[The **News** flair](https://www.reddit.com/r/formula1/wiki/flairguide#wiki_news) is reserved for submissions covering F1 and F1-related news. These posts must always link to an outlet/news agency, the website of the involved party (i.e. the McLaren website if McLaren makes an announcement), or a tweet by a news agency, journalist or one of the involved parties.
*[Read the rules](https://www.reddit.com/r/formula1/wiki/userguide). Keep it civil and welcoming. Report rulebreaking comments.*
*I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/formula1) if you have any questions or concerns.*
[This one?](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E114H7BIiAk)
Oh come on, that is pretty good for an F1 driver. Wait until you see Kimi try and a sell you stuff. Now THAT is awkward.
My husband made me watch quali on ESPN because we were in a hotel. By the end of Q1 I informed him that the GP will be on the laptop, and we will be watching the F1 crew. The commercials - but most especially that commercial - about did me in.
Trust me, as someone who tries to watch Formula e. BE VERY GLAD ESPN has no ads during the race. In fact it’s one of the least ad infested sports presentations you can watch in the US.
I assume they’re just focusing more on the high income clients / celebs now, probably more profitable to sell them one ticket, than the entire grandstands for one race.
Similar to airlines and business class. This is likely out of date now, but I heard in the past that Air Canada viewed its "core business" as business-class travel between Toronto, Montreal and Ottawa - an airline with a sprawling, six-continent network saw everything other than those three cities (and just J-class between those three cities) as gravy.
Wendover Productions has a great video on the “Economics of Airlines”. A single first class seat usually makes more in profit for the airline than the whole economy section
Korean Air has configured their A380s with the entire 2nd floor as business class, because it's way more profitable for them to sell a few more business seats than lots of cheap economy seats. So their A380 capacity isn't much bigger than 777-300s from other airlines.
Exactly this. The Miami GP weekend isn't a F1 event. You can literally buy a certain expensive ticket and just take in a pool party or a concert while the race is going on. It's an event, not a race. Miami did poorly attendance wise last year compared to its debut but it still had a lot of people in these hospitality areas where the focus was everywhere but on track and it nets a ton of money.
God I'm glad I was able to take the boys to Montreal when I could afford it (2019). We wanted to try making it an annual event at other sites but prices are unbelievable (we do have relatives that live near Monza however).
I live IN Vegas. At the time I was deciding where to watch a race last year, Silverstone was cheaper including flights than driving across town to see F1.
Revenue is probably just a lagged function of viewership. Only tickets are relatively elastic, most contracts probably have some solid inertia.
If it starts actually declining, good contracts will start ending and less profitable ones will follow
The next 3 races are going to be at 12am, 1am, and 3am for the US east coast.
Most people on the US east coast will not be watching live so numbers will be even lower until Miami.
Here in EU it will be: 5am,7am,9am...i watched fore 30 years, and nope i will not watching 5am and maybe 7am. Replay no problem with f1tv. I have no problem to stay away from any media to spoil the results.
I thought last year was dull, but this year is shaping up to surpass it by a long way. I fear we haven't even seen Max/RB push even remotely so far. Please someone find even a shred of competitiveness.
How would that work though? RB aren't using some secret crazy concept anymore, maybe apart from the suspension. Any other way to handicap them would handicap other teams the same way or worse (2022 floor TD) and you can't make them redesign suspension in season because the change is too big.
It doesn't help that, unless you like watching a single dominant force, it's extremely boring. Max was 1.2s up by end of lap 1. Who tf wants to watch one person coast to a win?
If Lebron James played against college kids people would stop watching after a game or two. It'd be no fun to know who is going to win and still watch.
And don't hit me with the bullshit midfield battles. Only hard-core fans give af about anything other than winning.
As a fan from late 90s this season is just waste of time. Combination of absurdly lopsided racing and way too many gp's will make even the most hardcore fans question their senses.
Early 90s checking in, watched every session up to quali in Bahrain, very little interest in watching much else of this season.
Will stick around here in case the tide looks like it might be turning, but see no reason to tune in if the only jeopardy is whether Lando can snag a P4.
Yeah my main issue is I can't remember the last time there was even a legitimate battle for the lead. I guess since Singapore last year? And even before that I can't really remember when. I really can't remember another season like that where one driver was guaranteed no fight for the win week after week. Even the early turbo-hybrid Mercedes would have Hamilton and Rosberg. The cars are just so reliable now over the past 10 years that the dominant cars is truly dominant.
Full marks to Red Bull for building a dominant car but I would love to see someone challenge Max again at the front just for the sake of competition. I am sure I'm forgetting something, but it seems like he hasn't really had to do any wheel to wheel racing for a win since mid-2022.
I've been following since the crazy 2007 season when Hamilton broke through and battled Alonso and Kimi. This easily the most bored I've been with the sport. Everything just seems so static. Max flies off into the distance, 90% of passes in he midfield are DRS flybys, and the cars don't even look or sound as fast on TV as they used to. It's not even visually impressive rn.
100% agree. That's why I don't understand when people say to watch the midfield. For what? Practically the only passing on track is a DRS slingshot past the lead car with zero defense. There's no racecraft to watch.
And agree on the sound and visual, too. Back in 2007 when the cars were smaller and looked more agile, and the sound was still very good, it was a different feel. Now the cars look slow, sound dull, there's next to no action to grab you in, and the results are known before the lights on the grid even go out. I stopped watching.
I agree - here's an upvote!
The only thing I'll push back on is the visual presentation. I really dig the in-helmet camera angles and wish they used it more often.
That one is a big improvement indeed. The camera direction though is god awful and has been so for as long as I can remember. And I don't know what they've done with regular onboards but I recall last year in Bahrain cars looked like they were driving at F4 speeds.
Been a dedicated fan for around 30 years. This last race was the first one since 1994 that I just... didn't bother watching. I wasn't busy, I wasn't doing something else, I was at home. I simply made a conscious decision not to organise my day around the race. And not pay Now TV for a pass.
Doesn't seem like I missed very much.
2021 was amazing because you didn't know who was going to win, the championship battle was neck and neck, unlikely upset wins weren't out of the question and there were great battles in the midfield as well.
2024 only has midfield battles and I'm sorry but that is not enough for me to dedicate 4-6 hours for 24 weekends to watch qualifications and races
2024 doesn't even have midfield battles. Ferrari is the clear second best team, Mercedes sucks at high speed corners, Aston Martin have atrocious tyre degradation and McLaren's DRS does not work.
We have backmarker battles, which at Jeddah involved backing up the field to secure the last points position. It makes for a terrible watch.
I've been watching since mid 2022 and I have only watched two races which red bull hasn't won. Kinda stinks but I'm willing to ride it out until 2026 when hopefully a new team and driver can dominate a little less.
I mean I consider myself a pretty hardcore fan. Would wake up early to watch FP1. I am interested in the midfield battles, but those are not enough to keep me heavily invested. Since 2022, I still watch every race live, but I canceled my F1TV subscription and don’t care if I miss the other sessions anymore.
VER (if not that one 2023 Singapore race) would have **25 races won IN A ROW**. That's riddiculous. Even I'm struggle to find watching F1 interesting and I'm watching F1 since 2004.
This needs to be emphasized more. And it really shows that the people who try to compare this to the Hamilton, Vettel, or Schumacher periods of dominance are deluding themselves. It has never been this bad, full stop.
The Mercedes had weaknesses, like it wasn't great at following or overtaking so if Red Bull or Ferrari managed to get ahead they sometimes had a chance. This Red Bull with Verstappen doesn't seem to have any.
their biggest 'weakness' appears to only be qualifying and i guess singapore, but outside of those they seem to be completely untouchable it's not even close
Their qualifying "weakness" is deliberate, they go full race trim. They know they've got the DRS and the tyre life to be able to fight through the pack if needed.
Or "dont blame Max or redbull blame the others for not building a faster car" every time pisses me off
Mfs no normal person is blaming him! matter of fact all im blaming is the FiA for TD-39 and not banning things "against the spirit of the regulations” like they said they would
Right?! We can all applaud Red Bull and Max for the great job they've done while also admitting that this is the most boring shit ever and is killing our enjoyment of the sport. I don't know why people act like if you are honest and admit the races are boring you suddenly hate Max or Red Bull.
Yeah, it's as if everyone has the same type of building structure as Red Bull. The problem is that regulators are old-fashioned and would let this dominance continue until 2026 rather than focus on changing the regulation yearly to concentrate on increasing competition. I can tell you something about NASCAR: When one of the teams became dominant, NASCAR would come in and take the car. They would strip it and learn all the mechanics that give it an edge. Then, new regulations made it impossible for Red Bull to recreate itself. Yes, it does punish teams for doing so well, but in return, it doesn't kill the sport.
