How to improve the show/F1 (merged thread)

We've seen plenty of thread of late stating what must be changed to improve F1. 

 

Of course, there's plenty of little things out there which have little or nothing to do with actual racing which people miss or which people believe should be changed. 

 

First up, this needs to make a return at the start of each GP   The graphics aren't great, hell its no longer titled The FIA Formula 1 World Championship, but what a riff.

 

 

Any other light hearted suggestions out there ?

Edited by Ali_G, 06 May 2014 - 11:57.

its no longer titled The FIA Formula 1 World Championship, 

 

 

it is

Isn't it now officially the "Bernie lets take this circus to every third rate dictatorship with no interest in motorsport and ignore all the worthy countries all for the sake of bottom line championship"?

it is

 

Sorry.  Meant it isn't promoted as such.  The FIA branding was dropped a number of years ago.

Edited by Ali_G, 06 May 2014 - 12:51.

Two simple things:

• Bring back refueling and decent tires
• Bann DRS and fuel saving (= full rpm)

Of course there are much more things I'd like to have (V10, ...) but this will not happen in the next years. So the above mentioned would be a compromise and I'm sure it would make F1 better again.

 

Edit - These are little things ;)

Edited by Tourgott, 06 May 2014 - 12:53.

Two simple things:

• Bring back refueling and decent tires
• Bann DRS and fuel saving (= full rpm)

Of course there are much more things I'd like to have (V10, ...) but this will not happen in the next years. So the above mentioned would be a compromise and I'm sure it would make F1 better again.

 

We clearly have different definitions of light-hearted

Yeah, true

Can't we bring back a little bit of rivalry, say MS vs DHILL or MS vs MHAKK ? That would help ....

Getrid of outdated DRS and stupid double points and your nearly there

 

*Edit - And Pastor

Edited by cheekybru, 06 May 2014 - 13:00.

It's the attitudes of thoose involed. Teams, drivers,fans,FIA,CVC must think F1 is about racing, and i think we are seeing a lack in that.

Little things?

 

Old bus-stop chicane at Spa.

Old Hockenheim.

Ferrari with black wings like 90s.

Someone's car with Benetton 1994 livery.

Red Bull Racing running with the old Red Bull Sauber livery (from around 98-00, or why not 95-96)

Benson & Hedges livery back on the grid.

 

Yeah, all nothing else but nostalgia.

Who's stupid?

One thing as sopa touched upon is the liveries. We currently have three shades of grey, two sets of red/black/white and two Red Bull teams. Even the green Caterham is dark metallic and the increasing levels of lipstick on the Lotus is making it look like an aged crack whore. A lot of why the Williams livery is excellent is its brilliant white in contrast to this sea of darkness. Some pastel colours wouldn't go amiss either.

One thing as sopa touched upon is the liveries. We currently have three shades of grey, two sets of red/black/white and two Red Bull teams. Even the green Caterham is dark metallic and the increasing levels of lipstick on the Lotus is making it look like an aged crack whore. A lot of why the Williams livery is excellent is its brilliant white in contrast to this sea of darkness. Some pastel colours wouldn't go amiss either.

I wonder if McLaren will change its livery when it switches to Honda engines next year?

Anyone got any hint of such a thing happening?

No double points.
Proportionate wings.
V12/V10/V8/V6 hybrids all allowed, petrol or diesel.
If fuel flow limits are kept, bring back the option of refuelling.
IndyCar style tyres.
DRS as P2P.
More grass/gravel runoffs at tracks (e.g. Barber Motorsports Park).
The old intro music.

That's all it'd take, even if the races barely changed from what they are now; the racing is fine, the platform is boring.

Edited by Afterburner, 06 May 2014 - 13:56.

Get rid of grousing fans.

Get rid of grousing fans.

Lol!

Little things?

 

Old bus-stop chicane at Spa.

 

 

God yes.

 

Also, would people prefer it if the overhead air intake was removed to make cars look like the turbo cars of the 1980s.  With the turbo engines, the air intake could easily be moved anywhere else on the car but at the moment it is mandated to be above the drivers head.

I'm so sick of this "F1 should be in countries with racing history" bullshit. How do you think those countries get racing history? By getting races! France, England and Germany don't have a monopoly on going fast. Race cars don't get a 200HP boost just by being in those countries. Don't pretend Silverstone, the Nurburgring, Hockenheim and Magny-Cours don't almost always produce boring racing for F1 too just because the scenery is green instead of yellow, and they're located within the right imaginary lines in the sand on the planet. I don't care if they race in Uganda if the track produces good racing.

