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F1 isn't what it used to be last century. Races were nail biting epic contests, cars visibly improved every season, drivers were international celebrities dicin

• wombatmobile 6y ago
  With the automobile market transitioning to EV, it is inevitable that F1 will be rebooted as an EV contest. Expect Honda to re-enter then, particularly if MotoGP goes EV first.
  • JshWright 6y ago
    So, Formula E?
    • deleted 6y ago
      [deleted]
    • snuxoll 6y ago
      Formula E also has a monopoly on FIA sanctioned all-electric single seater racing for 25 seasons, so F1 cannot go full EV until 2039 at minimum unless contracts get renegotiated. Will be interesting to see what happens to F1 as a result, Indycar as well. Petrolheads can whine about electric racing all they want, but engine suppliers are losing interest in making gas engines when the consumer market is in a shift away from them. Even Ferrari will have to adapt to the times at some point.
      • csours 6y ago
        So, right now F1 has hybrid engines. Is there a power mix they can't cross before they infringe on Formula E? Or is it just literally, has to have an engine on board? Racing teams have never been shy about running right up to the edge of defined rules, and also running wild in undefined areas.
        • mlindner 6y ago
          I'd assume the dividing line is what type of motor drives the wheels directly.
          • lmm 6y ago
            Current-F1 KERS drives the wheels directly AIUI.
      • gpm 6y ago
        Could the Formula One Group just abandon the FIA or is that also forbidden by contract?
        • anticensor 6y ago
          They would lose all their financing :=
    • melling 6y ago
      “ A Honda Formula E program has already been ruled out”
      • clouddrover 6y ago
        Doesn't rule out Extreme E: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NMsfLJB5S9E https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NMsfLJB5S9E Or E1: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CTRAU-zRd8k https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CTRAU-zRd8k Or World Rallycross Projekt E: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZUwRnBhtevE https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZUwRnBhtevE
    • GuB-42 6y ago
      Formula E is entirely unlike how F1 was. The big one is that all drivers drive the same chassis and battery, and with strict regulations regarding the engine. Pilots may as well all drive the same car. They also added Mario Kart style boosts. This is a game, mostly intended to provide entertainment and show off the pilot skills. F1 was as much about constructors as it was about pilots, and in fact, being a pilot was as much about tuning and working with engineers as it was about driving. Technical advances driven by competition between constructors made the sport. To replicate that with Formula E, constructors should be able to make everything from aerodynamics to the batteries. Have regulations that allows for technical breakthroughs to happen, with the minimum amount of limitations to ensure the competition still looks like car racing and to allow pilots to get old.
      • dzhiurgis 6y ago
        > Mario Kart style boosts Yeah I'd much rather watch some sort of AI or RC game with random challenges like oil spills and bombs. Driving is boring.
      • usrusr 6y ago
        > Formula E is entirely unlike how F1 was. Well, exactly the same can be said about F1. It's certainly not the tiniest bit like how it used to be.
      • hellotomyrars 6y ago
        You should try actually watching Formula E. They have continued to open up the car each season, and there are real differences between them. The "Mario Kart" style boosts serve a functional strategic purpose that is similar to the strategic elements involved in pitting in F1. FE is the racing series driving things forward technologically now. This is why F1 can't attract new manufacturers to the series, and why FE has attracted several. There is a serious interest in EV tech now and the EV tech lives in Formula E. Also the racing is just flat out better in FE. The last 5 years of F1 have been largely a parade. This year has been more interesting to be fair, but still, the racing just isn't as good.
        • 6y ago
  • zebrafish 6y ago
    Formula E already exists. As a PR play, other power unit manufacturers may follow Honda. Volkswagen put a lot of pressure on them with their announcement last year. However, I don’t think (and hope) that ICE racing will go anywhere. The engineering challenges and reliability challenges are part of racing that EVs remove from the equation. I don’t understand why EVs can’t have their place as personal and commercial vehicles and racing can keep ICEs in competition vehicles.