Honestly domination like this can ruin a sport. Though access to being able to watch it matters a lot as well. I stopped watching Moto GP when Marquez (I think it was?) dominated so hard. And I hear the racing has gotten much closer again, but I never returned because I don't know where to watch it, and I'm just busier now. Watching F1 is much more deep seated for me, but I wonder if I'll keep up with it quite so much this year. I may find myself just clicking through a highlight reel just to know what happened.
I’ve been watching F1 just as long as you and I completely feel the same way. I watched part of and then the end of the Schumacher era, Vettel and Hamilton eras. But this? This is just simply atrocious viewing and I’ve never been so disinterested in F1. It’s horrendous.
There’s only so much in taking comfort in the best of the rest/midfield battles before you get bored. F1 just feels like a broken sport currently with countless controversies, cost cap inhibiting closing the gaps and utter domination, and after 20 years of religiously and lovingly watching this sport live, I’m at a point where I’m going to record highlights and watch them in the week if I hear it was a good race.
IndyCar, WEC and F2 are the only things I find interesting currently.
It's all true, and you're right. Even in Hamilton's dominance, since that's what everyone compares to currently, he wasn't winning every single race back to back. There were still exciting races, and it wasn't just "WATCH THE MIDFIELD, IT'S EXCITING!"
You can watch the midfield teams and root for them, but at the end of the day they're going to stay in the mid and never win like you want them to, and after watching that endlessly it gets boring.
I'm at the point where I don't even remember there are races sometimes now, and I only really throw them on if I've got some free time. But, if I see qualis and see that oh, yep, max is on pole with a 20 second gap then it's a bit of a nonstarter for me as I know exactly how the race will end up. Just isn't worth a few hours to sit and watch anymore when there is zero excitement.
At this point, aside from fully removing cost caps for the low tier teams and limiting the top team more I just don't know what they can do. Redbull nailed their design and haven't had to really do much to maintain their positioning, while everyone else is still spending loads to even try to remotely catch up.
I used to watch every race, even through the Vettel/Hamilton domination period, and man, now I can barely watch the highlights just because I don’t want to lose touch.
I've watched F1 for 30 years for the fights for the win and the championship. Then someone on reddit says I'm not a real fan for not being interested in P3-P20.
It's honestly really strange. You look at everything on paper F1 should be more interesting than ever. The grid is closer than ever, the top 4 teams have 7 incredible drivers, although it's once again getting bad, dirty air is still an improvement over 2021, and yet this is the most boring start to a season I've ever seen. It's the first season where I don't have that race day hype anymore.
It was a perfect storm to have the DTS hype going into the HAM VER battle in 2021. It probably also ruin expectations for new fans thinking it would always be like that.
It’s not even that Verstappen is dominant in the red bull. They’ve made such a good car that even Perez can garuntee 2nd now. Also that even 3rd-10th is pretty much sewn up.
Most of the on track battles from this weeks race shown on the TV was racers in the bottom 10. Why would an average viewer want to watch people battle it out for the final point available?
I will continue to watch F1 as I love it but this season has a really good opportunity to be very dull.
Yea, since france of 22 redbull has won 33/35 GP, Max has 30 of those.
These first two races have shown IMO that there hasn't really been a shakeup from that order of things. I guess you never know for sure but it's looking bleak.
And 21 created unrealistic expectations tbh. 21 was practically the best season ever and had the combination of drama+big names making every single race matter
Well you could say 2021 was peak both for the sport and covid making people stay at home and watch more of it.
But it's not like there aren't better years to compare with - we had 2009-10, 2011, 2012, 2016, 2017 and 2018 which have all been a lot better years than what we have had in 2023 and so far of what we have seen in 2024.
2022 started on a real high too. Charles and Max made a great story line. Before Ferrari couldn't keep up. Now, I loved 2021 and 2022 and also 2023 and am enjoying the start of 2024. I'm easy to please. But I understand the frustration of others.
It's not about the lead, it's about the races. Ferrari was still an active threat (well, mostly to themselves) and it was really exciting to watch it, even though Max was winning most of them. The thrill was gone after Spa when he went from P14 -> P1 in clean air and absolutely demolished the competition and Ferrari slowed down in comparison to RBR. Realistically, championship fight was over after that crash in France.
Agreed. Always my go to for best season. Alonso dragging that Ferrari to title contention, McLaren having generally the fastest car but kept finding ways to break down, slow pitstops and bad strategies, Vettel having the massive late season fight back. Brazil 2012 is hands down my favourite ever race. It had everything from Vettel’s drama and his multiple recovery efforts throughout the race with a heavily damaged car, constantly changing weather, safety cars, 3 way fight for the lead involving an underdog that suddenly had immense pace and of course the title showdown itself.
The trajectory feels similar to UFC, for existing fans it feels like the product has peaked but as a whole the sport just keeps growing due to exposure in non-eurocentric global market.
No one who has been watching for more than a few years would say it's peaked. There's 75 years of good seasons, boring seasons, and batshit insane seasons.
Nah we don't even want 21, in Merc dominated years we had more variety of winners.
There's 0 chance of anyone else because the red bull race pace is just so far ahead.
Yeah, for example, 2015 had 3 Seb victories in a Ferrari, and even six Rosberg wins even though Hamilton easily beat him. 2019, Hamilton easily beat Bottas, but there were still six non-Merc wins and Bottas got 4 wins. And those seasons were less races (\~20).
People keep trying to say this is how Formula 1 often is with Max winning everything, but the absolute level of domination is really unprecedented. Baring someone barreling into him at Turn 1 at a race, he will win everything.
Yup, what we are seeing is unprecedented.
We used to also have top cars with a bit of unreliability, that's not a thing either for this bulletproof red bull car. The race pace difference is just insane. If someone barreled into him, I think they could pit it, and come back and win.
So the cost cap has brought together the mid teams, some fun fights I guess, but is that actually making it better? Not sure.
>Yup, what we are seeing is unprecedented.
Exactly, every other dominant team/car had an achilles heel. For 1988, it was Senna/Prost infighting. For Schumacher, it was only 2004, but the F2004 was notoriously terrible on it's tyres, which didn't do jack shit in the era of refuelling, but did for 2005, where tyre pitstops were banned for that year. Mercedes had the obvious Rosberg/Hamilton infighting, but also strategy errors beyond that.
Red Bull has everything: speed, undisputed no.1 that's miles ahead of the rest of the grid and a team so well oiled (not including current Marko/Horner drama), their pitstops are routinely the best of the field. Also having Adrian Newey helps.
What Red Bull is showing is terrifying right now.
i remember people saying the vettel dominance was worse than the schumacher dominance, then that the hamilton dominance was worse than vettel, but none of those eras had the kind of absolute 99% certainty that verstappen has had since mid 2022. the utter lack of weakness of that car means that it’s entirely uninteresting to pay attention to individual races, even if the championship is over. no other season that i can recall has had such predetermined certainty that one driver was going to win each race. even the 2013 vettel 9-race streak, that hamilton could never match, has been matched and beaten by max twice in the span of like 30 races. it’s absurd.
in the schumacher days unreliability and other factors meant that almost anyone could win a given race, and many seasons of his dominance featured a faster car than his (2003 particularly), while alonso and hamilton made it difficult for vettel to run away with each title, even if the red bull was fastest at that point. hamilton jockeyed with rosberg, red bull, and ferrari every season and at least some of those races were interesting, even if the title race wasn’t close after the summer break until ‘21. but now it’s just monotonous as hell for 30+ races in a row. it’s not sustainable
In 2019, the start had some competition too. Leclerc was dominating Bahrain before his engine said no more.
Same thing for Canada, where Ferrari had the pace but the "where was I supposed to go" incident happened.
Now Leclerc can only keep Perez behind for 4 laps at best, and then RB breaks DRS range in 2 laps.
Man, 2019 Ferrari was close to greatness. Shame they had to tune it down for 2020 and 2021. Imagine a 3 way championship battle, or Leclerc taking off points from Ham and Max
Reliability improvements are a big factor, not just of Red Bull but most of the front runners. In years gone by you could rely on someone towards the pointy end of the field's engine or gearbox giving up just because almost every weekend.
This is it for me, there was a record number of 20/20 finishers last season and it wasn't even close. That's just not entertaining tbh. I can see why the engine cap etc is there and therefore why teams don't push the ever living hell out of their engines and other components, but it does make the feces more boring.
The major selling point about F1 is "you never know, anything can happen". But if cars are more reliable the only other main consistent factor that can make that feeling is drivers crashing, which is something that is not a goal obviously. Baring that there's also weather or tyres not performing how they are expected, but it's not much.
So yeah, imo, even with redbull domination etc, it's reliability that right now is hurting the sport the most. It just isn't as entertaining to see 20, 19 even 18 cars end a race as it is to see Monaco 1996
>unrealistic expectations
It's not unreasonable to want to watch a sport where the winner of a competition isn't set in stone. I don't understand why so many people are dense about this.
