How many of you thought that yesterday’s Formula 1 season opener was boring? I did. Although Bahrain was a much anticipated event, and it’s always fascinating to see new teams, new faces and old faces in new colours, there wasn’t much real racing action to speak of. The FIA comes up with new rules every year which are supposed to make F1 more exciting, but the opposite effect always happens. For instance, the 2010 ban on refuelling took some action out of pit stops and created a track full of heavy cars.
Talking to BBC, McLaren team principal Martin Whitmarsh said that Formula 1 needs to consider immediate rules tweaks to make it more spectacle than processional. “Today was not the best show, we know that and we have all got to work together to improve it.
“I personally believe that more challenging tyres will help the spectacle of the show. I also personally believe that we should have two stops mandated because we want to stop this. Today, if we had had a safety car on lap five, we’d have all piled in (to the pits) and we’d have all gone on the prime tyre and run to lap 49 without a stop. That was a real danger.
“I think that the tyres are allowing you to do that, I’m not trying to pass the blame (on to Bridgestone). We are all in this together. We do need to look at mandatings stops, we do need to look at the tyres and make them more fragile, and we do need to work on making the cars capable of racing close together and easier to overtake,” he said.
The lack of overtaking is an issue, and the Brit has this to say: “Unfortunately the double diffuser, and we have all got them, has really worked against that in the last two years, we have got rid of it for next year but that is arguably a year too late. What can we do this year? It’s go to be work with Bridgestone and potentially mandating more stops in the race.”
What do you think of Formula 1 in its current form?
it was boring. Wasted 2-hours
it was boring… i slept halfway and only woke up after the race ended.
yup, i did sleep during the few last laps of bahrain f1
even watching with friends and drinking beer won't help… the race is awful… no action, no accident and no thrills… and the design of the car is horrible… that don't include the colour. Hope FIA will do something about it, all england mix double look better then a F1 race… sad
i watch f1 only to see them fight in the first corner of the first lap…
after that all was boring…
and later watch who win it and crash re-capp….
:lol:
yup, agreed it was absolutely boring, F1 will lose more fans if it continues this way. no refueling means hardly any pit strategies, it would be nice to see it back again.
i turn to other channel until the end of few laps to watch the results.
If the boss of McLaren says the race is boring, then the majority of the fans are right in saying that the race is definitely BORING! They should have chucked the double diffuser!
Yes is death bored, i really wish the refuelling must come into the picture. Is not just all 22 heavy cars, not much tactics and skills require. Basically more on the car itself. Really hope FIA will change the rule really soon.
haha..me too..the race was too boring..little overtake..2m in f1 car?..too slow..turn back in 2004..
ya….become boring and boring…..boring to the speed, boring to the rule
Lowpro, I also fell asleep during the race…. Watching LCW play in the All England Finals was more exciting!!
yup, boring.
They started imposing all kinds of rule to put an end to Ferrari's dominance and Schumi's Gung-Ho winning driving style that eats huge amount of tires, only big teams can support schumi's appetite for tires….
Without Rules, obviously big teams will dominate (bigger budget and longer experience).
But refuelling is part of the fun, and any blunder (even accidents…god forbid) makes it all worth while to watch….
haha! are we comaring who lasted longest before they fell asleep?! i think i lasted until 9 laps before the end.
i never watch any F1 races since FIA messed up with the rules few years ago…
even the lame Nascar is now more worth watching than F1…
I thought I was watching A1 GP last night, only now I realise it was F1 GP.
I've stopped watching F1 for quite a while …. for various reasons …. but it can get quite boring most of the time.
Mandatory stops should make it more interesting. But I think the electronic gadgets make it too mechanical (yeah…. the irony…. I know) ….. almost like everyone is driving so perfectly, effortlessly. Doesn't matter lah how much the commentators tried to make it interesting by spewing all sort off "relevant info" … the driver feels x amount of G when taking corners la, breaking too early la…. etc etc … it's just doesn't work.
