at the pol lap times. Hungary 1:16 Silverstone 1:26.7 austria 1:04 Verstappen was fairly comfortable and unchallenged at silverstone and was 0.2seconds in font. the other 2 are quite short tracks where theres a lot of corners etc. the shorter the lap the closer they will be. As i said if the red bull warms the fronts up properly then its golden on a fast lap. next up is SAP and a 1:43 type quali time last year. If anyone is within 0.5 seconds of redbull then we can say over 1 lap they can compete a bit. The problem we have is simple enough, some cars have low degradation and some don't. the red bul sailed round serenely and pitted last up front and was 30 seconds in the lead. It should have lost about 10-15 seconds by pitting last each time. That will tell you how little Verstappen had to try. Yes 100% fat full cars is an issue. That increases the effect of degradation at the start and increases the impact of drag etc. The red bull is best at both deg and drag so it serenely sails away. IMO refueling is a hard must for better racing. its a trade off of safety in the pits v safety on the track really as that grosjean fireball demonstrated. I'd actually be all for this rule change. race = 70 laps. (some 50 but its about the same mileage) set the maximum tyre mile length and absolutely **** the environmentalism. you get 20 laps. go quickly. We don't want to see you doing 40 laps on hards. none of us want that. That wil force teams to really push a bit more and will also end a bit of the reliance on being good to tyres as a strategy. Finally. 50% of the tracks are total ****. Miami for exmaple. get rid. then reduce the car size and weight but especially size so theres a half chance of getting by.
let me put it this way. what do we seriously think happens to the tyre allocations every single race whether used or not? they get chucked. So we really think that between friday, Saturday and Sunday that forcing teams to used hards in quali will save the planet? What world makes the show worse and makes zero impact on the planet. If you set a hard max tyre life of X miles or X laps and then let them race hard as possible. that will end 1 stop bores fests imo but also the cars might as well "drive fast"
some more interesting points on hungary. Its got a lot more corners so the balance of the cars might have been off given a wet Friday and the tyre messing trial. In the speed trap we see Kmag at 308.7kmph as fastest driver and piastri next on 308 where as Verstappen and Hamilton were down at 304.9. Are we seriously suggesting theres a difference of that amount explained by all these cars being faster than the guy who drove away form the field? I think this shows red bull ran more downforce for hungary. funnily enough over the start finish line kmag was nowhere. 258.3 compared to alonso at 261kmph. IMO pole was decided in turn 5 on Saturday but comes Sunday Verstappen just ignored that issue and sailed away. Sap is fast but also has a lot of corners that test a car. Most cars will run different evels of downforce and red bull will be able to run least of all. If mclaren are close there then i will get excited (a little)
