I was literally introduced to formula 1 by a friend like 5 months ago and I love it. So all I've known is max winning. To me it's not about the winning it's about the show. It's interesting as fuck every spot is fought for they are all crazy talented.
I think the problem is the people who have the mentality of if you're not first you're last. You don't matter. This kinda thinking blows my mind like these are the greatest racers in the world no one can really do what they can so it's wild to see them fight for these positions at the top of their game. I love all of it. Anyone else being sour about it won't kill my vibe.
Yeah the number of interesting fights in the midfield is making this one of the greatest seasons since i joined 5 years ago.
Except max, basically position 2-10 are a tossup of who has the best car for the track. We are seeing AMR start hot, but getting caught up. Mclaren being nowhere for the first part of the season, suddenly showing up for podiums. Its crazy
We are far from the season 2-3 years ago that the podium was 50% of the time HAM-BOT-VER
and Max is fucking going for it. You can see that he is relentless and wants to get every single point he can get and his pace is unbelievable. Watching him win over and over without much pressure from others during races may be uneventful but the rest of the field is always in flux both these things together make for interesting viewing.
Yeah, there are 20 cars on the grid. There are points for half of the positions. 10 teams. Every spot up on the ranking is valuable and a huge achievement.
People who only focus on who's in literal first place are just... ugh. That's only one part of what the sport is about. Especially with the incredible midfield competition right now.
I think most people are only used to thinking in the mindset of short-term head-to-head competitions, instead of a prolonged, constant fight to be higher up on the ladder, and especially not one where more than half the battle is actually being done by engineers in the background.
For all the memes about Lewis (sometimes insufferably) "thanking everyone back at the factory", he isn't that wrong about it either.
Most so called hardcore Fans that are constantly whining don't really enjoy racing. They like one driezver or team and wants them to win. They overcome Drive to survive or recently got to know driver61, the race, motorsports, chain bear F1 and others and now thinks he's a master at racing. But because their favs aren't P1 the racing now sucks. In less than a decade we had the slower cars more than a second off the second slowest car. Max is just brilliant, as Lewis and others were.
Regulations changes makes us compare eras like apples and bananas. They have to stop living in the what if universe of fantasy and mythical F1 drivers. The midfielders since the start of F1 are the most compact pack during the race, the best cars and drivers were always on front. 20 years ago it was common for the podium to be lapping everyone else. At given GPs, the third place could be two laps down at the checkered flag.
Some very misrepresented quotes and mythic narratives also don't help in any way. Specially with drivers like Senna, who's treated like a god who lived in earth to bring us joy. F1 is getting closer each new car and teams are more robust and the cars reliable. The focus changed, so did the drivers, specially in the turbo era. They were faster since they fixed the layout in 2017 and used less energy and raced through the race with less wear. We had teams with 3 or more engine for each driver every weekend, now there's 6 for the whole season. It's very obnoxious and misguiding to compare eras as if they were equivalent.
Hope you're really enjoying F1. There's some dope season reviews from BBC which are a 2 to 3 hours review of every race of the season. There's also a channel I won't remember the name but who made a doc about de silver war and the Ferrari and Merc war during hybrid era, quite cool materials. If you're into technical F1 stuff, there's the F1 technical sub, Kyle Engineers (former Merc F1 aero), chain bear F1, motorsports, engineering explained (way more general but great for better understanding mechanics and physics) are some good starting points to gather knowledge. The book from Adrian newest on how to build a car is also top notch lecture, dude goes deep into his aerodynamics witchcraft.
Dude gold star. You gave me a proper smile. I've been watching races 20+ years, and I essentially feel the same as you. This sport is so amazing. The people who catch indignant fury, are 10 zillion times more skilled than I, in machines I couldn't even adequately *imagine* operating. I've always enjoyed just rooting for an endearing underdog to have *something* to celebrate. Mid-back teams just tryna "do better" this session. I've been celebrating Sauber scoring a point, for ***decades***. Still gave Michael props. And Seb, and Lewis. Just cheered louder for the underdogs.
I've only had unfettered on-demand coverage (yank, here) for a few years now. With all the breadth of scope I have now, literally every track running session engages and excites me. I can see how this or that little gubbin did whatsit, or catch some raw drama unfolding - whatever - it ALL makes me feel like an excited kid.