 

You know what the little problems I'd like to fix are? Fans live in the past. No one has any ideas for cool new things to be added, but everyone has a thousand things that used to be in F1 they want back. We get threads (with admittedly beautiful work) about Retro Liveries on Modern Cars, but no threads called Check Out My 11 Re-Designs of F1 Liveries. Fans never have any ideas of interesting new teams to join F1, just pining for old teams that left for a reason. Yeah, it would be cool to have Jordan back. Probably not as cool as a team even better and more hilarious than them. Everyone wants Minardi back, but when we had 3 and now 2 backmarkers the same people refuse to give those teams even a chance of being interesting. They make up their minds so fast. "They're not the same as Minardi". Of course they're not the same, they haven't been around for 25 years yet. Everyone wants V12s or V10s or V whatever back. Where are the people who want F1 to develop some crazy new engine none of us have ever even dreamed of? Somehow I don't think the solution to making 2015 exciting is to make it a little more like 2009, or 2008, or 2002, or any other year where everything was supposedly amazing. What is the point of that? We already had those years. Let's have something new. Don't make the tracks look like they used to, make them look better than they used to. Don't make the cars sound like they used to, make them sound like something incredible you've never heard before.

 

F1 has such a narcissism about itself, which I like at times because it can provide some great entertainment, but there's a history boner there that isn't really present in other racing series. I don't see any NASCAR drivers trying to pretend they're the next Dale Earnhardt or Richard Petty. I don't see IndyCar drivers styling themselves the next Rick Mears or AJ Foyt. Those series create their own personalities. Nor do I see their fans blabbering on every day comparing every precious tic tac of footage to long-dead greats of the past. Those sports acknowledge history, F1 lives in it. Wonder why F1 drivers apparently have no personalities? Well, some of them really don't, but any of the ones who do get compared to past drivers so often you begin thinking of them like they're God damn reincarnations. Guess who Lewis Hamilton and Nico Rosberg remind me of this year? Lewis Hamilton and Nico Rosberg! Not Senna and Prost. Senna and Prost remind of Senna and Prost. I'm sick of hearing about the next Jim Clark. Just give me the first somebody new.

I'm so sick of this "F1 should be in countries with racing history" bullshit. How do you think those countries get racing history? By getting races! France, England and Germany don't have a monopoly on going fast. Race cars don't get a 200HP boost just by being in those countries. Don't pretend Silverstone, the Nurburgring, Hockenheim and Magny-Cours don't almost always produce boring racing for F1 too just because the scenery is green instead of yellow, and they're located within the right imaginary lines in the sand on the planet. I don't care if they race in Uganda if the track produces good racing.
 
You know what the little problems I'd like to fix are? Fans live in the past. No one has any ideas for cool new things to be added, but everyone has a thousand things that used to be in F1 they want back. We get threads (with admittedly beautiful work) about Retro Liveries on Modern Cars, but no threads called Check Out My 11 Re-Designs of F1 Liveries. Fans never have any ideas of interesting new teams to join F1, just pining for old teams that left for a reason. Yeah, it would be cool to have Jordan back. Probably not as cool as a team even better and more hilarious than them. Everyone wants Minardi back, but when we had 3 and now 2 backmarkers the same people refuse to give those teams even a chance of being interesting. They make up their minds so fast. "They're not the same as Minardi". Of course they're not the same, they haven't been around for 25 years yet. Everyone wants V12s or V10s or V whatever back. Where are the people who want F1 to develop some crazy new engine none of us have ever even dreamed of? Somehow I don't think the solution to making 2015 exciting is to make it a little more like 2009, or 2008, or 2002, or any other year where everything was supposedly amazing. What is the point of that? We already had those years. Let's have something new. Don't make the tracks look like they used to, make them look better than they used to. Don't make the cars sound like they used to, make them sound like something incredible you've never heard before.
 
F1 has such a narcissism about itself, which I like at times because it can provide some great entertainment, but there's a history boner there that isn't really present in other racing series. I don't see any NASCAR drivers trying to pretend they're the next Dale Earnhardt or Richard Petty. I don't see IndyCar drivers styling themselves the next Rick Mears or AJ Foyt. Those series create their own personalities. Nor do I see their fans blabbering on every day comparing every precious tic tac of footage to long-dead greats of the past. Those sports acknowledge history, F1 lives in it. Wonder why F1 drivers apparently have no personalities? Well, some of them really don't, but any of the ones who do get compared to past drivers so often you begin thinking of them like they're God damn reincarnations. Guess who Lewis Hamilton and Nico Rosberg remind me of this year? Lewis Hamilton and Nico Rosberg! Not Senna and Prost. Senna and Prost remind of Senna and Prost. I'm sick of hearing about the next Jim Clark. Just give me the first somebody new.