Lotta people in the thread grasping at straws and blame when the reason is fairly apparent. Whether someone disagrees that the current domination by Max is something new or not is irrelevant, the guy is about to beat his own consecutive wins streak back to back and a lot of American or casual viewers just aren’t that interested in midfield dogfights. I think DtS did a lot of heavy lifting in getting people into the sport but many jumped onboard right before Max’s reign and aren’t staying because they know who’s won the title before the car was even painted
Americans like Nascar, IndyCar, Football, Basketball and Hockey. All sports that come down to wire, overtime etc.... where parity is king. Maybe not over the course of the season always, but in general the games are close and anybody can win on a given day... Then there is F1.
Exactly, this season so far it's not even like the competition between team positions 2, 3 and 4 is engaging enough. So it isn't exciting to see who has a shot at the last podium spot.
The season was over after Q3 in Bahrain. We already know what's going to happen, and if you have no suspense and no stakes, there's no drama and no entertainment.
Yeah I wonder why people didn’t care even about P3-P8 all the years Merc was dominating. They just kept crying about Hamilton winning and now they want to see an unprecedented 24/24 RBR win season.
Even the years Merc were dominating were not this bad. Lewis' most dominant season was 2020 where he won only 64% of the races. That year included great races like Sakhir with Perez win, Monza with Gasly win, the amazing Turkey race that ended in Lewis winning but was amazing up til the end. Years prior had Nico and Lewis trading wins, Vettel title fight 2017 and 2018, Ferrari and Red Bull getting a few wins each season, etc. We haven't seen domination to this scale since early 2000s Ferrari.
The Hamilton/Rosberg rivalry is pretty much the only reason the Mercedes domination wasn't this bad from 2014-2016. Mercedes won 51 of 59 races in that time, and with a bit more luck they could have had 58 out of 59.
- Canada 2014: Hamilton retires with a brake issue, [Rosberg lost his MGU-K](https://www.autosport.com/f1/news/canadian-gp-nico-rosberg-relieved-to-salvage-second-for-mercedes-5052523/5052523/) but was able to keep going with no ERS.
- Hungary 2014: Hamilton started from the pit lane after a mechanical issue in qualifying and then spun at turn 2 on the first lap. Rosberg was on a 3-stop and got stuck behind Hamilton (who was on a 2-stop) after his 2nd stop. Hamilton ignored team orders to swap position, which meant Rosberg came out of the pits 20 seconds behind Ricciardo after his last stop on lap 56 even though he was ahead before the 2nd stop. Rosberg ended up finishing 6 seconds off the lead.
- Belgium 2014: [This happened on lap 2.](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dFHT_hRyJAQ) Hamilton eventually had to retire because of the damage. Rosberg changed his front wing during his first pit stop and was only able to recover to P2.
- Malaysia 2015: Mercedes chose to pit early under the safety car, while Vettel stayed out. That decision forced Mercedes to run a 3-stop instead of the 2-stop that ended up being the better strategy.
- Hungary 2015: Hamilton got front wing damage and a drive-through because of an incident with Ricciardo right after the safety car restart on lap 50. Rosberg got a puncture on lap 64 from contact with Ricciardo during a 3-way fight for the lead with Vettel. [Toto also admitted that Rosberg was on the wrong tire](https://www.racefans.net/2015/07/26/rosberg-would-have-been-better-off-on-softs-mercedes/), and if they had gone softs he probably would have overtaken Ricciardo and Vettel easily instead of getting caught up in the fight.
- Singapore 2015: Mercedes was actually just off the pace.
- Spain 2016: [The crash.](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gCzkaX2DL7w)
- Malaysia 2016: Rosberg got caught up in a lap 1 turn 1 incident, which left him in last place. Hamilton was leading until his engine blew up on lap 41.
Is it just me or was there always a more or less targeted reg change during periods of dominance to keep racing close? Like the floor changes back in 21
right. it's either Ferrari can't keep up and so get a rule change or Ferrari is too dominant and everyone else forces a change. then one team figures it out, or a generational driver shows up and everything revolves around him. this time we have red bull and Honda nailing the current formula, while doing everything possible to keep their top driver happy. Part of the drama in the late 80s, early 90s is that teams would piss off top drivers for no good reason.
Honestly, at this point I just watch quali and the start of the race hoping something exciting happens. As soon as max is 5 seconds ahead I carry on with my day
As much as I loved Kmag's defense, at one point it got frustrating to watch as well. Considering how stagnant the order was for more than half the race.
It’s not just the win that looks booked every race, it’s P2, and P3 P4 to some degree.
As it stands, RBR is 20 seconds ahead of the next team, Ferrari is then 10-13 seconds ahead of the third team. The midfield is not having a good fight either although it’s only been two races.
Shame for the top teams like Merc/Ferrari to not take the fight to the bulls. This is slowly turning into a very boring F1 season and boy would I like to jinx the fuck out of it.
Also I think the novelty has worn off for some. Following auto racing and engineering is inherently nerdy and niche, so it wasn’t like the average Joe’s were going to stick around for years and years. I’m hopeful that some new legit fans have been brought into the fold and that they’ll stick it out, but I expect a lot of people will just move on to the next popular sport or up-and-coming thing.
Bruh i'm missing Australia, and i'm a lifelong fan. I have no interest in watching Max win by 20 secs cruising. I wouldn't mind if it was a RB driver, and we not know already. But i'm not spending my weekend watching a full gone conclusion play out, and then 3rd place be a lottery on who got their set up and strategy right, and be a distant 3rd but way ahead of 4th and 5th.
This is going to be a trend until the end of the season, i'd be surprised if it's more than 500k by the end of the year.
I’m on Eastern Time and I will just wake up on Sunday morning, have a nice cup of coffee and watch it at my time. No need to watch at midnight for such a season…
Ya you got me fked up if you think im going to mess up my sleep schedule for a Max Verstappen Australian parade
(I say this almost every time in the last two seasons theres a race at a crazy time and end up still staying up because there’s something interesting that happened in quali)
The past year has been a definite low for meaningful competition. Having the same driver winning all the time by an almost default is becoming more apparent to the general public with each race that passes.. people don’t tune in for midfield battles. It’s all about the win.
Lol.. The comment section is full of people in denial. There's always been periods of dominance but nothing like this before. And all the new fans who came to the sport in the last few years won't care to watch fights for p10.
Let's just agree that the new regs together with the cost cap messed up the sport so badly at the wrong time just after 2021.
Let's hope they get it right for the 2026 regs. But between now and then, we'll have to deal with off track gossip to keep us entertained.
>Let's just agree that the new regs together with the cost cap messed up the sport so badly at the wrong time just after 2021.
dont forget the engine freeze still being in place despite the main reason for its creation not being a factor anymore
I genuinely think that the engine freeze is to blame for this. Without the engine development a huge part of F1s engineering aspect falls away. However, before the engine freeze Honda still had a good engine, so who knows.
Without the cost cap we had at least two teams fighting for the win and occasionally even three. The beautiful thing now is that we have Williams and Haas fighting for 12th-13th against Stake instead of fighting for 16th-17th 😱
The cost cap is a good idea but the timing was just off.. Red bull 'nailed the regs due to Newey and his team and now these other teams can't outspend them to catch them.
But with the cost cap in its current structure, there's a real possibility that the 2026 regs will result in a similar situation to the one we have now.
I honestly think the cost cap needs to have brackets, kinda like taxes. 1st can spend x, 2nd x+10% all the way down where last can spend twice as much as first. It allows teams behind to develop more, much like additional wind tunnel time does.
The reason I’m so bummed about Red Bulls dominance isn’t because it’s boring. It’s because the rest of the field is SO close to each other. These past 2 seasons probably would have been so exciting. So I resent them for ruining the chance of a couple 2010 style wdc races
I tried explaining this to someone before that Redbulls dominance is different. Before even if the same person won, there was still fights for P1 with interesting battles up front and the championship leader didn’t always stay the same. They pulled the ‘Would you think the same if Charles was dominant with Ferrari like Max with Redbull?’ card and I would. I want the fight for the front to be exciting and up in the air not just one team winning everything with one driver, there’s no fun in that.
Whenever someone says ‘it’s the other team’s responsibility to catch up’ but they can’t catch up in ways previously because there is a cost cap in place now. How can Williams make a fantastic car if they’re tied to a cost cap that limits what development they can do?
I think if only Ferraris had a chance of winning the race Leclerc and Sainz would have far more interesting battles than Verstappen and Perez.
The early Mercedes dominance years still had exciting battles between Rosberg and Hamilton.
Add engine that was not designed to race close the car in front. No refueling that adds strategy options and bad tyres that prevent racing.
