XPost: rec.autos.sport.indy

RACING
Has Formula One Ever Actually Been Good?

Elizabeth Werth
4/14/18 12:05pmFiled to: FORMULA ONE

Photo: Wikimedia
Chances are, if you’ve ever tuned into a Formula 1 race broadcast, read
a Formula 1 article, or popped onto Twitter during a Formula 1 race,
you’ve heard someone out there lamenting that the series is not what it
used to be. It was better back in the day. The 1980s and 1990s—that was
the pinnacle of the sport, and it’s been a downhill spiral since then.
Any recommendations on how to fix the sport lie in recreating the past. That’s how we’ll make Formula 1 a good series.


But can anyone actually say with authority that Formula 1 has ever been
good in the first place?

I asked this on Twitter last Sunday, partly just to be provocative, but
the responses I got to it had me wondering. What actually makes a racing
series good, and has F1 ever met any of those standards?

Everyone had different answers, which I kind of expected. But that made
me want to dive into quality control, to see if I could parse out why F1
is subject to so much criticism and if there’s any way to make it a “good” series.

Good is an incredibly relative term. I think black metal is good music,
but I imagine most people wouldn’t even consider a couple of Norwegian
men screaming bloody murder in extremely low quality to be music at all.
Your “good” and my “good” are probably both incredibly different when it
comes to Formula 1—and that’s cool. There’s something really neat about how people relate to this single sport in so many different ways. But
that only makes the “good” harder to pin down.

I think it mostly comes down to nostalgia. There’s tons of research on
the psychology of nostalgia, and it ticks so many boxes regarding
motorsports. Nostalgia: A Neuropsychiatric Understanding is a study by
Alan R. Hirsch that nostalgia is “a longing for a sanitized impression
of the past” where you cobble together a bunch of sense-impressions and filter out all the negative stuff. It sets up this idea that the past
was an ideal that you’ll never be able to return to, which makes you
crave it all the more. It’s one of the reasons why people who were
abused as children can end up with abusive spouses; their childhood
wasn’t happy, but their brain has sanitized it. All those memories of
how things tasted, felt, smelled, sounded—our brains hype it up and want
us to go back to a time that never actually existed.

Which kind of helps make sense of why you constantly hear about how F1
isn’t as good as it used to be. No, it’s not going to be as exciting as
it was when you were a kid because your brain remembers that time before
you had responsibilities and a family and a job and says, “that was the
best time ever and everything about it was good, including the races I
watched on Sunday mornings.”


Photo: Gillfoto (Wikimedia)
It’s why so many of the older F1 commentators and journalists keep
pushing for louder engines and no halos and fewer regulations. It wasn’t ‘like that’ when they first joined the F1 party, but only because
they’re remembering how stoked they were about being at the circuit in
the first place. Hell yeah, I’d want to go back to 1984 if that was my
first season driving an F1 car; my brain would build it up to remember everything being freaking awesome.

There’s definitely something to say about the race quality in the past
few years. A lot of people mark 2012 as the last time they were really
happy with the on-track product, and I can see where they’re coming
from. But I think it’s also disingenuous to say that the way forward is
to start going back.

We’re at this point in time for a reason. It might not be every single
race fan’s dream of a perfect series, but F1 is a sport designed to push
for technical evolution. I grew up fascinated by 1970s F1, but I am sure
as hell aware of how many drivers died in their pursuit for glory. The
1980s were exciting, but so many races were determined by the same kind
of technical failure that causes us to speculate on what would have
happened if a driver hadn’t DNF’d that one time at that one race and
then won a championship.

Safety and reliability are progress. Wildly advanced cars and the air of glamour and prestige that follows F1—progress. As much as we can keep
pining for the good ol’ days, it would be next to impossible to get back there. I’m sorry to say, but F1 can’t be what it was when James Hunt was
a superstar. We should be evolving, not devolving.

