Question: Is Formula One Boring?

[Gargos]

Remember the days when we had 7 winners in the first 7 races of Formula 1? Yeah. That was 7 YEARS ago. Since then, this Mercedes dominance is ridiculous. This year has been the worst yet. 6 races where they have finished 1 and 2, 6 races where they have locked out the front row. The one chance we had this year of seeing a different winner and then the stewards have to go and call a completely BS move.

If F1 ever hopes to not be boring anymore, they need to do something to tighten this grid up. Allow teams running down in the grid order to update their cars more often. Find different sponsors for each car and get rid of running orders. No sponsor is going to want their car to run second fiddle to the other car. Maybe a little Mercedes on Mercedes action will help to at least wipe them both out and let somebody else have a chance. I don't care. Just do SOMETHING.

 

[Rui Santos]

Put Max on the Mercedes and Leclerc as first driver of Ferrari and things might spice up

 

[keto95]

After Senna decline was evident, Schumacher won so many championships because he had no opponent of the same level

Schumacher won most of his WDC's in the pitlane during his pitstops or via teamorders and had privileges that others didn't have.
Ross Brawn was the masterbrain on the background who won Schumacher's WDC's, but the driver gets all credit as he's representing the team to the outside world. Actually Schumacher was a cheater and Senna already blamed him for it during his Benetton days.

 

[Raymond 18]

I stopped buying F1 tickets years ago and I mostly went to IMSA series or IndyCar, but I am always grateful to F1. F1 is doing its job perfectly fine. If you or your children can buy affordable and efficient hybrid/electric cars 20 years later, you might have this year's F1 to thank.

Sorry but I have to disagree : F1 has not as goal to be a demo tech but a competition. To be more precise : a real driving competition, not an engineering competition.

 

[LagunaSeca]

Sorry but I have to disagree : F1 has not as goal to be a demo tech but a competition. To be more precise : a real driving competition, not an engineering competition.

OK so I just finished dealing with a bunch of undergrads today and answered a million questions. Hence my tongue might be a little harsh.

Well how can that be true? There are so many technologies we use today that come from/are enhanced by F1. One of the most famous example might be monocoque chassis introduced back in 1962 Lotus 25. Last year the AMG F1 car can have heat efficiency up to 50%, while I was a kid that number for road cars were mere 20%. (Diesel can be 30%) To achieve that, you need advanced material science and extremely high compression ratio. Note that a high compression ratio can backfire so keeping the engine running smoothly is a hard task. Isn't that something that will benefit the whole world and future generations, rather than pleasing the viewers for 2 hours?

Then if you look at FIA's regulation, you can see the amount of power unit, transmission, etc allowed per season without penalty is decreased. Why is that? If F1's goal is pure competition, why would FIA not allow infinite number of engines? How would you answer those questions?

Oh and the "real driving competition" you mentioned. FIA has formula 2, which uses equal cars like Indycar. Why not do that for F1? The staff and scientists in FIA cannot be idiots, so there must be reasons behind it. F2's cost is a fraction of F1. If we apply F2's regulation to F1 then the problems are all instantly solved, amazing! Why they haven't done that? Have you thought about that as well?

You might think hey, WEC has BoP and EoT. Lots of technology comes from eudurance racing as well. How can I justify that? That is due to encourage the diversity of manufacturers that can participate as GT cars are based on road cars while prototype cars have different powertrain. How can you let a big fat Bentley compete with a Porsche? How can you let a petrol engine only LMP1 car compete with Toyota? By increasing the number of brands participating, WEC expands the experiment field where different kinds of car can run in extreme conditions and put their reliability into test. We don't have continental vs 911 issue in F1, so we don't need BoP in F1.

I could go on and on and on and on and on and on. I once did research in computational PDE and aerodynamics. I was completely shocked how complicated things can be when it comes to make a competitive front wing. Then I realize how many technologies and research are involved in F1 and there is a HUUUUUUGGGGEEEEE chain of development behind it and of course, a **** ton of money. No "true competition" is worth that amount of money or resource, unless that the result of that competition has some long term benefit.

(So screw those guys who want V10 back. Let V10 be a romantic memory like the stories of heroic medieval knights, but I want to be protected by jets and tanks, not men with armors on horses.)

