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Rate France!

1 Completely forgettable
No votes
0%
2 A snore-fest, dull, no action
No votes
0%
3 Boring, uneventful, only livened by mistakes.
No votes
0%
4 A procession at the front
1
17%
5 Some good battles
3
50%
6 A memorable race
1
17%
7 Competitive racing - hard fought, strategic
1
17%
8 Exciting - a dramatic finish or an upset
No votes
0%
9 Could be the best race of the season
No votes
0%
10 One for the Ages!
No votes
0%
User avatar
By overboost
#444372
How was the race in the red, white and blue parking lot in the south of France?
#444375
The Merc sure runs great on those special 'Merc tires'. Makes for less than inspiring racing.

Why can't we see the Merc's struggling a bit with their chassis issues? Ho-hum race.

A 5 out of 10 for me.
Last edited by overboost on 27 Jun 18, 19:46, edited 1 time in total.
User avatar
By robains
#444376
Terrible track, France can do better than that. Having raced real world myself, I can assure the FIA that NOT having sandtraps and having HUGE paved runoff areas means I/we drivers are going step up the aggression because we know their is an "escape " option.

So armed with a false mentality that we (drivers) can "escape" (aka paved runoff) we in turn get too aggressive and run out of talent and make stupid moves we would NOT ordinarily make. Result, crashes, lot of crashes ... it was inevitable and I'm certain the FIA know that because they probably feel that adds "drama" and hence more viewer interest.

Well FIA, viewers are NOT that stupid ... viewers are no longer looking for crash drama ... viewers are looking for driver talents not their inevitable mistakes from a carefully constructed track design to entice drivers into mistakes. FIA is taking of advantage of drivers knowing they aren't the sharpest tools in the shed ... and it's all about track design.

Viewers deserve better than this, France deserves better than this ... F1 TV ratings are dropping from 2008 at 600 million to 352 million in 2017 and the 2018 numbers are even worse. In a matter of 10 years F1 has lost almost 50% of it's audience (real numbers of F1 not those "adjusted" numbers the FIA reports).

Image

Hint, track design is a big part of the the many problems with F1.

Rob
#444378
You can see the accelerated drop in loss of viewership from 2013 forward. This is no doubt due to the terrible racing due to racing on parking lots, aka France, and to the lack of competition due to the engine rules and the resulting Mercedes engine dominance.
User avatar
By sagi58
#444382
Unfortunately, I didn't watch this weekend, so count me "dna"!

Thanks for your perspective, robains and for that graphic!

So... from that one would be able to interpret that, contrary to "popular" belief,
F1 has been losing fans since a specific driver, who's had more than one advantage
bestowed upon him, via "fortuitous" circumstances has been on the scene?
Some would call that serendipity... others FAN-atically call it "talent"... :yawn:

Mind you, any Tifosi worth their salt, would suggest that we've been losing fans
because of new "regulations" which have done little else than clip Ferrari's wings...
pardon the pun!! :thumbup:
User avatar
By robains
#444386
FIA/F1 need to adjust their car engine/design regulations. I'm very pro "environment" but auto racing has such a tiny tiny tiny impact on our environment relative to daily use items (cars, trucks, planes, coal burning, etc.), but remove most of the regulations about car design and specify only "safety" items and min and max weight, standard fuel type, and continue to provide specific wheel options/size. Part of the draw to F1 in the "golden years" was what teams came up with in car design, engine design, etc. Red Bull claimed they could build a car that is 21 seconds a lap faster than current F1 cars if they were allowed to ... provided it's "safe" ... why not? I'd be extremely more interested in watching F1 if they all didn't look the same, look ugly, and was some real differences between teams. As far as money/funding, this would actually give smaller teams more hope with so many variables (fewer restrictions) ... as it stands now, the high restrictions on design just make it that much more expensive to come up with a competitive car.

Before you dismiss my opinion, I do have some real world racing experience:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M07RqpdACTE

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hfBfehoRDok

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4G29wERFb9E

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wI50z3YZV40

Cheers, Rob.
#444387
I gave it a 5, it was a better than expected race, still not great, but we can only go up from Canada, right?

Rob, I wholly agree with you, F1 has been regulated to death over the years. I have not gotten excited about an F1 race in years, I remember back in the late 90s / early 2000's, I used to get up early / stay up late to watch races live, anticipating the red lights going out. Now, I rarely watch a race live, sometimes, I will only watch the 30-minute highlights, F1 has massively gone down the wrong road, and unlike, Kimi, it seems FOM/FIA have no clue of what they're doing.
User avatar
By robains
#444391
Agree, I too used to get up early in the 80's (I'm an old fart now) and watch F1, the Prost/Senna battles and more ... I stayed glued to the TV ... I did have a VCR so recording it was an option which I did anyway ... but these days it's always DVR recording, never live, don't even watch the Pre-shows anymore nor practice, heck sometimes I will not even watch qualification (recorded or otherwise). I've shifted my race watching over to MotoGP (Moto2/Moto3) ... why? Because just about anyone could win and it's such a rider skill sport that involves 220 mph, knee and elbows dragging to hold the bike up and riders often crash out while leading or last few laps there will be lots of passing ... it's just so unpredictable, that's what I love about MotoGP.
User avatar
By sagi58
#444403
FIA/F1 need to adjust their car engine/design regulations...
As far as money/funding, this would actually give smaller teams more hope with so many variables (fewer restrictions) ... as it stands now, the high restrictions on design just make it that much more expensive to come up with a competitive car...


Agreed! Obviously, "some" rules need to be in place; but, why shouldn't teams develop at will?
And, while we're at it, why shouldn't teams have the opportunity to do in-season testing?
It would make the season a helluva lot less predictable, that's for sure!
User avatar
By sagi58
#444404
...it seems FOM/FIA have no clue of what they're doing.


At the risk of being facetious, can we not thank them for trying to "level" the playing field by writing rules to prohibit in-season testing, to establish budgets? Also, we can thank Mercedes getting involved to "help" write turbo engine rules (whilst developing their own engine) and then suggesting a token system be put in place to restrict teams.

NO one is so totally altruistic that their input is fair, equitable or unbiased.
#444407
Sagi, if the FIA had an actual solid strategy, I would agree with you, however, the FIA/FOM have has used the scattergun method of rulemaking. The rules are constantly changing, not allowing the teams to build on those rules to perform better over time. When a team finally gets to grips with the new rules, yet another set of rules are implemented and those teams start over. I honestly feel that F1 has been massively overregulated in recent years.
User avatar
By sagi58
#444429
I was being very sarcastic... of course, I forgot the right smiley...

Having said that, I do agree with you moa, we've seen a sanitized form of racing
because of the rules that supposedly were written to help all teams; but, being
written by one team, they're the only one that benefitted , in the end...

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