TBK-Light.com

Sounds like you want late-90s CART. This is fine with me

I wish BOSS GP had a full grid of F1 rejects and old F1 drivers (Maldonado, Grosjean, Yuji Ide etc.). That would be superb to watch. At the moment it's more a car show than real racing series.

Funny thing is, no matter the context, as soon as you make a reference to the past it is felt needed to make the extreme contrary case. Why can't we have good racing and cool cars? There's none. I put Formula 1 of today in the same category of entertainment like say, Marvel movies. It's all about revenue, for the worse, and F1 will sell it soul to fit its needs the best and screw fans over for generations to come. They get rid of good tracks, good cars but drivers are still lining up dreaming to have their name next to Senna, Prost, Hill, Schumacher, Clark, Lauda, Alonso. Not that drivers are so important nowadays, they are yet another tool. Another dude. To change a setting on the steering wheel because they are not allowed to from the pits. I'm just short of saying it's a shitty racing series, but I don't want to dishonor McLaren, Ferrari, Mercedes, Renault and supposedly Alfa Romeo sticking with it. What's left of F1 should not be compared to the F1 we used to know. This is a whole new mess of its own.

Just tear it down and build something new that fits today's world. Re-brand it to E1, Supertech1 or Formula Super Tech. Formula e-iAppleSmartCar#effectiveengineverygreen. I'm constantly disappointed seeing F1 races today because I was expecting something else.

except Marvel actually produced some quality.

You should consider dialling back on the 'edgy' posts because it doesn't really work.

The driver as a 'tool' is literally no different to how Williams slotted drivers into the FW14B and FW15 with just enough room for elbows and knuckles and not quite enough room for a whole Damon Hill. They did a little more than today's drivers in terms of cockpit effort, but you can bet Adrian Newey would have used even more technology had it been available at the time. If today's version of the sport was all about entertainment, there would be no chance of letting one team completely dominate, and yet Mercedes continues to do so at the expense of the supposed 'product'.

F1 as a money-making exercise was not a new idea when Liberty took over, so I have to assume you're too young to remember Bernie extorting circuits and governments for the privilege of holding a grand prix. They started the move towards super-rich-ignore-the-human-rights GPs almost 20 years ago now!

I swear, the rose-tinted "F1 was better in this specific period" fan complaint is almost worse than the actual racing. Every generation of fan insists that the first few seasons they watched are the best, completely subjectively. There are even people now claiming that early-00s F1 was 'the best', like they didn't sit through years of Ferrari dominance and no overtaking. Even better are the ones insisting that the best-sounding engines were the V8s...

It seems that F1 is like Star Trek series and Star Wars movies - the one you grew up with is the best, and everyone else saying exactly the same thing about a different period is almost criminally wrong.

at least F1 and marvel movies have something in common. You know what's going to happen in the end

_________________
Motorsports trend for 2024: everything is a bad taste joke now

You will like this video. Check at 4:40, the "Lifespan Retrieval Curve", which explains why the best sports/music/food/everything in our lives is what happens at the reminiscent bump of our lives.

As for periods we didn't live through, it just means we read/watched a concentrated recollection that embellishes themand only keeps the best parts.

This stuff is predictable, studied, and it will remain the same as long as humans exist. There are kids currently watching the Hamilton/Mercedes years while in the middle of that bump, they will be fond of this period, and there will be nothing us future old farts can do to prevent it. Little shits

If we are to narrow down how and why we think F1 should be in a certain way, not that it matters because we have no relevance, but because this is a internet forum. Wouldn't it be nice for a change in 2020 the year of smartphones, digital people, Amazon, incredible access to information, in this time of age when every step and development in tech are advanced further and further. We have e-bikes, e-kick boards or whatever they are called. We got boxy/sharp futuristic exciting design on everything. We have everything, and it's bland. Because it really is. Lacks personality and soul. It's sterile. Mostly made hastily and cheap. Like a white Ikea kitchen with shiny counters and drawers everywhere. Isn't that really boring? Is that really what people want if they get to choose?

I remember a furious Schumacher chasing down Coulthard in the pits at Spa 1998, Hakkinen crying behind the bushes at Monza and Luca Badoer heartbroken when his Minardi broke down running in the points at Nurburgring. It was real cars, real tracks and real emotions. Genuine. I am knowledgeable enough to know there is no such thing as right and wrong in this and that every opinion is based on it's experiences. If anyone could have a bit of that, today, I don't think anyone would want it any other way.

