F1 racing boring?

[aarmel]

Thought I'd get the view from some car nuts.

Dont you find F1 racing boring? basically the race comes down to qualifying, first corner, pit stops. and thats about it. oh and crashes.

I have great apretiation for the cars technologicaly, they are amazing. But as far as spectator racing goes they dont seem very exciting.


But I'm biased towards bike racing as a spectator sport lots of overtakeing in a bike race. Rally cars are also great fun to watch.

[aarmel]

ehh.. got here from the race time page. but it says supercars forum? so is this a general forum for race time or V8 specfic?

ahh yess I can read it says Other as well. uhh huh. got it.

[DNQ]

This is for V8 Supercars aarmel. Don't worry, a moderator will move this to the F1 forum.

Welcome to ten-tenths by the way

[Buckshot]

Yes...the Michael Shumacher show is getting a tad boring.

The racing just isn't close enough. Sure Jr Schu was chasing Schu Snr kinda closely for the last few laps of Brazil but that was an exception where as a series like CART would see about 5 cars in the on track space occupied by 2 F1 cars.

Also I'd like to see Ferrari stop hitting the self destruct button whenever Barichello is beating their golden boy.

[Crash Test]

Move done

For a full listing of forums, check out http://tentenths.com/forum/index.php

[paulzinho]

F1 has got better than it was a couple of years ago, but its still nowhere near as good as it used to be.

[RaceTime]

Originally posted by aarmel
ehh.. got here from the race time page. but it says supercars forum? so is this a general forum for race time or V8 specfic?

Actually - the link is under General - Forum and, unfortunately, thre is only one Australian forum on ten-tenths (something I tried to add to but.....)

[Kex]

I think the 1998 Spanish Grand Prix was one of the most boring races I have ever seen. The early part of that season was pretty boring.

But however boring it gets, I'll still keep watching.

[DavyboyLT1]

Even if the action on TV is boring, one can easily spend a few hours reading through the arguments, in various threads, on this forum (after the race).

I swear there's more "overtaking moves" done on 10-tenths within 24 hours of a GP than we see on the track.

[Lee Janotta]

The politics are _way_ more interesting than most of the racing. Montoya and the general resurgence of Williams have made it a bit more entertaining, but there's still only 3, maybe 4 cars every weekend with a shot at winning, and if M$ can lead thru the first corner, the race is usually already won. The absence of a competitive, widely-available engine like the Cosworth DFV, traction control and other driver aids, and favoritism by the two tire manufacturers towards their top customers have all but killed close racing. You can't follow close because it'll cost you front downforce. You can't pressure a guy ahead of you and hope he oversteers leaving a tight corner. And if you don't drive for Ferrari, Williams or McLaren, you simply don't have the engine and tires to get you to a podium. Montoya _may_ be a bit too aggressive for his own good, but he makes the racing look a lot better than it really is.

A totally free series doesn't make for good racing. You have to artificially limit one of the three factors: chassis/aero, tires, or engine. CART run with a spec tire, two chassis (down to one next season), and three engines, and is infinitly more exciting that F1, because it allows for only 6 different combinations. F1 has 11 different combinations, one per team, and I don't think _anyone_ would argue that even on their best day, a Minardi will even finish on the same _lap_ as a Ferarri. CART had 11 different winners last year, more than most any pro series can boast. It's the right approach: a stable formula that produces close racing and emphasizes driver skill, but still leaves room for technical innovation. It's simply amazing that those idiots on the competition board went and ruined it with traction control, and soon a completely new engine/chassis formula.

[Jay]

Originally posted by Lee Janotta
The politics are _way_ more interesting than most of the racing.

Funny, it's the politics that turns me off F1 so much... I've gotten so that I don't care who's in the machines as long as they can race. And from what I've seen in F1, it's the car not the pilot that does the racing...

As for F1 racing.... It seems to be more about suspense than anything else... The anticipation of action. The most exciting part of any race is when the lights go out, and frequently, if nobody suffers any misfortunes, the excitement may be over thy the 3rd corner. Still...there's the rest of the race and anything can happen...but it usually doesn't.

Cart otoh, has exciting starts, but frequently the best moment of the race (the one people talk about when all is said and done), comes during the final few laps. There is racing all the time, and anywhere. Yes there are cautions, but you begin to appreciate it... Now if only these guys would be better in the rain...

[Mekola]

When there are no chances of overtake, and pure strategic moves, the races are very bored.

I still find F1 extremely exciting even if sometimes there is a lack of passing among the front runners. I love the idea of F1, 11 teams building their own cars and technology and racing them against each other, I'm not into this "build a racing series for the excitement of the fans" opinion (although Bernie may disagree slightly there).

Perhaps I'm mental but I rarely find races boring, I follow each one closely, trying to work out pit strategies etc.

I think this is a question can come down to personal preference and what the individual is looking for in the series. Each to their own.

[RaceTime]

Yet when something innovative comes up, they end up banning it because of 'safety' or 'cost' - I mean get real - a plank of wood under a car because they are afraid the designers will allow the car to ride too low!

