Today like many in this forum I decided to get up early, but am now wishing I'd stayed in bed.

I don't really care too much about the championship, I'd just like to see more exciting races. Today I counted 3 overtakes in the whole race, 1 collision and not even a hope of seeing the lead change.

Is this really good enough?

I enjoy qualifying, but the races since China have been turgid and uninspiring. The weather threads in the live fourm have become increasingly popular as people desperately hope for wet weather to bring an interesting race.

The racing no, the crashes yes ahah, the cars look love em!

It could certainly be a lot worse!

The first lap is interesting.

What racing? Seriously, last year was better in terms of racing, the exact opposite of what the rules intended.

The racing has not been amazing no. Since the teams have got used the the new tire rules after about the third race on. The cars are just to close on ultimate pace, f1 cars seem to have to be atleast 1+ seconds gap in race pace to have a chance of some consistent overtaking.

The last year was better because we had more rain races or SC was deployed more times. Overtaking was as bad during dry races as is it now. I fell like idiot to wake up at 7 am to see this kind of shit all over again.

I like it. I would like it a tad more, if the stewards weren't messing it up occasionally. You shouldn't expect lead changes when the faster car is leading a slower one.

Car performances will vary over the race more next year. The ban on refueling will change the balance for everyone and thus it will most likely be a little more interesting. But even then the better car+driver combination will drive away from the others.

I'd say in general the OWG rules have worked. The cars can follow closer, but with the rev limit there is no way of gaining once in the slipstream. Also the performance of all cars is now so close that overtaking is always going to be far more difficult than before.

Cars being close on performance didn't seem to stop GP2 in 2005-2007

Huge difference in the ability of the drivers in GP2.

Look at the difference between the overtaking in GP2 between 2007 and 2008, it's really quite staggering.

Why? Because they switched to F1 style cars.

F1 needs to look at the GP2 car design for 2005-2007 and learn a few lessons.

Like I said Suzuka was a little bit better then Singapore...

We did see a little bit overtaking (I did see 3 .. someone on the forum said there were more, not beïng broadcast).
We did see a STR crash (again)...
Young drivers making errors and still exciting pitt stop overtaking strategies... it will still be there next year too!

Ofcourse it could be much better.. but once again...
But what to do?

I still don't know why they don't think about introducing a push-2-pass button ... something that KERS could have been.
And if the guy on P1 is unbeattable like today.. nobody can do something about it.. because that's what he deserves .. a win!

If there's almost no overtaking even in Suzuka then it can't be much worse. F1 is suffering from Max' idea of turning it to "motorized chess" and see no way how it could be changed in the near future.

its pretty meh tbh, I think the double defusers made it worse, bridgestone bring good tyres aswell, we need big degradation..
nascar basically slaughters f1 right now, double file restarts ftw

No. It's been shit this year.

Yea see vettels tyres ? They looked new! Cant remember if that was after qual or race lol

melbourne seems a world away doesnt it?

The lack of overtaking is ridiculous. It seems that even the best venues have become parades, and rain or a crash is the only thing that makes a race interesting. There is very little appeal to new fans in that sense, and something has to be done to allow cars to slipstream and pass. Let me be clear, I have no issue with somebody leading from start to finish, that's like a football match where a team wins 5-0, but I do have issue with no overtaking at all anywhere in the field of 20 cars. Qualifying is far more action packed than the racing, and it has done since the 3 session format was introduced, and moreso with its improvements.

The ontrack action is shit.

The chicanes added from the 70s onwards, the f***-ed aero rules, the lack of a tire war and of an engine war have destroyed the racing.

SF cars have flip-ups, chimneys, wide® track, spoon front wings, wide rear wings and still pass each other more, even though these things where banned from F1 to "improve the racing".

I think we just all have to accept that all the teams do such a good job and get so close in car performance, that overtaking is always going to be extremely difficult. I'm actually expecting next year to be worse from a racing point of view too. Fuel strategy, in general, helps the racing I'd say, so taking this away is gonna make it even tougher to overtake next season.

The racing is poor, certainly. BUT there must be trade-offs for racing on such a fast-track with such fast cars.

The racing will never be as close when F1 cars circulate through 250+kph one-line corners compared to NASCARs circulating on a 250 kph banked oval. So certainly it's a compromise to see the fastest cars on a fast track.

But yes, the racing was poor. Out of the left-field, a faster specification cars low-cost close bash and crash racing WTCC as a permanent manufacturer-based support shown live on TV at all rounds while the following F1 races are run and won by private teams could be the fix to keep all parties entertained..........

cars still can't follow each other closely through corners, meaning that they never get close enough to overtake.

its poor...much worse than last season

the #1 and #2 drivers in the championship are mediocre and are only on top because they had a head start
ferrari and mclaren have handicapped cars
the red bull is either unbeatable or a dog depending on the track, same with the force india
bmw, renault and toyota eithe rhave poor cars or poor drivers

it's just been a really poor season

Wasnt there an audio transmission today between Rubens and his race engineer early in the race, saying something like this :

"- Raikkonen is slower. Should I try and overtake him?
- You can try but dont take any risk!"

If this is true, than sadly, this tells about everything about F1 these days...

