Formula One - 2024

[Genie]

4 minutes ago, MaVilla said:

thats fair, but tbh, when hasnt f1 been one sided in the last decade and had many sh*t tracks?

i do see your point, but its been an obvious problem in f1 for years, its just a little worse than normal right now?

True, there has always been crap tracks for racing from day 1 (Monaco) and dominant teams but it does feel like a perfect storm at the moment. Pretty much all the additions to the calendar are poor for racing. Red Bull in a class of their own without even inter-team competition to spice things up.

Then there’s the allegations against Horner that were kept secret. Allegations of interference from the F1 boss.

Lots of reasons real fans are losing interest. 

I’m sure places like Miami will still pull in record numbers of people not watching the race.

Maybe a merry-go-round of drivers (plus Newey) might spice things up next year.

Edited March 27 by Genie

[MaVilla]

33 minutes ago, BOF said:

I just mean the one where Red Bull loses Newey, Horner etc, and possibly Max as a result, and then McGrath knows where it all ends up. Plus the 2026 engine rule change. Basically I don't think people will have to 'suffer' or enjoy Red Bull's uncontested dominance for much longer. Although they may have to endure Max's, depending on how it pans out.

i agree re newey, once he goes, if he ever does, it will be a game changer for Red Bull, he is clearly the best at his specific game.

With regard to the engine, do you really think Merc will have the best new era engine?, isnt the current Ferrari and Red Bull (Honda) engine better than the Merc one now?, do you think Merc will actually be the best new generation engine next time around?, does lightning strike twice?

I do wonder if Merc have lost their way a bit and might struggle even in the new regs, i wonder if they have lost a lot of good engineers etc, and just arent the same team from 3-10 years ago.

The fact merc are currently behind, or mostly level with their own customer teams (McLaren/Aston Martin), is pretty damning for them, massively so tbh, its kinda like Alpha Tauri being level(ish) with Red Bull, or Haas being semi level with Ferrari etc, its pretty poor, to the point i wonder whats going on with Merc, and whether they have the ability to turn it around.

time will tell i guess.

 

[BOF]

5 minutes ago, MaVilla said:

With regard to the engine, do you really think Merc will have the best new era engine?, isnt the current Ferrari and Red Bull (Honda) engine better than the Merc one now?, do you think Merc will actually be the best new generation engine next time around?, does lightning strike twice?

I don't know who will come out on top. I just know last time out, they got it right. Which means their engine department are good at what they do. It's just as possible someone else nails the new spec straight off the bat, in which case they get the advantage for the first few years. I just mean that when you throw the cards in the air, you create the possibility for anyone to come out on top. And when you're trying to stop the Red Bull/Max dominance, it would be pretty funny if Max jumped ship right to the people who dominated the last engine change. The odds at the very least suggest Merc will not be far away power-wise when it all starts from scratch again. The only thing we do know for a certainty is Alonso will make a terrible career decision.

[AVFCDAN]

I’m sure Albon came out and debunked that theory about there being two cars in the garage. It’s just that Max has that edge of a couple of tenths and by the time the second driver has figured out where he’s gaining the time the lead driver has already started tweaking the car to find a few more tenths and they are forever playing catch up from there.

[MaVilla]

6 minutes ago, BOF said:

I don't know who will come out on top. I just know last time out, they got it right. Which means their engine department are good at what they do. It's just as possible someone else nails the new spec straight off the bat, in which case they get the advantage for the first few years. I just mean that when you throw the cards in the air, you create the possibility for anyone to come out on top. And when you're trying to stop the Red Bull/Max dominance, it would be pretty funny if Max jumped ship right to the people who dominated the last engine change. The odds at the very least suggest Merc will not be far away power-wise when it all starts from scratch again. The only thing we do know for a certainty is Alonso will make a terrible career decision.

Remember when Hamilton jumped ship just before the new regs and came out on top with Merc.

I wonder if he see's the same thing with Ferrari........(ie: has an idea what Mercs and Ferraris new reg development is like as of now...)

[Stevo985]

The number of shit tracks is definitely increasing. Most new ones that are added are really shit.

They';ve shuffled them around a bit now at least so we get Suzuka and China before Miami.

 

Last season it was Bahrain, Jeddah, Australia, Baku, Miami, Imola and Monaco to start the season. Which are all quite shit tracks. Australia and Imola are ok but they're not good tracks for overtaking at all.

[Avfc96]

Was incredibly bored earlier whilst on a Zoom meeting so decided to try and create the ideal calendar using current tracks and recent tracks. 

Came up with this list, bear in mind I was trying to try put races that are close to each other to follow one after the other.

Aus

Bahrain

Malaysia

Turkey

Imola

Spain

Austria

UK

Germany

Italy

Belgium

Singapore

Japan

Canada

Mexico

Brazil

No Monaco, none of the sh*t 3 USA races, no Abu Dhabi, Saudi or Qatar and got rid of the two worst European circuits on the calendar, Hungary and Zandvoort.

[Genie]

1 hour ago, Avfc96 said:

Was incredibly bored earlier whilst on a Zoom meeting so decided to try and create the ideal calendar using current tracks and recent tracks. 

Came up with this list, bear in mind I was trying to try put races that are close to each other to follow one after the other.

Aus

Bahrain

Malaysia

Turkey

Imola

Spain

Austria

UK

Germany

Italy

Belgium

Singapore

Japan

Canada

Mexico

Brazil

No Monaco, none of the sh*t 3 USA races, no Abu Dhabi, Saudi or Qatar and got rid of the two worst European circuits on the calendar, Hungary and Zandvoort.