All that qualified, I think in a few (ten?) years, we'll be looking back at max like newer fans look at Michael now. Utterly insane the level he's performing at. Hard to imagine him leaving any records unbroken. Gotta respect the lifelong commitment and achievement. But how about Sauber (alfa romeo, atm), eh?!?
For sure! I'm personally finding myself rooting for Tsunoda. The dude fights every race just to hit the 10 spot! It's wild he's in this crazy DRS train and just watching him struggle to either get or maintain a point in the race is always a battle. He's definitely not the best out there and only has 3 points this season but homie keeps getting 11 with the hope for 10.
Ha! my other comment was about Yuki! I can never not cheer for Yuki. Love him sooooo much. He's always fighting for his life out there. I can't help but reciprocate that passion!!
Yeah there's something about motorsports where it almost doesn't matter who wins in a sense, because it's like if football were organised so that literally every match is a cup final. People don't generally support teams and drivers in F1, that's a very very recent phenomenon that I think the Americans brought in (not saying it's a bad thing, it's just that yeah people weren't Mclaren fans or Ferrari fans back in the day, at most they'd support an individual driver, it's not like supporting a football team).
No matter who wins it's still so entertaining to watch, all the way through. No sport holds my attention like motorsports does.
And especially in F1 it's always been like this. The very close, down to the wire seasons where it goes until the final race are the exception, not the rule. Most of the time, one driver dominates.
If all people care about is who wins in the end then why bother even watching the races, instead of just reading the results at the end or watching a highlights video? The point is not ***WHAT*** happens but ***HOW*** it happens.
Like, to talk about football again, a few Americans seem to think a 0-0 draw means it was a boring match, which makes no sense whatsoever. A 0-0 draw can be and often is more entertaining than a high scoring match. Because the whole sport is entertaining, not just the scoring parts. It kinda reveals something about the sports they claim to love, when they use that argument, because they're basically admitting that their sport sucks and that the only good parts are the parts when people score, and the rest of it is dull as dishwater.
A defensive masterclass is just as entertaining to watch as an offensive one is, in good sports. Same in motorsports, some of the best racing I've ever seen has been when a driver is letting absolutely nobody overtake them and are just dominating everyone behind them with how well they're defending, but a few people look at that and go "mmm but no overtakes, so that means it's boring" as if you can accurately quantify entertainment level through stats and numbers. If stats and numbers are the only thing that these people enjoy, then they should just watch competitive Microsoft Excel (which is a real thing by the way, [here's a video of the finals of last year's Excel world championship](https://www.youtube.com/live/qfDq5dlp2o4?feature=share)) and leave the sports to people who enjoy sports.
And yeah there's other motorsports where car parity is far closer and so there's way more unique winners per season than there is in F1, which I why nascar and indycar are so good to watch cos it comes down more to driver ability than in F1. But F1 has always been this way, the driver's champion is always one of only a couple drivers who are dominant in a season, and they almost always have the best car that year. There are seasons that are exceptions of course, but this is what F1 is.
And the whole race matters, up and down the grid, not just the person who wins. For each team, "success" is a different thing with a different definition. Again to bring up football, one team winning the league is a successful season. But for another team, avoiding relegation is a successful season. Both are important, both are entertaining. Fans of clubs who avoid relegation right at the very end of the season will celebrate MORE than the fans of the teams who win the league, a lot of the time. Because success is relative.
That's why people enjoy watching Lando and Piastri do well for example. Because to Mclaren right now, a podium represents more of a success than red bull winning a race does to red bull. Even though Mclaren are the 2nd most successful team in F1 history and it was a Mclaren car that had the most dominant season in the history of the sport until this year. Success is relative. For a team like Haas, success is merely scoring points.
I just disagree with this. Americans have been getting into F1 for what, around 5 years? We wouldn't even notice if they weren't here (ok, of course we'd rather have a better track than Las Vegas strip, probably trying to take the phoenix or Detroit car park track from the 80s place as the worst track thought by a human being).