Part of why our memories are so fond is because no one was actively
telling us how bad every single race was. The 21st century is one of pessimistic nihilism thanks to the prevalence of ideas we get exposed
to. Every decision made by the powers that be in F1 hit social media in seconds–and a few seconds later comes the backlash. We don’t wait to see how a change will turn out because it’s change and so it’s already bad. It’s cool that we can have discourse, but at what point does it become harmful?


Photo: Dell Inc. (Wikimedia)
F1 isn’t going to make progress if any attempt at progress is cast aside because it “used to be better”. It’s been interesting to look at the different approaches to F1 when compared to a series like, say, Formula
E or IndyCar. The latter two are building themselves up: FE generally,
while IndyCar is still building itself back up post-split. But both
series adopt a hopeful tone: drivers, teams, journalists, and pundits
all expound on progress and improvement. There is no precedent for these
series (or, if there is, it’s not a precedent anyone wants to follow),
so we’re able to craft narratives of hope, of seeing-what-happens, of this-is-gonna-be-good.

In F1, it’s the opposite. Nothing in the series is ever good. The races
are bad, the drivers are annoyed, the teams complain, and the
journalists have nothing nice to say. It’s hard to maintain positivity
or be hopeful for the future when everyone tells you it’s just gonna
suck anyway. I go into an IndyCar race expecting to leave fulfilled,
even if it’s a bad race or my favorite driver loses miserably, because I
know it’s just gonna be a good time overall. I go into a Formula 1 race
ready to be bored, disappointed, and annoyed.

And if we look back to last weekend, the races don’t always meet those expectations. The 2018 Phoenix Grand Prix was boring as hell. It was
late, nothing was happening, and I was praying it would be over so I
could just go to bed. The 2018 Bahrain Grand Prix, though? It was
exciting! It was fun! I was hooked until the end waiting to see if
Sebastian Vettel’s tires would hold out, if we’d see a Toro Rosso on podium, if Honda would actually be good. I had planned to leave halfway
through and ended up sticking around to watch the podium.

The post-race coverage, though, was so different. F1 focused on so many negative storylines, ie Hamilton swearing at Verstappen, or Kimi
Raikkonen’s insolent attitude. IndyCar made their reports and just
started getting everyone stoked because, yeah, it wasn’t a great race,
but Long Beach is next!!

I was excited to wake up for the Chinese Grand Prix as soon as Bahrain
ended. Now, I’m just looking at watching the race as a chore, because my post-race enjoyment was nullified by how many people weren’t happy with
what we got.


Photo: Alberto-g-rovi (Wikimedia)
So has F1 ever been good? Maybe. Maybe not. Our memories of what F1 used
to be are tinged with a nostalgia that makes it seem untouchably great,
but I don’t mean to take away from your fond childhood memories by
saying that you have to be entirely pessimistic. In fact, I think that’s entirely the problem.

We don’t have to give F1 credit where it’s not due. There are some bad races and some stupid calls, and there’s nothing wrong with pointing it
out. Sometimes, the old races are better. But, instead of deciding that
we’re not going to enjoy literally anything about Formula 1, maybe it’s time we just start letting ourselves have fun watching instead. We don’t always have to be a critic; sometimes we can just be an observer, too.

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comments include

Chatham Harrison
Elizabeth Werth
4/14/18 12:18pm
As a spectacle that tested the limits of man and machine, that carried
the specter of death over every moment, that featured jawdropping
risktaking and innovation, F1 possessed a romance matched only by Le
Mans. The racing, however, was rarely ever good. But as something to be witnessed it was absolutely incredible, and it was something that was relatively accessible and affordable.

Made safe, and sane, and quiet, and tame, much of the romance is gone.
It’s reduced to its least compelling character: rich, young jerks
driving in circles, with the best-funded team taking the win. And, of
course, the ticket prices are so high at most tracks that few people can actually afford to attend, especially the young children and extended
families that are the heart of any enduring fandom.

Now, racing is still racing. I, for one, will happily watch tortoise
racing. So for me, F1 is still a blast. But I understand what has been lost.