I don't buy that at all. I hate nearly all music that was playing on the radio when I was young (I prefer older music). Same goes for movies. In fact, majority of sports/music/food/everything sucked when we were young. We are not nostalgic about crap for a reason. However, every time period has its own thebeatles/thesopranos, that is, products of cultures that are objectively high quality. They will always remain popular, not from nostalgic reasons, but because they were just so good.

So, if I say F1 was better in the late 1990s, I'm not being nostalgic provided that I can support my claim with solid arguments. If I can objectively show that some rules and things have made F1 less exciting, less spectacular and more predictable, it is wrong to assume I want them fixed for nostalgic reasons. Thing that are subjective and trivial, like old F1 theme music or overlay graphics, are those you can be nostalgic about.

So, while I agree kids watching F1 today will create some nostalgic feelings for current F1, I doubt they will cherish Hamilton's domination or crappy races on crappy circuits just like we don't cherish Schumi's domination or races like Hungarian GP 2004 where nothing happened. And I think kids born in 2030 will still find V10 engines awesome, because...they are.

I think the truth lies somewhere between these two, tbh. There are absolutely cultural touchstones that don't age and continue to resonate. There are also things we don't feel nostalgic about from our younger lives because they haven't reached that particular moment - I was born in the 80s and hated all 80s music, without exception, until about 2 years ago. Last month I became a Bangles fanboy*, simply because our tastes evolve

I think the part about supporting your claim is pretty much spot on. So many people go on about how $previousEra was objectively better, but it rarely holds up. The late 90s were pretty good in some ways, but I don't think anybody could argue that the racing was actually that exciting overall.

We now have younger adults arguing that the Star Wars sequel trilogy is better than the original. I definitely have some nostalgia about them as they were 'my' Star Wars films, but... come on, the sand thing? The tragedy of Darth Plagieus???

* They are the most 60s 80s band and I will fight you all over them

I've noticed a lot of people on social media claiming that the sport was better in the early 2000s. I really don't understand this. Other than a feeling of nostalgia, the races from that era were genuinely quite poor. Little to no overtaking, and one team often dominating. You can make an argument that DRS has made overtaking too easy, and that overtakes in the 2000s were more special, but the races weren't that much better, if at all.

I started watching F1 in 1992, and I do feel that the 90s were more exciting (this could just be my own personal bias and nostalgic happy memories), but there were still seasons of one team dominance back then (92, 93, 96), and there were still dull races.

I'd actually argue that one of the most exciting eras was around the early 2010s. 6 different teams winning in 2012. Vettel may have dominated the championships, but he had a good fight from his team mate and the opposition teams.

What we have now isn't actually that bad. Behind Mercedes, it is crazily competitive. If we could just lose the Mercedes dominance and allow the cars to follow each other more closely (2022 rules may help), it could actually be the most competitive F1 has ever been. Also, if Hamilton wasn't on top form, we might have a Max vs Bottas/Mercedes number 2 battle for the championship.

For all the criticism, we must still love the sport enough to tune in every week, even if it can disappoint regularly.

Oh, and finally, unreliability and driver errors are something that did add an extra element of drama. Even with a big lead, nothing was certain.

I couldn't work out if you're 17 or 70, but I think the bigger problem is that you keep asserting your opinions as facts. Things aren't bland and sterile just because you don't care much about them.

Hakkinen and Badoer crying were absolutely emotional moment, but more than Massa in Brazil 2008 or Norris in Abu Dhabi? I'm not sure. Is Schumacher chasing after DC more noteworthy than Max vs Ocon? Are artificially narrow cars with grooved tyres more 'real' than the current monsters?

I'm with you on 99% of this. I think 1995 was particularly fun because so many drivers were caught out by the massive downforce cuts and the resulting twitchy cars. Schumacher vs Hill and then Schumacher vs Hakkinen was also more entertaining (I think) than Hamilton or Vettel dominating their teams. The middle of the V8 era was also pretty exciting and less predictable (behind the Red Bulls)...

Halfway to 70 and already despise this world opinions shouldn't be taken for facts. But I have reasons for mine as do you for yours.

That is the biggest issue IMHO. The cars are bulletproof. Tracks allow mistakes that would ruin a race back in the days or at least set you back a lot.

