Club Arnage

I'm fairly neutral towards F1. I don't dislike it and I'll watch it now and then, but I really don't follow it.

F1 ... the only racing series in the world where the safety car sounds better than the racing cars.

I did care but lost interest after the death of Senna and the domination of Schumacher.  Started following it again a few years ago but aside from Alonso, Button and Raikonnen there's no one really interesting in F1 anymore.  They also managed to create butt-ugly cars and ruined the whole "experience" with banning natural aspirated engines.  After I saw the first car passing by at Spa last year, I've had it with F1 ..  GP2 sounded way better !

Went to the testdays in Barcelona a few times, did several Grand Prix around Europe and I'm still going to the Belgian Grand Prix every year since 1990 though (thanks to free tickets).  Monza is  on my bucketlist and would like to go back to Monaco one day although it won't be the same compared with the sound of the late 90's.

Been watching since the 60's, so it's almost a habit now.
It certainly isn't as interesting anymore, I would blame the Poison Dwarf and over regulation.
What they ought to do is tear up the rule book, set a maximum engine size and a cost cap. Anything goes.
And shoot the Dwarf of course!  ;D

My thoughts are much the same as Dottore's. and Barry's, I began following F1 in 1969, at the ripe old age of seven.  Throughout the seventies, and eighties, F1 was the be all & end all for me.  I loved sports car racing, and Indy cars, but F1 was king.  But as it moved into the nineties, something began to change, it was becoming more of a made for TV event rather than a sport.  With ever more suffocating regulations, and increasing gimmicks to "spice up the show", it lost me.  Bernie's pimp & hype act has grown tiresome,  I'll watch the races if they're on when I'm channel flipping, but my days of getting up at seven AM, to watch the races live stopped two decades ago.
Fax

More interested than a few years ago, actually quite like the new regs, they are more relevant in today's world and the speed and economy they can produce from such small engines is pretty amazing. The last f1 race I went to was 90, and that was a freebie, before that went to everyone in the UK and a few abroad from when I was a baby. Lost interest big time in 90's

The sound, like the diesel Audis is a not dynamic like cars af old, but I'm less bothered by that than some, plenty of great cars in the past sounded pretty underwhelming, the 956 For example. To me there is something special about a car whooshing by at speed without the noise you would expect.

The current F1 drivers are not too shabby either, clearly they do not have the freedom drivers of the 70's and before had, but they do seem to have bit goinging on and there is no lack of talent in the top 10 or so. I quite like most of them and while impossible to judge, I do think that they would have stood up well against the top drivers of past eras in terms of driving talent.

On the downside, I hate with a passion the fake tyre options and I am surprised any company would want to be associated with it. The DRS system makes a mockery of the term 'sport' and some of the tracks are sh*t and have no place in Motorsport at any level.

The potential for F1 is still there, but I thnk the sporting element has been diluted and it's more a business than sport.

Would I pay to go and see an F1 race. In a word no.

Ditto Dottore, Barry, Fax.

First race was camping at Kyalami in late 60s. Don't remember much except climbing through the fences Thursday evening so pocket money could go on food, walking round the track Friday night (a good idea at the outset, takes a lot longer on foot than on wheels with a few spare BHP), race day was Saturday in those days and the scream of the BRMs.

Much like the previous posters. Sports Car and Endurance racing have always been my favourites.
I folowed F1  on TV in the 80's & 90's even stayed up late to watch Aus or Japan with friends. got up early on occasion for similar gatherings. attended only live F1 when it was at Indianapolis in the early 2000's
Am currently in a a do not care mode which may or may not change.
Phil

What an interesting question.

F1 is the Bernie show.  It's carefully constructed (but unscripted) TV soap opera.  Scheduled in regular slots of short episodes with very colourful characters, celebrity players, healthy salaries and plots with twists and turns.

Unfortunately for many years F1 was a circus without a real show on the track. Lack of overtaking resulted in a race with no racing.

First we began with the era of knockout qualifying. This improved matters somewhat and made the qualifying more fun than the race itself.

Then we saw an attempt to put the spice back in through artificial means - DRS zones, KERS, and tyres that artificially wore out.  Like Nordic, I detest these and do not think that this is sport let alone motor racing.

More recently it has been dominated by the move East towards the countries that pay Bernie big fees, have few spectators and often dull tracks.

But F1 fans look different to to sparks car fats.  I think that F1 fans are a bit like (British) football.  They tend to be strong supporters of a single team or driver and are binary about their support.

