61 replies to this topic

[Dunc]

Every second thread on RC lately has been complaining about the current state of F1, the need for more overtaking and how this was so much better in the old days.

I saw this vid: http://m.youtube.com...h?v=04pH_3fUtDU the other day and one comment that struck me was that cars racing each other is a rare sight. This is from 1982, a time there seems to be a lot of nostalgia for but are people's memories playing tricks on them?

I'm personally of the view that the reason races with lots of passes are so well remembered is that they have never been that common.

[johnmhinds]

Your youtube link was broken for me.

 

[Seanspeed]

I'm personally of the view that the reason races with lots of passes are so well remembered is that they have never been that common.

That's exactly it.

Racing was never great back in the day. Even back into the 80's, cars couldn't actually follow each other that closely through corners, either. This of course got worse into the 90's and 00's, but its always been an issue. And the gaps between cars was often quite big.

Some people will argue that this difficulty made passes more significant, which is probably an objectively true statement, but is having a few overtakes a year being more meaningful really a worthwhile payoff for having 95% of the rest of the season be dull as a doorknob? I say no.

The saying 'you don't win races in the first corner, but you can lose them' was never more full of **** than when you look at how F1 used to be.

I think 2014 is turning into a fairly lousy year, but only by comparison to the past 3 or 4 seasons. Vettel's drive in Barcelona would have been celebrated as miraculous in the 90's and 00's, yet most people still consider that a fairly boring race. That's because we've been spoiled and people forget how god awful racing used to be. I go back and watch races even from 2007/2008 and I wonder how on earth we used to find that acceptable.

Edited by Seanspeed, 15 May 2014 - 17:27.

[Collombin]

Any nostalgic feelings I have are for the cars, the drivers, the racetracks, the sense of danger in the air and the talking about the race next day in school.

I would be hard pressed to argue a case for the actual racing being much better. Rio 1982 was a very good race. Most weren't. Not really.

[4MEN]

DRS and Pirelli tires make it hard to know what overtakes are worth remembering. Quality vs quantity.

[Dunc]

Your youtube link was broken for me.

https://www.youtube....h?v=04pH_3fUtDU

Thanks for the fix

[Seanspeed]

DRS and Pirelli tires make it hard to know what overtakes are worth remembering. Quality vs quantity.

It shouldn't be all about quality or quantity of overtaking, but how good the racing is overall. Overtaking is just a part of that. For me, I feel that overtaking shouldn't be excessively difficult because it hurts the racing. It means that a driver's position is often highly dependent on how well they qualify and start, rather than how fast they are during a race. Sure, they might get an overtake or two in the race if they're sufficiently quick enough, but gaps are usually extended by then and we are robbed of further potential for action.

Particular overtakes may be less memorable, but the end result is far better races overall.

[johnmhinds]

I'm not sure the video you linked of the Brazil 82 race is the best example of boring racing you could have chosen.

There was a battle for the lead before the lead driver crashed out of the race, and then following the race the 1st and 2nd place drivers were disqualified for technical infringements. Hardly boring.

 

How can you compare that to Lewis and Nico easily lapping everyone up to 7th-9th while in cruse mode each race this year (other than the safety car affected Bahrain) with absolutely no competition from anyone else.

Edited by johnmhinds, 15 May 2014 - 17:44.

[Mart280]

One thing we don't get much nowadays is attrition, cars and engines are so reliable even these new power units are turning out to be ultra reliable during the races, attrition made some races really interesting as cars dropped out and your backmarker teams started getting near a points paying position it added something and points only went up to sixth spot, now it's up to tenth spot and in over four years of racing the backmarker teams haven't been close, that's how I remember it anyway.

[Lotus53B]

Back in the day, live coverage of F1 was not for the masses - all there was were highlights, which only showed the passes, I don't think that there were that many more, but we think there were, because it was all we saw.

And besides, back then all summers were blue skies, and Christmas was always white...

[ollebompa]

IMO when I started following F1 in the early 2000's the trill was just seeing the cars move and the magic was in battles for position. Now overtaking has been made so common that has been reduced. What i loved was seeing drivers fight it out for 20-30 laps. If they then managed to get past you knew it was special.

Don't get me wrong I still love F1, but it's something i miss.

Edited by ollebompa, 15 May 2014 - 19:07.

[uffen]

One fundamental thing is that while overtaking may have been rare back in the day it was entirely possible. the recent issue has been that not only is it rare, it is almost impossible - dirty air, lack of grip when close behind, tires that go off suddenly, etc. That's the thing DRS tried to cure and was rightly blasted as a solution.

