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There are a couple of aspects of Formula 1 that make it very compelling to watch (my opinion of course, take as you will): - Accessible aerodynamics (it's on t

There are a couple of aspects of Formula 1 that make it very compelling to watch (my opinion of course, take as you will): - Accessible aerodynamics (it's on the road in front of you, not up in the air) - Technological developments (e.g. this year, one of the teams has a steering wheel they pull toward/push away themselves to change the geometry of the front wheels) - Watching high-performing athletes demonstrating the ability to operate a machine at speeds over 200mph and still having the capacity to understand the strategic situations unfolding around them, even gathering information from the crowd in the grandstands, or the tv screens that flash past them as they navigate the track - Seeing an inter-disciplinary team design and operate a machine that fuses aerodynamics, mechanics and hybrid propulsion systems, driven by a human operator, monitored in realtime by a team of engineers distributed around the world - On-the-fly risk/reward decision making in race strategy from observing current data whilst incorporating gut feeling based on past experience to great effect

11235813213455 6y ago
- The fact our planet has enough pollution to deal with already, I'm not saying Formula1 is extremely polluting, but whatever it adds is quite unnecessary for just an entertainment purpose (my opinion of course)
- olyjohn 6y ago
  There's always Formula E...
  - 11235813213455 6y ago
    I didn't think about the gas consumption really. I'd have said the same about a cycling race (and I love bike, but practising, not watching). The pollution comes from all the surroundings, transports, materials, organizations, services, broadcasting, littering, ..
- LandR 6y ago
  I believe Formula 1 has been carbon neutral for quite a while.
  - 11235813213455 6y ago
    By pollution I meant all the transports between races, all the services, products, material needed, all the people (spectators, staff, etc..) coming to races, their transports, food too, the transport and products for their food. It can go deep, those are all the hidden costs in terms of pollution, that people easily overlook
snemvalts 6y ago
The team funding balance makes it a lot less interesting, watching the same team almost always win.
clouddrover 6y ago
> e.g. this year, one of the teams has a steering wheel they pull toward/push away themselves to change the geometry of the front wheels The Mercedes dual axis steering: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mX0Laaj9_RA https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mX0Laaj9_RA Allowed this year, but already banned from next year.
- toyg 6y ago
  And reportedly not particularly significant except in a few specific circumstances (i.e. to warm tyres in qualifying outlaps or behind a safety-car). Didn't seem to make much of a difference this weekend.
  - C1sc0cat 6y ago
    There are a lot more safety car's in F1 now so that makes sense
  - clouddrover 6y ago
    DAS might make more of a difference at circuits like Spa and Monza.
JoeSmithson 6y ago
The balance of importance between driver and constructor is quite unique in sport. A sufficiently good car can make an average driver competitive (e.g. Bottas), but also a sufficiently good driver can make an average car competitive (e.g. Schumacher). Plus everyone involved is such a drama merchant (or crook!) that the season often plays out like a soap opera.
- AmericanChopper 6y ago
  It’s also the balance that the FIA has never managed to maintain to anybody’s satisfaction. A lot of the issues with F1 stem from the fact that it’s actually two seperate competitions. If you let constructors build the fastest car that they safely can, then two bad things happen. Firstly, the fastest car will win. Secondly, the teams with less money can’t compete. The F1 brand is about having the most technologically advanced cars, but really it has to constantly hold the best teams back in order to keep things competitive. That’s why the regulations are so hopelessly complex (this years new regulations have to cover up the holes in last years poor regulating...), and it’s why anything that is truly innovative is nearly always instantly banned. F1 is constantly swinging between a state of dominant constructors (Mercedes the past 6 years), and being more like a spec series (the new 2021 regs). If F1 wanted to actually live up to its brand, it would let the constructors build mostly whatever they wanted to. But if it did that, it would also have to divvy up the prize money more fairly to keep the lesser teams from going under, which it’s never going to do because of how political it all is.
  - dyyni 6y ago
    A budget cap is one solution to keep design regulations to a minimum and ensure that smaller teams can compete. F1 introduced a $145 million budget cap for the 2021 season, going down to $135 million for 2023-25 seasons. Right now the three biggest teams (MB, Ferrari, Red Bull) spend somewhere around half a billion or so per season.
    - pmontra 6y ago
      I'd go with something more radical: a 2x5 meters max box, 100 kg of gas for the 300 km race, 600 kg minimum weight, 50 million budget maybe including the drivers (there is a very long line of them) and maybe a max downforce test if it can be made hard to cheat. Then let the teams do whatever they want. Somebody will optimize for the engine, somebody for the aerodynamics, somebody for the suspensions, somebody for the tires (buy them from whoever they want) etc. I guess very few will spend much on the driver. At the beginning they'll be slower than the current cars (which are only marginally faster than the v10s of 2004) but year after year they'll improve new areas of the design and get fast again. I expect a lot of technical drama and very different solutions. It's going to be back to the 70x and 80s with today's technology and processes.
axegon_ 6y ago
I agree completely with all points, though it's nowhere nearly as entertaining as it was up until ~2007. I mean there have been only a handful of GPs that were interesting over the last few years. Coincidentally yesterday's GP was definitely one of them. I mean it's not often you see almost half the cars break down.
- eaurouge 6y ago
  There have been some boring seasons, but you probably haven’t watched much recently if you think this weekend was one of the best in recent years.
  - dingaling 6y ago