Well put.

And I'd love to see turbine-powered fan-cars or hydrogen cars, but I think the FIA is too nuts about safety and its electric agenda to ever dream of allowing that in F1.

One thing as sopa touched upon is the liveries. We currently have three shades of grey, two sets of red/black/white and two Red Bull teams. Even the green Caterham is dark metallic and the increasing levels of lipstick on the Lotus is making it look like an aged crack whore. A lot of why the Williams livery is excellent is its brilliant white in contrast to this sea of darkness. Some pastel colours wouldn't go amiss either.

 

One thing I liked about the approximately 2000-2002 era liveries was that all or most of the main colours seemed represented as the main colours in car liveries.

 

Red (Ferrari), yellow (Jordan), light blue (Benetton), dark blue (Prost), orange (Arrows), black (Minardi), green (Jaguar), white (BAR) + the shiny silver of McLaren.

Tiny front and rear wings

 

A BIG circle on the nose with the car or drivers number in it

 

Each car has to have a livery largely consisting of a single colour and each teams colour must be very unique (not just different shades of grey/silver, but red/green/yellow/blue/orange/white etc.)

Andrew Hope, you are right about people living in the past instead of future. I think the issue here is that it is pretty hard to be visionary or have good imagination/fantasy to dream up an exciting future. However, past things you have already seen and based on that you already know, what excited you among those things.

Really good post, Andrew Hope. (Although I would add that the thread seems to be aimed at being fairly light-hearted.)

I think the thing which bugs me most about the type of thing you mention is the pure "wishful thinking" nature of those kind of sentiments. V12s, V10s, blah blah blah. They're not coming back. So there seems little point in even typing such things.

It's like football fans who have a wishlist of transfers for their team e.g sell player X for £30m, sell player Y for £10m, buy player A for £20m, buy player B for £5m. All the while overvaluing their own players worth and undervaluing the proposed incoming player's worth. And ignoring variables such as a player might not be for sale, might not want to join this proposed new club.

Back to F1. I really share your point about teams. These new engines were supposed to appeal to the major car maufacturers. Well, Honda are back next year supplying engines. So hopefully, we'll at some point see another manufacturer or two appear. And if we get really lucky, a new works team in full. Who wouldn't want to see, say, Audi F1, Porsche F1, Volkswagen F1? Or a return to F1 of old names such as Aston Martin? Maybe none of this will happen but I'd rather see such a thing than, as you say, the return of Minardi.

Aside from the fact that my favourite driver is looking good this year, I'd love to see Mercedes' name attached to more driver and constructor championships. Even when Hamilton was at McLaren, when he wasn't winning, I hoped the Mercs would. We've only really had Ferrari as a works team winner in recent times. I think I was one of the minority who really liked Jaguar (although they weren't really Jaguar as such) in F1. Yeah the privateer teams have a lot of romance and support but why not a period of F1 manufacturer/works team battles for a while?

Edited by LewDaMan, 06 May 2014 - 14:37.

We've seen plenty of thread of late stating what must be changed to improve F1. 

 

Of course, there's plenty of little things out there which have little or nothing to do with actual racing which people miss or which people believe should be changed. 

 

First up, this needs to make a return at the start of each GP   The graphics aren't great, hell its no longer titled The FIA Formula 1 World Championship, but what a riff.

 

Any other light hearted suggestions out there ?

 

3D Railcam to cover the race start, and 3D onboard cameras with driver's-eye-view.

 

Properly visible driver numbers on the nose and on the side of the rear wing. 

 

Trophy symbols on the side of the cockpit denoting wins, second places, third places achieved that season.

 

Multi-coloured flo-viz dispensers mounted in the nose of every car.

 

LED underfloor lights on the cars.

 

 

 

Get rid of grousing fans.

 

Extend the open season on shooting "grouse"

LED underfloor lights on the cars.

 

 

Everything else is useless but for this.  

Isn't it now officially the "Bernie lets take this circus to every third rate dictatorship with no interest in motorsport and ignore all the worthy countries all for the sake of bottom line championship"?

 

Clearly there is some interest in motorsport in these countries.

 

These countries are as entitled as any to host a GP, just like any other sporting event. Which worthy countries are being ignored exactly?

 

One of my favourite tracks of recent times is Istanbul Park in Turkey, which is hardly a country with a rich F1 history / pedigree.

