F1 a joke!

[anonymous-user]

I agree it has become a joke, an F1 race was a spectacular with lots of visual excitement, noise, close racing and the odd spill. I was very dissapointed with the first race, it is no longer a spectacle, on the following Monday at work, no one mentioned the race, it was like it never happened.

It seems all the recent changes have damaged what it is that people expect from F1, I am sure everyone gets something diffferent from watching but the reward for watching has got less and less to the point where I don't think it is worth watching, pity really.

[Fire99]

Well I decided to do a little very non-scientific test. I went back and watched some old GP's from my 'yoof' to see if it was rose tinted specs or not. So back to the 1980's I went. (Minus my time machine I must say)

Well I can't lie. I could watch great chunks of the 1980's all over again. The TV coverage was obviously far worse and the camera angles a bit hit n miss but Murray Walker and James Hunt's commentary is still funny now, the cars looked brilliant and the racing was organic where right up to the finish line just about anything could happen. Even some of the duller races still had that anticipation that a tyre / engine may go pop with just a lap to go etc.

Sometimes I think it's worth challenging where 30 years of progress has got us and for me, 2015 is a poor imitator of great years past.

[celicawrc]

gottans said:

I agree it has become a joke, an F1 race was a spectacular with lots of visual excitement, noise, close racing and the odd spill. I was very dissapointed with the first race, it is no longer a spectacle, on the following Monday at work, no one mentioned the race, it was like it never happened.

It seems all the recent changes have damaged what it is that people expect from F1, I am sure everyone gets something diffferent from watching but the reward for watching has got less and less to the point where I don't think it is worth watching, pity really.

Completely agree.

And for me, it still comes down to the engines. Audibly they are just fking awful! Where is the drama and excitement? I used to stand in the grandstands mouth open with goosebumps hearing the v8/10/12 at full chat. As an F1 car should sound!

Someone summed up the last race in Aus perfectly - it felt like a feeder series race before the main event.

[BlimeyCharlie]

REALIST123 said:

BlimeyCharlie said:

benjj said:

Sad thread is sad.

For the first time in my life I'm now totally turned off from F1.

It's not Mercedes' dominance, I think that having teams make the strides they have is part of it, something to thrust teams into the future and show what's possible.

It is a combination of things that is just boring the piss out of me. In no particular order:

1) The 'corporate' feel - there don't seem to be any/many real characters there. The PR birds with Dictaphones just makes me feel sad and take the fun out of it. They are only there to tell people what not to do.

2) The lack of racing - tyre management, no refuelling, fuel limits, push-to-pass, restrictions on testing/engines/etc. It's just a sad, sad husk of it's former self. Where is the variety? Where is the sexiness?

3) How will it get better? I just can't see a tyre war on the horizon. Nor can I see them ever relaxing the regulations on these new power units. Surely it's not beyond the wit of man to have a simple power/weight limit and let everyone have at it.

I know this is just a regurgitation of what's been said over the last few years but, for me at least, the X-Factor has gone. I used to have a little rush of excitement on a Friday morning of race weekend - a little frisson knowing that on Sunday there would be some rubber laid down and absolute experts in their field going at it like mentalists. Not any more there isn't - this is motor racing by PWC - dull dull dull.

I completely agree with the above.

The 'Sport' has had a whole year to do something about the noise, but has done nothing.

We still have air traffic control-esque pit to car radio, which I thought was a no-no? How can the sport be about 'technology' but have 'radio' as an intrinsic part of the sport?

The above is one of several contradictions the sport suffers from. If it is about technology and mirroring the road car industry then why have pit stops after 10 laps?

The camera angles for tv are always the same, with no impact of speed.

And someone made the comment about the V8's not being good to listen to. I agree, but better than these engines which don't even sound like a car, and are too quiet. What next? A 1 cylinder engine with 7 turbochargers?

They have done something about the noise actually, though they'll never be NA V8s, and they're not that bad in any case from trackside especially. But we've done that.

And the pit to car stuff has been significantly reduced. Observing from the back of the garage last year, tuned in to the feed, it was absolutely amazing how much radio traffic there was, it was constant.