    • AnthonyMouse 6y ago
      The issue is going to be that racing is where vehicle manufacturers go to push the limits of their cutting edge technology. Which they don't fundamentally create for racing but for the versions of it that trickle into production vehicles. If everyone starts expecting the decline of ICE vehicles in the market, who is going to be putting a lot of resources into continuing to improve them?
      • toyg 6y ago
        > their cutting edge technology. Which they don't fundamentally create for racing but for the versions of it that trickle into production vehicles Nah. Open-wheel racing has not been about actual research, already, for more than 20 years. The standard-bearer itself, Ferrari, was a racing team first and a manufacturer later; even today they are not in F1 for research but for marketing purposes (merchandising is basically their prime source of revenue). Open-wheel is largely a show, and it will continue to run as long as the show gets viewers, one way or the other.
    • lmm 6y ago
      > I don’t understand why EVs can’t have their place as personal and commercial vehicles and racing can keep ICEs in competition vehicles. I'm sure ICE racing will continue in one form or another, but Formula 1 is enormously expensive; manufacturers justify it in terms of the prestige it brings them and the R&D work that can trickle-down into road cars. If the engine technology is completely different then both of those benefits become a lot more questionable.
• Swizec 6y ago
  Drivers still are international celebrities and they still dice with death. Someone died in an F2 car just last year. But you’re right that it has gotten far safer. Drivers walk away from horrific crashes at insane speeds. And modern cars despite being less powerful post lap times that boggle the mind. The aero is bonkers. Drivers regularly pull 5G laterally in corners. If it weren’t for rules, I bet we’d see cornering blackouts like fighter pilots get. To understand why F1 is attractive, watch this speed comparison video, it’s 9 years old so more powerful engines, but slower lap times: https://youtu.be/K2cNqaPSHv0 https://youtu.be/K2cNqaPSHv0 As for rich people ... you can say the same about any sport. Why watch basketball? It’s just a bunch of millionaires running around in shorts Edit: here’s another good comparison, motogp vs f1 on the same track this year https://youtu.be/NIIJNSdJoNQ https://youtu.be/NIIJNSdJoNQ
  • x87678r 6y ago
    Agreed speeds are insane, but its less interesting than when people were overtaking more. The rich people bit was a dig at Abu Dhabi & Azerbaijan which seem mostly empty.
    • TylerE 6y ago
      That's why MotoGP is so much more interesting. Not unusual to see multiple passes for the lead on the last lap alone, and the top, say, 8-10 riders to be within a couple seconds at the finish.
    • freeflight 6y ago
      > The rich people bit was a dig at Abu Dhabi & Azerbaijan which seem mostly empty. Tho that's not really a new thing, it's been more of a "rich people" sport for a while, at least for watching live, as races often happen in rather "exclusive" and expensive locations like Monte Carlo. That's why the people watching F1 live, shown during broadcasts, usually look nothing like football fans but rather like rich people on an expensive vacation, at least that's what stuck most with me from watching a bit of F1 in the 90s.
  • psychstudio 6y ago
• snuxoll 6y ago
  Modern F1 has an extreme amount of simulation behind it that just didn’t exist last century. Whether you can make a car that is good or not is a factor of budget you can spend on engineering teams, wind tunnel time, etc., instead of what whacky idea you can come up with that makes the car better. Budget caps introduced this year will hopefully start to level the playing field once the 2022 regs kick in.
  • znkynz 6y ago
    > Whether you can make a car that is good or not is a factor of budget you can spend on engineering teams This has been true since the 1970s.
    • snuxoll 6y ago
      Not to the degree seen in F1 since the start of the turbo hybrid era. Scrappy underdog teams could score wins with creative, out of the box thinking that was possible with a small budget. Today the only time you see a team with a budget less than Mercedes, Ferrari or Red Bull winning is because of some act of god during the race.
      • Andrew_nenakhov 6y ago
        That's because of the emphasis on reliability, made worse by limits on components and a scoring system that makes it much harder to catch up after DNF. In the past a quick but unreliable car could get to some high place thanks to luck.
      • pbronez 6y ago
        Seems to me that should be ok to have a class where teams can throw money at it without real limits. Sure, that shouldn’t be everything, but if they want F1 to be the fastest, fanciest stuff possible, restricting investment to improve competitiveness doesn’t seem like a great move.