PS: You might fall into a classical informal fallacy called "No true Scotsman". Some racing is real and the others are not. Well every racing is real. If I want to fight a guy that has way bigger size than me and I get crushed, that is some real competition as well, because I want to hurt him and he want to hurt me. Another example you can often see in a YouTube comment section is when some call the cars of this generation "soul-less V6" and they think V10 cars are "true F1 cars". Lol, every car is soul-less from a scientific point of view, and they swap the definition of "true" without being aware.

 

[michelforest]

After Senna decline was evident, Schumacher won so many championships because he had no opponent of the same level and things are worse each season. Today, even Hamilton has won so many titles, one can not say that he is at the same level of Mansel, Prost or Piquet. The quality and talent fell alarmingly.

Senna's decline? WTF?? Senna never drove better than in 1993, his last full season, when he won 5 races in a McLaren that was not nearly as good as the Williams-Renault. He won 5 races solely thanks to his talent. Anytime it rained, he just outdrove the entire field.

 

[wombat999]

Today what passes for F1 is dead boring, aside from being wrapped up in stupid politically correct regulations enforced by politically motivated muppets, the over large and ugly 'cars' are purely promotional and rely on insane 'aerodynamics', killing off any racing for position without the abysmal 'DRS' assistance.
I have been fortunate to have followed Formula 1 seriously since the sixties, prior to that as a small boy my Father had taken me to see the likes of Moss, Brabham, Behra and a generation of real drivers.
The only season I recall where you could almost predict the outcome of a GP would have been 1955, where Mercedes dominated courtesy of investment, engineering excellence and a star lineup of drivers.
Said it before and I'll say it again, 'Formula 1' was the pinnacle of automotive innovation and the cast of characters were charismatic, while the occasional event might have been processional they were never boring.

 

[Deleted member 113561]

Actually Schumacher was a cheater and Senna already blamed him for it during his Benetton days.

ROFL, Senna had privileges himself and cheated himself to victory & WDC, so thats that.

 

[Nick Gregory]

Other than a few odd seasons, F1 has really been the same for a very long time. A couple of teams that realistically have a shot at winning a race. It's been like this for 10, 20, hell even 70 years. Of course, I'm not going to pretend like this doesn't happen in pretty much any other race series out there, but at least the on-track action is good, unlike in F1.

The other reason why F1 is boring is because the cars still can't follow each other despite the regulation changes this year, and rely mostly on DRS and pit strategy to overtake. It's even worse when the on-track overtaking strategy is to hang back so you don't wear the tires and only pull up on the car in front when you get to the detection zone.

For me, even trying to watch it as "F1.5" just isn't doing it.

And for me at least, the straw that broke the camel's back was the BS penalty in Canada between Vettel and Hamilton.

EDIT: I think Chain Bear put it best.

 

[Kimmo Kokkonen]

Hello!!! You say formula 1 is boring to watch, nevertheless, you look at all the races. Why?

Here in Finland 'everyone' who looks at formula 1 broadcasts complains the same every year, I don't understand? Don't look if you're not interested, do something else better!

At the moment, Mercedes is the best, the other teams can't do the same. Most boring thing in F1 is those so young drivers, they are just fast children but not belongs to men's world yet. Grow up few years. I believe that current F1 Cars made so easy to drive just for these young drivers. The power steering is ridiculous in F1 car. You should have more physical strength and drive without any these kind of technical aids.

 

[Spinelli]

I'll probably never stop watching F1, it's just a part of me but, yes, it's boring and it sucks.

The problems are lots of things:
- tyres

- driving aids

- cars are too well-behaved and therefore too easy and too consistent (yes, even the bad handling cars of the grid compared to cars from the 70s, 80s, 90s, even 2000s)

- aero grip to mechanical grip ratio

- power to overall grip ratio

- relative ease of getting on the power (thanks to driving aids like all sorts of manipulation of throttle application and engine torque through software)

- overly complex and expensive power units which most manufacturers don't want any part of (only 4 types of engines throughout the whole grid)

- not allowing teams more freedom on engines (as long as it's 1.6 or whatever litres, why does it matter if a team wants an inline 6 while another wants a inline 4 while another wants a v6, or v8, v10, v12, etc...and same with the engine's cylinder angle and other dumb engine restrictions)

- not allowing hardly any real-world testing

- having x amount of engines and gearboxes / season (if you design an engine to last 6 races, chances are very low there will be mechanical problems and that makes races more predictable and the fans are much less nervous about their own cars failing while also having much less hope of opponents' cars failing). You used to have your heart in your throat in old races until the car crossed the finish line. Now, you know 90% the car will not break down and therefore know the race is over by lap 10 of a boring race.

