Half way point in the F1 season, thoughts so far?

I've enjoyed this season at times, and there has been some really fun races albeit not for reasons that many purists can accept. However, I've watched less of F1 this year than in recent years. Part of that was due to going to watch the Monaco grand prix in person, and witness just how slow the cars were being driven (my summary on the race - http://forums.overclockers.co.uk/showpost.php?p=24352065&postcount=850 ). I started watching this weekend, had to go out, and didn't bother to carry on watching the race later one once I knew the result.

sunama said:
RBR/Vettel are ruining the show, for non-RBR/Vettel fans.
It's not RBR's fault, though.

The FIA, as they did when MSc was winning everything, need to bring in rules/regs which prevent RBR from dominating.
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I agree and disagree. Red Bull are ruining the show, but I agree it isn't their fault - they're doing their job perfectly.

But I don't believe the FIA needs to take steps to curb their dominance. I believe instead that they should stick to the simple principle of promoting the fastest, most exciting single seat racing experience there is, empowering the development of technology that can be understood and ultimately used by the viewer (even if that takes a decade to filter through).

Today's aero battle has, for me, gone too far. It is fantastic but too irrelevant - my road car has energy recovery, dual clutch semi automatic, ABS etc etc but it will never have exhaust blowing downforce and an intricate aero system from front to middle to rear. If the aero development means that my wing mirrors don't generate wind noise at 90 mph then that's fantastic. But there are limits.

Much as I love the scream of the V8s I do like the move to the V6 turbo - it is more relevant and can be faster with more KERS and less weight. There are other motorsports to follow if you want to see 250 mph in a straight line but I want to see 150 mph side by side / end to end round corners - racing.

The 2014 regs have the potential to take steps towards delivering what I'd like to see (it can't all happen in one season), and by delivering regular yet relevant change then I hope that all teams will have a greater chance to compete through innovation. I've no problem seeing a better driver struggle for a year against a team that developed smarter, better technology.

Sadly I think that this season sums up what F1 has slowly been shaped into - an increasingly small niche of richer teams with smaller, more transient teams picking around the edges with less opportunity to take the field by storm and win the day. The Brawn will probably be the last example of that, although I'm hopeful that someone will step up for 2014. At the moment though, there are few opportunities and reason for anyone to join the F1 circus with any genuine aspiration of winning a world championship, even within a few years.

I still love it though - I'm intoxicated and addicted! My interest in F1 may well wane but it would take a significant further decline before I lost interest completely. I suspect Bernie knows this, but he also knows that other elements of the target audience will not be so patient.
 
Remember, braun inherited the car made by Honda which was designed over a whole season and then some
It wasn't really an under dog team at all

I still wish the budget cap came in at a level half way between bottom and top spend

When it goes 100% to sky is when I'll give it up personally. Seeing as that will happen is probably a good job if I gradually loose interest rather than having it pulled away
 
al4x said:
Remember, braun inherited the car made by Honda which was designed over a whole season and then some
It wasn't really an under dog team at all
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I didn't say that they were an underdog, more that they were able to achieve what they did even though they were undeniably not a top team.

At the start of this year there was little realistic prospect of equivalent teams - let's say Sauber, Force India and Williams, making the same steps forward, despite their success in the previous season.

When you create an environment where success is defined by how close you finish to third or fourth place, the interest dies. No matter what the struggle is between the top two or three teams.
 
al4x said:
Remember, braun inherited the car made by Honda which was designed over a whole season and then some
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BMW did the same and they already were a close-to top team (indeed they Kubica may well have won the title if BMW had continued to develop the 2008 car).

BMW went from 4th and 6th in 2008 to 13th and 14th in 2009.

Spending time designing the car is only good if you've got some solid ideas you want to implement (such as Brawn's diffuser). BMW's only real idea initially seemed to be creating an electromagnetic field around their car (and mechanics). :p
 
I think so far this season has been dominated by tyres which while has made passing possible and races more ‘interesting’ it is completely false and I don’t like it.

With respect to the drivers though, RBR have the fastest car again and in the hands of Vettel. As it stands I do think Vettel is going to win again as no one is challenging him every weekend. When Vettel gets beaten by Alonso, Kimi, Hamilton, Rosberg it is for the a weekend here or there and when one of them wins Vettel tend to finish ahead of his other rivals and so extends his championship lead in small increments.