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Scot Zediker despises all organic meatbags, except the Master of course. Chatham Harrison
4/14/18 12:50pm
I was going to say something similar to what you posted.

For most of its existence, F1 has rarely had good racing, but has often featured plenty of spectacle. Like the original Can-Am, the rules for
the cars (of which there were hardly any in Can-Am) were not drawn up in
a way to produce close racing. But they did make for very fast, very
loud cars, and that helped make up for the lack of close action.

I’m still somewhat ambivalent about F1 cars as they currently exist, but I’ll allow that there are some great drivers in the series. And let’s
face it, even the least talented pay driver in the slowest F1 car is a
much better driver than most of us are - he/she has to be because even a
slower F1 car moves pretty quickly.

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Chatham Harrison
Scot Zediker despises all organic meatbags, except the Master of course. 4/14/18 1:18pm
Yeah, I’ve never understood the hatred for pay drivers. It’s a sport invented by and for rich, bored aristocrats. Pay drivers built F1. And
it’s the rule in the rest of top-level motorsport: if you don’t have daddy’s money paying the way, you’d better have sponsorship, or your
career is in constant peril.

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Scot Zediker despises all organic meatbags, except the Master of course. Chatham Harrison
4/14/18 1:32pm
You’re right about that, but one of my all-time favorites in F1 is still
Jim Clark. He was not a wealthy, bored aristocrat - just a phenomenal
natural talent.

I don’t remember the title, but I found a BBC documentary on Clark on
YouTube a few years ago. It’s definitely worth watching.

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Chatham Harrison
Scot Zediker despises all organic meatbags, except the Master of course. 4/14/18 2:40pm
Oh, sure. Things were different by the 1960s. But even then, most F1
drivers had needed family money to fund their early efforts. Jackie
Stewart’s father was a successful Austin and Jaguar dealer. Jim Clark’s father was a sheep rancher. Owned 1400 acres, which placed him, if I
read the stats right, in the top 5% of agricultural landowners in
Scotland. No small potatoes there.

One exception to the rule — rather surprising to some, given his
gentlemanly bearing — was Clark’s teammate, Graham Hill. He parlayed
some vocational school and a hitch as a Navy engine mechanic into a gig
on the crew for Lotus, where he then talked his way into a seat.

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effingnewguy
Elizabeth Werth
4/14/18 12:59pm
There was a time when the “ultimate” car was more advanced than the cars
we could purchase. They were difficult to drive, and had no electronic assistant of any kind.

Honda was getting over 1,000 hp from a little tiny engine with a giant
turbo, and had no traction control or ABS - and the driver was shifting
with a lever attached to the transmission. It took balls of steel as
well as off the charts levels of skill to drive them. I’m not trying to
take anything away from modern cars & drivers; every single driver on
the F1 grid has far more skill that every person reading these words, no
matter how poorly they do in F1.

The times of unlimited development (and tobacco money) was a glorious
era. The combination of paying points only 6 deep (that’s right NASCAR,
no bullshit participation ribbons here) and the cars and drivers made
for good races (not all of them) but also a good season.

So, yeah, it was good. It’s been a long time.

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Scot Zediker despises all organic meatbags, except the Master of course. effingnewguy
4/14/18 1:10pm
In regard to F1's point system of the time, not only did you have to
finish at least sixth to get points, you also had to complete 90% of the distance covered by the winner. So if, say, you finished fourth but were
ten laps down to the leader in an 80-lap race, you got nothing.

Whereas in modern IndyCar, everyone from 25th on down gets five points
(ten for a double-points race) no matter how much of the race they
complete - if, of course, 25 or more cars start the race, which
basically only comes into play in the Indy 500 these days.

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effingnewguy
Scot Zediker despises all organic meatbags, except the Master of course. 4/14/18 1:52pm
I stopped watching IndyCar when Tony fucked it up. I understand it’s
better now, but there’s still way too many ovals.