[427MkIV]

When will the Renaults break down? Would a Cosworth beat the turbos? Could a mid-fielder come through and win? All these were possible in every race in the early 1980s and made the races fun to watch. I would get up early, turn on the TV, watch the first few laps, then, nevertheless, fall asleep more often than not. Today, I DVR the race, try to resist checking the results on my phone, then turn the race on after the family goes to bed and fast-forward through it watching for any sign that a Mercedes or Red Bull might have broken down or crashed. And I still fall asleep.

[SpartanChas]

I said this before. If F1 was wheel to wheel battles all the time back then, why is that one at the 79 French GP known by everyone? 

 

I was led to believe that sort of thing happened in every race so why is that one battle remembered above all others? 

[Dunc]

I'm not sure the video you linked of the Brazil 82 race is the best example of boring racing you could have chosen.
There was a battle for the lead before the lead driver crashed out of the race, and then following the race the 1st and 2nd place drivers were disqualified for technical infringements. Hardly boring.

How can you compare that to Lewis and Nico easily lapping everyone up to 7th-9th while in cruse mode each race this year (other than the safety car affected Bahrain) with absolutely no competition from anyone else.

It wasn't the race I was referring to but Clive James' comments that this was a "real race" and that seeing racing cars racing each other is "one of the rarest sights" in F1. This was the early 1980s, when everything was allegedly so much better than it is today.

[garoidb]

1982 was before overtaking ethics changed in F1. Drivers would concede corners without putting the overtaking car at increased risk. This can be seen in the Rio race - there were no extreme defensive moves 

[Dunc]

http://m.youtube.com...h?v=iJl0-daCCHs

Further to my argument, this vid is from 1989, when everything was more competetive, and it's full of comments bemoaning the domination of McLaren, Senna and Prost and that the BTCC is where the excitement in televised motorsport lies. Sounds a bit like some of the threads on RC to me.

[Watkins74]

One thing we don't get much nowadays is attrition, cars and engines are so reliable even these new power units are turning out to be ultra reliable during the races, attrition made some races really interesting as cars dropped out and your backmarker teams started getting near a points paying position it added something and points only went up to sixth spot, now it's up to tenth spot and in over four years of racing the backmarker teams haven't been close, that's how I remember it anyway.

 

Bingo. You nailed it.

[garoidb]

I said this before. If F1 was wheel to wheel battles all the time back then, why is that one at the 79 French GP known by everyone? 

 

I was led to believe that sort of thing happened in every race so why is that one battle remembered above all others? 

 

You're right, and that was an example of extreme defending. It was considered unusual (I believe - I didn't watch F1 back then) and frowned upon by some of the senior drivers. Increased safety brought more willingness to fight wheel to wheel over the next decade and more.

[Spinnekop]

Yes overtaking ethics have changed since then. There was no real defending and neither was there nearly as much on the limit fighting for position as there is now. Definitely the safety consequences of an accident was greater in the 70's but neither was the overall/average talent of the competitors then as high as it was 20 years later. I do think the skill levels displayed by the drivers from the mid 90's onwards in wheel to wheel racing against each other is taken for granted due to the rose tinted glasses the past is inevitably viewed through.

[superden]

I quite agree with the above posts, the clinical reliability of modern F1 engineering has indeed taken something away.

[midgrid]

Everyone should be aware that Clive James's commentary, whilst extremely amusing, should not always be taken 100% seriously...

[scheivlak]

DRS and Pirelli tires make it hard to know what overtakes are worth remembering

 

It's perfectly possible to state exactly the opposite: DRS and Pirelli tyres make it easy to know what overtakes are worth remembering 

[undersquare]

F1 used to be even worse!!

[Rich]

I attended the 1976 SA Grand Prix at the old Kyalami. It featured the rivalry that has people all misty-eyed these days - Lauda's Ferrari versus Hunt's McLaren. And I can assure you that it was the dullest of dull races ever. Lauda jumped into the lead from the start and, for the entire 70-odd laps, Hunt was never more than a few seconds behind yet never close enough to even look like he was going to attempt a pass. And that's how they circulated, lap after lap after lap. The final gap between the two was 1.3 seconds. Sounds like a thrilling dice but it was a race that was entirely devoid of tension.

 

And that is pretty much the history of F1. Sure, you had the odd thriller like Monza 1971, where four drivers all in different cars scrapped furiously for the lead, swapping positions all race long until Peter Gethin in the BRM took it by one hundredth of a second at the line. Two-tenths of a second separated the first four cars over the line, with fifth only half-a-second behind them. Eight different drivers led that race - many being overtaken only to retake the lead. There were at least 25 passes for the lead, probably double or even triple that if you factor in drivers who passed for the lead but then got re-taken before the end of the lap (and thus not being classified as the leader of that lap). But that was the rare exception. F1 has, for at least the last forty years, been a largely processional affair.