- the cars sound like vacuum cleaners which means I can hardly watch all 3 free practice sessions like I used to because there's just no sound, no sense of power and anger, no thrilling sound that makes you smile and sucks you ever more into the racing. This means boring races are even more boring. At least with the incredible and aggressive noise of past cars boring races still had a sense of excitement from them.

- rain races go under the safety car with too little rain (watch some of the rain races from prior decades like Schumacher - Spain - 96)

- there are tyre rules where teams are literally banned from and or over a certain tyre pressure (not just advised, but banned), same thing may be true with camber and toe but I'm not sure

- parc ferme rules of not being able to adjust car setup during qualifying and before the race

- locked gearbox ratios. You can't change individual gears and I don't even think final gearing throughout the season. I think they are locked into 3 or 4 different ratios to choose from throughout the season or some thing like that.

- qualifying is a borefest because session 1 and 2 barely mean anything so all that matters is around 5 or 6 minutes of session 3 where you only get to see maybe 2 full laps (since everyone is doing their laps at around the same time, give or take)

I could keep going

 

[BrunoBæ]

The main reason for the extreme cost of developing progress in todays F1 cars is because the main aim is to raise the aero based downforce.
Because this raises the straight and corner grip of the cars.

So if the wing/spoiler and diffuser based downforce was capped at so low a level that every F1 teams today could easily satisfy it - then both the chassis dev cost and the dominance of the richest teams would diminish more or less overnight.
And because of the greatly diminished aero based downforce then it would be much easier to overtake!
And we would by garantee get less boring races.

CatsAreTheWorstDogs: When aero development couldnt be used to produce more (extreme) downforce then we would probably see some exciting progress in the drag coefficient of the cars.
Something that principally could produce completely new car designs.

 

[Raymond 18]

OK so I just finished dealing with a bunch of undergrads today and answered a million questions. Hence my tongue might be a little harsh.

Well how can that be true? There are so many technologies we use today that come from/are enhanced by F1. One of the most famous example might be monocoque chassis introduced back in 1962 Lotus 25. Last year the AMG F1 car can have heat efficiency up to 50%, while I was a kid that number for road cars were mere 20%. (Diesel can be 30%) To achieve that, you need advanced material science and extremely high compression ratio. Note that a high compression ratio can backfire so keeping the engine running smoothly is a hard task. Isn't that something that will benefit the whole world and future generations, rather than pleasing the viewers for 2 hours?

Then if you look at FIA's regulation, you can see the amount of power unit, transmission, etc allowed per season without penalty is decreased. Why is that? If F1's goal is pure competition, why would FIA not allow infinite number of engines? How would you answer those questions?

Oh and the "real driving competition" you mentioned. FIA has formula 2, which uses equal cars like Indycar. Why not do that for F1? The staff and scientists in FIA cannot be idiots, so there must be reasons behind it. F2's cost is a fraction of F1. If we apply F2's regulation to F1 then the problems are all instantly solved, amazing! Why they haven't done that? Have you thought about that as well?

You might think hey, WEC has BoP and EoT. Lots of technology comes from eudurance racing as well. How can I justify that? That is due to encourage the diversity of manufacturers that can participate as GT cars are based on road cars while prototype cars have different powertrain. How can you let a big fat Bentley compete with a Porsche? How can you let a petrol engine only LMP1 car compete with Toyota? By increasing the number of brands participating, WEC expands the experiment field where different kinds of car can run in extreme conditions and put their reliability into test. We don't have continental vs 911 issue in F1, so we don't need BoP in F1.

I could go on and on and on and on and on and on. I once did research in computational PDE and aerodynamics. I was completely shocked how complicated things can be when it comes to make a competitive front wing. Then I realize how many technologies and research are involved in F1 and there is a HUUUUUUGGGGEEEEE chain of development behind it and of course, a **** ton of money. No "true competition" is worth that amount of money or resource, unless that the result of that competition has some long term benefit.

(So screw those guys who want V10 back. Let V10 be a romantic memory like the stories of heroic medieval knights, but I want to be protected by jets and tanks, not men with armors on horses.)

PS: You might fall into a classical informal fallacy called "No true Scotsman". Some racing is real and the others are not. Well every racing is real. If I want to fight a guy that has way bigger size than me and I get crushed, that is some real competition as well, because I want to hurt him and he want to hurt me. Another example you can often see in a YouTube comment section is when some call the cars of this generation "soul-less V6" and they think V10 cars are "true F1 cars". Lol, every car is soul-less from a scientific point of view, and they swap the definition of "true" without being aware.