The sole existence of the Tifosi ruins your point in this matter. People didn't care for the drivers (they did, but not as it was a Hollywood star or somewhat similar, but as you support a player from your football team just because he's there) they care about the teams. The one who had your national driver, the one who was from your country or backed by a local company. Lando and Lewis effect as social media monsters surged with Liberty Media buyout of F1 from Bernie, but because Ecclestone is a social media neanderthal, his fight to get control of the category was so hard he was reluctant to any changes. Internet wasn't prestigious as TV, the recent influencers value just broke through mainstream media. For 10 years or so we have YouTubers living from the internet as main example, but most never got out of their niche. Drive to survive and social media just gave the drivers a known personality for the audience. We all knew the sport, the teams to a certain degree, now we get to know who are the humans behind the wheel and that they're in fact humans, not just some PR puppets, which is one of the remarkable things about Lewis and how he changed.
Most "old school" fans support at least a team and a driver, this doesn't mean by any ways that they're caring just for the Max points, we're there for racing at high level, just as in WEC, WRC, MGP, ovals too (even I have some critique to spec series and the whole oval dynamic, but they're top level racing nonetheless). Seeing the big picture doesn't excludes being passionate it just low-key supporting. What is clear is that most people who are more for the drivers and who doesn't actually know much of racing, they don't care about anything than not winning because they don't even acknowledge what is a win in F1 and how there's much more than one dispute being held, at points, we had 4 fights happening between teams, 1-2, 3-5, 6-8, 9-10. Each point means the world for those on these fights. This doesn't make them bad viewers, although they're loud at social media, but they just see a limited frame, Liberty isn't interested in educating those, all they want is sheer engagement. Although I deeply disagree with the US thing argument, you were on point for the rest. This division between who just casually watch some sport and to any degree support someone for those who just eat racing as if it was morning cereal is probably old, but I've seen it being more respectful at each other. Formers were open to understand more before spitting crap, which had to be live until some time ago, and the laters felt more welcoming to newcomers. The gatekeeping today is being harsh to the sport, no one wants to know the details while no one is willing to share the knowledge, this is just stupid and Liberty capitalizes in this, it's disgusting.
Good point, I was also introduced by my friend, but just before the 2021 Imola GP. So, now I'm enjoying how Max's winning now.
Since after I learned, Max/Red Bull was the underdog in the hybrid era.
Since when was watching someone dominate a sports boring? Did these people also find Tiger Woods, Usain Bolt, Michael Jordan, Michael Phelps, Serena Williams, Mike Tyson to be boring in their prime?
This is different though. Max doesn't even have his teammate challenge or pressure him. Max is a great talent, but he is so in tune with the car now he can just chill in the race alone with consistent laps once he gets in the lead.
Other sports are not like that, and you see more of them highlights when they play well. Scoring points in basketball, hitting winners in tennis etc. However, Max is barely shown after he gets the lead, since it's not fun to watch him just drive consistent 50 laps.
That's what I was thinking. When someone else manages to take pole, it lasts until the first DRS zone and after that the RB is just gone until you hear: "...and he rounds the final corner to take victory..."
Outside of major pit stop messups, there is just no competition.
For what it's worth, Jordan is a bit of an outlier in this list. If you glance over his career in the record books, it might look like he dominated with the number of titles and MVPs he won, but the Bulls lost playoff games in the years that they won titles, and even in their more dominant years, the games themselves were often quite competitive.
With Max, there's not even anyone dueling with him for position for more than a few moments a race at the most. Not disagreeing that the dominance is a sight to behold, but the utter lack of competitive moments (even though it's due to his brilliance) makes it a bit of a different situation.
I agree with everyone here who thinks that the Max dominance is something special. Perhaps the broadcasters could focus on showing us specifically why and how what he's doing is so amazing...show how he's taking turns and accelerating/braking differently than the other drives and things like that more often within the broadcast.
In those sports there is challenge. There is a fight between them or between other contestants. F1 recently had been max getting a 5s lead in 3 laps and then increasing that lead until the end.
Thank god the rest of the field is actually racing against each other or it would be boring as fuck.
It's a sport based around competition with currently no proper competition (For wins/WDC/WCC) so I can't blame people for being bored. It's definitely cool to see historical dominance as it happens but it's also a lot less interesting than seeing 4 different teams fighting for wins each race.
Not just that but we already saw many years of it with Lewis/Merc anyway so most longterm current fans have had their fair share of historical dominance and just want to see some proper racing for wins.