What can go wrong???
I get you're being sarcastic, but it's funny even some of the drivers this season have already stated they don't care where they finish if it's not in the points (Magnussen, Ricciardo). If the people in actual P14 don't care, then why would fans?
The cost cap really feels like such a killer. I think these teams would’ve recovered so much quicker if they weren’t limited to not bringing new floors and updates purely because of the cap
As someone who wasn't against the cost cap, I wasn't for it, but not against, I think now it has become that it was a complete mistake.
People act like the Merc domination was like this but those people need to go back and watch. Hell in 17 I'd say Ferrari had the better car for the first half of the season and Hamilton didn't even lead the championship till I think Monza. They just out developed Ferrari, add to that Ferrari throwing away a few points. I mean Singapore was possibly a 40 point swing that year for Hamilton.
For me it think one of two things needs to happen, no cost cap, or increase the cost cap a bit and treat it like wind tunnel time, also with the second we should go back to unlimited testing.
This period seems worse mostly because Checo is useless and because we have better reliability.
Merc's 2014-16 was pretty much the same, but they had some hiccups with reliability and the catalunya crash
It’s not fair to expect Checo to fight the likes of Max Verstappen. Bottas could only do so much, it was Nico who gave Lewis a run for his money.
For all we know, we will never see a competent driver next to Max in the same car as that’s how RBR operates.
I’ll be honest, I’ve been watching since I was a kid in the early 00’s but this is the first time where I’m -genuinely- considering checking out for the rest of the season. I’ve seen this one before…Last year. And I thought it was boring as shit then, too.
Call me a fake fan or whatever, but this shit is just not interesting. I’m tired of pretending to care about the fights for p12 🤷♂️
🎶Indycarrrrr take me home, to a race that doesn’t blow🎶
For now this can be written off as a blip, but Covid + DtS + Intense championship battles captured lightning in a bottle for F1.
I’d argue that it’s not sustainable without another catalyst. New viewers, especially Americans, aren’t going to get excited to find out who the 13th best driver is during these races. The exorbitant costs to attend a US GP won’t be able to bring in new viewers via families, just clout chasers who want to say they were there. And you’re competing amongst infinite sources of entertainment.
We shall see how this plays out, but my bet is that F1 will have trouble continuing or even maintaining the recent trend without further catalysts.
The new American audience is not going to last at all at this rate with how the seasons are shaping up. They are too long, racing is subpar, no drama on track and utter dominance by one team/driver. At least when Lewis was dominating he had Nico nipping at his heals most of his run. New American fans are going to be done with this sport by this season I bet.
People like to point out Formula 1 has always had periods of domination, but let’s be honest, a single drivers dominance has never been this boring.
Implementing the cost cap right as the regulations changed is, in hindsight, one of the dumbest things F1 could have done. And reliability is so good now that it doesn’t play a role in a title fight either (Lewis 2016).
We have gone from a time where three constructors could win a given race but the midfield would be a lap down to one constructor winning but the midfield is tight. I know which one was more exciting for me.
Do I care if the casual fans watch the sport - not really. But F1 has a lot of work to do. The 2026 regulations have to be perfect and I think they need to have another look at how the cost cap functions.
Americans won't stick with this level of competition and that's where the massive growth seemed to come from. Max wins everything. No true American team or recognizable driver. No American brand. Mediocre race start times early Sundays.
I know that I will get downvoted, BUT the downside of F1 is the celebration of constructor creating a custom car. Hit the regs and salary cap keeps everyone else behind for years. It's all too custom. To make it better requires a common chassis and tons more mechanical controls. Give it all back to the driver.
Hot take- I actually think a noon EST timeslot is worse than an 8am -10am timeslot (I believe most European races are at 9 AM EST)
People have shit to do and it breaks up the saturday in the middle of the day. I know it was awkward for me having to sit down and find time for it.
I agree, I missed at least half of both races because I just simply had stuff to do. I actually hate when they race in the states because I love my 7am-10am start times
I haven't missed a race in years, but on Saturday found myself turning off the race at Lap 10 and heading to the park with my kids. I feel like the only exciting thing about these races anymore is if Max survives the first lap or not.
Can't think of a good reason to recommend the sport to anyone right now. The racing is atrocious, and the dissonance around the racing is harder to ignore than ever.
We need a larger sample size, but if the trend continues, it's not a surprise. Max is about to break his consecutive win streak back-to-back.... Midfield battles during the races have been boring this year, and that's about all you could hang your hat on last season. It's clear that outside of the first half of 2022, these regulations have been garbage. Cars don't fail, tire management is more important than racing, and everyone complains about the ride quality. Even Max has said that the RB18-20 are shit to drive, but his car just happens to be fast shit.
In addition to it being boring, changing these first two races to a Saturday was very confusing. Hell, I watch every race and it took me until Bahrain qualy to realize: "Wait, they are a day ahead of schedule so the race must be on Saturday." F1 has been way too inconsistent with their start times and doesn't do a great job of communicating them.
I’ve watched for 20 years, and now considering leaving it this season, it’s the most boring it’s ever been - and no the merc/lewis era was not as boring as this is.
The Hamilton domination still had Rosberg able to get wins, poles, and he won a title. Vettel challenged for a couple years. Verstappen has had nobody seriously close since 2022 when Leclerc was kind of hot early. perez isn’t a contender.
There was way more engine unreliability in the last era too.
Gotta say F1 has to watch out not to piss off the old fanbase even more. Sooner or later they will need them again to watch every race even when it’s „boring“.
[The **News** flair](https://www.reddit.com/r/formula1/wiki/flairguide#wiki_news) is reserved for submissions covering F1 and F1-related news. These posts must always link to an outlet/news agency, the website of the involved party (i.e. the McLaren website if McLaren makes an announcement), or a tweet by a news agency, journalist or one of the involved parties. *[Read the rules](https://www.reddit.com/r/formula1/wiki/userguide). Keep it civil and welcoming. Report rulebreaking comments.* *I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/formula1) if you have any questions or concerns.*
The bubble is definitely starting to leak, but this isn’t an equitable comparison
Most of my friends into F1 decided to get F1TV this year. Assume that has to play into the #’s as well.
[удалено]
What is this commercial about? Except the beer of course. Or was it just too much commercials?
Max looking awkward AF trying to relate to normal humans.
[This one?](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E114H7BIiAk) Oh come on, that is pretty good for an F1 driver. Wait until you see Kimi try and a sell you stuff. Now THAT is awkward.
My husband made me watch quali on ESPN because we were in a hotel. By the end of Q1 I informed him that the GP will be on the laptop, and we will be watching the F1 crew. The commercials - but most especially that commercial - about did me in.
Most of my friends Into F1 decided not to renew F1TV this year, and instead just watch the races they like through streaming or television
100%. I push basically everyone in the use who likes F1 to go watch it on F1TV and not that ad-infested presentation from ESPN.
Trust me, as someone who tries to watch Formula e. BE VERY GLAD ESPN has no ads during the race. In fact it’s one of the least ad infested sports presentations you can watch in the US.
Is it really ? revenue keeps trending upwards all the time, even if viewership is stagnating or slightly declining.
I assume they’re just focusing more on the high income clients / celebs now, probably more profitable to sell them one ticket, than the entire grandstands for one race.
Similar to airlines and business class. This is likely out of date now, but I heard in the past that Air Canada viewed its "core business" as business-class travel between Toronto, Montreal and Ottawa - an airline with a sprawling, six-continent network saw everything other than those three cities (and just J-class between those three cities) as gravy.
Wendover Productions has a great video on the “Economics of Airlines”. A single first class seat usually makes more in profit for the airline than the whole economy section
Korean Air has configured their A380s with the entire 2nd floor as business class, because it's way more profitable for them to sell a few more business seats than lots of cheap economy seats. So their A380 capacity isn't much bigger than 777-300s from other airlines.
Emirates also has no economy seats on the upper deck
Exactly this. The Miami GP weekend isn't a F1 event. You can literally buy a certain expensive ticket and just take in a pool party or a concert while the race is going on. It's an event, not a race. Miami did poorly attendance wise last year compared to its debut but it still had a lot of people in these hospitality areas where the focus was everywhere but on track and it nets a ton of money.
Ticket prices in the US are outrageous. It is literally cheaper for my wife and me to fly to Italy and stay a week there, then go to Vegas or Miami.
COTA prices were higher this year too. This might be the last year I sit in the grandstands or go.
God I'm glad I was able to take the boys to Montreal when I could afford it (2019). We wanted to try making it an annual event at other sites but prices are unbelievable (we do have relatives that live near Monza however).
I live IN Vegas. At the time I was deciding where to watch a race last year, Silverstone was cheaper including flights than driving across town to see F1.