Of course you can plug into F1 and sometimes catch a good race, especially if it's wet.  I particularly enjoyed Senna at a wet Monaco in 1984, and of course it was a fantastic window on the talents of one Stefan Bellof.

I suspect that getting the best out of F1 needs a commitment.  You need to know the couple of episodes before.

I don't have the time to watch a soap opera and I'm just not sure that I want to devote enough time to F1.


Aricus

Oh, and I have to say that because the F1 rules are so tightly written and enforced, the cars all appear to be the same

The regulations lead to a huge price for a small but clearly important gain in the car that is all but impossible to see unless you are an expert.

The contrasts with sports cars could not be greater.

Sports cars offers a range of advantages including:

Accessible drivers and Teams (away from a race weekend)
Reasonable ticket prices
Design diversity
Technical innovation
Overtaking
Unpredictabile race outcomes
Better looking machines

Aricus

Have followed for decades....spectator, Marshal, worked with F1 teams, enjoyed hospitality (really enjoyed it!!)

Now, I am just fed up with all the rule-change cobblers.....and even more so, the Teflon Dwarf!!

Should be given a fixed budget; max & min overall dimensions/weights/crash-test limits; told to go for 200 miles on 2 sets of tyres & the best man wins!

Failing that, scrap the lot and put the efforts into the WEC.........

Nice idea...

what I noticed most MR CJA newbie was the bit at the bottom of your post:

"If you don't have to drag yourself off the field exhausted after 90 minutes, you can't claim to have done your best."

Must relate to footbally rather than the proper sport of Rugby...

Funny though it made me think of being at LM, I would suggest that after LM it should read 'seven days' (or close) rather than 90 minutes, then you can claim to have done your best.

This can include a lot of sitting down, drinking and chatting, even falling asleep in your chair, all worthy of a true LM'er (new wordage?)

If you try hard enough you could even include a ...LB after your name and become a true Lazy B'astard, if you wish

>Martini...LB

Well.....I have no problem with the LB addition, being a true LB at any given opportunity  ;D

As for the footbally thing - yes, you're right but have always had a following for Saracens, even in the Bramley Road days.

Now, though, it's all about the LM prep. You know the sort of thing, the really important questions......Is the chair comfy enough? How much red wine should one man buy? Where is the cold beer? Food? - alright, if you insist....

The sort of things that make a LB's life complete......  ;)

I got around to watching Australia yesterday, good lord what a steaming turd of a race!  F1's dead, no other way to put it.  It was once glorious, but it's just pure crap now.  If I had paid to see that, I would have been asking for my money back.
Fax

No change there then.  But Vettel did overtake somebody in the pits.

I was watching a dvd of Jackie Stewart, (who I never particularly liked) and F1 does seem to have been a lot more exciting in those days

It's my first love but the race is over before I'm sufficiently drunk. 24 hours suits my drinking style more than sprint races. Yeah drinking can have a style.........which one of you said I have a problem????????

I think that Gareth or Zogg from Gareth Jones on Speed summed it up for me when it was remarked that the off track action was more exciting than the on track stuff.

Monaco is very special, as is Spa and Silverstone, but too many of the F1 circuits are bland in contrast to many of the sports car ones.

Aricus

My first GP was Brands Hatch '66, the first year of the "return to power" with the 3-litre formula. It all seemed over rather quickly, and the cars looked boring. I've been to three or four GPs since, the last being Spa 2005, where the circuit makes up for the cars. If I'm about and there's a GP on the Beeb (no way would I pay money to that man that runs Sky), I will watch, but seldom turn on before the parade lap, or stay tuned after the flag drops. Vacuous interviews don't do it for me in any sport.

Like much premium sport, F1 is now a huge business, aka a trough for Ecclebum and co to swill at. Much of the racing is artificial, e.g. DRS and the need for two types of tyre per race. The unregulated pit-teams, still with an impressive rate of cock-up, do not inspire. The cars still look crap. But it may beat mowing the lawns...

F1 leaves me cold these days. 

I started to loose interest when they banned Skirts.   I'm now completely out of touch with F1.  I watched one a while back and found it utterly stupid that the were rules about when and where they can use DRS. 
OK the Cars have some device onboard but you would never say You can't use the steering wheel though Woodcote would you?  So why not use the DRS wherever you like?

To my mind F1 has eff all to do with Endurance racing.   

