What an enthralling race................ NOT. 3 best cars do it again. How would Vettel/Hamilton etc fair in a Sauber? They would struggle to get top 10. Vettel won because he didn't have s ingle problem with his car. The rest did.
Its been a constant source of wonder to me that F1 has attracted the audience it has over the years. I'm part of that audience, and many a sunday at 2:30 I've wondered why I wasted the previous two hours. Even now, Formula E, Indycar, the 'Le Mans' series around the world, Formula Renault and many others provide far more excitement, not to mention the two-wheeled racing which I don't watch much but can see the appeal of. I CAN'T really see the appeal of F1 very often, apart from the fact that it IS F1
That is why the love affair the British public has with Hamilton washes over me. He is another mardy F1 driver who 'must have the best car' or I'll throw my toys out of the playpen!
It should be mandatory that the world champion has to drive the slowest car next season, then we'll see how good they are!!
Don't watch it anymore, much prefer the Soapbox Derby!! Even my youngest son who has Hamilton Mania is absolutely pissed off with it. He has never missed a race in nearly 30 years but put some cartoons on half way through!!
It's an absolute dirge, I'd prefer to watch Florist win!!
This season has been desperately poor, the only excitement has been artificially with the safety car or virtual safety car. It doesn't bode well for the rest of the season.
The trouble with F1 is the designers and aerodynamasists are to clever for their own good, they spend millions upon millions designing the most Aero efficient cars possible and give little regard to the car following, in fact they purposely design their Aero package to disrupt the airflow so a competitor cannot get close enough to overtake. The talk of simplifying the Aero may or may not work, the trouble is for the fia is the teams and designers can't unlearn what they already know, it's not like a memory stick where you can just delete something never to be seen again. These people are clever little ****s, they will find another way.
The recent talk of top surface Aero to be limited in favour of ground effects and active suspension would work as there's less wake generated so doesn't affect the following car a great deal if at all but will probably be a non starter, the fia are mindful of the last time we had ground effect cars, you have to remember when 90% of a cars downforce comes from ground effects then the moment the car bottoms out or gets a tank slapper going and loses all downforce and thus grip then it becomes a manned missile heading towards the scenery very fast, the fia don't want that. So we go round in circles, stick with top surface Aero but simplify it but the designer can't unlearn what they already know or take the plunge and ban top surface Aero in favour of ground effects and hope to God no ones dies
For the record I'd love to see ground effect cars come back and active suspension
Good summary and so would I, they were wild days but so much more 'fun' than now. The Brabham BT52 in particular was an absolute missile, amazing considering its engine was genuinely a road car block, in fact I recall they used to buy mid-mileage BMW 2002s and actually use the blocks from those cars, maybe thats a bit of romance but it was 'common knowledge' back then
If anyone wonders what the **** Stenson is going on about, check out this
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1l9BGx3seT8
which shows the Brabham BT52 (the white car), incompetent driving (both), incompetent fighting (Nelson Piquet) but most importantly the visible evidence of ground effect. Notice the front wing on both cars - There isn't one. As much as possible of the air the car drove through was directed UNDER the car to suck it down not OVER the car to push it down. These cars could run with miniscule front wings too, in fact I think Williams ran at this race with a wing so small and low it was barely visible and was banned during practise.
Am I getting boring yet?
Not yet, I think deep down if your a true f1 fan then the odd boring race is expected, unfortunately the rules have evolved so much one way, down one particular avenue then what we are left with is what you see now, for 2 good races we have one bad one. The fia were blind to it while the engineers got cleverer and cleverer and we've ended up with land going fighter jets.
To me just as much of the draw to f1 is the engineering side of it, the technology the ideas the work arounds, I want to know what every little winglet does, what does that slot there do, why do you need to direct airflow there and not here, all that being said I would be in favour of less Aero reliance, the trouble is this is f1, the pinnacle of motorsport engineering, you can't start dumbing down the tech just to aid overtaking, the cars are meant to be aerodynamic works of art, it just doesn't suit the car behind that's all