Points for showing up is the lamest thing in racing.

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PorcoRosso
effingnewguy
4/14/18 2:51pm
Traction control, ABS, and other driver aids are banned in F1. It was
during the end of the turbo era and the beginning of the naturally
aspirated era that we saw teams start to develop and use driver aids.

Today’s cars are producing just as much bhp and more torque. The cars
are faster in a straight line and through the corners. Yes it’s much
safer but up say the current generation don’t have the skill of previous generations is wrong.

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Chatham Harrison
effingnewguy
4/14/18 3:30pm
Points for showing up made sense back when they were trying to
incentivize showing up for the whole season, rather than running a
limited schedule and only showing up for the big purses. Not so much
nowadays.

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mrbwa1
Elizabeth Werth
4/14/18 12:31pm
I feel like the problem with modern F1 is that it’s less about the
driver and more about the equipment and engineers. There have always
been dominant teams in F1, but the modern method of everything streaming
live to the engineers who then “call” the race is a bit less exciting.

2017 and now 2018 seem to be getting a little more driver focused, but i don’t feel like there is a modern Senna who is literally one with the
machine because the edges of performance just aren’t as ragged as they
were in the 70s/80s.

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Andy Sheehan, StreetsideStig
mrbwa1
4/14/18 12:49pm
Agreed. There are so many talented drivers out there who will never get
a chance at a championship because their cars won’t last. Ricciardo is a perfect example. Every time he starts low in the grid it’s because he
has some kind of gearbox change penalty, and almost every time he
doesn’t, his car blows up anyway. I want to see what the fastest F1
driver ever to run the Top Gear test track can do with a functional car.
But there are only 4 slots, and they’re all taken.

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Gullitesque
Andy Sheehan, StreetsideStig
4/14/18 1:18pm
One of those spots is taken by a driver who’s probably too timid to ever
win a WDC, another by a driver who’s almost certainly too old to ever
win a 2nd. It’s a shame politics prevents the teams from doing the
exciting things, like Merc hiring Alonso last year rather than Valtteri.
Plenty of boring reasons as to why that would never have happened, of
course, but still quite a sad state of affairs.

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sundin4prez
mrbwa1
4/14/18 1:32pm
Agree...

For example MotoGP ( THE most exciting form of racing going at the
moment) half the grid never has a chance of making it on to the
podium... And with F1 its pretty much 6 cars (more like 4) that have a
chance of ever winning anything.. It gets stale. Talent alone gets you
nowhere in modern F1, and that creates for the lack of better term a
“meh” racing series.

I want to see better funded/better kitted satellite teams.. Like I mean
there being zero difference between Hamilton’s car and Ocon’s.

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PorcoRosso
Gullitesque
4/14/18 2:47pm
Alonso and Hamilton won’t be in the same team again. Their egos are not compatible.

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Full of the sound of the Gran Fury, signifying nothing.
Elizabeth Werth
4/14/18 12:35pm

This was the pinnacle of F1 IMHO. 1979 French Grand Prix, the duel
between Villeneuve and Arnoux for second place, not ft the lead. Lots of passing, banging wheels and drivers actually taking some chances.

Over the years the series has just become a little too sterile, with,
dare I say, almost too much parity between teams. No real variety in the
cars, and too many disputes either settled in court or in the press
instead of on the track.

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Scot Zediker despises all organic meatbags, except the Master of course.
Full of the sound of the Gran Fury, signifying nothing.
4/14/18 12:52pm
I can’t count the number of times I’ve watched this clip. It truly is
one of the sport’s greatest moments.

I also have fond memories of the mid-to-late ‘80s and early ‘90s, mostly because of the intense rivalry between Senna and Prost.