Echo this. Just look right here at this bb. Almost no discussion of racing. I haven't even see a thread on this weeks race. Its thread after thread on incidents and off the track activities. The racing is now very incidental to Formula One.

First laps were ok (as always) and then the ZZZ time in term of track action, but it was quite a fun race from live timing point with a lot of close ones when cars leave the pits. Funny thing is I was hoping that Kubica will get a point but cars going on in front of him gave us his fights with Heidelfd and Button, and that saved the race so I'm almost glad it happened that way.

As for season in general, there is hardly any improvement but at least we got a real WDC fight in 2008.

The racing has been utterly atrocious this year. Formula One needs to sort itself out, particularly in regards to the regulations. That study posted here done on the dropping number of overtakes per season, shows that overtaking has been a comparative rarity since 1993. Something has to be done.

Safety is very important but the rules and the tracks are too geared towards safety and not enough towards ballsy racing, even 130R is not the challenge it used to be due to widening plus the bland Tilkedrome's that do nothing for hard racing, F1 is too safety driven these days and the balence needs to be restored

Yes I heard that. There is precious little racing these days and any overtaking is in the pit stops. On top of that we have whingey, moany drivers such as Rubens who yesterday complained that Suzuka was "dangerous", safety car starts when it rains and Tilke tracks with run-off areas so large that mistakes go unpunished. I still love F1 but I am becoming more and more nostalgic for the F1 of the late 1980s.

The currents f1 drivers simply have cotton for balls, when in the past, they had brass balls...

They needed them too, the cars were veritable Molatov Cocktails on wheels.

But, apart from deaths of course, we were all happy...

Today's race was pretty dull. Apart from brain fade from Kovaleinen and Fisichella nothing much happened.

Why late 1980s? Late 70's early 80's is where it's at, cars without front wings, ground effects, V12 engines, turbos, awesome liveries, awesome tracks, Giles Villeneuve...

I don't think that the drivers are the problem. They may not be as insane as Keke Rosberg, Gilles Villeneuve or Nigel Mansell, but I can't imagine a driver like Hamilton holding back an overtake, particularly when he's not fighting for the championship. In GP2 he was a massively ballsy racer and I don't think he's lost that. The regulations (crappy aero, engine rev limit e.t.c) are what is causing the lack of on-track action.

We shall never know I guess. Coz when are the cars ever gonna improve? I think rails may actually be put on the tracks one day..

There is only 1.5s seperating the fastest to the slowest. Unless somebody screws up overtaking just isn't going to happen. Rev limited 'equalised' engines don't help either.

Exactly. Watching the Turkey sprint race in 2006 is quite depressing, the fact that such talent is in F1 right now but just can't be shown

The current regulations don't allow drivers to race. The 2009 regulations made the situation even worse.

Problem with those dotted lines is they ignore the refueling change in 1994, the dotted lines should be bent at 1994 to take account of this.

What's a SF car?

@Pingguest: that graph makes it all the clearer. After the early 90s, overtaking plummeted.

edit:

Refuelling makes little if any difference. Watch next season and I can guarantee you that the racing will be just as shit.

Well, overtaking plummeted from the mid-1980s.

Any way, I don't think the 2010 ban on mid-race refuelling will help much, due to the rest of the regulations. Various components will still be (semi-)spec, the post-qualifying parc fermé will continue to exist and drivers are still mandated to change tyres.

Apart from the first few races (which were dry/wet), they've been crap as the season has gone on.

The last 2 races i've genuinely fallen asleep a third of the way through, missed half or more of the race to find virtually no change when waking up.
Quali and the BBC forum is now far more interesting than the races and its kind of sad i now find myself looking at the weather forecast midweek hoping for rain to inject even a touch of excitement.

I fear next year with no re-fuelling there will be less overtaking as if cars now cannot overtake with half less fuel than those in front...

Even after the saftey car today was it just my sleepy eyes are were the cars miles apart upon the restart. In other series after a safety car the cars are much more nose-to-tail.

That's true, but there's a noticeable drop from 1993 onwards as well. Anyway, the turbo era was an amazing period in Formula One history, as was the Cosworth DFV period to be fair.

Ive not enjoyed the racing at all this year to be honest i think the on track action has been pritty boring.

In 83 refueling was allowed, and back then, there was more overtaking then in the refueling banned years 85, 86, 87, 88, 89, 90, 91, 92 and 93. And if that's not enough look at some of the CART races where refueling was always allowed..

It plummeted from the early-mid 70s actually.

Take a look at Monza 'till 71 and after when the chicanes where added. Monza had 25 to 40 lead changes, and if I'm not mistaking there where 41 lead changes in 1964, but by the late 70s people where complaining that the race became boring.

I stayed up to watch in US -- even the Speed announcers sounded bored. I fell asleep and had to force myself awake to watch end of race. ho, hum. Anything interesting this year has been off track. Qualifying is far more fun to watch with Hungary being, by far, most interesting Q3. When all timing systems went out and Alonso freaked out trying to confirm he was pole was priceless.

RACING is awful. In fact there is almost none of it.
DRIVING, on the other hand, is very interesting to watch, because cars are less grippy.

As for balls: I think it was Heidfeld who said that the cars go too fast for overtaking. (Not exactly this, but close to it).

Thanks for the chart.
A lot of poo poo from the overtaking group and FIA.