F1 has aways meant, to me at least, innovation and ground breaking technology (look at Colin Chapmans cars from the 70's; the Lotus, Tyrrel and Brabham cars). Now they can't even use a turbo on an engine and restrcited to, how many cylinders is it? 10??

[Valve Bounce]

Just make sure you join the tipping competition for each race. That will get your blood boiling when you see your points diminish or increase as the cars conk out.

[RaceTime]

btw - didn't mean to imply the yrrel or Brabham's were Colin Chapmans either - before anyone tries tp flame me

[Nicholas]

It's got better, hope it stays like this.

A lot of the excitement is also about what goes on between races too, ie contracts etc etc. as well as message boards like T-T

[AllonFS]

Yes, modern F1 is pretty boring, sometimes it's as exciting as very fast game of chess. I watch it as much from a sense of duty as anything else and I want to throttle commentators who talk about exciting pit stop strategies. Fans want to see wheel to wheel racing throughout the race, not just at the start.

A big part of the problem is the technology. I know F1 has always been cutting edge, but auto gears, traction control and ridiculous downforce? Some, (myself included) would argue that it lessens the input and skill needed by the driver; I think everyone would agree that it lessens the spectacle.

If things stay the same we will never again see the glory of drivers oversteering their cars, balancing the cars on the throttles. Where are the Petersons, the (Gilles) Villeneuves of today? They aren't around because the cars don't allow them to show their skills.

The solution? Well how about this for a start. Turbo engines, (1000+ bhp), slicks, limited downforce, no f*cking traction control (I don't pretent to know how you police that), clutches and manual gearboxes. Basically the cars of yesterday with the safety of today.

And don't even start me on the pitiful go-kart GP tracks we have now...

[Red]

Originally posted by AllonFS
The solution? Well how about this for a start. Turbo engines, (1000+ bhp), slicks, limited downforce, no f*cking traction control (I don't pretent to know how you police that), clutches and manual gearboxes. Basically the cars of yesterday with the safety of today.

And don't even start me on the pitiful go-kart GP tracks we have now...

I might be mistaking here, but I do believe that all the above already exists, isn't it called CART?

[Lee Janotta]

Originally posted by Red
I might be mistaking here, but I do believe that all the above already exists, isn't it called CART?

Not quite, Red. CART has about 800 horsepower currently and sequential gearboxes. And starting this year, traction control. When the new 3.5L Indy-style atmospheric engines come out, power'll be cut to about 600hp. I doubt I'll be able to watch anymore once that happens.

Why the hell can't we police traction and stability control? Here's a radical idea: SPEC ELECTRONICS! Why not? It'd be a real cost-saving measure too. Have the sanction hire some outfit to design an engine and gearbox management system that'd work with all the teams in the series. Design it so the teams can set it up to work properly with their equipment, maybe tweak it a bit, but just design it without any capacity for traction or stability control, automatic shifting, launch control, OR MID-RACE ADJUSTMENT FROM THE PITS!!!

Engines in single-seater categories are close enough within a series that it should work. And obviously, the top teams are spending _way_ too much money on the electronics, trying to come up with all these ridiculously complex ways to cheat.

[Glen]

The race between constructors is every bit as relevant in F1 as the race between drivers. Only if you value the latter much higher than the former would you conclude that the formula needs fixing in this way. My feeling is that F1 does appear boring to the casual observer who focuses purely on the drivers - but as you get more into the sport you begin to appreciate that it is firstly a competition to build the best car within the rules, and that the delivery of that car to the front of the race is as much a confirmation of the engineering effort as it is the driver effort. In this way F1 rewards the "nerdy" fan, which is fine by me!

[AllonFS]

I would still prefer to see races like Monza in the late 60s and early 70s where track, car and drivers combined to create amazing races where the winner was often decided only in the final run to the flag. Personally I find that more exciting than which team has the best computer software.

[Red]

Yes, me too. (I guess.) But I cant. So actually instead of I'd rather enjoy the show. Besides, I could always use the remote control. But I don't, so, to answer the initial question, NO: I do NOT find Formula 1 boring. Absolutely not. (Glen put it better than I did )

[RWC]

Ban the wings.

[Valve Bounce]

For the first time I found bike racing boring - the Moto GP at Suzuka sounded like a VW Beetle race for old ladies, and it might as well have been. I think if these guys went around in VW Beetles, it would have been more exciting. I only posted this in the f1 forum because I hope that F1 never goes the Moto way of using silencers. Can anyone tell me why the bikes had silencers? It killed the race stone dead. And to make it worse we watched, on a delayed telcast from Channel 10, Valentino chasing chasing Rio for many laps, only to be interupted by a lengthy comercial, only to find that Rossi had passed Rio because channel 10 kept the tape running during the comercial. Don't worry, we also get such stupid bungled telecasts on Channel 9 for F1 races. Nobody at Channels 10 and 9 cares how the races are presented.