One thing as sopa touched upon is the liveries. We currently have three shades of grey, two sets of red/black/white and two Red Bull teams. Even the green Caterham is dark metallic and the increasing levels of lipstick on the Lotus is making it look like an aged crack whore. A lot of why the Williams livery is excellent is its brilliant white in contrast to this sea of darkness. Some pastel colours wouldn't go amiss either.

 

I'm slightly of the mind that the new Williams livery is as overrated as the car itself.

 

I like the Caterham but agree with the points about the other cars. Red Bull really need something a bit different IMO and the current McLaren is just nothing, clearly they don't know where to go with it.

We need a yellow car.  And some sand traps.  And the early '90s onboard cameras which didn't filter the noise, and the picture shook and broke up with the undulations of the track to give a decent impression of speed/ violence involved.

Edited by P123, 06 May 2014 - 15:41.

I'd be happy (and I think most of the F1 fans would be) to see the exit of DRS immediately.

No double points

Proper noses

Louder engines

DRS removed

 

That will do.

You could immediately improve F1 by sending me an all access pass for all races and a private jet to get me there.

Oh... You meant for everyone...sorry..

- more track time on the weekends;

- less expensive tickets;

- online subscriptions with live streaming to every session of a GP weekend;

- online archives of every session of every GP weekend reaching back until 2010;

- online archives of every GP and qualifying session reaching back until 1980.

One thing I liked about the approximately 2000-2002 era liveries was that all or most of the main colours seemed represented as the main colours in car liveries.

 

Red (Ferrari), yellow (Jordan), light blue (Benetton), dark blue (Prost), orange (Arrows), black (Minardi), green (Jaguar), white (BAR) + the shiny silver of McLaren.

 

Absolutely. If we limit ourselves to the little things, having a more colourful grid would definitely be great.

 

Don't forget the white+blue Williams cars. Those were nice, too.

One thing as sopa touched upon is the liveries. We currently have three shades of grey, two sets of red/black/white and two Red Bull teams. Even the green Caterham is dark metallic and the increasing levels of lipstick on the Lotus is making it look like an aged crack whore. A lot of why the Williams livery is excellent is its brilliant white in contrast to this sea of darkness. Some pastel colours wouldn't go amiss either.

Very true - most of the cars look impressive in isolation, but when grouped together, the effect is rather underwhelming.  I think the last really good year for diversity of liveries was 2005:

- more track time on the weekends;

- less expensive tickets;

- online subscriptions with live streaming to every session of a GP weekend;

- online archives of every session of every GP weekend reaching back until 2010;

- online archives of every GP and qualifying session reaching back until 1980.

 

Why the arbitrary cut-off dates? If we're brainstorming surely it would be better to have every bit of F1 footage made available online? I will admit though, I don't see why anyone would actually want to watch an old practice session from 2010. Most of the time they're not even that interesting live.

It's  not a little thing but I'll offer it up anyway: 

 

Show the state of everybody's ERS battery.

Shortcuts with risks, like a jump over a burning tire pit but if you get the line just right you get a boost and invincibility for 30 seconds.

Could even have it's own music for while it's on

If a driver causes a collision, don't penalize him if his car is damaged and he has to stop to get it repaired. The damage itself is a punishment.

 

Get rid of tarmac/concrete shortcuts in chicanes. Drivers just use these to avoid slowing down if another driver has the inside line.

 

Since drivers aren't supposed to use kerbs to run off the track, the kerbs should only be half the width of the front tyre. That should protect the edge of the track and force the drivers to stick to the rules.

 

The commercial rights holder should recognize that F1 doesn't have the mass appeal of football. It needs as much FTA coverage as possible and should revise set its prices accordingly.

Why the arbitrary cut-off dates? If we're brainstorming surely it would be better to have every bit of F1 footage made available online? I will admit though, I don't see why anyone would actually want to watch an old practice session from 2010. Most of the time they're not even that interesting live.

 

I simply wanted to avoid a near infinite and useless achive that would remain untouched. Indeed, FP are very very rarely exciting, maybe there should be no practice session at all. But qualifying and races back until as long as possible would be terrific.

 

MotoGP does it and I think it's easily worth it.

more drivers smoking cigarettes. Whilst driving their cars.

more personality from the drivers

 

drs ban

Can't we bring back a little bit of rivalry, say MS vs DHILL or MS vs MHAKK ? That would help ....

 

2012 had Fred vs Seb; but that was just one season only....

 

I'd change the engines; full range allowed, V6 to V12.

 

Then I'd change the aero to bring back to 2000s levels and full slicks.

