Question: Is Formula One Boring?

[madhopz]

I will watch a race because I always like to see excellence in sports. I like to see top performers do something 1/2 of 1 % of the world can do. I also do sim racing so I like to see how a pro takes corners, brakes and exits corners. That is the entertainment for me.

For all of the people who say it is boring and sterile, first don't compare F1 to IMSA, Blancpain or the others. Not the same. If you banged F1 cars around like they do in those disciplines, there wouldn't be an F1. It's like comparing Blancpain to NASCAR. Second ask yourself what is good racing? Bet we get 1000 different answers.

I would say that if you only want to see "good racing" make a suggestion that the only communications between driver and pit is to request pit in. Since the driver has a ton of info on his wheel, if he can't manage the car himself, tough. He can only call for pit. The pit can't call him for anything other than to retire the car.

I am into pro cycling and people are making the same complaints about the grand tours being boring. The suggestion has been made to eliminate radios between the riders and team cars and also eliminate power meters. Make it like it used to be everyone says.

Maybe removing the constant communications is the way to make it entertaining to the masses.

 

[bsmooth]

There's actually proof that it is boring, just listen to the commentary. Normally this pretty much goes unnoticed normally because the race is so exciting.
But since the racing usually isn't that exciting, except at the very start, you actually begin to listen. Thats when it all becomes so evident, because the announcers start to dramatize the smallest things.Better yet they start to wonder what the teams might do instead of reporting what actually is happening.

 

[GeoF1]

Bring Alonso back with a good car!!And then everything will be ok

 

[Deleted member 561801]

Bring Alonso back with a good car!!And then everything will be ok

Will be great!

 

[dcully]

Most people say F1 is boring but they keep watching it. That’s a paradox.

I highly doubt that.

 

[Keith_G]

The only thing more boring than F1 is reading this thread.

 

[TylerDurden4321]

Let's see how it goes in 2021.
Right now, some races are fun to watch, but many are supremely boring.

 

[Diogo Goetz Brand]

F1 has always been boring. People say "oh but it was so good in the 80's". I dare you to go watch a race from the 80's, and I don't mean one of the iconic races like Monaco 84, I mean one race that nobody talks about, and not find it boring.
There will be the odd exciting race with weird strategies, rain and that kind of stuff, but for the most part it has always been as boring as it is today. Even more boring that F1 is having this argument for the 1000^1000th time.

 

[BrettSinclair1]

Yes. Even the spells of "excitement" are nothing but manufactured.

 

[Nick Hill]

(1) There are things I would change about modern F1 for sure.
(2) I also believe F1's status as "the pinnacle of motorsport" is evaporating right under our noses (and will soon be supplanted by Formula E).

I could write a multiple page essay on items 1 & 2 elaborating on my thoughts and suggested remedies, but my main point of this post is I think there is a 3rd factor at play that transcends F1: I think our expectations as consumers of entertainment have changed drastically over the last few decades. Our expectations for instant gratification are off the charts and we have very little patience for waiting around for something to capture our imagination.

Something I would encourage people to do is to take a casual tour of some of the historical F1 results on this page: https://www.f1-fansite.com/f1-results/

If you look objectively across the almost 70 years of F1, you'll see that even what are considered all-time classic seasons were chock full of boring results.

 

[bsmooth]

I don't believe it was always boring. Its lost something that it always had, uncertainty.
I think it was mentioned earlier in the thread, about Mercedes, and in some ways about all the teams, except maybe Mclaren, and thats dependability. Mercedes rarely has any failures at all, most of the other teams have pretty good reliability as well.
Thats pretty new to F1, I'm not sure If you could pin a date on when that happened.
Even before when one manufacturer was dominant there would always be breakdowns or failures of some sort, even in the pits most stops are now flawless, sure theres the occasional screwup.
Uncertainty in itself is not a great reason to watch a race, but it is something, and thats what makes racing so special. Rivalries are good too, not that we really have any right now. New talent is another reason to watch, because they are out to prove something.
Theres the cars themselves, but to tell the truth they pretty much look all the same now. Remember when they actually all looked different? Tough for some I know, but they actually had personalities. Right now they have the personality of a brick, a high tech brick, but a brick nonetheless.
I remember watching Nelson Piquet, and listening to that BMW howl, and that was not boring !

 

[AngryWolfCorey]

Depends on what you mean by boring. If you watch F1 strictly for the racing action, yes, it can be highly boring fairly often. But if you watch F1 for the tech & the engineering then, no, it isn't boring but obviously the engineering tech can get pretty nerdy which some people do find utterly boring.

Also, you have to learn how to watch F1. If you want racing action then concentrate on the midfield. There's usually decent battles there but most people only care about who wins so they'll overlook where the actual action is.

