Am I the only one loosing interest?

F1 has always been a compromise between the 3 S: Show, speed and safety. You can't just develop speed endlessly. At some point the cars have to be reigned in for safety reasons. Sometimes the show gets boring because the cars are too far apart or can't pass each other etc. That's why it is a formula defining it. Always has been like this. The end of the turbos was not the end of F1 either.

And yes, seeing new teams winning is exciting. I'm thrilled to see Brawn GP win and not the McLaren/Ferrari domination of the past 15+ years.

Folks already made the argument for the V8 engines. The golden era of F1 (seventies) was nothing but V8. The turbo era had even smaller engines, so what?

It isn't the size that matters, but what you do with your equipment. And no other race car is faster around a track. F1 is the fastest and technologically most advanced series and therefore deserving of the best pilots.

The difference is: Thanks to a lot of the cutbacks in technology the drivers have more input this year. What's not great about that?

 

Any real F1 fan would know that 2004 was the last year of Ferrari dominance and that 2005 was the year that we had the Michelin debacle.

 

I believe it is Ford-Cosworth and Ferrari who have the two most F1 wins...

 

Not at all, it's still by far my favorite sport and the only one I'll wake up/stay up to all hours of the night to watch. I do look forward to Bernie and Maxie retiring---hopefully soon----but I'm afraid they'll probably both stay until death, which could be a fair amount of years yet. The competition and rivalry is as intense as ever, although the season has been a bit of a cluster so far. I think things will even out more as the teams come to grips with the new regs.

I probably couldn't even stay awake long enough to watch Indy car racing at any time of day and I won't be within 25 yards of a TV showing a NASCAR race. F1 may be in shaky times, but it's still the best and most entertaining, and yes, the soap opera part is even entertaining to me. I can honestly say I would have no interest whatsoever in hearing whatever soap opera might be going on behind the scenes and Indy or NASCAR.

 

I've really enjoyed this season. I did not expect Brawn, Redbull, Toyota, etc to have such strong cars. I think McLaren and Ferrari will catch up long before it's too late to make runs at the individual and team championships. I think we're going to continue to see teams scrapping KERS as the season winds on. I think a season in which there could be 4-5 teams seriously contending for the championship would be excellent. As for the politics, yeah, it's incredibly irritating. I can't believe how anti-competitive some team principals are.

 

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Remember that KERS is required, next year. You don't think the Troll will drop the requirement just because it doesn't work, do you?

Seven teams trying to rebuild the aero at the tail of the cars, and they still insist that testing is banned.
Bringing the tires appropriate to the track isn't enough of a hazard -- let's mandate two sets of completely different tires.
This isn't about racing, or technology.

Heck, let's have the cars randomly assigned tires at each pit stop: snow tires for the cars too far ahead.

The best racing we've seen lately was in the rain at Spa ---- and the stewards hated it.

Ever see "Robot Wars"? Where random hazards (like spikes or buzzsaws) would come out of the track from time to time .... Just to "keep it interesting"?
That's what's F1 has become --- random hazards, just to "keep it interesting".

I've followed F1 for more than 30 years, to watch racing, not just to see motion on the track.

This has become Sesame Street: blinky lights in a box to grab the attention of the toddlers.

I realized, watching qualifying: I'm bored.

Anyone remember the first qualifying session at Indy, back in 2000? One hour format, team cars drafting each other through the banked turn to improve their times. Now that was fun to watch. (I think that was more fun to watch than the race.)

That was driving. Not just avoiding the hazards. Now, we might as well be watching Bernie playing a videogame.

[size=+2]BORING[/size]

 

Many regulations and plans have been thrown out again. Same thing can happen to KERS.

At this point it looks like a non starter and I wouldn't be surprised if it gets removed from the 2010 plans.

 

I doubt it. Massa has already said he wants the KERS back on for the next race. By the end of the season the teams will have figured out where to best utilize the system and it will be a bonus for them.

 

KERS is a "green" initiative.

When a "green" concept (as often happens) turns out to be stupid and counter-productive, do politicians drop them?

When they "discovered" that R134 isn't any better for the "ozone layer" than R12, did we get R12 back?

We still have 10% ethanol in our pump fuel.
Even after racing dropped methanol fuel due to the fire hazard.
(And Halon extinguishers are banned as "bad for the environment", too.)
Oh, and the latest notion to replace R134? Propane.
Obviously, what's good for the environment is setting the public on fire.

Political correctness is rarely "correct" by any other measure.


KERS is *never* going to be an advantage to racing. It's been implemented with restrictions against it adding benefit.

It was added to try to make "evil" cars more politically correct, not to make them better cars.

It's about "the show", not about the "go".

 

You just painted my horror scenario for 2010...

 

I don't know that I've lost interest, because I'll always watch F1. However, I'm pretty disappointed in the sport as of now.

I'll never get over how dumb the cars look. Give them the downforce back so that the cars can be quicker, AND look better...

The stewards need to learn how to just let them race...

...I could go on for days about what's wrong with F1, but I'll just hope the season will progress for the better.