Brawn: Changes Won't Happen Overnight

[David Dominguez]

This is a perfect example of the dichotomy that has made "fan input" difficult to interpret. On one hand, it's clear that spec series have closer racing because the cars are generally the same. This is a good part of the reason why I find GP2 more exciting than F1 on a race to race basis.

I find it a bit difficult when people say they miss the "good ole days" of F1 because the desires expressed are contradictory.

It's simple, most F1 fans have no idea of what do they want.

 

[Alex Townsend]

I've been an F1 fan for years. Early 90s I think.
I know what I want.
I'd like the cars to sound a little bit more intense. Doesn't have to go back to the V12 era but V8 would be nice.
I used to be able to afford to go to a race. As my career grows stronger my wages go up yet every year I find I cannot afford to attend. I'd like the option to go to a live race every now and then...
I'd like close racing. I don't care how they do it but I watched the Blancpain from Circuit Paul Ricard 6 hour race again and it was proper exciting stuff.
I don't get excited by F1 racing anymore. I fall asleep during races... I don't bother getting up at silly times to watch the races live anymore.
Something has changed at the core of the sport somehow. It's no longer the pinnacle of Motorsport for me as it once was. GT racing and WEC is doing more for my racing needs than F1 which is sad.
As another user eluded to, GP2 is actually more exciting and i find it better for racing than F1 is currently.

 

[Deleted member 130869]

The Brawn GP diffuser was a clever innovation from Super Aguri, of all teams ... when Honda was still burning money on F1. Their project started two seasons before. There's no reason to doubt Mercedes will still be dominant and Red Bull their biggest challenger.

 

[gamer19]

We'll have lots more in depth post race analysis from FE, F1, and WEC in the future

That's great.
But if you make sure some really big news actually appears on front page.
I'm sure I'm not the only one who doesn't dig that deep into forum, searching for all the news. I, and like I said probably many others, have some others pages when looking for news (I use Motorspot, got a soft spot for Pitpass too) - RaceDepartment is mainly mine (our) page for, you know ...modify ...things.

 

[Bethonie Waring]

if you make sure some really big news actually appears on front page

Afraid I'm not in charge of what goes where, just on what I write.

RaceDepartment is mainly mine (our) page for, you know ...modify ...things.

Not entirely sure what this point was? That you get news from elsewhere but want the big news on RD main page too because... ? (might have misread this, I do that a lot...)

 

[MoerasGrizzly]

I get most of my F1 news from RD.

 

[gamer19]

Yes, I mean... I mainly come here to see if there's any interesting new mods, I even make couple of them and then... quick check what's new from MAINLY gaming world and some, preferably, top stories from real world racing.
And when there's no place on RD front page for presenting the new (first car of the season actually!) car in F1 but there's, for example, for FOUR news about the very same event of Formula E ...then I feel like somethings wrong. It's just that feel you know that something's not right. But it could be only me. Maybe F.E become 4 times more popular than F1 in meantime, in this winter break, I can't be 100% sure.
Yes, we can all go open forum section and scroll for some news but like I said, I'm not sure how many of actually does that. Maybe we need to start just that now.

 

[Bethonie Waring]

when there's no place on RD front page for presenting the new (first car of the season actually!) car in F1 but there's, for example, for FOUR news about the very same event of Formula E ...then I feel like somethings wrong

The FE pieces, whilst about the same event, were completely different subjects, and happened before I had to dedicate two days to a lovely parking story I had to cover for another news outlet (got to love local news...). And those two days happily coincided with the new car launches, so I wasn't available to cover them.
Like I said, I've no say in what goes front page and what doesn't but everything I do write is written for a reason. Whilst RD is top for the gaming news, I'm keen to expand the depths of our real world news

 

[grahamw]