In saying that, I don’t know what to make of Hungary, in one of the hottest races so far this year Mercedes didn’t have the tyre degradation problems they have had in previous races. If this means they have sorted the problem then I could see Hamilton bringing himself back into contention this season however the fact even the team were surprised about the tyres lasting suggest it was luck and they haven’t fixed the underlying problem.
 
Hard as a Ferrari fan to watch how far they are behind the front runners. Alonso deserves a much better car than he has had in the last few years.

Anyway hats off to red bull they are doing their job perfectly. Fantastic pace and an annoyingly good driver at the wheel, it's vettel's championship to lose.
 
i think this is vettels championship and is a race for second.

i hope(obviously) that hamiltons win is a turning point for the car/tire issues and they have atleast started to sort it out.

the mecedes (in hamiltons hands atleast) is the fastest over 1 lap so if they can carry that over to sunday he is in a strong position.

alonso is obviously a top driver but the car is not there and i think he is going to finish 4th.

think it will be

vettel
hamilton
kimi
alonso


i would love to see a hamilton comeback and to win it at brazil again, he only needs to outscore vettel by 6 points per race so he just needs to win the remainder, easy :p
 
It's Vettel's championship without a doubt. Even when the race doesn't pan out the way he would like, he almost always scores very good points. Pretty much the only way he can be stopped is if he has a run of DNF through mechanical failure which is unlikely at best.

That said I can see Hamilton going on a bit of a run and getting 3 or more victories in the second half of the season.. I don't think it will be enough however.
 
I'm frustrated with F1 this year, all the good stuff has come from things being allowed to happen and every other race it seems the FIA is out to stamp out anything actually happening.

The tyres were fine at the start of the year, everyone had the level playing field and everyone got a chance to show off their car properly. Several months of complaining like children has got half the teams what they wanted and ruined it for me.

Same thing happened with the pit stop fiasco, FIA has been treating incidents happening as a bad thing and that the best thing to do is take them out instead of addressing the reasons why they are in this situation. I would have just limited the people working on the car to slow the pit stops down, also would have forced the teams to run the tyres within their recommended limits not make them stronger but hey what does a fan know about racing.

As for the title, its Vettels, one day his luck with properly run out, hopefully next year with someone better in the second Red Bull (well a bigger personality) though I assume Ricciardo will get the seat which will be nice but not what F1 needs to push Vettel. I want Kimi to get a couple of wins and take it to the wire but the quicker this season is over and done with the better so we can get onto a whole new set of car designs and hopefully getaway from this mental over reliance on aero that has killed the sport a bit.

Also so depressed at the financial difficulties of about half the teams on the grid, surely everyone can see if Sauber fell apart and the 2 naff teams off the back they'll probably loose another (Williams or FI) and everyone will be running 3 cars/nothing at all, making the racing quite a bit worse. I really don't think the sport can survive one 6/7 teams just from lack of interest. (but that's just an annoyed fear that Bernie and the FIA aren't really thinking about anyone other than them selves)
 
rubberduck said:
Pretty much the only way he can be stopped is if he has a run of DNF through mechanical failure which is unlikely at best.

That said I can see Hamilton going on a bit of a run and getting 3 or more victories in the second half of the season.. I don't think it will be enough however.
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Hit the nail on the head there. Hamilton (or whoever) would need to win several if not most of the remaining races and even then Vettel is likely to finish in 2nd or 3rd in those cases, so the points gained on him is tiny each time.
 
If Vettel has two no points races in which Hamilton wins them, then it's on like Donkey Kong. Big ask I know. Ain't math fun ? :D
 
Only just half way through the season and people have already started wishing DNFs on Vettel.

What would Sparky say! :p
 
A sport with 500 million viewers cannot generate enough sponsorship interest to field more than 8 competitive cars? Asinine. Though perhaps it is fitting that the teams relying solely on pay drivers have sunken into the abyss...
 
Mercedes have made a vast improvement. With Hamilton in the car , it could be considered the best combination for outright pace.

Mclaren have unfortunately lost it completely this season. They are nowhere pace wise and dont even have a top of the line driver anymore.

The tyres are still irksome though. It is too random as to which car is better on its tyres each race.
 
Think we need another race or two to say that. One race making good with the tyres, is very promising especially with that wheel picture.
 
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