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People who are not normally interested in F1 are finding the Netflix series Drive to Survive a more accessible version to spectate. It's not just highlights in

People who are not normally interested in F1 are finding the Netflix series Drive to Survive a more accessible version to spectate. It's not just highlights in chronological order, but a distillation of the main themes of the season, e.g., certain inter-team battles, intra-team rivalries, fallouts between teams and suppliers, regulations, etc. The behind-the-scenes glimpses are fascinating. I remember (pre-family when I could easily give-up a large chunk of my weekend) tuning in to the beginning of TV coverage on Saturdays (qualifying) and Sundays (race day) primarily to watch all the build-up about the developments since the previous race, particularly all the new technical changes; the relentless engineering efforts are immense and we only get a tiny glimpse of it. These cars could in theory be even faster. They stopped in season testing years ago; there are limits to the amount of high performance computing they can do; many parts are standardised. There's a tension in the way the sport is regulated to constrain the vast budgets of the larger teams so that smaller teams can try and compete, and ideally new teams enter the sport too. In addition, the aerodymics evolved to such a degree that the wake each car leaves behind makes it almost impossible for cars to follow closely and overtake, leading to uninspiring processions on race days. So regulations are constantly being added to try and ensure a spectacle (DRS, degrading tyres, forcing sub-optimal front and rear wings). But they continue to innovate at a staggering pace. When DRS (Drag Reduction System -- used in set portions of the straights, a car that's within 1 sec of a car can deploy DRS, that causes the rear wing to have less drag and can potentially allow an overtake). But absolutely amazing lateral thinking from the teams saw innovations like the "F-duct" that was eventually banned and then the so-called "Double DRS". They are channeling relatively small amounts of air-flow through little vents and holes to create small but improvements to their aero performance. And when in-season testing was removed, all teams rolled out state-of-the-art digital car simulators that have become incredible sophisticated; they design new aerodynamic parts, such as a tiny adjustments to their front-wing, then they test the part on the simulator before actually building and taking to the next race.

LandR 6y ago
Justst be aware the Netflix series sometimes show things out of context, or just straight up wrong, chronologically wrong etc to make it more entertaining.
WalterBright 6y ago
I've sometimes thought that computers and radios should be banned from F1 cars, unless they are part of the safety equipment.
dom96 6y ago
So I watched Drive to Survive and loved it, so much so that I would like to get into watching F1 proper, but when I tried it just doesn't hold my interest (although admittedly I mostly attempted to watch random races on YouTube). Do you (or anyone else) have any tips on what and where to watch to get into it? Perhaps it's time I get a proper subscription for the TV coverage and watch it like you say over the weekend.
- beavisel 6y ago
  I think the more you understand about the race, strategy, technology, rivalries, and race-craft will definitely help you enjoy a GP much more. It's combination of all these things that make it that much more than just cars going around a track quickly. The Austrian GP just gone was very exciting, especially the end! Try watch a few more races and even check out the F1 subreddit /r/formula1 - its a good community that share plenty of news, clips from new and old races etc - and if you have any questions, they're all very helpful
- selykg 6y ago
  The first season I watched was a little tough to follow. There's a lot of new information being thrown at you and teams and all that fun stuff to wrap your head around. I typically just watch qualifying and the race. But it's a time thing. Qualifying if I fast forward through things still takes about 40 minutes. The race is typically a solid 2 hours or so. That's nearly 3 hours each weekend it's on and we haven't even dove into the pre-race and post-race bits or the practice sessions. Things get interesting, like in yesterday's race, when penalties start playing into things (which resulted in different podium finishes yesterday) and some of the technical issues that happen (of which there were several during the Austrian GP, as only 11 finished the race). I'd say yesterday's race had a fair bit happening in it, but not super duper exciting stuff. The big part of the problem is, at least so far this year, Ferrari is once again behind the eight ball, Mercedes is (once again) running the pack, and Red Bull are sort of somewhere in the mix there. The more exciting parts of the race are the team placing 4th, 5th and 6th. Those are typically much more exciting, but they rarely air much of those parts of the race. r/formula1 is a good place to keep up to speed as well.
- arooaroo 6y ago
jcfrei 6y ago
> These cars could in theory be even faster. The constraint is not the budget or testing though. You could make much faster cars with even less money if you removed some of the constraints (particularly in minimal car weight, engine size, aerodynamic effects, fuel, etc.). You don't want them to be much faster for safety reasons - if they go much faster then there would be too many situations where the human reaction time is not sufficient to avoid an accident. The Group B (Rallying) competition suffered from too many accidents and was disbanded.

LandR 6y ago

Justst be aware the Netflix series sometimes show things out of context, or just straight up wrong, chronologically wrong etc to make it more entertaining.

WalterBright 6y ago

I've sometimes thought that computers and radios should be banned from F1 cars, unless they are part of the safety equipment.

dom96 6y ago

So I watched Drive to Survive and loved it, so much so that I would like to get into watching F1 proper, but when I tried it just doesn't hold my interest (although admittedly I mostly attempted to watch random races on YouTube). Do you (or anyone else) have any tips on what and where to watch to get into it? Perhaps it's time I get a proper subscription for the TV coverage and watch it like you say over the weekend.

beavisel 6y ago
I think the more you understand about the race, strategy, technology, rivalries, and race-craft will definitely help you enjoy a GP much more. It's combination of all these things that make it that much more than just cars going around a track quickly. The Austrian GP just gone was very exciting, especially the end! Try watch a few more races and even check out the F1 subreddit /r/formula1 - its a good community that share plenty of news, clips from new and old races etc - and if you have any questions, they're all very helpful
selykg 6y ago
The first season I watched was a little tough to follow. There's a lot of new information being thrown at you and teams and all that fun stuff to wrap your head around. I typically just watch qualifying and the race. But it's a time thing. Qualifying if I fast forward through things still takes about 40 minutes. The race is typically a solid 2 hours or so. That's nearly 3 hours each weekend it's on and we haven't even dove into the pre-race and post-race bits or the practice sessions. Things get interesting, like in yesterday's race, when penalties start playing into things (which resulted in different podium finishes yesterday) and some of the technical issues that happen (of which there were several during the Austrian GP, as only 11 finished the race). I'd say yesterday's race had a fair bit happening in it, but not super duper exciting stuff. The big part of the problem is, at least so far this year, Ferrari is once again behind the eight ball, Mercedes is (once again) running the pack, and Red Bull are sort of somewhere in the mix there. The more exciting parts of the race are the team placing 4th, 5th and 6th. Those are typically much more exciting, but they rarely air much of those parts of the race. r/formula1 is a good place to keep up to speed as well.
arooaroo 6y ago

jcfrei 6y ago

> These cars could in theory be even faster. The constraint is not the budget or testing though. You could make much faster cars with even less money if you removed some of the constraints (particularly in minimal car weight, engine size, aerodynamic effects, fuel, etc.). You don't want them to be much faster for safety reasons - if they go much faster then there would be too many situations where the human reaction time is not sufficient to avoid an accident. The Group B (Rallying) competition suffered from too many accidents and was disbanded.