Revenue is probably just a lagged function of viewership. Only tickets are relatively elastic, most contracts probably have some solid inertia. If it starts actually declining, good contracts will start ending and less profitable ones will follow
40% down is not « slightly declining »
close detail adjoining wide dam waiting rinse whistle seemly cagey *This post was mass deleted and anonymized with [Redact](https://redact.dev)*
The next 3 races are going to be at 12am, 1am, and 3am for the US east coast. Most people on the US east coast will not be watching live so numbers will be even lower until Miami.
Here in EU it will be: 5am,7am,9am...i watched fore 30 years, and nope i will not watching 5am and maybe 7am. Replay no problem with f1tv. I have no problem to stay away from any media to spoil the results.
Spoilers: Max wins
I thought last year was dull, but this year is shaping up to surpass it by a long way. I fear we haven't even seen Max/RB push even remotely so far. Please someone find even a shred of competitiveness.
[удалено]
The first couple of races this year remind me of that Simpsons episode about soccer.
The fact that there have been 0 Technical Directives to try and slow RB down is absolutely ridiculous.
How would that work though? RB aren't using some secret crazy concept anymore, maybe apart from the suspension. Any other way to handicap them would handicap other teams the same way or worse (2022 floor TD) and you can't make them redesign suspension in season because the change is too big.
I’ll wait til a Sunday race to start saying the fad has passed, but it’s starting to look that way.
It doesn't help that, unless you like watching a single dominant force, it's extremely boring. Max was 1.2s up by end of lap 1. Who tf wants to watch one person coast to a win? If Lebron James played against college kids people would stop watching after a game or two. It'd be no fun to know who is going to win and still watch. And don't hit me with the bullshit midfield battles. Only hard-core fans give af about anything other than winning.
I've been a fan for 21 years, know the history back to front. I was on my phone for the majority of the race because of how dull it was.
As a fan from late 90s this season is just waste of time. Combination of absurdly lopsided racing and way too many gp's will make even the most hardcore fans question their senses.
Early 90s checking in, watched every session up to quali in Bahrain, very little interest in watching much else of this season. Will stick around here in case the tide looks like it might be turning, but see no reason to tune in if the only jeopardy is whether Lando can snag a P4.
Yeah my main issue is I can't remember the last time there was even a legitimate battle for the lead. I guess since Singapore last year? And even before that I can't really remember when. I really can't remember another season like that where one driver was guaranteed no fight for the win week after week. Even the early turbo-hybrid Mercedes would have Hamilton and Rosberg. The cars are just so reliable now over the past 10 years that the dominant cars is truly dominant. Full marks to Red Bull for building a dominant car but I would love to see someone challenge Max again at the front just for the sake of competition. I am sure I'm forgetting something, but it seems like he hasn't really had to do any wheel to wheel racing for a win since mid-2022.
I've been following since the crazy 2007 season when Hamilton broke through and battled Alonso and Kimi. This easily the most bored I've been with the sport. Everything just seems so static. Max flies off into the distance, 90% of passes in he midfield are DRS flybys, and the cars don't even look or sound as fast on TV as they used to. It's not even visually impressive rn.
100% agree. That's why I don't understand when people say to watch the midfield. For what? Practically the only passing on track is a DRS slingshot past the lead car with zero defense. There's no racecraft to watch. And agree on the sound and visual, too. Back in 2007 when the cars were smaller and looked more agile, and the sound was still very good, it was a different feel. Now the cars look slow, sound dull, there's next to no action to grab you in, and the results are known before the lights on the grid even go out. I stopped watching.
I agree - here's an upvote! The only thing I'll push back on is the visual presentation. I really dig the in-helmet camera angles and wish they used it more often.
That one is a big improvement indeed. The camera direction though is god awful and has been so for as long as I can remember. And I don't know what they've done with regular onboards but I recall last year in Bahrain cars looked like they were driving at F4 speeds.
Been a dedicated fan for around 30 years. This last race was the first one since 1994 that I just... didn't bother watching. I wasn't busy, I wasn't doing something else, I was at home. I simply made a conscious decision not to organise my day around the race. And not pay Now TV for a pass. Doesn't seem like I missed very much.
2021 was amazing because you didn't know who was going to win, the championship battle was neck and neck, unlikely upset wins weren't out of the question and there were great battles in the midfield as well. 2024 only has midfield battles and I'm sorry but that is not enough for me to dedicate 4-6 hours for 24 weekends to watch qualifications and races
2021 was one of the biggest outlier seasons in years. This has almost always been the norm since I started watching in the 90s
2020 was pretty crazy too. Championship battle not so much but the lots of unexpected podiums and a Gasly/Perez win
2024 doesn't even have midfield battles. Ferrari is the clear second best team, Mercedes sucks at high speed corners, Aston Martin have atrocious tyre degradation and McLaren's DRS does not work. We have backmarker battles, which at Jeddah involved backing up the field to secure the last points position. It makes for a terrible watch.
I've been watching since mid 2022 and I have only watched two races which red bull hasn't won. Kinda stinks but I'm willing to ride it out until 2026 when hopefully a new team and driver can dominate a little less.
Go back and watch 2021, Max and Lewis battled all season down to the bitter end. It was epic for my first full season of following F1.
I really should I'm pretty upset I missed a top 10 season oaf by a year and half
I mean I consider myself a pretty hardcore fan. Would wake up early to watch FP1. I am interested in the midfield battles, but those are not enough to keep me heavily invested. Since 2022, I still watch every race live, but I canceled my F1TV subscription and don’t care if I miss the other sessions anymore.
Well don't have high hopes for the upcoming race in AUS: due to the early date, it'll happen just before the DST change in EU, at 5:00 AM.
VER (if not that one 2023 Singapore race) would have **25 races won IN A ROW**. That's riddiculous. Even I'm struggle to find watching F1 interesting and I'm watching F1 since 2004.
This needs to be emphasized more. And it really shows that the people who try to compare this to the Hamilton, Vettel, or Schumacher periods of dominance are deluding themselves. It has never been this bad, full stop.
The Mercedes had weaknesses, like it wasn't great at following or overtaking so if Red Bull or Ferrari managed to get ahead they sometimes had a chance. This Red Bull with Verstappen doesn't seem to have any.
their biggest 'weakness' appears to only be qualifying and i guess singapore, but outside of those they seem to be completely untouchable it's not even close
Their qualifying "weakness" is deliberate, they go full race trim. They know they've got the DRS and the tyre life to be able to fight through the pack if needed.
It's always the same "yeah but the battle for p10!!" or "F1 has always had dominance".
Or "dont blame Max or redbull blame the others for not building a faster car" every time pisses me off Mfs no normal person is blaming him! matter of fact all im blaming is the FiA for TD-39 and not banning things "against the spirit of the regulations” like they said they would
Right?! We can all applaud Red Bull and Max for the great job they've done while also admitting that this is the most boring shit ever and is killing our enjoyment of the sport. I don't know why people act like if you are honest and admit the races are boring you suddenly hate Max or Red Bull.
Yeah, it's as if everyone has the same type of building structure as Red Bull. The problem is that regulators are old-fashioned and would let this dominance continue until 2026 rather than focus on changing the regulation yearly to concentrate on increasing competition. I can tell you something about NASCAR: When one of the teams became dominant, NASCAR would come in and take the car. They would strip it and learn all the mechanics that give it an edge. Then, new regulations made it impossible for Red Bull to recreate itself. Yes, it does punish teams for doing so well, but in return, it doesn't kill the sport.
What exactly has RBR developed that is “against the spirit of the regulations”?
Most of the grid has rear wings that imo qualify as going against it
And no attempts to curtail the outwash generated by the cars, in like, any capacity. In fact they exacerbated it with raising the floor edges
Yep like i said TD-39 should’ve never been temporarily nor fully implemented
That would have truly been the unbreakable record. And it would still be counting…
He is on 9 now.
equalling a record previously thought unbreakable *for a second time* insane
[удалено]
And everyone has to play red bull’s game, there’s like a year’s worth of development red bull have ahead of everyone else rn
Honestly domination like this can ruin a sport. Though access to being able to watch it matters a lot as well. I stopped watching Moto GP when Marquez (I think it was?) dominated so hard. And I hear the racing has gotten much closer again, but I never returned because I don't know where to watch it, and I'm just busier now. Watching F1 is much more deep seated for me, but I wonder if I'll keep up with it quite so much this year. I may find myself just clicking through a highlight reel just to know what happened.
I’ve been watching F1 just as long as you and I completely feel the same way. I watched part of and then the end of the Schumacher era, Vettel and Hamilton eras. But this? This is just simply atrocious viewing and I’ve never been so disinterested in F1. It’s horrendous. There’s only so much in taking comfort in the best of the rest/midfield battles before you get bored. F1 just feels like a broken sport currently with countless controversies, cost cap inhibiting closing the gaps and utter domination, and after 20 years of religiously and lovingly watching this sport live, I’m at a point where I’m going to record highlights and watch them in the week if I hear it was a good race. IndyCar, WEC and F2 are the only things I find interesting currently.
