It’s been like that ever since Bernie left and Liberty Media took over. Drama over racing, races in boring parking lots like Miami and Vegas to attract celebrities etc.
I definitely prefer IndyCar, WEC, GT and WRC over F1 this year. 2022 was at least somewhat more interesting with Ferrari being competitive in some races.
So I guess my follow up question is “is this the way it will be forevermore?”
Certainly the good old days are behind us for safety reasons.
Does the glitz and spectacle work? Is it enough to keep it (F1) relevant and fans engaged.
Or is this gonna backfire ultimately as folks get bored and look to the next thing.
I guess, are they actually making long term fans? Certainly with Max dominating everything, it’s not that exciting (same goes for HAM/VER/BOT) days.
Constructor based racing is traditional racing.
As a nod to this, I said (debatable). For me tho, it seems that constructors championship is more of an f1 thing than a “racing” thing, in general. But, I am fairly clueless when it comes to pro racing.
Seeing who can build the fastest car is the very fundamental aspect to motorsport. it’s what it was built upon. It’s the symbiosis of driver skill and engineering skill that made motorsport great in the first place. Everything we see in motorsport today was built on that core principle.
Judging by the decrease of views in the US (which is the main market they are obviously trying to approach) by 650K this year due to Verstappen’s dominance, no amount of glitz or spectacle will save the sport from being boring this year. Exactly as you said, people will get bored and will move on.
Honestly with the way they are approaching new fans (with the overdramatised DTS and with overly expensive races in boring tracks, I don’t think many of them will stick around, especially with such high levels of dominance. People will realise that F1 is not near as dramatic as it is being portrayed and will just move on to something else.
This has to be one of the craziest qualifying sessions ever. Leclerc’s last-second banker in Q1 with 1 wheels on the gravel and a massive slide in the final corner, Hamilton’s shock elimination in Q2, Sargeant and Leclerc’s crashes in Q3 and Verstappen’s pole in the end, and Albon P4 in a Williams!
Shame both McLarens messed up their laps or we would have had a 3 way fight for pole.
I am personally fine with losing mainstream viewers from F1, its pretty annoying seeing a bunch of people posting their opinions that just started watching F1 in the last year or 2. I know F1 does not want this, but I personally like the sport not being so popular in the US. It filters out the bandwagon fans and ludicrous posts/opinions
I completely agree. Far too many people are pretending to be experts without knowing what F1 is about - I read a comment on the highlights of Silverstone this year saying “This is probably the first time in F1 history that a Williams finished ahead of both Ferraris”. I didn’t know what to say, other than “WTF???”.
F1 online media was so much better in the early 2010s. No 14 year olds, no mainstream fans…
On another note, Ferrari really need to fix their car. Leclerc said that the balance was horrible and he tried to take the corner in the exact same way he did before (nothing like Miami, for instance). He made the mistake, but that car looks absolutely awful to drive, so I wouldn’t really blame him too much for it.
I’m not sure how much of it is the car and how much of it is Leclerc and his “balls to the wall” quali driving style. if he didn’t spin in quali 20% of the time it would be more believable. The Ferrari definitely has issues, but Leclerc also is a much riskier driver than nearly anyone on the grid. sometimes it works, sometimes it backfires.
So who’s going to win the race today?
Just kidding, the only question is who will be second and third, and how long Checo will remain in that seat.
First pit stop, max and checo get out and switch seats endurance style. and max goes p14-p1 in the last 20 laps
I believe it’s mostly down to the car. In 2022 he didn’t make such mistakes in qualifying (apart from that one spin in Spain, which didn’t really account for much because he took pole by 3.5 tenths later in the session).
The Ferrari seemed to have a lot of problems with the balance in Zandvoort - with a more stable car, if he made the same error in qualifying, he would be able to continue. Miami was more down to Leclerc trying to take more from the car than it possibly could, but even then the Ferrari was an understeering mess which bounced on every corner.
He is definitely riskier than anyone else on the grid (only Max in desperate times takes as much risk as Charles does nearly every weekend), and as you said sometimes it works and sometimes it doesn’t. I remember looking at the telemetry from qualifying in Baku this year, he carried nearly 40km/h more than Max in T15 in the entry of the corner, which made up around 2-3 tenths. It’s crazy, when it works he is absolutely the fastest man on track and is spectacular to watch, but that’s not how you win in modern F1.
The 2022 Ferrari was pretty stable in the start of the year and Leclerc was dominating in qualy (until the team failed him in the race).
On a sidenote, he got extremely unlucky today that the front wing endplate fell off as easily as that with a slight contact that wasn’t even his fault and then got stuck to the floor and made him 2-2.5sec slower per lap by the end of the race. A weekend to forget, hopefully Monza goes better for them. Forza Ferrari
What a race! Cream rises to the top in changing conditions like that.
He binned it in France, he binned it at Imola, he spun in practice at belgium, he spun in q3 at the british gp, he spun in the race at brazil, all in 2022. There’s probably more from practice but I never watched practice. Not to mention the 2 races in a row he crashed in Monaco and Azerbaijan in Q3 to bring out a red flag I believe in 2021. My point is champions don’t do that. Verstappen has self-crashed maybe 3 times or less in his entire career. 2 of his spins actually resulted in a win, Germany 2019, and Hungary 2023? or was it 22? You don’t ever see Hamilton spinning, you never see Alonso spinning, you never saw Schumacher or any F1 Great spinning and constantly binning it multiple times per year. Leclerc either needs to tone down the over aggressive quali runs, or just accept he does not have the consistency to be a WDC Champion.
The Ferrari is a pig and Charles is over-driving to compensate. I don’t think Carlos is an S tier driver in terms of raw speed, but I really like how he is consistent and doing the best the car can give him. He also is great at managing the race in real-time in an Alonso-esque style. Because of those qualities, he is worthy of a top seat.
Charles needs to settle down and accept the car isn’t good enough and stop pushing it over the limit. His value is dropping because of it. Not that it matters, because he seems committed to Ferrari for life and they love him.
Verstappen took 5 years to develop to the monster he is now. He was making mistakes before and made some pretty bad moves when he was racing someone else. Actually it was because his car was subpar that he would push too much, like Charles now.
Dude was even nicknamed “Crashtappen”, and criticized by the other drivers.
Is it just me or does Zandvoort seem like it would make one heck of a fun kart track, scaled down? That banked corner and the little elevation changes seem ideal.
I represent that comment. I’ve voiced this before. F1 while mildly entertaining, is far too predictable. Watch the first lap, and the last lap, and you basically see most of the highlights from the entire race. Especially when compared to Indycar where its anybodies race, and the action is continuously happening right up until the final lap. I really tried to get fired up about F1, I just can’t get there . . . maybe there was a time when it was competitive, but that is not the case today.