        • snuxoll 6y ago
• vr46 6y ago
  F1 is more interesting to read about than watch. Quick fix: limit braking efficiencies. The ridiculously short braking zones make opportunities for fighting very limited, so I’d love to see racers having to be more strategic in their driving. It’s not really a spectator sport, it’s a technical contest. MotoGP exists for racing and action.
• chrisseaton 6y ago
  Why do they make all the cars the same? Why not have a maximum size or something like that and let people innovate within that to do whatever they want? Why the 'formula'?
  • andoriyu 6y ago
    Because there is already Indy...
  • lethologica 6y ago
    This is what I've always been curious about. I've never been a massive F1 fan or followed it closely, but I've always viewed it as being the absolute pinnacle of what can be achieved with a racing machine. So to me, it seems odd to add all of these extra rules and regulations that may stifle reaching even further. I'd love to see a motorsport where there was maybe one rule where you have a budget within $X amount of dollars, but other than that, go nuts, come up with innovative new technologies and racing methods and see what happens.
    • agnivade 6y ago
      F1 was kinda like that once. But then accidents started to happen, things got extremely dangerous. So more and more rules had to be put. The challenge is to keep that perfect balance between enjoyable races and keeping the drivers safe.
  • geargrinder 6y ago
    Well that is exactly what Formula 1 is. Unlike NASCAR or Indycar where everything is prescribed, there is a formula which sets the outlines of the box and teams are free to play within that box. The box has just gotten really small in the past couple of decades.
• deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
• mhh__ 6y ago
  Literally everything you've said is still true. Formula 1 stopped being like that in the 70s at the latest. Mercedes are too dominant, but there is nearly always a dominant team in the history of F1. The MP4/4's records were set in the 80s for god’s sake. A Minardi won a race this year (They're called Alpha Tauri now) Don't look back with rose tinted spectacles.
  • spaetzleesser 6y ago
    There was a lot of crazy development in the 80s and early 90s with carbon fibre, aerodynamics, turbos, automatic gearboxes and active suspension. I think from mid 90s on a lot of innovation got killed by regulation.
    • mhh__ 6y ago
      There is orders of magnitude more engineering-hours put into a car these days but it has to be through very narrow directions. Ideally you want rules that allow smaller teams to come up with mad ideas and not big teams but it's not feasible for the sport. This is why they have finally managed to bring in the cost cap.
      • spaetzleesser 6y ago
        I think the mad ideas are missing from F1 these days. They put a lot of effort into polishing small details but what made F1 exciting in the past were big things like six wheelers, ground effect, turbo vs non turbo, active suspension and so on.
        • mhh__ 6y ago
          Are you forgetting that Mercedes turned up to pre-season testing with a double axis steering wheel? That's active toe adjustment, driver controlled even.
          • spaetzleesser 6y ago
• geargrinder 6y ago
  F1 has had very few years where one team didn't totally dominate. Some of those years were the best ever and showcased the drama, technology, power and talent which makes this such a great sport (88-89 is one example).
• tonyedgecombe 6y ago
  I don't know, I stopped watching it when Barrichello and Schumacher deliberately swapped places on the penultimate lap of a race. It was always clear there were team orders but that incident was so egregious that I just stopped watching. Also it was getting a bit soporific.
• mrkwse 6y ago
  The races may be more or less interesting depending on preference, but everything else you've written here is false. Cars still visibly improve each season, as demonstrated by the fact track records continue to fall each year. Drivers are still international celebrities, and it's still a very dangerous sport (the fact there are far fewer deaths is a triumph, but it still occurs - Jules Bianchi died from a crash in 2014 and last year in F2 Anthoine Hubert succumb to a hideous incident). If your issue is that too few drivers are dying, then I really don't know what to say because mitigating that risk is a hugely positive thing. Fans still fill the track grandstands (with the exception of some of the newest venues which may not sell out as easily). Just look at Monza 2019, with the sea of Tifosi under the podium. That passion is still there for a big number of fans, and as the sport is evolving (and more interesting young drivers come through) the fanbase is changing and growing more diverse.