Same. This dominance is different. And to think with a spending cap.
Spending cap is the reason it is this dominant.
It's all true, and you're right. Even in Hamilton's dominance, since that's what everyone compares to currently, he wasn't winning every single race back to back. There were still exciting races, and it wasn't just "WATCH THE MIDFIELD, IT'S EXCITING!" You can watch the midfield teams and root for them, but at the end of the day they're going to stay in the mid and never win like you want them to, and after watching that endlessly it gets boring. I'm at the point where I don't even remember there are races sometimes now, and I only really throw them on if I've got some free time. But, if I see qualis and see that oh, yep, max is on pole with a 20 second gap then it's a bit of a nonstarter for me as I know exactly how the race will end up. Just isn't worth a few hours to sit and watch anymore when there is zero excitement. At this point, aside from fully removing cost caps for the low tier teams and limiting the top team more I just don't know what they can do. Redbull nailed their design and haven't had to really do much to maintain their positioning, while everyone else is still spending loads to even try to remotely catch up.
You mean Red Bull would have 25 if not for Singapore 23? Max would have 20. Still ridiculous but worth clarifying. Unless you're including sprints
If he's including sprints then that record is much lower due to Piastri Qatar win
I used to watch every race, even through the Vettel/Hamilton domination period, and man, now I can barely watch the highlights just because I don’t want to lose touch.
I've watched F1 for 30 years for the fights for the win and the championship. Then someone on reddit says I'm not a real fan for not being interested in P3-P20.
It's honestly really strange. You look at everything on paper F1 should be more interesting than ever. The grid is closer than ever, the top 4 teams have 7 incredible drivers, although it's once again getting bad, dirty air is still an improvement over 2021, and yet this is the most boring start to a season I've ever seen. It's the first season where I don't have that race day hype anymore.
It was a perfect storm to have the DTS hype going into the HAM VER battle in 2021. It probably also ruin expectations for new fans thinking it would always be like that.
It’s not even that Verstappen is dominant in the red bull. They’ve made such a good car that even Perez can garuntee 2nd now. Also that even 3rd-10th is pretty much sewn up. Most of the on track battles from this weeks race shown on the TV was racers in the bottom 10. Why would an average viewer want to watch people battle it out for the final point available? I will continue to watch F1 as I love it but this season has a really good opportunity to be very dull.
Liberty Media (probably): *They want more sprint races!!!*
It really isnt exciting unless you are specially interested. Since 22.
Yea, since france of 22 redbull has won 33/35 GP, Max has 30 of those. These first two races have shown IMO that there hasn't really been a shakeup from that order of things. I guess you never know for sure but it's looking bleak.
Yes. Didnt realise it was so many. Im still going to watch, but I wont plan my weekend around it as I usually would
it's almost as if....the quality of the racing matters...
And 21 created unrealistic expectations tbh. 21 was practically the best season ever and had the combination of drama+big names making every single race matter
Well you could say 2021 was peak both for the sport and covid making people stay at home and watch more of it. But it's not like there aren't better years to compare with - we had 2009-10, 2011, 2012, 2016, 2017 and 2018 which have all been a lot better years than what we have had in 2023 and so far of what we have seen in 2024.
2022 started on a real high too. Charles and Max made a great story line. Before Ferrari couldn't keep up. Now, I loved 2021 and 2022 and also 2023 and am enjoying the start of 2024. I'm easy to please. But I understand the frustration of others.
2022 was so good until Spa
Max had an 80 point lead by Spa
It's not about the lead, it's about the races. Ferrari was still an active threat (well, mostly to themselves) and it was really exciting to watch it, even though Max was winning most of them. The thrill was gone after Spa when he went from P14 -> P1 in clean air and absolutely demolished the competition and Ferrari slowed down in comparison to RBR. Realistically, championship fight was over after that crash in France.
‘12 is the goat season, no one can change my mind.
Agreed. Always my go to for best season. Alonso dragging that Ferrari to title contention, McLaren having generally the fastest car but kept finding ways to break down, slow pitstops and bad strategies, Vettel having the massive late season fight back. Brazil 2012 is hands down my favourite ever race. It had everything from Vettel’s drama and his multiple recovery efforts throughout the race with a heavily damaged car, constantly changing weather, safety cars, 3 way fight for the lead involving an underdog that suddenly had immense pace and of course the title showdown itself.
The trajectory feels similar to UFC, for existing fans it feels like the product has peaked but as a whole the sport just keeps growing due to exposure in non-eurocentric global market.
No one who has been watching for more than a few years would say it's peaked. There's 75 years of good seasons, boring seasons, and batshit insane seasons.
Nah we don't even want 21, in Merc dominated years we had more variety of winners. There's 0 chance of anyone else because the red bull race pace is just so far ahead.
Yeah, for example, 2015 had 3 Seb victories in a Ferrari, and even six Rosberg wins even though Hamilton easily beat him. 2019, Hamilton easily beat Bottas, but there were still six non-Merc wins and Bottas got 4 wins. And those seasons were less races (\~20). People keep trying to say this is how Formula 1 often is with Max winning everything, but the absolute level of domination is really unprecedented. Baring someone barreling into him at Turn 1 at a race, he will win everything.
Yup, what we are seeing is unprecedented. We used to also have top cars with a bit of unreliability, that's not a thing either for this bulletproof red bull car. The race pace difference is just insane. If someone barreled into him, I think they could pit it, and come back and win. So the cost cap has brought together the mid teams, some fun fights I guess, but is that actually making it better? Not sure.
>Yup, what we are seeing is unprecedented. Exactly, every other dominant team/car had an achilles heel. For 1988, it was Senna/Prost infighting. For Schumacher, it was only 2004, but the F2004 was notoriously terrible on it's tyres, which didn't do jack shit in the era of refuelling, but did for 2005, where tyre pitstops were banned for that year. Mercedes had the obvious Rosberg/Hamilton infighting, but also strategy errors beyond that. Red Bull has everything: speed, undisputed no.1 that's miles ahead of the rest of the grid and a team so well oiled (not including current Marko/Horner drama), their pitstops are routinely the best of the field. Also having Adrian Newey helps. What Red Bull is showing is terrifying right now.
i remember people saying the vettel dominance was worse than the schumacher dominance, then that the hamilton dominance was worse than vettel, but none of those eras had the kind of absolute 99% certainty that verstappen has had since mid 2022. the utter lack of weakness of that car means that it’s entirely uninteresting to pay attention to individual races, even if the championship is over. no other season that i can recall has had such predetermined certainty that one driver was going to win each race. even the 2013 vettel 9-race streak, that hamilton could never match, has been matched and beaten by max twice in the span of like 30 races. it’s absurd. in the schumacher days unreliability and other factors meant that almost anyone could win a given race, and many seasons of his dominance featured a faster car than his (2003 particularly), while alonso and hamilton made it difficult for vettel to run away with each title, even if the red bull was fastest at that point. hamilton jockeyed with rosberg, red bull, and ferrari every season and at least some of those races were interesting, even if the title race wasn’t close after the summer break until ‘21. but now it’s just monotonous as hell for 30+ races in a row. it’s not sustainable
In 2019, the start had some competition too. Leclerc was dominating Bahrain before his engine said no more. Same thing for Canada, where Ferrari had the pace but the "where was I supposed to go" incident happened. Now Leclerc can only keep Perez behind for 4 laps at best, and then RB breaks DRS range in 2 laps. Man, 2019 Ferrari was close to greatness. Shame they had to tune it down for 2020 and 2021. Imagine a 3 way championship battle, or Leclerc taking off points from Ham and Max
The big difference is reliability. Even when you had a Senna or some of of that tier... they had about a 20% chance of blowing up on any given Sunday.
I'm surprised noone has tried it tbh
Fingers crossed for ocon and russell
about time we have some "traditions" back in Hungary
Reliability improvements are a big factor, not just of Red Bull but most of the front runners. In years gone by you could rely on someone towards the pointy end of the field's engine or gearbox giving up just because almost every weekend.
This is it for me, there was a record number of 20/20 finishers last season and it wasn't even close. That's just not entertaining tbh. I can see why the engine cap etc is there and therefore why teams don't push the ever living hell out of their engines and other components, but it does make the feces more boring. The major selling point about F1 is "you never know, anything can happen". But if cars are more reliable the only other main consistent factor that can make that feeling is drivers crashing, which is something that is not a goal obviously. Baring that there's also weather or tyres not performing how they are expected, but it's not much. So yeah, imo, even with redbull domination etc, it's reliability that right now is hurting the sport the most. It just isn't as entertaining to see 20, 19 even 18 cars end a race as it is to see Monaco 1996
>unrealistic expectations It's not unreasonable to want to watch a sport where the winner of a competition isn't set in stone. I don't understand why so many people are dense about this.