    Part of why I find F1 boring when I've tried to watch it in the past is that the camerawork is so technically orientated. They pan with the cars so perfectly that there's little sensation of speed. You could be watching RC cars on an indoor track. With the ubiquity of drones nowadays there would seem to be a lot of options for more exciting viewing.
    - dharmab 6y ago
      This comment doesn't make sense. F1 uses onboard cameras extensively- look up the Halo HUDs which overlay speed, throtte, brake and g-force on the Halo device in the cockpit camera view. Although the speeds those cars move at isn't possible to convey on camera- what looks like 60mph is usually a three-digit speed. Drones wouldn't be able to keep pace, which is why they're used as static cameras rather than chase cameras.
  - toyg 6y ago
    Hockenheim 2019 for the lols.
  - axegon_ 6y ago
    I have watched almost all of them actually. And while I was ~10 in the late 90's and not interested, I have recently watched GPs from that era and none of the recent GPs can stand up to the Schumacher vs Hakkinen races. Many of the drivers these days lack character if you ask me, with very few exceptions. And some shouldn't be allowed anywhere near a race car imo. The Austrian GP was interesting simply because of all the mechanical retirements which is relatively rare these days. The only race with similar record in recent years was Hockenheim last year(also incredibly interesting) but it was mostly due to crashes.
embrassingstuff 6y ago
Do u really feel an average/top driver can strategize during the race? The race engineer has X10 data, X10 mental bandwidth, and X10 domain practice (that's his day job!) There all these radio moments (Hamilton "how r we behind them?" after spinning out in Germany etc) .. which really makes it clear that the driver focus is very local (both spatially and temporally), as it should be!
- AmericanChopper 6y ago
  Everybody has their off moments, but I’d say the top drivers strategize pretty heavily (even if your only counting pit strategy as strategy). Even then I’d say driver called pit strategies have about as much chance of working out as team strategies (which are mostly guess work). The only strategy the driver can’t really contribute to is the mechanical preservation strategy, because they can’t see nearly as well what the condition of their engine is. But even then, that strategy is the same all the time - make the engine and gearbox last the required number of races.
- OriginalNebula 6y ago
  Vettel called his pit stops in one of the last seasons and Schumacher was said to pull all the strings and that this was the reason for his success.
  - actuator 6y ago
    His racing antics and desire to win at any cost aside, Schumi was brilliant. There were way less real time metrics of pit stop strategies, more variables like refueling and less sensors in the car. He was a master strategist and now with each team having dedicated teams around data and strategy, I doubt we will see a complete driver like him.
  - phreenet 6y ago
    Calling your pit stops makes sense, sort of, for drivers. Top drivers like Vettel (well pre-Sbinalla Vettel) have a better "feel" for the tires and can gauge how they are doing. But this often times is risky and breaks down in races because the human brain, especially under the pressure of F1 racing, is not going to be tracking thousandths, hundredths, or even tenths of seconds off lap times over 4-5KM of traveled distance. You can hear frustration in engineers voices when trying to convince a top driver they need to get new tires after ignoring previous calls to "box" (come in for a pitstop).
dfgdghdf 6y ago
This is all true, but personally I find it so boring to actually watch. The cars go around. Maybe they need to improve the way it is filmed and presented?
- WalterBright 6y ago
  In-car cameras make it a lot more interesting.
- chrisan 6y ago
  I still enjoy watching F1, but something the way the cameras were back in the Senna era were just... raw and guttural. You could feel the speed and the closeness of the drive to the track. Perhaps it was because they were imperfect/shook or whatever
- leokennis 6y ago
  This is certainly a true point. A lot of the shots now are cars racing towards a stationary camera; hard to gauge distance (and thus speed) and the background is static. If you sometimes see spectators phone recordings of F1, where they try to pan their phones with the cars, you can clearly see the insane speed. Example of F1 broadcasting angle that makes the sport a lot more exciting: https://youtu.be/RmvZyC6s_Wk?t=187 https://youtu.be/RmvZyC6s_Wk?t=187
pixxel 6y ago
> Technological developments (e.g. this year, one of the teams has a steering wheel they pull toward/push away themselves to change the geometry of the front wheels) I’ve fallen out of love with F1 over recent years. Could you kindly expand on this tech? Does the push/pull change the toe or camber of front wheels, or something else?
- mediaserf 6y ago
  It's the toe - the primary "advantage" is that they can warm up the tires on formation / restarts without having to scrub back and forth. That scrubbing motion wears especially hard on the rear tires.
- leecb 6y ago
  My understanding is that it changes the toe of the front wheels, and is used to slightly increase speed on straight sections. There are rules limiting what can control the steering / suspension components of a car, and that's one of the reasons why this is controlled by pushing/pulling on the steering wheel rather than something else.
- iamspoilt 6y ago
  It adjusts the toe of front wheels and it's called DAS (Dual Axis Steering). This is only currently being used by Mercedes in F1. In simplest of terms and from what I have understood, it can reduce friction and tyre wear on long stretches by having 0 toe (parallel front wheels). And achieve better grip on corners by moving the front wheel outwards. This is a nice video explaining all this: https://youtu.be/TxKhi6Qsrog?t=67 https://youtu.be/TxKhi6Qsrog?t=67
  - pixxel 6y ago
    Interesting! Many thanks for the info/video.
umvi 6y ago
Don't forget politics too. F1 has a long history of banning innovation due to politics; https://www.digitaltrends.com/cars/10-craziest-technologies-banned-f1 https://www.digitaltrends.com/cars/10-craziest-technologies-...
- ksk 6y ago
  Hmm, I guess there's some level politics in every situation where humans have power over other humans, but I don't understand why that would make F1 compelling to watch.

