I think this thread is an exaggerated kneejerk response after just 1 underwhelming grand prix like many others in the past - and I've seen far worse GPs. It's also typical of after a regulation change that one of the teams initially gets it more right than the others, and therefore they dominate and make the race boring like Mercedes did. Paradoxically, at the start of a new regs cycle, the races are both more unpredictable (many new factors to consider, unreliability) and more predictable (cars more spread out). Give it a few months or a year and it'll stabilize to something more similar to what we used to watch previously.
That being said, there are genuine reasons for concern.
The sound issue has been overplayed but isn't right. You'd think turbo engines would sound quieter yes but at least more menacing than the current ones. It's not the main issue but yet another small factor that makes Formula 1 that little bit less exciting.
The racing has been worryingly static too, at first I thought it was because of the cars being spread out but even when we're seeing cars fighting for position there's been a weird tendency to not attack. In a way it's nice that people aren't just automatically being granted a position through DRS any time they approach a car, however it's as if often they aren't even trying which becomes a mid-00s style dull procession - see Massa vs Button yesterday. Sometimes it's the car ahead having more top speed which is fair enough (ex Hulk vs Alonso in Australia) but I'm not sure it's just that, something doesn't seem right. It can't be the fuel saving neither, the Williamses had saved more than anyone else so had no reason not to turn it up.
Then there's the issue of the cars not looking like they're being pushed enough and too much talk about conservation etc. Australia was hugely refreshing for that as the cut in downforce was very noticeable with all the cars being a handful, but then it wasn't anywhere near as obvious in Malaysia. I think the main culprit for that was yet again the tyres which had to be nursed very actively in the hot conditions, as seen by 3-stoppers being the most used strategy. I think fuel-saving, tyre-saving, engine-and-parts-conservation, all have been part of F1 in the past yes, but introducing ALL of these elements at the same time and with such importance is just too much. And the main detrimental factor for me continues to be the tyres, Pirelli never got the compounds right and is still too attached to the initial demand of making tyres to degrade on purpose. Any GP tyre life is an issue, everybody seems too scared to drive anywhere near the limit because it's always less competitive over a race distance to approach the limit. To me that is still a huge concern. Fair play to Pirelli for adding a nice strategical element to the racing over the last few years - but it shouldn't come at the expense of the spectacle of watching a car on its own.
Finally I think we often forget just what an impossibly difficult job the FIA has. With the way evolution has gone in car technology, it's impossible to open up the regulations as we had in the past and expect good racing, it's not going to happen, it wouldn't be sustainable cost-wise and it wouldn't be acceptable safety-wise anymore. Yes the way they go about it is often over-complicated and not always in the right direction with the right priorities, but every single factor they touch has a knock-on effect somewhere else. Remember the current regulations are a result of many things us the fans wanted - we wanted new technology, they brought in these engines, we wanted overtaking, they brought in DRS, we wanted a strategical element, they brought in these tyres... Be careful of what you wish for.
Edited by noikeee, 31 March 2014 - 11:42.