Pancake wrote:Jenuall wrote:Pancake wrote:Jenuall wrote:I've blown hot and cold on F1 throughout pretty much all of my life, there's never been a stage where I didn't pay at least some attention to what was going on in the sport but there have also been many points where I just didn't find it engaging enough to care about on a week by week basis.
I do think it was more exciting watching it as a kid, if nothing else because there was more of a mix of competitors - between 1980 and 2000 there were 11 different champions, in the last 20 years there have been only 7, also the season seemed to go down to the wire more often in the past with the championship not being decided until the penultimate or final race whereas now it often feels like a foregone conclusion halfway through the season
It's always been a sport capable of producing dull seasons (92 anyone?) but the reliability of the cars these days has exacerbated that I think. Having said that, there have been so many highly competitive and interesting seasons since 2000, despite periods of domination. Just off the top of my head, all these were good in my opinion, and a fair few had championship battles right to the last: 2003, 2006, 2007, 2008, 2010, 2012, 2014, 2016, 2017, 2018, 2020
That's a good point on the car side of things and yeah that almost certainly has been a factor. I agree that there have still been competitive seasons recently, and perhaps my problem is more in the perception of things than the reality because even in cases where the championship did go down to the last few races it still didn't carry the same level of excitement for me. Taking for example 2018 from that list it was pretty clear after about the mid-point of the season that Hamilton was going to win
That's fair enough. Personally, I think we're in a bit of a golden period in terms of the individual races and the quality of the drivers on the grid (it's a seriously talented bunch this year), but there's no doubt that F1 has changed significantly. For example, I think the old Murray saying "anything can happen in Formula 1 and it usually does" should probably be changed to "anything can happen in Formula 1 and it sometimes does".
I think that saying still goes. Look at the first Silverstone Grand Prix last season with a movie like the ending with Hamilton winning on blown tyres. Or Russell's dream Mercedes debut and how it imploded because of a team error.
Not to mention Grosjean surviving the worst crash in about 30 years of the sport!
Murray was right, anything can happen in Formula One, and it
usually does!
Murray was just absolutely superb in making some really boring races sound very exciting. Crofty sometimes is too honest when there is a boring race and can't find anything to talk about. That said, he did a pretty solid job yesterday and Brundle definitely has the mantel as the voice of F1.