Edited by George Costanza, 06 May 2014 - 21:43.

remove all buttons from steering wheel...

For the Japanese Grand Prix only, how about bringing back the legendary 'trouble spot' map that used to appear in the corner of the screen after a spin or accident?

Go back to Manual gear boxes and get rid of the silly flappy paddle shifting.

Go back to Manual gear boxes and get rid of the silly flappy paddle shifting.

 

That will truly seperate the men from the boys.

 

paddles have been around since 1989.

here's an idea from the NASCAR racing books ...

 

if the leader is more than 5 seconds ahead ... throw in a CAWSHUN to bunch up the field   

Cigarette sponsorship to return

I'm so sick of this "F1 should be in countries with racing history" bullshit. How do you think those countries get racing history? By getting races! France, England and Germany don't have a monopoly on going fast. Race cars don't get a 200HP boost just by being in those countries. Don't pretend Silverstone, the Nurburgring, Hockenheim and Magny-Cours don't almost always produce boring racing for F1 too just because the scenery is green instead of yellow, and they're located within the right imaginary lines in the sand on the planet. I don't care if they race in Uganda if the track produces good racing.

 

You know what the little problems I'd like to fix are? Fans live in the past. No one has any ideas for cool new things to be added, but everyone has a thousand things that used to be in F1 they want back. We get threads (with admittedly beautiful work) about Retro Liveries on Modern Cars, but no threads called Check Out My 11 Re-Designs of F1 Liveries. Fans never have any ideas of interesting new teams to join F1, just pining for old teams that left for a reason. Yeah, it would be cool to have Jordan back. Probably not as cool as a team even better and more hilarious than them. Everyone wants Minardi back, but when we had 3 and now 2 backmarkers the same people refuse to give those teams even a chance of being interesting. They make up their minds so fast. "They're not the same as Minardi". Of course they're not the same, they haven't been around for 25 years yet. Everyone wants V12s or V10s or V whatever back. Where are the people who want F1 to develop some crazy new engine none of us have ever even dreamed of? Somehow I don't think the solution to making 2015 exciting is to make it a little more like 2009, or 2008, or 2002, or any other year where everything was supposedly amazing. What is the point of that? We already had those years. Let's have something new. Don't make the tracks look like they used to, make them look better than they used to. Don't make the cars sound like they used to, make them sound like something incredible you've never heard before.

 

F1 has such a narcissism about itself, which I like at times because it can provide some great entertainment, but there's a history boner there that isn't really present in other racing series. I don't see any NASCAR drivers trying to pretend they're the next Dale Earnhardt or Richard Petty. I don't see IndyCar drivers styling themselves the next Rick Mears or AJ Foyt. Those series create their own personalities. Nor do I see their fans blabbering on every day comparing every precious tic tac of footage to long-dead greats of the past. Those sports acknowledge history, F1 lives in it. Wonder why F1 drivers apparently have no personalities? Well, some of them really don't, but any of the ones who do get compared to past drivers so often you begin thinking of them like they're God damn reincarnations. Guess who Lewis Hamilton and Nico Rosberg remind me of this year? Lewis Hamilton and Nico Rosberg! Not Senna and Prost. Senna and Prost remind of Senna and Prost. I'm sick of hearing about the next Jim Clark. Just give me the first somebody new.

 

You make some great points here. But my opinion is a bit between you and 'the old farts'. I think F1 - the FIA, the teams, and its fans - need to connect current F1 with old F1... but with respect for the new F1. They can be connected, really.

 

I said it in another post: at Wimbledon, the BBC or the Wimbledon tournament or both, know how to connect the past of Wimbledon with the current, without smothering the present. There is respect for the new champions, they are immediately placed in line, or on a pedistule with the champions of the past. While in F1...

 

I very, very seldom read condescending posts on tennisfora how current players or players who won 'only' one championship... I've never read comments on tennisfora how this or that player was actually a 'journey-man' (tennisterm comparable to midfield-driver) who got lucky... while in F1... I keep bouncing on comments like these about Button, about Rosberg and even about Vettel, for chrissakes!

 

And it is not just fans, it's the pundits as well. For example: in the Netherlands there is a fantastic magazine, RTL GP. Beautifull stories about the past of F1, fantastic stories, photographs... but if there is an article about current F1 is always: the cars are ****, the drivers are spoilt, they are not real men, if this were the seventies this would happen and so forth.

 

My point: if you love the sport, you love the sport. You can utter criticism of anyone and anything. But I would implore important F1 people and fans alike: stop killing the sport with that undeserved contempt for the present.