Finally, despite the platitudes, it's never been about mirroring the road car industry, in all honesty.

Maybe I've not followed developments closely enough, but what exactly have 'they' done to improve the noise then since last year? Trumpets were tried and that is about it, probably just a token gesture to show 'they've' tried..

My wider point is that the sport just carries on regardless.

Maybe you could also educate me as to the decision to use hybrid engines in F1 cars? If it is not to mirror the road car industry, what is it for?

[VolvoT5]

NewMetalSystem said:

Excessive fuel-saving, 4 engines per season, etc., are bad for the sport and they're just hiding the bigger problem. If the teams were given a more equitable distribution of the commercial rights then there wouldn't be such a high demand for lowering costs.

All these cost-saving measures are just a way for those in charge to justify retaining such a disproportionate share of the revenue.

I assume the logic behind the fuel saving and trying to make engines last many races is cost saving and being seen to be 'green'. But it doesn't actually work when they then change the rules in other ways which cause the costs to inflate far more than replacing an extra engine or two would ever cost.

Personally I don't want to see teams and drivers having to manage an engine so it lasts 5 races. I think limiting the cars to 100kg of fuel seems a bit pointless when they are flying tons of goods and people all over the globe 9 months of the year. It is paying lip service to the green agenda and doesn't achieve anything but make the racing worse.

The FIA and teams have a lot to answer for. Mind you so does Bernie - yeah he has done a lot for the sport but his constant playing the teams off against each other and sucking the sport dry like a leech is starting to kill it off.

[VolvoT5]

Oh and while I have become used to the engines now I still think the older style engines were better for the show. One of the big counter arguments people used was how these new turbo engines make the cars more "lively" to drive, making the drivers work harder and giving more exciting racing.............. well that seemed to last for about 6 races and now all the teams have the mapping down to a fine art the cars look like they are on rails again.

Compare this:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=viwllFnipds


With today:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bao4pODGxDw

[longblackcoat]

VolvoT5 said:

NewMetalSystem said:

Excessive fuel-saving, 4 engines per season, etc., are bad for the sport and they're just hiding the bigger problem. If the teams were given a more equitable distribution of the commercial rights then there wouldn't be such a high demand for lowering costs.

All these cost-saving measures are just a way for those in charge to justify retaining such a disproportionate share of the revenue.

I assume the logic behind the fuel saving and trying to make engines last many races is cost saving and being seen to be 'green'. But it doesn't actually work when they then change the rules in other ways which cause the costs to inflate far more than replacing an extra engine or two would ever cost.

Personally I don't want to see teams and drivers having to manage an engine so it lasts 5 races. I think limiting the cars to 100kg of fuel seems a bit pointless when they are flying tons of goods and people all over the globe 9 months of the year. It is paying lip service to the green agenda and doesn't achieve anything but make the racing worse.

The FIA and teams have a lot to answer for. Mind you so does Bernie - yeah he has done a lot for the sport but his constant playing the teams off against each other and sucking the sport dry like a leech is starting to kill it off.

The argument that F1 can't be 'green' whilst flying a bunch of cars all around the world is superficially a good one but at a fundamental level misses the point.

F1 cars are essentailly a rolling science experiment, with engine suppliers hopefully using the real-world experience to improve the efficiency and longevity of their road car engines. Whether this happens is another matter, but it's interesting to see that Mercedes are developing a formidable reputation for highly-powered turbocharged road cars.

There's probably not a great deal - if any - direct crossover between the F1 and road car programmes, but the point is that F1 should be addressing the "in ten years time" technology for road cars. And if that can happen through making F1 squeeze every last bit of power from a limited amount of fuel, that can only be a good thing.

[Eric Mc]

This might be what I was remembering. Not as far back as I thought (1973 rather than 1965) but still echoes of what people say today -

http://www.motorsportmagazine.com/archive/article/...

[y2blade]

MotoGP this weekend

[andyps]

Eric Mc said:

This might be what I was remembering. Not as far back as I thought (1973 rather than 1965) but still echoes of what people say today -

http://www.motorsportmagazine.com/archive/article/...

Thanks Eric, interesting reading the letter and the DSJ article. The more that things change, the more they stay the same!