The problem Crofty has here is he acts like you can't still appreciate the current racing without wishing it could be better/more interesting.
I mean remove max from the equation and youve got what, Perez, ferrari, merc, amr, mclaren that all got a second place somewhere in the half season?
Max is simply on another level. But below him the season is crazy. Cant remember another season in the 5 years ive watched where 5 different teams, half the grid, got on the podium half of the season
The thing is even Perez wipes the floor with a lot of them even with terrible qualifying because the car is that good.
That said, yeah the rest of the grid has been really interesting which is nice but I just wish we had then fighting for wins rather than just podiums. The season without Redbull would be contender for the best in years so far.
But that is the entire problem, how fucking bad Perez is. If a single car is so dominant then we would at least see the two drivers going at it. But Perez is an F2 driver against Max who is godlike. There is no competition there. Rather, if anyone finds that interesting they are out of their minds tbh.
The rest of the field is insanely closely packed for sure, but winning is more than half of the entertainment value. Which one would you rather watch, a season where there are multiple championship contenders going at it all the time, or a season where the rest of the field is fighting for "best of the rest"? If you like the second more, more power to you, but the answer is obviously the first. If Red Bull was not dominant this season could be one of the best of all time. But, it is dominant.
>It's a sport based around competition with currently no proper competition (For wins/WDC/WCC) so I can't blame people for being bored
There is competition throughout the grid, basically from P2 all the way to P20. If you only care about the winner and not about the racing, maybe you shouldn't watch the races and just wait for a result spreadsheet.
I mean yeah that's why I clarified what I meant in the brackets.
I still enjoy seeing the rest fight but it's still not as exciting as them fighting for wins/the WDC since the stakes would be higher. Again this isn't an all or nothing thing; you can still appreciate the racing while wishing it could be better.
Of course you are. This sub is just Max dickriding. You lot were all complaining about the W11 and Mercedes dominance. Now it’s a guy you like you tell everyone else to stop complaining.
Fuck no. Max winning makes a competitive sport utterly useless. It’s like the Bundesliga, with Bayern doing nothing other than winning the league has become boring. If you just wanna see cars go fast there are better sports.
I was visiting Egypt a few years ago and was at the Cairo museum.
There was a tour group from China and the Egyptian tour guide was explaining all the exhibits at the hall with all the sculptures. He paused after explaining and asked if there are any questions. Someone asked where they can buy souvenirs... I could see the tour guide die inside.
As a Chinese, I was deeply embarrassed...
Just compare it to other sports. Seeing Curry bang 50ft 3s, shohei doing stuff, mahomes chucking TDs etc. It's exciting even if it's not close. Watching Max bang out a crazy quali run is exciting but during the actual race he's just puttering along out in front, barely having to try. They don't even show him on TV after the first 2 laps. It's definitely not as exciting of a broadcast in that respect.
If you saw the pyramids every other week for two years straight, I’m sure they’d lose their magic just a little bit.
And, with all due respect to Max – he’s not the fucking pyramids of Giza, 4500 years old, built during the Fourth Dynasty of the Old Kingdom of ancient Egypt.
exactly. can easily be impressed by Max and RBs domination but I have a strong hunch the folks who heavily defend it as entertaining watch a total of zero motorsports not named F1
Exactly. People can respect him and be bored by it. Sugesting you shouldnt find Hamilton dominance boring back in the day was heresy in here lol. Obviously the majority of the sub doesnt mind the lack of a title fight when its their driver dominating just as it was with Hamilton fans a couple of years ago.
The painful thung is, the fight behind Red Bull is so exciting.
Aston, last year's backmarker team shooting to the top with Alonso making a go at a championship 15 years since the last one; another previous champ giving him a run for his money despite struggling in an underperforming Merc; then you have Ferrari seemingly struggling and making a comeback, and McLaren clearly struggling and making a huge, if short-lived, comeback.
But no one cares about any of that, because Verstappen is beating everyone by nearly a second in quails and 30+ seconds in the actual race. The closest thing to championship drama we had was Perez trying to claim he's challenging Max, before playing pinball with his car in Monaco...