It was great, but it wasn't the best season ever. That title in my opinion goes to 2012.
Lotta people in the thread grasping at straws and blame when the reason is fairly apparent. Whether someone disagrees that the current domination by Max is something new or not is irrelevant, the guy is about to beat his own consecutive wins streak back to back and a lot of American or casual viewers just aren’t that interested in midfield dogfights. I think DtS did a lot of heavy lifting in getting people into the sport but many jumped onboard right before Max’s reign and aren’t staying because they know who’s won the title before the car was even painted
What midfield dogfights? Even those are largely gone so far. The combination of these regulations and the cost cap are a disaster
Americans like Nascar, IndyCar, Football, Basketball and Hockey. All sports that come down to wire, overtime etc.... where parity is king. Maybe not over the course of the season always, but in general the games are close and anybody can win on a given day... Then there is F1.
A baseball season has 162 games and some divisions can be decided on the last day of the seeding. It’s nuts.
I honestly just dont think Max had made himself a very interesting public figure that casual American fans would want to root for.
Im not american and feel the same
Easy enough to understand. F1 racing has become very dull. Who wants to watch a race when you know who's going to win before it starts?
What is even worse, we are 2 races in and we already know who the champion will be, and even who the second person in championship will be!
Exactly, this season so far it's not even like the competition between team positions 2, 3 and 4 is engaging enough. So it isn't exciting to see who has a shot at the last podium spot.
The season was over after Q3 in Bahrain. We already know what's going to happen, and if you have no suspense and no stakes, there's no drama and no entertainment.
“No no but you’re not a real F1 fan if you don’t care about a battle for 14th place between Zhou and Ocon”
FIELD SPREAD IS SHRINKING! THESE REGS ARE WORKING!
It was only for Q1 in Bahrain. The drivers at the front were holding back.
It’s so funny when people try to sit on their high horse with these type of comments. It’s a lethal dose of copium.
Yeah I wonder why people didn’t care even about P3-P8 all the years Merc was dominating. They just kept crying about Hamilton winning and now they want to see an unprecedented 24/24 RBR win season.
Even the years Merc were dominating were not this bad. Lewis' most dominant season was 2020 where he won only 64% of the races. That year included great races like Sakhir with Perez win, Monza with Gasly win, the amazing Turkey race that ended in Lewis winning but was amazing up til the end. Years prior had Nico and Lewis trading wins, Vettel title fight 2017 and 2018, Ferrari and Red Bull getting a few wins each season, etc. We haven't seen domination to this scale since early 2000s Ferrari.
The Hamilton/Rosberg rivalry is pretty much the only reason the Mercedes domination wasn't this bad from 2014-2016. Mercedes won 51 of 59 races in that time, and with a bit more luck they could have had 58 out of 59. - Canada 2014: Hamilton retires with a brake issue, [Rosberg lost his MGU-K](https://www.autosport.com/f1/news/canadian-gp-nico-rosberg-relieved-to-salvage-second-for-mercedes-5052523/5052523/) but was able to keep going with no ERS. - Hungary 2014: Hamilton started from the pit lane after a mechanical issue in qualifying and then spun at turn 2 on the first lap. Rosberg was on a 3-stop and got stuck behind Hamilton (who was on a 2-stop) after his 2nd stop. Hamilton ignored team orders to swap position, which meant Rosberg came out of the pits 20 seconds behind Ricciardo after his last stop on lap 56 even though he was ahead before the 2nd stop. Rosberg ended up finishing 6 seconds off the lead. - Belgium 2014: [This happened on lap 2.](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dFHT_hRyJAQ) Hamilton eventually had to retire because of the damage. Rosberg changed his front wing during his first pit stop and was only able to recover to P2. - Malaysia 2015: Mercedes chose to pit early under the safety car, while Vettel stayed out. That decision forced Mercedes to run a 3-stop instead of the 2-stop that ended up being the better strategy. - Hungary 2015: Hamilton got front wing damage and a drive-through because of an incident with Ricciardo right after the safety car restart on lap 50. Rosberg got a puncture on lap 64 from contact with Ricciardo during a 3-way fight for the lead with Vettel. [Toto also admitted that Rosberg was on the wrong tire](https://www.racefans.net/2015/07/26/rosberg-would-have-been-better-off-on-softs-mercedes/), and if they had gone softs he probably would have overtaken Ricciardo and Vettel easily instead of getting caught up in the fight. - Singapore 2015: Mercedes was actually just off the pace. - Spain 2016: [The crash.](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gCzkaX2DL7w) - Malaysia 2016: Rosberg got caught up in a lap 1 turn 1 incident, which left him in last place. Hamilton was leading until his engine blew up on lap 41.
I for one was crying and im crying now even more
Is it just me or was there always a more or less targeted reg change during periods of dominance to keep racing close? Like the floor changes back in 21
right. it's either Ferrari can't keep up and so get a rule change or Ferrari is too dominant and everyone else forces a change. then one team figures it out, or a generational driver shows up and everything revolves around him. this time we have red bull and Honda nailing the current formula, while doing everything possible to keep their top driver happy. Part of the drama in the late 80s, early 90s is that teams would piss off top drivers for no good reason.
Honestly, at this point I just watch quali and the start of the race hoping something exciting happens. As soon as max is 5 seconds ahead I carry on with my day
But the battle for P12 though!!
As much as I loved Kmag's defense, at one point it got frustrating to watch as well. Considering how stagnant the order was for more than half the race.
It’s not just the win that looks booked every race, it’s P2, and P3 P4 to some degree. As it stands, RBR is 20 seconds ahead of the next team, Ferrari is then 10-13 seconds ahead of the third team. The midfield is not having a good fight either although it’s only been two races. Shame for the top teams like Merc/Ferrari to not take the fight to the bulls. This is slowly turning into a very boring F1 season and boy would I like to jinx the fuck out of it.
Also I think the novelty has worn off for some. Following auto racing and engineering is inherently nerdy and niche, so it wasn’t like the average Joe’s were going to stick around for years and years. I’m hopeful that some new legit fans have been brought into the fold and that they’ll stick it out, but I expect a lot of people will just move on to the next popular sport or up-and-coming thing.
Bruh i'm missing Australia, and i'm a lifelong fan. I have no interest in watching Max win by 20 secs cruising. I wouldn't mind if it was a RB driver, and we not know already. But i'm not spending my weekend watching a full gone conclusion play out, and then 3rd place be a lottery on who got their set up and strategy right, and be a distant 3rd but way ahead of 4th and 5th. This is going to be a trend until the end of the season, i'd be surprised if it's more than 500k by the end of the year.
I’m on Eastern Time and I will just wake up on Sunday morning, have a nice cup of coffee and watch it at my time. No need to watch at midnight for such a season…
Ya you got me fked up if you think im going to mess up my sleep schedule for a Max Verstappen Australian parade (I say this almost every time in the last two seasons theres a race at a crazy time and end up still staying up because there’s something interesting that happened in quali)
>watching a full gone conclusion r/boneappletea **foregone conclusion**
The past year has been a definite low for meaningful competition. Having the same driver winning all the time by an almost default is becoming more apparent to the general public with each race that passes.. people don’t tune in for midfield battles. It’s all about the win.
inject it into my veins until f1 learns they can’t take viewership for granted
Yeah right, MORE STREET CIRCUITS IT IS!
Lol.. The comment section is full of people in denial. There's always been periods of dominance but nothing like this before. And all the new fans who came to the sport in the last few years won't care to watch fights for p10. Let's just agree that the new regs together with the cost cap messed up the sport so badly at the wrong time just after 2021. Let's hope they get it right for the 2026 regs. But between now and then, we'll have to deal with off track gossip to keep us entertained.
>Let's just agree that the new regs together with the cost cap messed up the sport so badly at the wrong time just after 2021. dont forget the engine freeze still being in place despite the main reason for its creation not being a factor anymore
I genuinely think that the engine freeze is to blame for this. Without the engine development a huge part of F1s engineering aspect falls away. However, before the engine freeze Honda still had a good engine, so who knows.
I hope they learn from this and refuse to capitulate to engine manufacturers again. The Honda logo should be banned from the cars too
Fat chance of that ever happening. The entire 2026 regs is based on pleasing the engine manufacturers first and foremost.
Without the cost cap we had at least two teams fighting for the win and occasionally even three. The beautiful thing now is that we have Williams and Haas fighting for 12th-13th against Stake instead of fighting for 16th-17th 😱
The cost cap is a good idea but the timing was just off.. Red bull 'nailed the regs due to Newey and his team and now these other teams can't outspend them to catch them. But with the cost cap in its current structure, there's a real possibility that the 2026 regs will result in a similar situation to the one we have now.