[superden]

I think the issue is quality/quantity. Overtaking has always been a rare beast in the sport, but when you saw one you knew it was crafted and more than that, bloody well earned. These days, a driver simply has to close to within 0.5s, wait for the main straight and press a button or two. The other driver is no longer allowed to defend in any meaningful way and is a sitting duck. There is no sport in it and with the utterly useless FIA on screen graphics, impossible to tell whether it's a DRS assisted overtake, or a genuine one. It's like tying a deer to the tree so it can't run away, or buying a Chinese gadget. You can tell yourself it's the same, but deep down you know ... it's a cheap fake.

 

As for nostalgia, it's great. You can see all the best bits in a 60 second montage on YouTube. The result ... people forget the lesser events.

Edited by superden, 15 May 2014 - 22:40.

[Collombin]

Everyone should be aware that Clive James's commentary, whilst extremely amusing, should not always be taken 100% seriously...

That could mean Michele Alboreto's absence during a Monza practice session was not in fact due to an accident whilst riding a motorbike in a shower. Gutted.

[Rich]

I think the issue is quality/quantity. Overtaking has always been a rare beast in the sport, but when you saw one you knew it was crafted and more than that, bloody well earned.

 

I don't even know if it was. Cars were flaky beasts in those days, any number of things could and did go wrong rendering the driver helpless to defend against those behind. In nearly ten years of watching GP during the classic 70s era at the old Kyalami, I can't remember seeing a single noteworthy pass. It was standard pull out of the slipstream and outbrake the guy for the corner type of stuff. Not the sort of thing that you'd enthuse about to your grandkids.

 

Of course, if we take the classic racing movie Grand Prix as our benchmark, there was a nifty trick to passing in those days - you had to press the throttle harder. So James Garner would be behind another car, they'd cut to a close-up of his right foot pressing down on the throttle and - hey presto - he'd whistle past the hapless leader. I bet Jackie Stewart and Co were right miffed that they didn't think of it and instead did it the hard way - by outbraking the bloke at the corner. Just press the throttle, man! How hard can it be?

[Brother Fox]

But if he had also pressed the throttle right down, you also had to downshift. Those 2 in combination are unbeatable.

[chipmcdonald]

DRS and Pirelli tires make it hard to know what overtakes are worth remembering. Quality vs quantity.

Not only that, but it's something of an illusion that there are "more" "overtakes" with the mandatory tire change. After the first tire stint you've got people "racing" people either out of sync with their stint, or passing someone trying to go long on their strategy. The fake tire change-skullduggery has provided much ANASCAR-esque "drama".

F1 is screwed up in a lot of different ways now, that is one of them.

[hollowstar]

I really think F1 cars are so intense to drive,  every driver is 100% commited and focused when overtaking. There is absolutely no chance any of them could get nostalgic, melancholic, or anything while doing so. There is no such danger at all!       

 

And I'm outta here. 

[PayasYouRace]

I think the issue is quality/quantity. Overtaking has always been a rare beast in the sport, but when you saw one you knew it was crafted and more than that, bloody well earned. These days, a driver simply has to close to within 0.5s, wait for the main straight and press a button or two. The other driver is no longer allowed to defend in any meaningful way and is a sitting duck. There is no sport in it and with the utterly useless FIA on screen graphics, impossible to tell whether it's a DRS assisted overtake, or a genuine one. It's like tying a deer to the tree so it can't run away, or buying a Chinese gadget. You can tell yourself it's the same, but deep down you know ... it's a cheap fake.

 

As for nostalgia, it's great. You can see all the best bits in a 60 second montage on YouTube. The result ... people forget the lesser events.

 

The gaping hole appearing in the rear wing isn't enough for you?

[Kristian]

Yes its human nature to remember the high points and negate the boring times - e.g. everyone has really fond memories of their school days, but when you think about it most of the time you couldn't wait for them to be over. 

 

Same with F1 - everyone remembers the 'classic' races and thinks they were all like that. In the late 90s, everyone was saying how boring F1 had got with the grooved tyres, drivers couldn't push, no overtaking, etc. But now people say how much they miss the days of Hakkinen v Schumacher races, drivers pusihing to the limit, classic overtakes like Spa 2000, etc. But actually in those days, most races had single digit overtaking figures. I think Hungary in 2000 had 0 if I recall correctly? 

 

Too much overtaking is a bad thing - I  tried watching Nascar once, and yes there was loads of passing every lap, but nothing mattered until the final 5% of the race. A race that lasts 4 hours! any high scoring sport is like that. 