[RYH64E]

longblackcoat said:

F1 cars are essentailly a rolling science experiment, with engine suppliers hopefully using the real-world experience to improve the efficiency and longevity of their road car engines. Whether this happens is another matter, but it's interesting to see that Mercedes are developing a formidable reputation for highly-powered turbocharged road cars.

There's very little comparison between the way F1 cars are driven and the way road cars are driven, F1 cars (any racing cars) are either accelerating hard or decelerating hard, so there's an awful lot of wasted energy that can be recovered during the deceleration phase. Road cars simply aren't driven that way so there's nothing like as much energy to be recovered during the braking phase. If there were significant efficiency savings to be made the car manufacturers would investing heavily in such technology already and we'd be seeing it fitted to road cars already, they don't need F1 to help them develop automotive technology.

[andyps]

RYH64E said:

If there were significant efficiency savings to be made the car manufacturers would investing heavily in such technology already and we'd be seeing it fitted to road cars already, they don't need F1 to help them develop automotive technology.

I think there are at least three car manufacturers investing heavily in this technology, maybe it needs more advancement and refinement to be able to apply it to road cars.

[VolvoT5]

longblackcoat said:

The argument that F1 can't be 'green' whilst flying a bunch of cars all around the world is superficially a good one but at a fundamental level misses the point.

F1 cars are essentailly a rolling science experiment, with engine suppliers hopefully using the real-world experience to improve the efficiency and longevity of their road car engines. Whether this happens is another matter, but it's interesting to see that Mercedes are developing a formidable reputation for highly-powered turbocharged road cars.

There's probably not a great deal - if any - direct crossover between the F1 and road car programmes, but the point is that F1 should be addressing the "in ten years time" technology for road cars. And if that can happen through making F1 squeeze every last bit of power from a limited amount of fuel, that can only be a good thing.

Maybe you have a point, I don't know? But when did any technology come from F1 to road cars, ever? If anything road car technology has found its way into f1 at times (traction control for example). I don't see the situation reversing in 10 years. Fuel saving in F1 doesn't make sense to me, the cars accelerate at full power and then brake heavily; this is never going to be fuel efficient.

I don't think the purpose of F1 is to be a science experiment for car manufacturers to develop better products - there are cheaper and more efficient ways for them to do that already. I think primarily F1 should be about racing (I know, novel idea) and entertainment. I think the new engines have made the cars lardy, overly complex and expensive. The ever increasing regulation and rules have made the sport safer (great), but has made it less entertaining and immediately appealing.

Then there is the issue of politics - 2/3 big teams getting very unequal cut of the money. Bernie bleeding the sport dry. Races being held all at incredibly dull tracks but in rich countries that can price out the more traditional circuits. It really makes no sense in terms of long term sustainability of the sport.

Some people say never go backwards but I think sometimes you have to admit a mistake has been made. Going back to the V8s for example would most likely save teams like Manor, Force India, Sauber and Lotus from almost inevitable bankruptcy under the current system.

[RYH64E]

andyps said:

RYH64E said:

If there were significant efficiency savings to be made the car manufacturers would investing heavily in such technology already and we'd be seeing it fitted to road cars already, they don't need F1 to help them develop automotive technology.

I think there are at least three car manufacturers investing heavily in this technology, maybe it needs more advancement and refinement to be able to apply it to road cars.

If you were looking to develop a system for improving road car economy then F1 wouldn't be a good test bed. I don't know how you drive, but on my commute I don't accelerate hard and I try to brake as little as possible, which is the complete opposite to a (traditional at least) F1 race. If I'm out for a spirited drive I accelerate and brake hard, but on those occasions I don't care about economy, and I didn't buy an Elise to chuck a 100kg or so of batteries in the boot.

I guess the 'new F1' has more in common with daily driving than it used to, ie 'you're not racing the car in front/behind', or 'lift and coast to save fuel', but I still don't think that it's a useful test of road car economy based technology due to the entirely different driving techniques.

[rdjohn]

Sometimes I wish PH had a simple +1 button to agree with comments.

I would just like to add to the above comments that if fewer and fewer people watch F1, then the ability to change public perceptions about fuel economy will also be lost.