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merlyn11a
Full of the sound of the Gran Fury, signifying nothing.
4/14/18 8:28pm
Yes, that stretch from about 1978-83 has some really good races. More importantly, just about every year, there were at least 2-3 solid teams
with #2 drivers who were very good in their slots and capable of winning
if the #1 had a bad car or engine. Plus, I’ve always felt that although
it was a DFV-strong era until the engine rules changed for the turbos,
you could still drive a bit-dodgy normally aspirated car and win. In
addition, the turbos being a little tempestuous, that gave the DFV
drivers a chance if they were going very well and their chassis were
setup well. It was a mechanical engineers era, not like nowadays where
the bit-twiddlers monitor everything from their data bays.

IMHO, that’s where F1 should take a look at and get some ideas. If they
want to continue to the logical conclusion of advancing the engineering
and marketing that as the major aspect of F1, you might as well as just
get rid of drivers altogether. There’s no point in having a driver who
gets tired, sick, or has a bad day. Might as well as go all AI.

Mind you, I don’t like the idea at all and if they do, it’ll cease to be
F1 to me. But that’s the logical conclusion of the conceptual future of having refined technology used for “automotive” purposes.

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hidflect
Full of the sound of the Gran Fury, signifying nothing.
4/14/18 8:45pm
This clip is being announced by Murray Walker who was the guy who made
F1 interesting for me. After he left I stopped watching F1.

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Nosredna_Nod
Full of the sound of the Gran Fury, signifying nothing.
4/14/18 10:47pm
The secret? No defending. Defending (a.k.a. Blocking) has ruined racing.

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farscythe - im not lazy... im energy efficient
Elizabeth Werth
4/14/18 12:14pm
welp.. i for one still think f1 is good i enjoy the races (mostly) and
the silly drama around it is an endless source of amusement for me

course.. other than kimi (and my future kimi replacement k-mag) i mostly
root against all the drivers (especially verstappen.. as when he loses i
get to wind up my co workers till they reach a blind frothing rage)

that said i do hope one day all the teams are potential race winners...
maybe the new engine rules for 2020 will do it.. maybe not

till then i’ll get by on that sweet sweet schadenfruede

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Garuda
farscythe - im not lazy... im energy efficient
4/14/18 12:24pm
That’s dark! And since my coworkers think of babymilk when I say formula
one, i prefer shitting on their various nba teams

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Alonso's Digital Cousin
farscythe - im not lazy... im energy efficient
4/14/18 12:29pm
K-mag is really coming into his own. Starting to show up Grosjean, and
seems mentally unflappable. He doesn’t care what people think of him, or
his aggressive style. He tailed off in the second half of his first two
seasons with McLaren and Renault when they weren’t showing that they
wanted to keep him. Hopefully Haas sticks another contract to him by mid-season.

Unfortunately, I think he will suffer “Perez syndrome” his whole career, because being dropped by not one, but two top teams early in your career
will hurt future prospects. Maybe Ferrari, since he’s at Haas. I’d think he’d be a good candidate, but at best, Ferrari would take him for a
season, maybe 2, just to keep the seat warm for Leclerc.

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Alonso's Digital Cousin
farscythe - im not lazy... im energy efficient
4/14/18 12:30pm
K-mag is really coming into his own. Starting to show up Grosjean, and
seems mentally unflappable. He doesn’t care what people think of him, or
his aggressive style. He tailed off in the second half of his first two
seasons with McLaren and Renault when they weren’t showing that they
wanted to keep him. Hopefully Haas sticks another contract to him by mid-season.

Unfortunately, I think he will suffer “Perez syndrome” his whole career, because being dropped by not one, but two top teams early in your career
will hurt future prospects. Maybe Ferrari, since he’s at Haas. I’d think he’d be a good candidate, but at best, Ferrari would take him for a
season, maybe 2, just to keep the seat warm for Leclerc.

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farscythe - im not lazy... im energy efficient
Alonso's Digital Cousin
4/14/18 12:33pm
i like how he drives.. in general i like his style

so i hope he sticks around for a good long while yet

course i also think haas has the potential to make the big 3 the big 4
so im kinda hoping they keep him and git gud

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