 

I think F1 is pretty balanced in the overtaking stakes; an old problem though was that all the action would happen in the first 20% of the race and settle down. In the current era, races tend to be quite slow to get going, but there's lots of action in the final 20%. I think this balance is just right. 

[SenorSjon]

You forget the anticipation during a live event. Imola 2005 and 2006 or prime examples of this and also show the art of defending and placing the attacker where you want him. I don't feel that tension anymore... Last time was Schumacher vs. Hamilton in Monza 2011.

[garoidb]

You forget the anticipation during a live event. Imola 2005 and 2006 or prime examples of this and also show the art of defending and placing the attacker where you want him. I don't feel that tension anymore... Last time was Schumacher vs. Hamilton in Monza 2011.

 

I would have thought we had that quite recently between Hamilton and Rosberg.

[Lazy]

The gaping hole appearing in the rear wing isn't enough for you?

And Martin saying "His DRS is open".

[Dunc]

I started watching F1 at some point in the 1992 season and my favourite race in that time has been Canada 2011 because it was incredibly exciting to watch and completely different to anything else I have seen and that's the reason it stands out.  Not every race can be like that, what I appreciate is the fact that F1 always has the potential to be like that.

[sopa]

Any nostalgic feelings I have are for the cars, the drivers, the racetracks, the sense of danger in the air and the talking about the race next day in school.

I would be hard pressed to argue a case for the actual racing being much better. Rio 1982 was a very good race. Most weren't. Not really.

 

I can't relate my nostalgia to overtaking either. There were of course some moves that I remember, but it is not a specific point. Nostalgia is more related to general athmosphere, which all these cars, drivers, circuits and general competition and performance trends together help to create. But it is clear back in the day there were plenty of painfully boring races.

[Kristian]

You forget the anticipation during a live event. Imola 2005 and 2006 or prime examples of this and also show the art of defending and placing the attacker where you want him. I don't feel that tension anymore... Last time was Schumacher vs. Hamilton in Monza 2011.

 

I couldn't sit down for the last ten laps of Bahain!

 

And Barcelona reminded me very much of Imola 05/06. Though my memories of Imola '05 are forever tainted by *that* ad break. I have still boycotted UPS ever since. 

[sopa]

 But that was the rare exception. F1 has, for at least the last forty years, been a largely processional affair.

 

I am sure you can extend "the last forty years" to Grand Prix racing having been processional since its inception for more than 100 years already.

[taran]

While nostalgia tends to change the specs to rose-tinted, back in the 80s, drivers used steel brakes so you could outbrake each other and had manual gearboxes. With an few hundred gearchanges per race, there would be fluffed gearchanges allowing a following driver a chance to overtake.

In the 90s, flappy handle boxes and trick brakes eliminated these opportunities (and helped increase reliability) so the opportunities for overtakes declined.

 

Now one can argue that these advances have led to sportscars now having ceramic brakes and gear paddles so F1 did its job of pioneering technology. One can also argue that very few road cars have ceramic brakes and gear paddles so F1 should go back to racing the same type of equipment/technology that the majority of road cars have....

 

CART used to have steel brakes and manual gearboxes and they didn't lack for drama and overtaking........

[Jimisgod]

1982 was before overtaking ethics changed in F1. Drivers would concede corners without putting the overtaking car at increased risk. This can be seen in the Rio race - there were no extreme defensive moves 

 

Until Piquet helped stick Gilles in the fence... 

[mzvztag]

1982 was before overtaking ethics changed in F1. Drivers would concede corners without putting the overtaking car at increased risk. This can be seen in the Rio race - there were no extreme defensive moves

There were some risky or even unfair movesbut they were exceptions. The change in the ethics and extreme defending became standard when FISA failed to act against Senna in mid-1980s.

[Retrofly]

I must be too young because when i think back all I remember was serious lack of overtaking.

 

I think the level of overtaking now is about right, we are at least getting tussles in this era of F1 racing, some races more than other but it is happening.

 

I remember watching the British GP a while back and watching the top 6 or 7 cars follow each other in uniform with the same gap in between lap after lap after lap. I thought it was absolute dire and switched it off. I don't think we should go back to those days.

 

We've seen with Bahrain that a GP can still be chock full of overtaking.

 

 

You also have the damned if you do, damned if you don't factor. Some people hate what they see as "artificial" overtaking, people who hate no overtaking and people who want EVEN more overtaking.

 

You can't please everyone I'm afraid.

[F1matt]

A move in F1 should look like the driver has weighed up his options and shows the skill and bravery required to pass another F1 driver cleanly without the aid of a button on the steering wheel or his engineer telling him what to do.