Mercedes can win every race next year with a 1-2 and lap the entire field and I will still claim the McLaren 1988 feat was a bigger accomplishment because the cars back then weren't reliable and the tracks didnt allow slight mistakes.

Sadly we'll never get unreliable cars ever again because every manufacturer would walk out if asked to make the engine to break down more easily.
At best we could ban most telemetry so its back to what the driver feels and what the team can see and hear on the tv or when they are on the pit straight.


The uncertainty is what drew me back in the day. Hearing the commentator noticing a car sounded different on the start/finish straight. Cars spinning and getting stuck in the gravel. etc etc
Thats also what entertained me during this years indy500. It wasnt constant passes and battles. It was knowing that any moment someone could make a mistake and end up in the wall or an engine failing.

I agree with this, 1994 was a watershed moment for the sport but it also meant every circuit threw in chicanes wherever they could, regardless of overtaking chances or not, and the FIA started slowing the cars down any way they could regardless if that meant they could follow each other or not.

To that end, one of the worst rule changes in the sport (aside for the 2017 downforce increase) was the 1998 rule set.
Removing grip from the tyres and making the cars narrow did little in the way of slowing the cars down but it meant the cars were harder to drive on the limit due to the grooves and the dirty air was increased.
The mechanical grip/aero grip balance suddenly swung in Aero's favour and while we got a few good championships out of it while the teams figured this out (or more accurately, while Ferrari were putting their pieces together), the racing itself became poorer and poorer.
It was a double whammy with chicane laden tracks ruining any flow to them in the name of slowing the cars down, and the cars becoming even more aero dependant than before.
Then, to add to this they decided to make traction control legal instead of working out a way to police it, and you have some of the dullest racing in history.
Everything was basically running to the program of a fuel window in that era, unless there was a random SC that threw the calculations out or the occasional wet race.

This is why I was relieved to see slicks return for 2009 and they had a big if underrated part to play in why the overtaking stats went up from then onwards. Also the huge amount of downforce they dragged off the cars too, but slicks played their part, no doubt

2009-2016 will probably be my favourite era of the sport for quality of racing. (It helped that we finally threw out the tabloid-ish ITV for more in-depth BBC coverage at that point too)
Yet even back then people bitched and moaned that this "wasn't F1" and we needed to get back to fuel strategy/pit stop-less races/ITV/Ferrari winning based on their own biases and perspectives of what the sport should be.

We'll never learn.

_________________
RIP Birmingham Wheels: here's some of the crash videos I recorded when it was there:

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCIaKIE ... 5t9d5PvoHA

Twitter:

http://www.twitter.com/paulhadsley

Again, if people don't specify what made the sport so special in the early 2000s, it may appear like they are just being nostalgic. But when allowed to explain, they might point out that while the quality of racing was poor or the number of overtakes was lower than today, there were other aspects that made F1 back then more interesting than today. Let it be the engines, lack of DRS, punishing circuits, unreliability, qualifying format, bigger grid size, Williams winning, or whatever. It all depends on how much weight you give to different things. For instance, some people don't care about Free Practice sessions, but if they drop Friday like they're planning, I will certainly be saying how it used to better when Friday had track action.

I don't think there has been any perfect era in F1. There's always pros and cons.
If you could take the pros of 1990-2010s and drop the cons of 2020s, then it might be close to perfect.

I see your "I miss Friday practice" and raise you "I miss Friday qualifying"

I hold out some hope, probably naively, that the budget cap will bring some unreliability back into the sport, at least when the stricter budget caps come in and engine freeze ends in a few years. When it comes to F1 patience is a virtue...

_________________

Parking lot circuits, heavy aero, complicated engines, DRS, endless domination, high reliability or whatever is the greatest issue with nowadays F1, what I dislike the most is the fact that the series is in a political and technical state that disallows the chance for new entries to try the sport.

Whatever the regulations are, F1 needs be economically viable for new teams to try to enter races. Stop the damn Ivy league feel of it. Try friday pre-qualifying and 30-entries GP. Let us have cinderella stories with small teams getting into a race and reaching the midfield in the odd race. Let us have laughable attempts at an F1 team. Let us have unexpected drivers giving it all to get a laptime (which should come with a change in superlicense regulations).

If someone can get an F1 chassis within regulations, a working engine and can buy enough tyre sets to enter a race, let them. I want to see several drivers at the circuits, trying to buy their way into a car on friday morning.