I've been an F1 fan for years. Early 90s I think.
I know what I want.
I'd like the cars to sound a little bit more intense. Doesn't have to go back to the V12 era but V8 would be nice.
I used to be able to afford to go to a race. As my career grows stronger my wages go up yet every year I find I cannot afford to attend. I'd like the option to go to a live race every now and then...
I'd like close racing. I don't care how they do it but I watched the Blancpain from Circuit Paul Ricard 6 hour race again and it was proper exciting stuff.
I don't get excited by F1 racing anymore. I fall asleep during races... I don't bother getting up at silly times to watch the races live anymore.
Something has changed at the core of the sport somehow. It's no longer the pinnacle of Motorsport for me as it once was. GT racing and WEC is doing more for my racing needs than F1 which is sad.
As another user eluded to, GP2 is actually more exciting and i find it better for racing than F1 is currently.

You are spot on I have been following F1 as long as I can remember as a kid I can remember even then the likes of Graham Hill, a very young Jackie Stewart some might say the era of dangerous motor racing when not only winning a race was a really big deal but actually not getting killed or seriously injured in the process.

I managed to get hold of archive of races back as far as 1978 and was just making sure that my feelings were coloured by the annals of time and memories making things seem far more exiliarating than they actually were. But no even some of these races with foreign commentators are actually far more compelling to watch than the past few years.

 

[stbreaker]

@grahamw
I definitely appreciate that you aren't someone blindly proclaiming "the past is better!" Basically, I missed the entirety of the 90s in F1. SPEEDVision was a "premium" channel until at least the early 2000s, so my knowledge of F1 was limited to reading the "results" section in the sports page and seeing "Winner: M. Schumacher" in small font every few weeks. My first season of actually watching in real time was 2006.

So aside from a Brawn GP type fluke here/there, the lifetime of F1 for me has been
1) Early 90s - the almost "mythical" era to which many refer that I was too young to have cared about at the time. It definitely sounds interesting with all the "active suspension" controversies, the introduction of paddle shifters, etc.
2) "Schuey vs Newey" - but mostly Schuey
3) Red Bull Dominance
4) Mercedes Dominance

Point is, that in the 10 years I've been watching and the 10 before where I just read about it, there hasn't been much parity. Even if you go back a little further than that, it was still basically Ferrari/McLaren/Williams and any given year one of those cars was utterly dominant. While F1 could use some changes, it seems unrealistic to expect more than 2 or 3 teams to have a realistic shot at winning in a season no matter what changes they make.

 

[Alex Townsend]

Think Red Bull and Benetton had a little success during that time too right?

 

[grahamw]

I think the early 90's is where most people go back to when they take a nostalgic look at F1 and how much more exciting it was but if analyse things it perhaps is slightly rosed coloured specs on how things were then.

Ayrton Senna won both 90/91 in McLaren (Honda) not coincedently Honda stopped supplying engines to Mclaren in 1992 and the great Ayrton Senna only managed 3 wins in the year and a further five in a Ford powered McClaren.

This changed things dramatically with Nigel Mansell taking the 1992 , Alain Prost 9 both in Williams Reanult's,

Then in the start of the rise of the reign of the great Michael Shumacher who took titles in 1994 and 1995 in Benetton although it was a Ford engine in the first year and Renault in the second.

After 1995, Schumacher moved to Ferrari along with Ross Brawn, Rory Byrne and 11 other key figures from his two championship winning seasons with Benetton.

Damon Hill and Jacques Villenuve to 96 and 97 respectively in Williams powered Reanult again followed by 98,99 which Hakkinen brought the titles to Mercedes for the first time since the 1950's.

Then of course we have the Shumacher dominance in the Ferrari in early 2000 until 2005

So whilst we might like to think racing was far more exciting and it probably was the actual results have a some what predictable pattern so maybe nostalgia plays a bigger part than we think or is it we now associate F1 as first lap race and all the incidents like pit drama's a distant memory.

Incidently in 2010 refuelling was taken out of F1 and Red Bull went on to win 4 consecutive championships is that a coincidence probably not but that combined with a single tyre manufacturer might have a lot to do with the high predicability.