It seems to me, if the driver try to do anything clever, the car will not allow him to. If try too much, he will crash. :(
it was booooooringgggg!!! the supporting race, GP2 was better
the only tweak f1 needs is to get that short man off its menu.
whatever reason, he has become more senile-like personality.
since he took all the credits about that dirty lolita driver, schummi etc etc, i am sure he can take that (f1 becomes boring) as well.
the thing about boring is that theres no danger anymore to the sport. it is by nature that as the danger level increases, the excitement level also responds, and it will not be boring.
seriously, i love to watch some lollypopmen to accdently get in the way. or some nozzle get burnt. i think we should discard morality off f1, and get f1 drivers to show middle fingers to anyone they want.
considering KERS..more overtaking opportunity…
To be fair to all, F1 is all about dollars, whichever tean has the most expandable wallet wins the championship. Look at the newcomers, Lotus, Virgin, HRT..lack of testing time and lack of wind tunnel tesing, limited dollars.. so where are they…5-10 secs off the leading pace per lap. So however FIA were to tweak the rule book, its the same result..its still gonna be boring. Suggestion…all cars use the same Cosworth (:-O) engines and tyres – major cost cutting and can attract not only manufacturers but better tuners too, aerodynamic package can differ and emphasis on driver skill rather than aid. Mandated tyre and fuel stops windows at different times during the race to add excitement and more room for pit stop errors by mechanics…and maybe the power boost button…
another fail attemp from FIA…rather than made the race interesting and fast, they manage to make F1 slow, boring and predictable
I thought I was being too much when I thought last weekend's race was a bore. Glad to see there are more of you around. I was quick to lament the refueling ban when it was first announced and looks like I was right – less failure points = more boredom.
It would be too costly to redesign the car to allow fuel stops again this year. Save that for 2011. This year Bridgestone needs to make shitty durability with tyres. Soft compounds that last no more than 10 laps but offer very high amounts of grip, and hard compunds that last 30 laps but are 2-3 seconds off the pace. Then we'll see how often these bugger stop.
And it'll save cost too – Bridgestone needs to work less to produce tyre's that last ;)
Well, I don't think the refueling ban is to blame for the boring races. It's those aerodynamic parts that's killing the racing. The car's are so sensitive to aero changes that they can't run close to each other without losing grip. They should cut down on the aero appendages, make cars simpler like in the 70s and 80s. Maybe have full manual gearboxes rather than the semi auto flappy paddle gearbox so that drivers can make mistakes while gearchanging. With the exception of the carbon fiber chasis, make everything else out of normal material instead of spage age stuff. Only then can the excitement return to F1.
watch first lap and last lap..
..then highlights. thats it!
no more Montoya-style overtaking..zzz.
pretty boring after several laps…..
Agree with Boss Martin….. Bahrain's race was soooo darn MEMBOSANKAN!!!!!!! everyone in Formula One should do something good to repair the damage!!!!
i agree about this..yesterday race was really BORING!!!!
is there a spectator at Bahrain GP yesterday?..i couldnt find one!
Despite the 1st race excitement where we see how new teams fare n the return of Schumacher, i still feel modern F1 is not like the F1 of the previous days, esp during Senna n Schumacher era. At times it made me flipped channels or fall asleep in the coach.
Gone to the days where most F1 drivers are playboys, drinkers, smokers, womanizers but daredevils in the track. All u can see is small clean kids drinking ribena after the race.
F1 is getting international but on the same time its killing itself. Replacing european circuits with more tracks from India or middle east n it will kill off the sport.
I even found there more action in WTCC than F1. So for those think that motorsports is all about F1, u are very wrong.
So its all up to BRIDGESTONE to make worse tyres, right? How interesting ?
Indeed. Very boring!
Booooooorrrrrriiiiiinnnnnnnggggggggggg!!!!! zzzzzzzzzz!!!!
ya u right….boring….sleep halfway..
It was a bit boring without the refulling, as it gives the team more options on the fuel load and the best time to do a pit stop. Also there is no more dangers of pit fires, bungling mechanics, bungling drivers running over bungling mechanics, etc. In other words less drama.
However in this new format, the driver that can look after thier cars and tyres best would have an advantage during the closing stages.