11235813213455 6y ago

- The fact our planet has enough pollution to deal with already, I'm not saying Formula1 is extremely polluting, but whatever it adds is quite unnecessary for just an entertainment purpose (my opinion of course)

olyjohn 6y ago
There's always Formula E...
- 11235813213455 6y ago
  I didn't think about the gas consumption really. I'd have said the same about a cycling race (and I love bike, but practising, not watching). The pollution comes from all the surroundings, transports, materials, organizations, services, broadcasting, littering, ..
LandR 6y ago
I believe Formula 1 has been carbon neutral for quite a while.
- 11235813213455 6y ago
  By pollution I meant all the transports between races, all the services, products, material needed, all the people (spectators, staff, etc..) coming to races, their transports, food too, the transport and products for their food. It can go deep, those are all the hidden costs in terms of pollution, that people easily overlook

snemvalts 6y ago

The team funding balance makes it a lot less interesting, watching the same team almost always win.

clouddrover 6y ago

> e.g. this year, one of the teams has a steering wheel they pull toward/push away themselves to change the geometry of the front wheels The Mercedes dual axis steering: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mX0Laaj9_RA https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mX0Laaj9_RA Allowed this year, but already banned from next year.

toyg 6y ago
And reportedly not particularly significant except in a few specific circumstances (i.e. to warm tyres in qualifying outlaps or behind a safety-car). Didn't seem to make much of a difference this weekend.
- C1sc0cat 6y ago
  There are a lot more safety car's in F1 now so that makes sense
- clouddrover 6y ago
  DAS might make more of a difference at circuits like Spa and Monza.