 

 

 

When I think back to the older races people mention above in the 80's and 90's when overtaking was almost impossible I can remember the driver, corner, and the move in my head because it was rare and did require something special, as for today's moves there are now so many with "driver aids" that they are instantly forgettable and there is no great skills required. Indycar, Nascar, and touring car racing had loads of moves while F1 didn't, these other forms of racing were never considered superior so it clearly wasn't a problem then, probably more to do with TV companies demanding more for Bernie's escalating charges.

 

Worse still is that some of these features are appearing on road cars, what is the point of the McLaren P1 and the LaFerrari having "DRS"???? Hardly going to have trouble passing a Mondeo on the M1 are they.

[garoidb]

Until Piquet helped stick Gilles in the fence... 

 

Villeneuve was the one defending, and even then he didn't put Piquet at particular risk. He just made a mistake.

[travbrad]

Cars in the 80s were able to follow each other MUCH more closely through corners.  The lack of overtaking back then was mainly due to the huge gap between various cars, and the extremely high attrition rate from mechanical failures (towards the end of a lot of those races there were only 7-8 people still in the race).  If cars were in a close battle on track they were able to get past.  It still wasn't easy of course, but that is part of what makes on-track battles so exciting.  Drivers were on so many different strategies and tyre compounds back then too (not to mention vastly different engines from team to team), it created a lot more "Bahrain-like" situations where certain drivers would be faster at certain stages of the race, or even certain parts of the track.

 

DRS assisted passes are extremely boring on some tracks (like Montreal or Spa), even less exciting than watching a driver stuck behind someone the entire race unable to pass.  On the other hand at tracks like Catalunya, Hungaroring, etc we would see virtually no chance of passing at all without DRS.  That's the biggest problem with DRS (other than it being inherently unfair); it's very hard to get it right at every circuit.  It will inevitably be way too powerful at some tracks, and it's very hard to test DRS because it requires a race situation.

 

There has always been nostalgia for nonstop passing that never actually existed though.  I recently watched a race from the early 80s and even back then James Hunt (commentating) was lamenting how little passing there was in modern Formula 1 and how hard it was to pass.  From my perspective it was a great race with tons of passing for the leading/podium positions and great strategic battles with regards to pit stops and tyres.

 

I don't think most F1 fans actually care that much about how much overtaking there is, they just want to know that it's possible and see on-track battles.  Those closing laps in Bahrain didn't have a single overtake (even if they did swap positions a couple times earlier in the race), but it was a great battle to watch.  It actually probably would have been a lot less exciting if Rosberg had gotten by, because he likely would have pulled away.

Edited by travbrad, 16 May 2014 - 12:58.

[Lazy]

A move in F1 should look like the driver has weighed up his options and shows the skill and bravery required to pass another F1 driver cleanly without the aid of a button on the steering wheel or his engineer telling him what to do.

 

 

 

When I think back to the older races people mention above in the 80's and 90's when overtaking was almost impossible I can remember the driver, corner, and the move in my head because it was rare and did require something special, as for today's moves there are now so many with "driver aids" that they are instantly forgettable and there is no great skills required. Indycar, Nascar, and touring car racing had loads of moves while F1 didn't, these other forms of racing were never considered superior so it clearly wasn't a problem then, probably more to do with TV companies demanding more for Bernie's escalating charges.

 

Worse still is that some of these features are appearing on road cars, what is the point of the McLaren P1 and the LaFerrari having "DRS"???? Hardly going to have trouble passing a Mondeo on the M1 are they.

You think DRS on the P1 is for overtaking?   

Edited by Lazy, 16 May 2014 - 13:17.

[ballow]

DRS was created because of Ferrari after Alonso failed to over take Petrov at the final race in 2010.  Ferrari demanded F1 implement a means so passing could be easy. Hence the birth of DRS in 2011. Hence the  mess we are now in 

 

Maybe its F1 karma and that Ferrari may never win the WDC until the DRS is removed.  This may sound ridiculous but stranger things have happened. 

[mzvztag]

DRS was created because of Ferrari after Alonso failed to over take Petrov at the final race in 2010. Ferrari demanded F1 implement a means so passing could be easy. Hence the birth of DRS in 2011. Hence the mess we are now in

Maybe its F1 karma and that Ferrari may never win the WDC until the DRS is removed. This may sound ridiculous but stranger things have happened.

But what mess?
We are not in any kind of a mess. Overtaking is still reasonably hard but not virtually impossible like up to 2010.

What happened to Ferraris in Bahrain had all to do eith horsepower difference.