I would love to see the cars with full fuel loads and slippery track, and see how the drivers try to contain the unpredictable beast!
luckily i didnt watch
Those touring cars racing/nascar/even those oval indycars are more entertaining to watch….reduce the width of the car/downforce/too fragile…hhmm,..lets real car racing instead of these low level airplanes but they have the WTCC already
The nature of F1 is such that teams are able to develop their own chassis and engines. Hence if a particular team does a fine job of designing the chassis and engine chances are the team will be able to pull away from the competitor.
Taking away re-fueling will not make the show more interesting. If you look at other racing series such as IndyCar, GP2, NASCAR, and to a certain extent Aussie V8 they have one thing in common, there is a single chassis constructor and a single works engine supplier. The only factor differentiating factor is the driver and his/her team. IMHO IndyCar is the most exciting forms of open-cockpit racing.
To make F1 interesting, why not get other teams to purchase the chassis and engine package from Ferrari F1 team? I personally doubt it will ever happen.
IMHO I didn't find the Bahrain GP boring, it was quite interesting. Perhaps its just me, I just love F1racing
Now F1 have change from F1 GP to F1 endurance…. like see who can survive until the end….. Hmmmm….
f1 sucks
F1 should bring back Turbo and up the BHP back to >1,000
watching 24 cows running in the field is more fun than last night…grren cow is lotus mooooo….
khimfoh said,
March 15, 2010 @ 5:14 pm
Taking away re-fueling will not make the show more interesting. If you look at other racing series such as IndyCar, GP2, NASCAR, and to a certain extent Aussie V8 they have one thing in common, there is a single chassis constructor and a single works engine supplier. The only factor differentiating factor is the driver and his/her team. IMHO IndyCar is the most exciting forms of open-cockpit racing.
————
In the old days F1 was exciting, even though teams have different chasis. The problem with F1, like I said before is it's too dependent on aerodynamics. Get rid of fancy aerodynamics and the cars could race. And it'll save money in the long haul too, since teams don't have to spend too much money developing the car. I mean, back in the 70s some teams would use the same model of car for a couple of years before replacing them!
And FYI, I've watched an IndyCar race on the road, and it's not that exciting. The only reason that people say it's exciting is because it's run mainly on ovals. Run them on a street circuit and all that excitement goes away.
Absolutely boring…scrap the new fuelling rule in order to add some tactical and strategic set up and gamesmanship; and can I also wish for the return of V10 engines.
yup..we need bridgestone to shorten the tyre life and make tyre compound choice more crucial….
then we can see some overtaking action when top leader wearing worn out soft compound tyre while guys behind approaching with durable hard compound tyre…
yes it's boring.
because ferrari in 1 and 2.
ferrari is always a boring thing.
nowdays drivers dont dare to overtake cos it'll be considered dangerous driving, etc. its not fun anymore. No more tailing n overtake cos car will lose aerodynamics.. SO its DAMN BORING!!!!!!!!!! unless mechanical o driver's errors, dont expect position changes :)
as boring as watching a flower growing!
Just make re-fueling possible again. I have never miss a live race from start to finish, but i needed smokes and i went out which i wouldn't do if this was back to normal
mcliars, when coming out with the next scandal?
Boring? Sure. Put away the ban on refueling, it's so stupid!
dead boring… it's like watching elephants running round the circuit. bring back refuelling and the fun will come back.
Might as well all of the team use Priuses & Insights hybrids to race if they insisted keeping the ban on refueling. That's not racing. That's eco driving.
Stopped watching F1 when Senna died. Downhill all the wayyyyyyyyyyyyyyy
I watched for an hour, then changed channel to watch badminton all england finals.. it was boring.. drama-less.. even the commentator doesn't really have anything to say..
The drivers conserve their tyres, their fuel, their engines, their brakes – even in qualifying. At no point is any car significantly lighter than another, or with significantly better tyres than another, so at no point is a driver allowed to attack. In fact, following a car too closely is detrimental to the tyres and engine etc, so after the first lap there will be no overtaking. The fastest race lap was a full 4 sec slower than qualifying, to give you an idea of just how slowly they were going. I felt that even the commentators were getting frustrated with how boring it was.