F1 is a busted flush and radical change is urgently required.

[jpf]

To take the joke out of the equation:
1) Eliminate half the rules to free up creativity--unlimited DRS, unlimited tire changes--no specifications regarding which tires to use, no fuel restrictions, unlimited engine specs, unlimited engines would be a good start.
2) Emulate the NFL model of revenue sharing reflecting the differences in the sport-- 50% of the profits evenly disbursed to the teams and the other 50% based on standings to give the minnows a chance to compete.
3) Best races are wet races. Wet races are about the driver. Dry races are about the car. The races need to be more driver focused--dare I say, make F1 more analog?
4) Poorly attended races should be dropped from the calendar--there is an unmistakable synergy that a vibrant crowd brings to TV. If the locals won't attend, that tells you a few things about the track and the race! Empty seats at the track tell fans a lot.

[entropy]

andyps said:

I think there are at least three car manufacturers investing heavily in this technology, maybe it needs more advancement and refinement to be able to apply it to road cars.

More than anything its an excuse to keep the boardroom and shareholders sweet. Who wants to go back to era like the Cosworth DFVs?

[carinaman]

rdjohn said:

F1 is a busted flush and radical change is urgently required.

And nobody needed Audi R8 laser headlights to see it coming either did they?

This weekend I could alter my routine to watch qualifying and the race live on BBC, but will it be as rubbish as Australia?

Given how pants the first race was, surely some good news was going begging by putting Susie Wolff in the Williams as Bottas wasn't allowed to race?

Bernie should have been in the Williams garage flashing the cash to get her that race drive.

As I posted earlier in the thread, if F1 doesn't care about itself why should anyone else?

[andyps]

VolvoT5 said:

I don't think the purpose of F1 is to be a science experiment for car manufacturers to develop better products - there are cheaper and more efficient ways for them to do that already. I think primarily F1 should be about racing (I know, novel idea) and entertainment. I think the new engines have made the cars lardy, overly complex and expensive. The ever increasing regulation and rules have made the sport safer (great), but has made it less entertaining and immediately appealing.

some politics stuff......

Some people say never go backwards but I think sometimes you have to admit a mistake has been made. Going back to the V8s for example would most likely save teams like Manor, Force India, Sauber and Lotus from almost inevitable bankruptcy under the current system.

The old adage of race on Sunday sell on Monday has a place still. When even Ferrari are shortly going to be unable to sell a car with a naturally aspirated v8 to someone who says they want a car like the one racing in F1, Mercedes haven't for a while and Renault and Honda never have (that I can think of) but they all sell turbo variants and hybrids then there is a clear relevance. Road cars are lardy, over-complex and expensive too!

The engine costs are only a small part of the problem for the lower end teams. Pat Symonds said last year that their engine bill at Williams was lower than they use to pay in the days of unlimited engines and small teams survived, and failed, then. The money distribution is the issue.

RYH64E said:

If you were looking to develop a system for improving road car economy then F1 wouldn't be a good test bed. I don't know how you drive, but on my commute I don't accelerate hard and I try to brake as little as possible, which is the complete opposite to a (traditional at least) F1 race. If I'm out for a spirited drive I accelerate and brake hard, but on those occasions I don't care about economy, and I didn't buy an Elise to chuck a 100kg or so of batteries in the boot.

I guess the 'new F1' has more in common with daily driving than it used to, ie 'you're not racing the car in front/behind', or 'lift and coast to save fuel', but I still don't think that it's a useful test of road car economy based technology due to the entirely different driving techniques.

It may not be the direct test bed, but there are lessons learned, some beyond the direct engineering ones, from F1 which pass back to other areas of the organisation. And there are the promotional benefits too, which is back to the race on Sunday saying.

[chris_gilmartin]

Given a) the enormous effort & expense of flying everything to Australia b) likelihood of points due to the depleted field c) the paddock has plenty of drivers in it, I was amazed that Williams didn't put Susie or anyone else out instead of Bottas. Are the cars so complicated to drive these days that it's simply not possible to jump in and have a go? André Lotterer managed it in the Caterham.