1 yr. ago • 91%

Are you still enjoying F1 this season?

Just curious. I started watching F1 back when DTS started airing (so during Hamilton's domination). It was fun, even though results were often predictable (HAM-BOT-VER).

Then there was this awesome season when Max got his 1st WDC title. It was the most fun I ever had with any sport ever.

But now? I still watch races, but, I won't lie, it's getting less and less exciting. I noticed that F1 is no longer a huge talking-point in my friend's group, as there is just less going on. Max has so huuuge advantage, that it feels like all that sport magic is gone.

What are your thoughts on this? Are you still watching races every rawe ceek? Do you still feel engaged in F1 community?

24 comments

I'm loving it. Ignoring Max, every race is different. Basically anyone can finish at any place, even though there are definitely trends. Hulkenberg and Norris suddenly being up in the top 5, Albon in the points. Then you have the constant fight between Aston, Mercedes, Ferrari, and Perez. There's plenty of good racing, you just shouldn't care too much about who wins (since that's almost a given).

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- Idk about putting Perez in there, he's mostly just been fighting his own qualifying pace and ability to overtake in what is far and away the fastest car on the grid. I mean he has now missed Q3 5 out of 9 races. Even hard core Perez fans have to admit he's bottling it
  
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  He has been in the past few races. Before that he was challenging Max. Last weekend he was again battling in the Mercedes/Ferrari/Aston area. That's where I'd expect him to be the rest of the season. In a good weekend he can easily beat them, and maybe even keep Max honest. But in a worse weekend he'll be fighting for a podium just like those teams I mentioned.
  
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I am! I don’t need to watch the leaders to enjoy the race. So much always going on in the mid field too.

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If all you care about is who wins, then yes it's boring. But you're totally ignoring the fact that there are 19 other places. Today was a good race. Leclerc was happy being second, Norris was happy being fourth, Hamilton was whining and received an extra penalty.

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I've been watching F1 since 2014, if I was easily bored by dominance I would have stopped watching years ago.

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This season is pretty damn exciting if you exclude Max imo. With Checos form being nowhere at the moment, P2 is a free for all. I find the battle between Merc, AM and Ferrari super entertaining, and the same goes for the rest of the grid, especially with McLaren and Alpine trying to find their rhythm.

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- Yeah, F1.5 is pretty nice this season!
  
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The front of the field has not been exciting this year. I feel like the mid-pack battle has been one of the best I remember in years.

I also love seeing Hamilton struggle with a car and Russell put pressure on him. I’m not a Hamilton fan at all but I have to say he has had some tremendous drives this year.

Alonso’s performance this year has also been very exciting to watch.

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It's back to the status quo. It's been like this forever. Senna, Prost, Mansell, D. Hill, Schumi, Vettel, Ham and now Max. It was the worst during the Mansell years, when Williams Renault had that active suspension magic going on. I remember races where the 2 Williams drivers where not seconds but literally minutes away from the 3rd place.

'21 really was a crazy season. Looking back the dumbest decision F1 made was firing Massi. Massi allowed it to happen. Massi created the circumstances and environment for such a very entertaining season.

Massi was the real architect for all that engagement. It was crazy. It was magnificent. We got spoiled and dumb people who couldn't live with the loss of their favourite team/driver brigaded for his head. And got their way.

And what do we have now, without Massi?

all this talk about F1 being stale, without magic, predictable.

Yup.

Sometimes you really should be careful about what you're wishing for.

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I think it's an exciting season so far, as long as you ignore Max a bit. Ferrari, Mercedes, Aston Martin competing. Drivers and teams up and down the field struggling sometimes and excelling other times. Clear rules, which sometimes seem a bit silly but remove a lot of the arbitrary stewarding which I hated. Haas and Williams scoring points.

Then again watching Max is also exciting. It's Schumacher levels of dominance as he goes for every bit of pace on every race and every lap. Watching Max is watching a master athlete in his prime. That qualifying lap in Monaco was * chefs kiss *

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I've slipped out of following it for a number of reasons:

The season was decided as soon as we saw how fast and reliable RB are.

In the UK you either have to choose between watching F1 on tv or eating, or find streams

The racing just isn't that great with the new cars, still mostly basic DRS passes.

the sprint race format isn't worth it and makes it harder to keep track of what's going on if you aren't able to watch live.
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- Another UK fan… I totally agree with this take.
  
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  Looks like you've tripled posted. This is the 2nd comment
  
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- Get an VPN & F1TV... I'm in the UK but I refuse to give a penny to Murdoch & the channel 4 coverage is compromised of course.
  
  Getting F1TV has completely revolutionised my F1 watching. Being able to watch easily, with time shift if needed, & no streaming stress. The commentary is even better imho (though you can choose the Sky feed if you miss Martin & Crofty). The pundits are better too. And you can watch any in car view at any time. It's worth every penny.
  
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- Overall I have lost interest. After the title was stolen from Lewis I was pretty bitter. I have been watching for about 15 years (American) and this year is just incredibly boring. This is by far the most dominant car I have ever seen and no one can challenge Max, not even his teammate. At least when Lewis was winning all the time he had a competent teammate to challenge every weekend.
  
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Will you categorize the premier league as boring considering that man City is winning almost everytime. No because the other games are interesting and the fight for other positions is close. Think of F1 in a similar way. Just because the guy who wins is fixed doesn't mean that there isn't merit in who finishes in thr other positions

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To be honest, no. I started watching in 2020 with the pandemic. Merc’s dominance was fine then because I was still learning all the history. 2021 was super exciting. 2022 is when my interest slowly started to wane, and now it has to be convenient for me to even watch a race since it is so predictable.

I’ll probably continue to keep tabs on the F1 lemmies and watch the start of each season to get a feel for whether it has my interest that year.

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- If I had to bet there are probably a lot of recent fans that feel similarly. I think DTS brought in a lot new fans that got hooked on the excitement of the '21 season (and first part of '22). Unfortunately that level of competition for 1st is more uncommon than the type of domination we're seeing now.
  
  While there is incredible competition in the midfield this year, I don't think it has the same impact as tight competition for 1st for many people.
  
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The wife and I watch almost every race. I don’t mind Red Bull dominating at the moment since they’re my favorite team to rag on but it’s undeniable they have a great car.

I’m basically a fan of everyone on the grid except Max since I find him and his dad to be annoying. Karen Horner is also pretty funny 😂

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- Yes, his dad's a piece of shit, and sometimes I feel like Max lets the mask slip. He's very jokey-jokey when things go well, but I remember his shitty attacking, post-race petulance and running people off the track when he didn't quite have a winning car.
  
  He can afford to have great wheel-to-wheel racing skills now that he's got the thick end of one second in his pocket over the other cars and his teammate is pottering around in P10.
  
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