Get this man a job at the FIA!

 

[villa89]

5 hours ago, Genie said:

That Red Bull’s dominance is turning a lot of people off the sport and something is urgently needed to make it interesting again.

Meh, It was the same when Mercedes were winning all the races. F1 is generally not competitive most seasons. The big problem, as I see it, is the minimal impact of in race tactics (perhaps re-fuelling would help this), the reliability of the cars, the lack of punishment for running off track and the overtake the car in front of you button on the steering wheel. 

The sport has needed surgery for a long time but it still manages, through good marketing, to hold on to a huge worldwide audience. If you want to watch racing watch MotoGP.

Edited March 27 by villa89

[Genie]

5 minutes ago, villa89 said:

Meh, It was the same when Mercedes were winning all the races. F1 is generally not competitive most seasons. The big problem, as I see it, is the minimal impact of in race tactics (perhaps re-fuelling would help this), the reliability of the cars, the lack of punishment for running off track and the overtake the car in front of you button on the steering wheel. 

The sport has needed surgery for a long time but it still manages, through good marketing, to hold on to a huge worldwide audience. If you want to watch racing watch MotoGP.

I definitely agree on those points. The reliability is a big factor. They don’t even get punctures anymore.

Maybe the teams need to enforce a wage cap on their engineers. £30k a year max should make it interesting.

[mykeyb]

6 hours ago, Genie said:

That Red Bull’s dominance is turning a lot of people off the sport and something is urgently needed to make it interesting again. The powers that be will be under a lot of pressure to do something.

Even outside of Red Bull being a bit too good at designing cars there isn’t a huge amount of racing throughout the field, and they keep adding more and more shit tracks for racing to the calendar. 

It needs some urgent surgery.

Did it turn people of when Vettell and RB were dominating or when Hamilton and Mercs were at their peak. F1 has been this way for years and is it any less popular as a sport today?

[mykeyb]

7 hours ago, BOF said:

With all the will in the world, I will eat my hat if Ricciardo gets near that Red Bull seat at this point. Tsunoda is closer to it at the moment. I wouldn't even have him as the shortest odds Aussie for that seat.

Lando could be a real option, he isn't going to want to be finishing 3rd occasionally when his mate is winning race after race.

[Stevo985]

4 minutes ago, mykeyb said:

Did it turn people of when Vettell and RB were dominating or when Hamilton and Mercs were at their peak. F1 has been this way for years and is it any less popular as a sport today?

Yes it did. Me included. I hated Vettell for that and I actually stopped watching for a couple of seasons during the Mercedes dominance. 

But it’s now worse than ever. 

[mykeyb]

Same as the premier league then.......not the best analogy I know.

In my opinion there aren't enough top quality drivers....what is the point of Stroll, Ocon and Sargent to name but 3

[Genie]

21 minutes ago, Stevo985 said:

Yes it did. Me included. I hated Vettell for that and I actually stopped watching for a couple of seasons during the Mercedes dominance. 

But it’s now worse than ever. 

100%.
In years gone by the dominant team had a pair of drivers who could at least occasionally compete with each other. Perez can’t get close enough to Max to accidentally crash into him like Webber and Vettel  

Max must turn up to every race knowing that unless something seriously goes wrong he’ll win the lot. 

Edited March 27 by Genie

[Stevo985]

22 minutes ago, mykeyb said:

Same as the premier league then.......not the best analogy I know.

In my opinion there aren't enough top quality drivers....what is the point of Stroll, Ocon and Sargent to name but 3

Yeah that’s a terrible analogy to be honest. 

[villa89]

1 hour ago, mykeyb said:

Did it turn people of when Vettel and RB were dominating or when Hamilton and Mercs were at their peak. 

I did. I dip in and out now but I used to watch every race back in the day when it was much less predictable and only half the field finished a race. Its too big to fail but I imagine a lot of the new viewers they got from Drive to Survive are also switching off now. 

[Lichfield Dean]

I don't really know what has changed but I've just stopped being interested this season and last. I always always watched the F1, during Schumacher's dominance, the McLaren dominance, the Vettel years, the Merc years, all of them. But this is different - and I don't really know why. As others have said, maybe it's a perfect storm of a dominant driver, ultra reliability, boring circuits and lack of in-race tactical thinking.

It's just broken now. I don't see how it can be brought back.

[AVFCDAN]

9 hours ago, villa89 said:

I did. I dip in and out now but I used to watch every race back in the day when it was much less predictable and only half the field finished a race. Its too big to fail but I imagine a lot of the new viewers they got from Drive to Survive are also switching off now. 

06-09 were brilliant years. Cars were good and most importantly there was still refueling which added a massive layer of tactics we just don’t see anymore.

[pas5898]

9 hours ago, Lichfield Dean said:

I don't really know what has changed but I've just stopped being interested this season and last. I always always watched the F1, during Schumacher's dominance, the McLaren dominance, the Vettel years, the Merc years, all of them. But this is different - and I don't really know why. As others have said, maybe it's a perfect storm of a dominant driver, ultra reliability, boring circuits and lack of in-race tactical thinking.

Genuinely not watched a single race or quali since the Hamilton / Verstappen fix in 2021.

I'm not really a Hamilton fan, but to have invested so much time (a race weekend is easily 10 hours of tv) to watch it kind of fixed just took away my care for F1, literally overnight.