Somewhere I saw a comment that said that along with refuelling we need huge rear wings, huge rear tyres, turbos, etc. I completely agree. It's not a charity event or endurance, let the teams build the cars they want. Give them freedom. If McLaren can build a dual-boost V12 with KERS as well, let them. The only restrictions should be the very general dimensions (so that no one builds a car so wide that no one else can pass), a 600kg weight limit, and a speed limiter. And of course it should pass safety tests. That's it. We do want racing don't we?
boring + veryveryvery slow!!!!!!!!!!
I was quite boring. I slept twice in the program which was rare considering I was not sleepy. After the 1st pit stop, there was really nothing to watch. You guys might as well go mow the lawn or wash clothes or something and come back 1 hour later at the finish cause, if a car is reliable, it will be reliable throught the race, but if there are problems, chances are it will come at the later stages of the race like Vettel's car.
No refueling sucks as the car has to be elongated more to make more room for the fuel, and the cars are lasting longer which is bad. Its no more F1 where the fastest car wins. Its more like Le Mans now except for drivers rushing into the car. The most reliable car wins at the end of the day.
No one wants to pit change tyres as they will loose time and no one wants to pit with the safety car also. It only means that, if a safety car comes out, eveyone will hope to be on the track to gain position.
Another weird thing which I heard is a 55m gap in the pit stop. Can someone verify this? Its like the cars cannot leave the pit or something if there is a car 55m at the pit lane, which means Hamilton was lucky to get one place by random luck and Mercedes can do nothing at all. Imagine going to Monaco. Pit length is 27m, and they want to enforce a 55m rule, which seams that if you get stuck in the pit lane, might as well make some tea as you wiill be stuck there for quite some time as the circuit is short, the pit lane is short.
To make F1 better is to bring back refeuling and don't disclose to anyone else the fuel load. That way, people cannot predict the exact time a driver wants to pit but must rely on their sophisticate computers doing number crunching determining when the pits will happen.
Follow what Jeremy Clarkson once suggested. All drivers' salaries should be $10,000 only per annum, then add $1 million for every point they score. Then we'll see how the drivers' behaviour change drastically.
It's all environmentalists' fault. And communists. F1 today is more a sports for accountants than for petrolheads. Soon, petrolheads may have to become shut-ins as environmentalists will keep on demonising anything that is GENUINELY fun like F1 "RACING" (nope, I don't consider Bahrain GP 2010 a "race")
As per all others the race was dreadful. How many world champions were racing there? Four? – more than I can ever remember and 2 British plus the most successful ever in MS. This should have been the most exciting race ever.
Instead it was without any exaggeration the most boring for years. Just terrible. If there are more like this F1 will start to loose following.
Time for a complete rethink back to the 1990s excitement.
No, you can't have that. Remember Montoya, who practically takes everyone out, even his own team mate.
Villenueve said it best , in that all that needs to happen is to make Aerodynamics only 5% of what is needed for grip and then have the other 95% mechanical.
Doesnt matter what they do cause until they go back to the aerodynamics of 15 years ago we arnt going to have great races.
Maybe they should take a page from IndyCars and have the cars more the same as each other
first race was rubbish , Bahrain is a Crap venue for racing as are about half the circuits on the calender at the moment. Stop Building tracks that are more visually appealing than race appeal.
Stop leeting that german guy build every circuit
personally Bernie and FOTA are the reason F1 Sucks at the moment , im a HUGE fan but over the last few seasons have been following Nascar and Indycars with more and more interest , those are sports that are built around one thing ,Racing!!
Not politics , money and exotic locations, JUST RACING !!!
F1 get ya fricking act together and do it quickly as its pathetic
yes…f1 is getting boring with top teams winning again….seems the rules changes & point system is meant to make ferrari go to top again…sigh~…funny ferrari engine change has no penalty…hmm…wonder why?
when ferrari on the lead, no one dare to overtake them.
you will get penalty once you try to overtake!.
they (FIA) will gave you a reason 'Dangerous overtaking'. see???
that's why!