JoeSmithson 6y ago

The balance of importance between driver and constructor is quite unique in sport. A sufficiently good car can make an average driver competitive (e.g. Bottas), but also a sufficiently good driver can make an average car competitive (e.g. Schumacher). Plus everyone involved is such a drama merchant (or crook!) that the season often plays out like a soap opera.

AmericanChopper 6y ago
It’s also the balance that the FIA has never managed to maintain to anybody’s satisfaction. A lot of the issues with F1 stem from the fact that it’s actually two seperate competitions. If you let constructors build the fastest car that they safely can, then two bad things happen. Firstly, the fastest car will win. Secondly, the teams with less money can’t compete. The F1 brand is about having the most technologically advanced cars, but really it has to constantly hold the best teams back in order to keep things competitive. That’s why the regulations are so hopelessly complex (this years new regulations have to cover up the holes in last years poor regulating...), and it’s why anything that is truly innovative is nearly always instantly banned. F1 is constantly swinging between a state of dominant constructors (Mercedes the past 6 years), and being more like a spec series (the new 2021 regs). If F1 wanted to actually live up to its brand, it would let the constructors build mostly whatever they wanted to. But if it did that, it would also have to divvy up the prize money more fairly to keep the lesser teams from going under, which it’s never going to do because of how political it all is.
- dyyni 6y ago
  A budget cap is one solution to keep design regulations to a minimum and ensure that smaller teams can compete. F1 introduced a $145 million budget cap for the 2021 season, going down to $135 million for 2023-25 seasons. Right now the three biggest teams (MB, Ferrari, Red Bull) spend somewhere around half a billion or so per season.
  - pmontra 6y ago
    I'd go with something more radical: a 2x5 meters max box, 100 kg of gas for the 300 km race, 600 kg minimum weight, 50 million budget maybe including the drivers (there is a very long line of them) and maybe a max downforce test if it can be made hard to cheat. Then let the teams do whatever they want. Somebody will optimize for the engine, somebody for the aerodynamics, somebody for the suspensions, somebody for the tires (buy them from whoever they want) etc. I guess very few will spend much on the driver. At the beginning they'll be slower than the current cars (which are only marginally faster than the v10s of 2004) but year after year they'll improve new areas of the design and get fast again. I expect a lot of technical drama and very different solutions. It's going to be back to the 70x and 80s with today's technology and processes.

axegon_ 6y ago

I agree completely with all points, though it's nowhere nearly as entertaining as it was up until ~2007. I mean there have been only a handful of GPs that were interesting over the last few years. Coincidentally yesterday's GP was definitely one of them. I mean it's not often you see almost half the cars break down.

eaurouge 6y ago
There have been some boring seasons, but you probably haven’t watched much recently if you think this weekend was one of the best in recent years.
- dingaling 6y ago
  Part of why I find F1 boring when I've tried to watch it in the past is that the camerawork is so technically orientated. They pan with the cars so perfectly that there's little sensation of speed. You could be watching RC cars on an indoor track. With the ubiquity of drones nowadays there would seem to be a lot of options for more exciting viewing.
  - dharmab 6y ago
    This comment doesn't make sense. F1 uses onboard cameras extensively- look up the Halo HUDs which overlay speed, throtte, brake and g-force on the Halo device in the cockpit camera view. Although the speeds those cars move at isn't possible to convey on camera- what looks like 60mph is usually a three-digit speed. Drones wouldn't be able to keep pace, which is why they're used as static cameras rather than chase cameras.
- toyg 6y ago
  Hockenheim 2019 for the lols.
- axegon_ 6y ago
  I have watched almost all of them actually. And while I was ~10 in the late 90's and not interested, I have recently watched GPs from that era and none of the recent GPs can stand up to the Schumacher vs Hakkinen races. Many of the drivers these days lack character if you ask me, with very few exceptions. And some shouldn't be allowed anywhere near a race car imo. The Austrian GP was interesting simply because of all the mechanical retirements which is relatively rare these days. The only race with similar record in recent years was Hockenheim last year(also incredibly interesting) but it was mostly due to crashes.

embrassingstuff 6y ago

Do u really feel an average/top driver can strategize during the race? The race engineer has X10 data, X10 mental bandwidth, and X10 domain practice (that's his day job!) There all these radio moments (Hamilton "how r we behind them?" after spinning out in Germany etc) .. which really makes it clear that the driver focus is very local (both spatially and temporally), as it should be!