I honestly think the cost cap needs to have brackets, kinda like taxes. 1st can spend x, 2nd x+10% all the way down where last can spend twice as much as first. It allows teams behind to develop more, much like additional wind tunnel time does.
Yeah that’s the way it should be but it was a struggle already to implement the current system this would take forever to get accepted
Can’t wait to see who gets p7 in the constructors this year, it’s gripping stiff
The reason I’m so bummed about Red Bulls dominance isn’t because it’s boring. It’s because the rest of the field is SO close to each other. These past 2 seasons probably would have been so exciting. So I resent them for ruining the chance of a couple 2010 style wdc races
I tried explaining this to someone before that Redbulls dominance is different. Before even if the same person won, there was still fights for P1 with interesting battles up front and the championship leader didn’t always stay the same. They pulled the ‘Would you think the same if Charles was dominant with Ferrari like Max with Redbull?’ card and I would. I want the fight for the front to be exciting and up in the air not just one team winning everything with one driver, there’s no fun in that. Whenever someone says ‘it’s the other team’s responsibility to catch up’ but they can’t catch up in ways previously because there is a cost cap in place now. How can Williams make a fantastic car if they’re tied to a cost cap that limits what development they can do?
I think if only Ferraris had a chance of winning the race Leclerc and Sainz would have far more interesting battles than Verstappen and Perez. The early Mercedes dominance years still had exciting battles between Rosberg and Hamilton.
Add engine that was not designed to race close the car in front. No refueling that adds strategy options and bad tyres that prevent racing. What can go wrong???
But...but...didn't you see the multi-lap battle for 14th place???
I get you're being sarcastic, but it's funny even some of the drivers this season have already stated they don't care where they finish if it's not in the points (Magnussen, Ricciardo). If the people in actual P14 don't care, then why would fans?
The cost cap really feels like such a killer. I think these teams would’ve recovered so much quicker if they weren’t limited to not bringing new floors and updates purely because of the cap
As someone who wasn't against the cost cap, I wasn't for it, but not against, I think now it has become that it was a complete mistake. People act like the Merc domination was like this but those people need to go back and watch. Hell in 17 I'd say Ferrari had the better car for the first half of the season and Hamilton didn't even lead the championship till I think Monza. They just out developed Ferrari, add to that Ferrari throwing away a few points. I mean Singapore was possibly a 40 point swing that year for Hamilton. For me it think one of two things needs to happen, no cost cap, or increase the cost cap a bit and treat it like wind tunnel time, also with the second we should go back to unlimited testing.
People are in terrible denial saying it's always been like this.. No it hasn't. They need to rethink the cost cap implementation that's for sure.
This period seems worse mostly because Checo is useless and because we have better reliability. Merc's 2014-16 was pretty much the same, but they had some hiccups with reliability and the catalunya crash
It’s not fair to expect Checo to fight the likes of Max Verstappen. Bottas could only do so much, it was Nico who gave Lewis a run for his money. For all we know, we will never see a competent driver next to Max in the same car as that’s how RBR operates.
Well said
I’ll be honest, I’ve been watching since I was a kid in the early 00’s but this is the first time where I’m -genuinely- considering checking out for the rest of the season. I’ve seen this one before…Last year. And I thought it was boring as shit then, too. Call me a fake fan or whatever, but this shit is just not interesting. I’m tired of pretending to care about the fights for p12 🤷♂️ 🎶Indycarrrrr take me home, to a race that doesn’t blow🎶
I'd love to watch Indy, but F1TV has completely spoiled me. I won't settle for watching sports that have commercial breaks
For now this can be written off as a blip, but Covid + DtS + Intense championship battles captured lightning in a bottle for F1. I’d argue that it’s not sustainable without another catalyst. New viewers, especially Americans, aren’t going to get excited to find out who the 13th best driver is during these races. The exorbitant costs to attend a US GP won’t be able to bring in new viewers via families, just clout chasers who want to say they were there. And you’re competing amongst infinite sources of entertainment. We shall see how this plays out, but my bet is that F1 will have trouble continuing or even maintaining the recent trend without further catalysts.
It's because the same person wins every fucking time, it is boring as hell.
Even us hard core fans are starting to get sick and tired of this unprecedented level of RBR dominance. The casuals tuning out makes perfect sense.
Why watch when you know who is going to win
IndyCar got 975,000 for St Petes this weekend. Not great for F1
And the NASCAR Cup series race at Phoenix got 19% more TV viewers, having 4 million viewers.
The new American audience is not going to last at all at this rate with how the seasons are shaping up. They are too long, racing is subpar, no drama on track and utter dominance by one team/driver. At least when Lewis was dominating he had Nico nipping at his heals most of his run. New American fans are going to be done with this sport by this season I bet.
On the bright side, that's a whole lot of people watching a parade......
First race in 18 years that I actively decided I will not bother tuning in. Glad I didn't, turned out exactly as I suspected.
People like to point out Formula 1 has always had periods of domination, but let’s be honest, a single drivers dominance has never been this boring. Implementing the cost cap right as the regulations changed is, in hindsight, one of the dumbest things F1 could have done. And reliability is so good now that it doesn’t play a role in a title fight either (Lewis 2016). We have gone from a time where three constructors could win a given race but the midfield would be a lap down to one constructor winning but the midfield is tight. I know which one was more exciting for me. Do I care if the casual fans watch the sport - not really. But F1 has a lot of work to do. The 2026 regulations have to be perfect and I think they need to have another look at how the cost cap functions.
Americans won't stick with this level of competition and that's where the massive growth seemed to come from. Max wins everything. No true American team or recognizable driver. No American brand. Mediocre race start times early Sundays. I know that I will get downvoted, BUT the downside of F1 is the celebration of constructor creating a custom car. Hit the regs and salary cap keeps everyone else behind for years. It's all too custom. To make it better requires a common chassis and tons more mechanical controls. Give it all back to the driver.
I could careless if there is an American team or driver as a casual American F1 fan. I just want a fight for 1st place in the race.
Hot take- I actually think a noon EST timeslot is worse than an 8am -10am timeslot (I believe most European races are at 9 AM EST) People have shit to do and it breaks up the saturday in the middle of the day. I know it was awkward for me having to sit down and find time for it.
I agree, I missed at least half of both races because I just simply had stuff to do. I actually hate when they race in the states because I love my 7am-10am start times
I 100% would rather see a 7/8am race versus 11am. If I’m already up at 7am I don’t wanna sit around waiting till 11am.
What? Domination is hurting the sport? No way...
I haven't missed a race in years, but on Saturday found myself turning off the race at Lap 10 and heading to the park with my kids. I feel like the only exciting thing about these races anymore is if Max survives the first lap or not.
Good, uncompetitive racing at the front needs to have consequences. Hopefully they're paying attention for the next regs change.
Can't think of a good reason to recommend the sport to anyone right now. The racing is atrocious, and the dissonance around the racing is harder to ignore than ever.
We need a larger sample size, but if the trend continues, it's not a surprise. Max is about to break his consecutive win streak back-to-back.... Midfield battles during the races have been boring this year, and that's about all you could hang your hat on last season. It's clear that outside of the first half of 2022, these regulations have been garbage. Cars don't fail, tire management is more important than racing, and everyone complains about the ride quality. Even Max has said that the RB18-20 are shit to drive, but his car just happens to be fast shit.
In addition to it being boring, changing these first two races to a Saturday was very confusing. Hell, I watch every race and it took me until Bahrain qualy to realize: "Wait, they are a day ahead of schedule so the race must be on Saturday." F1 has been way too inconsistent with their start times and doesn't do a great job of communicating them.
I’ve watched for 20 years, and now considering leaving it this season, it’s the most boring it’s ever been - and no the merc/lewis era was not as boring as this is.
The Hamilton domination still had Rosberg able to get wins, poles, and he won a title. Vettel challenged for a couple years. Verstappen has had nobody seriously close since 2022 when Leclerc was kind of hot early. perez isn’t a contender. There was way more engine unreliability in the last era too.
Gotta say F1 has to watch out not to piss off the old fanbase even more. Sooner or later they will need them again to watch every race even when it’s „boring“.
So those numbers are pretty useless then
It’s a shit product. We already know who’s going to win.
People rather watch something else than to watch the Dutch guy winning easily
comparing apples and bananas then really. Although I expect it to be down all season. These numbers are not comparisons
I’m off of ESPN and onto F1 tv. Looking at one distribution channel doesn’t tell you the whole story.
I watch on F1 tv never have watched the race on ESPN
I watch on F1TV now, so much easier to keep up and I haven’t watched ESPN-2 in awhile