Better sit at a bus stop at the federal highway to watch the cars/buses/lorries/motorbikes fighting with each other, more fun I think ; )
For me, better watching Lee Chong Wei badminton game over Japanese Hetachi Tago, very good game rather than seeing super boring F1 with super boring new rules.
IIANM, teams are allowed to use 8 engines for the whole season. That's approx about 3 races per engine. Teams will only start penalised when they use the 9th engine. That should explain why Ferrari is not penalised. Yet.
But they're definitely closer to getting penalised compared to other teams…
what a shame that the schuminator returned to a F1 season that appears to be nothing more than a high speed procession and mileage contest. you're right, paul. Bahrain was boring! Wonder if the FIA 'bright sparks' have any other bright ideas to top of this latest disaster.
cancelling my plans to watch the race in Sepang this year….
and saving a few cents worth of electricity for not switching on the TV,lights,fan etc etc…hahahha
Slept too after lap 5/6! Maybe they should introduce points for overtaking :-P
Apart from MS, Lotus & other new teams, it's a boring race indeed.
the most boring competition in the world and even BMW had pulls out of it,meanwhile,our Team f1 malaysia,just newly joins and suck so much of rakyat money on it!!!
well done 1malaysia f1 team!!
they changed the car's spec, to encourage overtake.. but then said no more refueling. at the end, driver were more likely drive slower to save more fuel n finish the race rather than overtake.. haih..
singh said,
March 15, 2010 @ 5:58 pm
nowdays drivers dont dare to overtake cos it’ll be considered dangerous driving, etc. its not fun anymore. No more tailing n overtake cos car will lose aerodynamics.. SO its DAMN BORING!!!!!!!!!! unless mechanical o driver’s errors, dont expect position changes
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Make the car tougher, its too fragile which causes the driver to be too careful & not taking risk in overtaking. Afraid of clipping & damaging the wings/aerodynamic…..Suggest, just scrap this low flying airplane and use real cars instead (hatchback/sedan) which can withstand minor scrapping/collison…manufacturer will gain ie "Win on Sunday, sells on Monday"!!
Same old same old. Seems the rulemakers STILL don't know how to define the core values of F1. Been this way as far as I can remember. Same exact cries back in the early 90s. All these changes are knee-jerk reactions in response to issues cropping up rather than actually TAKING the series towards a clear direction.
What's worse, they seem to be so lost that they're attempting to copy the values of other series out there.. even A1GP.
If the issue is how to make the racing closer and exciting, really all they have to do is look at what other series in other parts of the world are doing.
Of course, F1 is supposed to be the pinnacle of the sport and race/automotive technologies but even that they cannot get right and in fact F1 has been very LOUSY in upholding that value as far as I can remember (last 20 years or so). There is NOTHING new in terms of technology in F1. No innovation. There is more innovative technology in a top notch luxury sedan than in an F1 car. F1 technologies are just incremental refinements and evolutions of old thinking.
Even Formula Palmer Audi, F2, A1GP had current direct injection engines which F1 do not have. If you look at the list of technologies of F1 and compare it to what the auto industry is introducing in their roadcars, you'd be forgiven to think that F1 is at least 15-20 years behind in terms of tech.
Someone in FOM/FIA need to make up an have an epiphany and that sit down and say, "Right, lets define what F1 is, what is F1 all about, what does it stand for, what are the core defining values" What is the Vision and Mission.
From there all rule change decisions and other decisions are made only to serve the ultimate purpose.
I find it BIZARRE that F1 personalities are now 'discovering' that the race was boring, AFTER the Bahrain race.
What did they expect to get with no refuel and tyre conservation?? especially in this era when the cars cannot follow each other closely?? *DUH!*
Fans saw it coming but F1 management did not??? Maybe the fans should run the show??
Of course F1 is boring… its nothing special.. just wanna to keep the prestige of the 'sport?!' only
You want to see the thrill of motorsports…just wait for the motogp. It will comming soon !!!. F1 is all about glamour and money…that's all.
stop watching F1.
watch motoGP.
that's real racing!
The new rules – boring race