I doubt F1 will die there is just too much money wrapped up in it.    Most of the world thinks F1 the pinnacle of Motor Sport.  That's Fine let them think that. It doesn't mean I have to be interested in it or have to watch it.

It appears that Senor Alonso may have seen a light too, any bets on seeing him at La Sarthe any time soon?

Bit of a strange feeling right now.  In the past 26 years I've been to every F1 race at Spa, most of the times for the full weekend.  After the disappointment last year (sound, looks of the cars, lack of intensity), this will be the first time since 1990 I won't be at Spa, not even at any F1 race this season.  Could have had free tickets, didn't take them, lost all my interest to F1.  

I'll never forget standing at Bruxelles on a cold, almost freezing, foggy morning somewhere in the '90's, suddenly hearing the Ferrari V12 coming out of the pitlane, hammering down Kemmel straight towards us, barking out that trumendous sound of the V12, giving you goosebumps like nothing else.  Everytime we went to an F1 race, whether it was at Spa, Barcelona, Monaco or at any other track, the moment you were waiting for was that one when the engines were fired up and you could hear them screaming going through the corners.  Untill last year ... At the exit of Combes, waiting for the F1 cars to go by ... session started, no sound, no engines revving, nothing but silence.  And then suddenly something passed by, with almost no sound.  Looking at the guy next to me, asking ourselves "was this gp3 or F1" ?  Apparently, it was F1. No more screaming engines, no more good looking cars, no more sound, no more speed.  I've managed to stay untill the end of the afternoon session and drove home again, massively disappointed, wondering what's gone wrong ... and never went back.  Gave my ticket for the next 2 days away, didn't even bother anymore to put on the tv on Sunday.  

Guess it's thank you Bernie for ruining what used to be the pinnacle of motorsport with the worlds best cars and drivers.  Thank you for ruining what was the best soundtrack going round a racetrack.  And most of all, thank you for ruining almost all tracks you passed by, transforming them into concrete deserts instead of those great colorfull and challenging winding bits of asphalt with those punishing gravel traps. Thank you fot not even being able to have a 20 car grid this year and the loss of legendary names like Tyrell, Larousse, Ligier, Lotus, Brabham, Minardi ...

Somehow it's hard, watching what was once your favourite sport going down like that, losing almost all interest in something that even got me up in the middle of the night to watch a race since I was a kid.  So ... Thank you Bernie ... for opening my eyes and pushing me (since many years) straight into the arms of that other race I was fascinated by as a kid, somewhere in a field in France.  2016 will be my 20th year down there (except for 2000), and there's a lot more to come, 25 years won't be the end of that one !

Dottore Sir, have a massive like  ;)

Great post on why F1 has lost it!
And why sports cars is the place to be.

And Spa is one of the best circuits left.  Shame about the wide kerbs, that see so much use, but some circuits are like a car park with the circuit painted on.  Corners just aren't the same

Corporate hospitality ruined it for me.  Marquees in the viewing areas, and grandstands sold out before they go on sale to public, that are then empty during the race as there's free booze and a TV in the marquee.

It sounds like Monza is very much on the chopping block, which is blasphemous. One wonders how much longer Spa can hang on against some dictator in a "emerging nation" who wants a Grand Prix for his own Tilke designed go kart track in the desert or jungle.  The positive is that when these great classic circuits are no longer burdened by the horrific fees Bernie and thugs charge to host a GP, it opens up more opportunities to host other more desirable disciplines of the sport.
Fax

F1 was a great attraction for me in the 70s, 80s and through the turbo era and until the mid 90s. Interesting racing and technical stuff happened. But it has waned ever since for me, as constant over-regulation has stifled the ability of teams to do something different from each other, and the media and corporate circus stifles everything, including the drivers, in the name of "the show".

Now, road racing, sportscar racing, Group C, WSC, A/ELMS and Le Mans and the roads and circuits raced on have always held a much greater appeal for me throughout. There's been ups, downs and fallow times, but somehow a much greater feeling of reality, competition, sensible regulation and sheer bloody hard effort about it all. 

Look no further than the relatively short length of the technical regulations for Le Mans now and the scope for such significantly different technical solutions it allows, yet which drives and delivers innovation and close competition. Love it. And then there's everything else that goes along with Le Mans.....

In short, no, I no longer give a monkey's about F1.  I hope that endurance racing continues to go from strength to strength without succumbing totally to the corporate glitz.

MG Mark

http://youtu.be/bWhY5K89PwI

2004 vs 2015

That link has been blocked by Bernie

How very bloody typical of FOM.

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