There's also this kind of myth that F1 at one time there was passing & battles all over the place. That F1 never really existed. F1 in the 70s & 80s could have more people win races in a year but that often came down to reliability or lack of in cars not some romantic notion of driver battles all over the circuit. But you would still have races where the winner ran off after a refueling or midway through a race & run away an easy 30-40 second winner. Senna lapped all but 3 other cars in the rain in Portugal in his first win if I remember correctly, e.g.

Was there more action? Yeah, to an extent. But f1 never had these lap to lap battles like you get in spec oval series. But oval racing is generally more boring for other reasons.

Without re-inventing the wheel or instituting a whole slew of new rules, just changing the wings so cars could follow more closely would go a long way to fixing the "boring" aspect.

 

[AngryWolfCorey]

I don't believe it was always boring. Its lost something that it always had, uncertainty.
I think it was mentioned earlier in the thread, about Mercedes, and in some ways about all the teams, except maybe Mclaren, and thats dependability. Mercedes rarely has any failures at all, most of the other teams have pretty good reliability as well.
Thats pretty new to F1, I'm not sure If you could pin a date on when that happened.
Even before when one manufacturer was dominant there would always be breakdowns or failures of some sort, even in the pits most stops are now flawless, sure theres the occasional screwup.
Uncertainty in itself is not a great reason to watch a race, but it is something, and thats what makes racing so special. Rivalries are good too, not that we really have any right now. New talent is another reason to watch, because they are out to prove something.
Theres the cars themselves, but to tell the truth they pretty much look all the same now. Remember when they actually all looked different? Tough for some I know, but they actually had personalities. Right now they have the personality of a brick, a high tech brick, but a brick nonetheless.
I remember watching Nelson Piquet, and listening to that BMW howl, and that was not boring !

Tyrell & Brabham alone used to make F1 interesting b/c they would rock up with some weird new idea on a car which was sometimes ridiculous but still fascinating

 

[Troy Barman]

V6s is what killed it for me. F1 has historically always been boring but I could watch those T-Cam videos all day from the early 00s with just engine sound. Now that that is gone there is nothing left to watch but petty drama.

 

[NDG]

Whatever floats your boat guys. My kid and I enjoy watching the races together. It's like watching an air show without fighter jets shooting each other. I'm sure it will break his heart once Merc domination ends. I know it will eventually come. But he'll be bigger then and shouldn't cry anymore.

I also agree it's boring for adults and long time fans. Being dominated is boring. It's not merc's fault, we all know that. Like Floyd Mayweather in a way. Once you got everything in you, you just dominate and masses hate you. Just gotta give it to them, they worked their hearts out to get there.

I vote "boring" in the polls btw. My kid will kill me if he discovers that.

 

[TrumpetReich]

The cars are still amazingly fast (more so than ever before really) and the drivers can still do mindboggling things with them. So I still find it fun to watch, but really qualifying is all that matters now. Seeing which teams can perform and different tracks and how the cars handle is awesome. In fact, I've found myself waking up early to watch every qualifying but skipping the races.

TLDR: qualy is as good as it's ever been, too bad the races are awful

 

[gamer19]

...and make them all manual like NASCAR is still doing with H-shift!

You comparing NASCAR and F1, really ? How many times NASCAR driver change gear in, say, one minute ? And how many do F1 driver ?

...I loved getting up in the night to watch races from Australia or Japan when I was a little kid aswell. Today I don't even bother with the European races...

Trust me mate, that's just a life... you're getting older (I'm not saying that you're old already but you know... it's a slow but inevitable process) it's not that much about F1 itself, it's more about you. I know, same here.
Btw... I too love to ride my Scott Scale than watching other do some semi-racing.
If nothing else... I have MotoGP, Moto 2 and 3, they always deliver.
Plus... when I'm on my bike and going downhill I can see myself (lol) much easier as a Marquez, Crutchlow or some other brave rider than those sissy-es in oh so well protected latest space technology cockpit.

 

[Slowdive]

For the French GP I watched the first 2 laps, then fast forwarded to the end of the race for the last lap. I didn't miss a thing. Next time I'll not even bother to do that. I'll just watch the 3 minutes of highlights which amount to, "Wow, look at the pass he made on the straight with DRS!" I think I'm done with F1, and it's no loss.

 

[Slowdive]

To the people who say it's about engineering, well who cares? I mean, you don't see them actually doing anything to the cars in that regard. They don't even talk about the engineering that much and I don't need to tune in to see who spent the most on their F1 program. That in and of itself is boring.

 

[TrumpetReich]

To the people who say it's about engineering, well who cares? I mean, you don't see them actually doing anything to the cars in that regard.

You can read all about it, and then you see the performance on track. For anyone who wants to care about it, it's pretty easy to follow.