These aren't sporting events anymore. Its an exhibition of one team always winning. That's not good for the sport. Hamilton and Botas aren't even trying hard. They just cruise around while their bosses tell them which order they want them to finish under. If the NY Yankees ran away from all the other teams every year its great for Yankee fans but pretty boring for the rest of us. Competition improves the breed. Competition is not one team always winning. That's the opposite of competition. I'm not saying Mercedes has to lose to have a good season. I'm saying it has to compete to win instead of it being automatic.
Yankees did for a long time in the 40s and 50s or thereabouts. Old time Yankee fans look upon those days with great affection. Others, as you said, not so much! If the shoe were on the other foot, and Ferrari was winning by walk over week after week, many here would proclaim this to be the Golden Age of F1! T
Competition will come when other teams start fighting back to challenge Mercedes. It won't come from handicaping Mercedes because they are the best team (at the moment). Beside, apart the leaders, there is plenty of action to watch in the field for the discerning spectators. Watching excellence in sport is never boring to me, even when the result is predictible. I never tire watching an athlete repeating success after success, in athleticism, tennis, or any other sport.
But F1 not always has been cyclical: back in the day it was not so common that someone won two years in a row. And in the last 20 seasons, only 4 teams have won: Ferrari, Renault (only twice), Red Bull and Mercedes (I'm not counting Brawn because everybody knows they cheated, but that's another story). About the Mercedes dominance, I don't want that they get handicapped. When Ferrari got pissed with tyre and testing regulations to stop them I didn't like it, but I accepted it as part of the game. But at least FIA shouldn't help Mercedes: DAS is the latest example. They already are doing fine, so I don't know why FIA endorsed a "liberal" interpretation of the rules that benefits them.
Things were very different then. Contemporary F1 is more regulated, sanitised, safe, hi-tech and budget driven than it ever was. When a team reaches some dominance, it stays at the top for a while.
All season have critics. This is nothing. This is good. We have F1. The series made the effort to bring racing. Enough of the critical input. What do you want. NO F1?? Dont watch. You have the control in your hands. Use it.
I voted “yes.” Worst, most boring, disappointing season in the, good lord, @>60 years that I’ve been following it. Just “having” it isn’t nearly enough.
You have options. I know the season is compromised. Im happy we have it. It was never going to be perfect at all.Ferrari made a mess of the engine themselves. Call Binotto lol
Although I don’t necessarily agree with your particular fix, you are correct that there are many simple ones. But in this age simplicity seems to have lost its cachet. Complexity and relevance are the watchwords.
Honestly, my complaints aren’t Ferrari-centric. If they can’t keep pace they deserve to suffer for it. If Racing Point succeeds by perhaps winking at the regulations a bit and get away with it for awhile, ok. My real issue is with Liberty’s and FIA’s mismanagement of the sport, mostly within the technical and sporting regulations. I think their priorities are misaligned and I think they are astonishingly ignorant of what most racing fans want to see. In fact, I don’t believe they feel any responsibility to the fans at all....and sadly I don’t see any hope of that changing. But all of this is the subject of another thread, but it is what has made this year the worst, not the virus, at least in my opinion.
SIMPLE Free up the teams. Deregulate. Give them more freedom to try and test new ideas. Let the engineers be more creative. The way it is now is you are almost locked in for the entire season.
So when I read the title ... I thought of it in terms of Crappiest F-1 season - not just for Ferrari.... so here is my take. worst F-1 Season 1981. FOCA - FISA war, several races canceled, many teams not able to find sponsorship, and several races held that were not sanctioned by the FIA... real risk of F-1 just collapsing and the World Grand Prix corp taking over. Ferrari and Renault hung in there and in the end Enzo was the honest broker... but for a while it looked like simply no F-1 at all. as for Ferrari - worst season? 1973 BY Far. they went through tons of drivers, cars were uber uncompetitive, Enzo was ill, Fogherie was out then back and almost out again. Ferrari contracted chassis to John Thompson in the UK for a new car.. was a failure engines broke all the time, Aurturo Mezerio was the only driver for a while .. they were down to one Car... That is a crappy season. before that I'd say 1962 and 1968-9 were also pretty bad... and then 1992 so if you follow Ferrari long enough you'll see that it more usual that they lose vs. win. the Schumacher era was so fantastic because it was UNLIKE Ferrari of the past... but everything must stop at some point.
Err, but each time a team does something to just get close enough to Mercedes, Mercedes sends their dogs (FIA) to investigate and subsequently get anything that Mercedes hasn't perfected yet, banned. Anything Mercedes put on their car is somehow legal. Smoky engines for Ferrari? Illegal. Smoky engines for Mercedes? Legal. Movable suspension for Mercedes? Legal. Lol I remember back in the beginning of the 2010s when Red Bull started doing alright the FIA just made up rules on the spot to try and handicap Red Bull. Now it's the opposite...anyone challenges Mercedes, they get another parachute attached to their car...and Mercedes just does as they want.
How does SF build a less powerful engine over last year ...with a few extra months for development.? Why can’t they use last year’s more powerful engine.? I remember the years when Schumi and SF couldn’t be beat. Unlike today, l loved it.
Close to 300 million people have chosen to opt out since Todt was put in charge. No improvement in the sport for the distant future means this won't stop. FIA killed WRC and WEC. F1 is next.
Look, guys, we all knew that this season was going to be crappy, but the small teams needed to do some races to get their cash, so better a crappy season that no season at all. F1 have survived many crappy seasons but maybe it wouldn´t survive with 3 or 4 teams less. Maybe the biggest problem now is the way they´ve managed the token system and that. It means that we´re not going to have a crappy season but two. To be fair, I think the Todt era was good for endurance racing. It´s not that now it´s good, but not so long ago it was virtually nonexistant. For F1 and rallyes.. well, let´s say that he didn´t manage to revert the decline that already existed beforte him.
