Yes, it is exciting. I don't particularly like the idea that cars can be affected so much by external factors, for example the weather (as happened in Q3 in China), but it's certainly more entertaining than the other end of the spectrum.
I also think it's wrong to assign all the credit or all the blame to the tyres. I am convinced that the stability of the regulations and the ever narrowing plane of possible innovation (because of how strict the development rules are) is naturally bringing these cars closer and closer together. Even if we were in the era of refuelling and rock hard Bridgestone tyres, teams like Williams, Lotus and Sauber appear to have produced genuinely fast and well balanced cars that would be competitive under any F1 format. People need to stop looking so desperately for a pecking order because, for the moment it seems, the differences between tracks are ensuring there isn't one. The teams that build and develop the best cars will still be the ones fighting for this championship at the end.
I am certainly not convinced about what you're saying here. It's tempting to think so, but the comments from drivers in practice and the race point to the fact that this isn't so. They are battling with tyres that are very difficult to figure out. They fight trying to get the right balance and when finished still unhappy, they hope that their unhappy setup will work out relative to the others since they're all complaining. During the race, the pace varies a lot with each set of tyres it seems, secondary to how they're driven in each stint and the conditions. The tyres are too sensitive.
When you're unable to judge performances, it takes away from the sporting aspect and turns the race into a bland source of entertainment where you literally have no idea whatsoever who will win or how a particular driver/team will do. This is not what someone who follows a sport closely will see. In real sport there's usually a favourite who often wins or places high at a minimum. As a season matures, we pick our favourite, a favourite based on a pattern which makes one inclined to predict what will happen. We have great fun seeing how our prediction turns out. This isn't what's happening. Button, in a car that was capable of dominating qualifying the way it did, ran a race that was really poor. Do you think that was really Jenson/McLaren2012's standard of performance and that the William/Maldonado combo are simply just close because of the stability of the formula?
After the first 4 races and the momentum of Williams in development etc. over the last 4 yrs, who was expecting Maldonado to be on pole after a dry qualifying in Barcelona? After witnessing this and his win, in combination with Button's, Webber's and Massa's race day in Barcelona, what can we truly expect come next race and still call it genuine competition? Such mystery shouldn't be persisting to this degree so far into the season. I'd love to look at the 1983 season and I'm sure that I'd enjoy the darned thing because if there were 5 constructors winning in 5 races, I'm pretty sure that you'll see that they were very close throughout those 5 races with no huge swings in performance. Race attrition may well have contributed to that interesting outcome. As usual, it's likely wrong to simply compare the two seasons in such a simple fashion.
Edited by ali_M, 14 May 2012 - 13:45.
