Formula 1 is Boring????

Some people like high scoring, lots of overtaking type sports, like Basketball, Darts and Nascar. What ends up happening is the action is obvious and constant, but the score/overtake doesn't matter until the end... unless it's a blowout.

Some people like low scoring, not-so-much overtaking type sports, like Baseball, Soccer, Football or F1. What ends up happening is the action becomes more subtle, strategy is brought to the forefront in the commentary and every single score/overtake is crucial... unless it's a blowout.

Many people, some F1 fans included, can't "see" things like tire wear or fuel consumption happening in real time. They need to be told these things are a factor. Some people can't distinguish one driver's style from another's. Some find pitstop strategy totally disinteresting. To these people I have no doubt Formula One looks like a boring 180mph parade.

I'd still like more overtaking of course... but I find F1 today very exciting.

 

Of course it's boring to 99% of Americans. There are no cheerleaders, butt-grabbing, spitting, John Madden types, cheesy advertisement EVERYWHERE, and I am sure I am missing a lot. The fact remains that F1 is the undisiputed ruler of the technical autosport realm and it and futbol (soccer) are the most popular sports on Earth.

 

F1 is the only form of motor sports that I watch start to finish. Many years of working behind the scenes has helped me understand the technical nuances of this sport. I enjoy watching an F1 car alone for hours going around a circuit. To me it is a mechanical ballet.

So I do not consider myself an F1 hater. I believe you can truly enjoy a sport, but admit truthfully it is boring.

F1 races are in fact usually quite boring.

I am not interested in accidents, or other unfortunate incidents, but I am interested in passing and real competition on the track. That is why they call it racing.

One can use the excuse of strategy as making F1 more interesting. I do not know of a single form of motorsports that does not include some form of strategy. When Heikki was the guest of Penske at the NASCAR finale last year, he was quoted as saying he never realized that there is as much strategy in NASCAR as there is in F1. I do not understand those that bash NASCAR, it is merely a different form of motorsport.

The lack of passing does not mean I will not watch F1. Quite the contrary, as I do realize that from Bernie to the team principles, they all admit F1 lacks that visable excitement of passing, so they keep trying to improve that aspect of F1. If you want to minimize the importance of passing, then you are in the minority. All of the fan polls indicate the same, F1 needs more passing to maintain its viewership.

I believe in the next 2-3 years, F1 will become even better than it is today, and you will see the type of on track competition that can be achieved on a road course.

 

What he said.

Quite frankly I don't care anymore whether anybody likes F1 or not. It means the world to me and that's all I care about. I'm perfectly fine watching it by myself. No need for being part of a mass movement.

 

Agreed

 

Really if the fastest cars/drivers qualify at the front and if there are no mechanical failures there should be no passing.

When the speeds are so high, the racing line is so thin, and the skill level is so great (across F1 and moreso among the top drivers) then the only way a pass can happen is if someone makes a mistake. The top teams don't select drivers because they make a lot of mistakes.

Of course every driver has a bad day, bad luck, makes a bad call or a bad move here and there, but these guys are at the top-tier of the ultimate racing series for a reason, and this encourages a processional-type of race. This is heightened by frequent rule changes which shift the balance of power among the teams creating an even more disparate field. As evidenced by Brawn last year and Red Bull this year, it's practically down to chance as to who will come out with the best package to exploit the next year's set of capricious rules.

And further, any rules to physically promote passing only serve to handicap the race leaders, which is a stab in the heart to the spirit of the sport. If it's about racing then let it be about racing, not some script decided by the administration's doling out some arbitrary benefit.

 

Wish all teams were allowed to pick one item outside the current rules and it couldn't be the same. Tire allowance, additional testing, diffuser, +500cc to the engine, reduced weight, no rev limit, wing control or ???? ... let the teams decide the options then have a random draw with the WCC TEAM selecting first among the 12 or 13 options (although they could conceivably end up with the weakest option).

Nice to liven things up a bit.

 

yes.


when was the last time a pass for podium position was made on the track, outside the first couple of laps?

boring.

Nascar is boring
IRL is boring
World Rally is boring


Motorcycle racing has some excitement to it. There are passes for position, lots of times on the last lap, some times on the last corner. Granted there are just a few teams that are in "position" to win (ie the factory teams with the top riders), but even at that the results are not a forgone conclusion after the first lap.

 

I get into the court-room battles.
Capital FUN.

 

Wow. I would agree, MC racing is quite exciting, but I have this "I do not want to see anyone hurt issue" and MC racing appears to be waaaaaay too scary for me. Sort of like sprint cars, damn they are scary to watch. I like a little danger, but having been around for a long time and having met drivers like Hill, Cevert, Bodine, Earnhardt, Pryce, I just do not like anything remotely dangerous. I will not attend the IRL races at Homestead because I feel they are way too fast and looking for a bad situation.

But yes, F1 is very boring, but I will continue to watch it, even at 5 AM in the morning. Anyone that says it is not boring, is just not paying attention.

But on the superspeedways, NASCAR is very exciting, and IRL finishes are anything but boring.

All this proves, is that everyone has their own personal biases, and opinions.

 

F1 should get points for Qualifying and fastest lap! That would make it a bit more fun. Either way i'm a fan for LIFE. Always have been and always will be. (Unless Ferrari exits).

 

I have been a casual and distant F1 fan for years. I have kept track of the races and drivers via the internet and magazines but have never sat down and watched all of the races in a season. This year I made it my goal to pay attention to the entire season so I ordered up the Speed channel and set the DVR. So far this year I have been able to watch all of the qualifying and all of the races.