AmericanChopper 6y ago
Everybody has their off moments, but I’d say the top drivers strategize pretty heavily (even if your only counting pit strategy as strategy). Even then I’d say driver called pit strategies have about as much chance of working out as team strategies (which are mostly guess work). The only strategy the driver can’t really contribute to is the mechanical preservation strategy, because they can’t see nearly as well what the condition of their engine is. But even then, that strategy is the same all the time - make the engine and gearbox last the required number of races.
OriginalNebula 6y ago
Vettel called his pit stops in one of the last seasons and Schumacher was said to pull all the strings and that this was the reason for his success.
- actuator 6y ago
  His racing antics and desire to win at any cost aside, Schumi was brilliant. There were way less real time metrics of pit stop strategies, more variables like refueling and less sensors in the car. He was a master strategist and now with each team having dedicated teams around data and strategy, I doubt we will see a complete driver like him.
- phreenet 6y ago
  Calling your pit stops makes sense, sort of, for drivers. Top drivers like Vettel (well pre-Sbinalla Vettel) have a better "feel" for the tires and can gauge how they are doing. But this often times is risky and breaks down in races because the human brain, especially under the pressure of F1 racing, is not going to be tracking thousandths, hundredths, or even tenths of seconds off lap times over 4-5KM of traveled distance. You can hear frustration in engineers voices when trying to convince a top driver they need to get new tires after ignoring previous calls to "box" (come in for a pitstop).

dfgdghdf 6y ago

This is all true, but personally I find it so boring to actually watch. The cars go around. Maybe they need to improve the way it is filmed and presented?

WalterBright 6y ago
In-car cameras make it a lot more interesting.
chrisan 6y ago
I still enjoy watching F1, but something the way the cameras were back in the Senna era were just... raw and guttural. You could feel the speed and the closeness of the drive to the track. Perhaps it was because they were imperfect/shook or whatever
leokennis 6y ago
This is certainly a true point. A lot of the shots now are cars racing towards a stationary camera; hard to gauge distance (and thus speed) and the background is static. If you sometimes see spectators phone recordings of F1, where they try to pan their phones with the cars, you can clearly see the insane speed. Example of F1 broadcasting angle that makes the sport a lot more exciting: https://youtu.be/RmvZyC6s_Wk?t=187 https://youtu.be/RmvZyC6s_Wk?t=187

pixxel 6y ago

> Technological developments (e.g. this year, one of the teams has a steering wheel they pull toward/push away themselves to change the geometry of the front wheels) I’ve fallen out of love with F1 over recent years. Could you kindly expand on this tech? Does the push/pull change the toe or camber of front wheels, or something else?

mediaserf 6y ago
It's the toe - the primary "advantage" is that they can warm up the tires on formation / restarts without having to scrub back and forth. That scrubbing motion wears especially hard on the rear tires.
leecb 6y ago
My understanding is that it changes the toe of the front wheels, and is used to slightly increase speed on straight sections. There are rules limiting what can control the steering / suspension components of a car, and that's one of the reasons why this is controlled by pushing/pulling on the steering wheel rather than something else.
iamspoilt 6y ago
It adjusts the toe of front wheels and it's called DAS (Dual Axis Steering). This is only currently being used by Mercedes in F1. In simplest of terms and from what I have understood, it can reduce friction and tyre wear on long stretches by having 0 toe (parallel front wheels). And achieve better grip on corners by moving the front wheel outwards. This is a nice video explaining all this: https://youtu.be/TxKhi6Qsrog?t=67 https://youtu.be/TxKhi6Qsrog?t=67
- pixxel 6y ago
  Interesting! Many thanks for the info/video.

umvi 6y ago

Don't forget politics too. F1 has a long history of banning innovation due to politics; https://www.digitaltrends.com/cars/10-craziest-technologies-banned-f1 https://www.digitaltrends.com/cars/10-craziest-technologies-...

ksk 6y ago
Hmm, I guess there's some level politics in every situation where humans have power over other humans, but I don't understand why that would make F1 compelling to watch.