Well, first thank you to have taken the time to answer me.

Your postulate relies on the fact that R&D from the F1 have effects on improvements and/or innovations for the common cars in mass production.
In this case, why to have different R&D departments for the manufacturers? Even for Mercedes-Benz, the overmighty winner of these last years in F1? The race R&D department would be enough to avoid waste of money for these manufacturers.

Because that's not a constant truth.

The downward process about technologies from F1 can be very long because what it was possible easily in the 60s' couldn't be identical to 2020 : the cars are more complex and somewhat different in their usage.

We are far from the all-mechanical era which permitted such fast integration of new technologies from race departments in the past. Now, manufacturers, suppliers, service integrators, IT firms have to work together to find adapted solutions and not just transferring a technology from the race department of the manufacturer. It could be long, expensive and unsafe for the IP.

So, yes it was right years ago but clearly different nowadays.

Else, to obtain technological advance, you need very expensive raw materials and advanced electronic devices specifically developed for the F1 circus. Many technologies will stay exclusive to F1 because they are not expected to be adapted for the mass production once again.

 

[Antony Snook]

I would not say F1 is boring. Yes it is technical and hard to understand. Its not always fair and some rules in the modern eara are taking some of the excitement.
I went to the Torono Indy in 1993. I think i fell asleep or came close in the race (More like drivers on the commute home on the express way) it did not pump me up like a F1 race. The only cool thing i got to do was talk to F1 legend turned Indy Car driver Mario Andretti. Mansell was taking all the attention so i had full access to him. And the came AM race won by local driver Ron Fellows cheered me up from one of the dullest sporting events i have ever witnessed. I have tried to watch the INDY 500 and the most recent race at the old Grandprix configuration for F1 last race.

 

[Antony Snook]

I have spoken to casual fans of F1, they watch Monaco or a couple of other races a year. And they say stuff that makes no scence. I pull out the books or articles collecting stats and race reports and prove them wrong.

My Dad once rambled on about Michale Andretti and said he could not finish a race. I got my book Murray Walkers Grandprix 1993. And boom there he is on the podeom at Monza. That is 3rd. Though he did spend most of the season spinning out and crashing his McLaren Ford.

 

[Sasha Jednak]

Sorry but I have to disagree : F1 has not as goal to be a demo tech but a competition. To be more precise : a real driving competition, not an engineering competition.

I agree with you that it is not a demo tech. But this second part, no way. Why I think this: I compare it with other type of racing, running. In both sports you have athlete (driver/runner), their contact with surface (tyres/shoes), their power (engine/muscles) and their control (body/body). So from 4 main things runner has 1 that is not part of him, but still he needs his own power to move it. While drivers don't even use their power to move the tyres (don't go into throttle details, you know what I mean ).

Anyway, even without this comparison, today it can't be driving competition because now it is not the driver that drives a car alone. As a lot of people said and I agree with that, pit-wall shouldn't be involved in the race through constant radio messages. Drivers should drive and take care of car by themselves, then we would see how much they really feel about the car. I mean imagine Monaco this year without radio... How many laps would it took Lewis to get in for new tyres because "current are dead", or any race in last 10 years where anyone said to the pit that their tyres are gone (while that not being the case). Not to mention how many engines would go off, would Lewis knew that his engine was "dead" for more than half of Brazilian?! GP last year... Would Leclerc knew that he can continue until the end in Bahrain... Or drivers running out of fuel because they pushed to hard, but that one they probably see on the wheel. Radio is good thing for safety (yellow/red flags), but that's more than enough if you ask me. And then I would consider this like some sort of driving competition.

 

[Gualda]

F2 is more fun to watch

 

[Deleted member 561801]

F2 is more fun to watch

Really?

 

[Jack Straw]

Just yesterday I received a telegram from the FIA informing me that I would receive a penalty due to my falling asleep while attempting to watch the French GP on television.

 

[GP20]

Innovation and technology are the DNA of F1.
Unfortunatly today teams can't afford this tech at the same level. That's why there is so much gap between teams.
The Paul Ricard just highlighted this. It does not happen in the same way in Monaco.
F1 and F2 races have been great, lot of fights and actions.

Introducing a BOP would be against the F1 culture.