I picked a good year to become a fan of F1. No team is running away with the championship. Red Bull could have if it weren't for some terrible mistakes. I have been a fan of Mercedes (the auto manufacturer) for years and hoped that they would be able to pull something out this year with MS at the wheel. Ferrari is coming round and McLaren is right there. New teams, new story lines. This really is a great year to be an F1 fan.

When you take a race by itself, there often really isn't much excitement. Add to that the terrible one size fits all the world video feed. And add the announcers trying to build excitement for the brand all while explaining the mundane (really, if you tell us the green stripe means they are on soft tires one more time I am going to puke). I can see how some would be turned off.

But... When you take the whole, the qualifying, the effort of the little teams, the advancement of the tech with the giant $$$ teams, all these little parts in the orchestra, it gets very interesting. It also helps if you have an emotional tie to something in the race. You really need to get behind a team or a driver and follow them and their ups and downs. Once you become emotionally invested, that is where the real fun starts. Go Webber! (PS, this also helps in NASCAR.)

 

Turkish Grand Prix, off the top of my head.

 

Even if in rallying the competition is boring, it's still the most spectacular motorsport to watch. It should be televised better.

This is also what I miss in F1. F1 is so good, it's become sterile and boring to watch. The cars corner flat without any fuss. they brake late without any problems, they accelerate the same. The sounds are too smooth. In short, it doesn't televise well. In WRC one can clearly see the fight the drivers and cars have with the course. Spectacular!

 

F1 boring not a chance. the sport is so dynamic on so many different levels that the average non technical spectator cannot understand it. In F1 they start the season with one design and by the end of the season there are only a few parts of the car that have not been redesigned or refined over the course of the season.

If you want more overtaking reverse the grid from qualifying order and make the fastest drivers have to fight there way up to the podium position at the end of the race. The FIA just needs to write the rules to prevent the front runners from sandbagging I.E. if the car in the lead is turning faster race times than it did in qualifying or practice the car will be called into the pits for a stop and go penalty of 30 seconds. That penalty is strong enough to prevent sandbagging from happening.

 

I am a life long F-1 enthusiast - and I'm American. When I lived in Europe, I knew more about F-1 than most Europeans...

Formula 1 today however is just so sanitized its not really F-1. I'm not that interested in lots of passing and tight racing... frankly that only happend once in a while in F-1, what I like is seeing the best of the best... best drivers, best cars, best tracks... people working at the highest levels.

While that used to be true, I'm not so sure anymore. Schumacher, Hamilton, Massa, Alonso, and Button I think are at the top of the game... as for the cars? well they are about a spec series... so I think F-1 has degraded its self in the name of trying to be popular and becoming show busienss. To me the greatest era of F-1 was back in 1988 - 1992... you had all the great drivers, tons of manufacturers, classic tracks, and fast developing technology... and the cars were MEAN looking... today a modern F-1 car is just not that scary looking, not like a 1990 Ferrari 640 or McLaren... or the Williams from 1992 with active everything... not only did you have to be a fit driver you had to have real skill to drive those cars. Today I think only Schumacher & Hamilton posess those skills.

But i do have hope that the FIA will come to their senses and fix the sport that I love the most, and make it again the real pinnical of cars, racing and technology. all the rest will follow.

 

Not surprising the guy with The Residents avatar speaks of the subtlety of the sport.

 

I believe one of the main reasons is in the race tracks design.

F1 is taking place on the same tracks where they used to race with much slower cars and with some exceptions like Monza or Spa many other tracks are just not adequate to today's car performances.

Even knowing this, they still came out with idea to race on some new horrible unuseful(for spectacle, certainly useful for their pockets) circuits like Singapore or Valencia.

Even the most retard monkey would understand if you want to see passes you shouldn't race in such terrible places.

And then all the bunch of idiot rules...

I think it'll be the same as long as this sport will be guided by people whose interest is just money.

 

If you want F1 to be exiting, you NEED to be involved in pretty much anything that happens, on the track and outside of it.

My one gripe with F1 is that if a driver is (much) faster than the other right now, it doesn't matter if he's just .2 of a second down, passing is still neigh on impossible. Check out hungary for instance: Vettel was clearly faster than Alonso, unable to pass. Barrichello, MUCH quicker than Schumacher was (I believe 3.5 seconds at one point), brand new tyres etc etc, still took him 7 laps. OK, Alonso and Schumacher are both notoriously hard to pass, but had this happened prior to 2004, it wouldn't have mattered if Ayrton Senna, Schumacher or Fangio drove the mercedes, Takagi in a HRT would have past them with ease.

That's the only thing I dislike about F1, the stupid clever air behind the cars.

 

Completely disagree.

In GP2 they pass just fine on all of these tracks, even valencia/hungary/barcelona.

It's the aero, we need less of it, and less perfect brakes. The brakes need to be less effective than they are currently:

To overtake someone in the braking zone, you need to be about 10% later on the brakes. If, for instance, at T1 in barcelona you want to try this, you brake 70 meters before the corner, from 315km/h to 110. So YOU need to brake at 63 meters, on the less perfect line. The only thing that's going to happen is a very big crash. Except it won't happen, because the chance of actually making the manouvre is so small, they wait for the next oppertunity.

So you have a train, or in other words, a boring race. Best example Bahrain 2010.

 

I specified in the following sentence I was relating track design with modern F1 performances.

 

I love F1.

However, I have to admit to falling asleep during the race more than a few times. That's why I always record the race so I can see the parts I slept through.

 

What if you again fall asleep while watching the recording?