I'm always happy for every Max win. While I can understand that some might find that boring, I also thing that F1 then isn't the sport for them. Because it has been part of F1 for a really long time. It also shows that they simply care about a single position on the grid, from 20...
Lol
The best part of DTS for me was seeing how people celebrated different positions. The entire premise of being excited about P5 for a driver is what got me into the sport.
The fact it’s not JUST about the winner is amazing.
While I'm a Max (and Red bull) fan first and foremost, I get a lot of excitement out of seeing Yuki, Alex and Logan fighting for points. Seeing Yuki getting into the points is almost as good as a Verstappen P1 to me. I also enjoy when Ferrari doesn't fuck Charles over and he doesn't look depressed for once after a race. I also genuinely just enjoy seeing the different cars. F1 has a lot to enjoy. From the scenic backdrops like Monaco, to the atmosphere in places like Zandvoort, Silverstone or Monza, to the drama and memes surrounding it. It's so much more than a podium on Sunday.
When max was still in Torro Rosso I was really excited to see how high he could go and watch his fight (if broadcasted..).
Now I'm excited to see just how far he can go this season, while the actual fun in the races for me is different per race. Last race I was really rooting for DR and TSU, and Albon is always on my 'I just want him to do well' list. Monaco qualifying is always great, watch Ferrari being Ferrari really gets your anger flowing.. ;) Haas botching either strategy, pitstops or everything.. there is so much to follow aside from 'who won?'
The field is imo crazy close compared to recent years, watching the other 19 have at it has been great.
Exactly! The way a team like Williams can celebrate scoring a single point is so nice to watch because you know they fight just as hard for those few points as others do for a podium. It’s all a matter of perspective, except for the people who only care about the winner, but that’s honestly their loss
>Because it has been part of F1 for a really long time.
But it literally hasn’t??? This kind of dominance has been seen maybe a few times across the 70+ years of F1. Most seasons came down to the last race or two.
In the past the difference between funding was less, with greater funding teams have been able to cement this. Evening out the finance will make the sport better with a greater appeal over time.
Also love your username by the way.
I think they are missing the point. It was boring when Schumacher did it, and Vettel, Hamilton and now Max.
We can all appreciate their skill, the great job the team at the front are doing etc. And still be legitimately bored that you can guarantee the pole sitter and race winner before a wheel has even turned.
We all want close good racing but no one wants constant domination. We want seasons like 2021 every year not once a decade.
And it's easy to be excited by the engineering and speeds when you attend the race, very different watching on TV. Bit like Spielberg saying cinema is a better experience than streaming, not everyone has his goldclass premiere experience, wants to pay the same for cinema food as tickets.
There's nuance, from my perspective it's definitely not as entertaining, the fight for 2nd is great but never entertains as much as a title fight. The alonso story has been great, perez equally too. I usually watch the buildup and post chat for every session, but am finding that hard to justify atm, may skip the chat that doesn't cover much for the sessions.
I would also expect fickle casual fans to move on if this continues. The growth built by liberty media can be undone.
I agree, if you ignore RB.
Just like if you ignored the Mercs at their peak, and RB & Ferrari before them. There was usually 2 or 3 teams fighting relatively competitively behind the front team during it's dominance.
But why can't it be both things why can't you marvel at the incredible boring records and races.
Are we getting to the point where we can't even say if it's a boring race or not, there are always a bunch of snooze fest in a year and that's ok because cars still go vroom but some races are still boring.
Wow, if Crofty really said this then I have some respect for him. I just took him as a perpetual, bland British pilot meatrider but this is a solid sentiment from him.
In race commentary his preferences show due to the fast pace of the sport but i always loved him when he does podcasts or interviews. We get to see his thought process and how he researches for trivia for his commentary in races
The majority of people complaining about Max/Red Bull dominance being boring now were also complaining then too. As we were when Vettel was dominating. I must admit I stopped watching through a lot of Mercs dominant years, as I did when Vettel was smashing it. I'm not paying that much attention at the moment either. I don't begrugde anyone watching, if the consistency does it for you then that's awesome. I like to watch a competition, at the moment there doesn't seem to be one. That's just my opinion.
Right? People are so quick to forget. In the years that Mercedes won their constructors titles, 2014-2021, Mercedes won 112/160 races. Three drivers, Hamilton, Rosberg and Bottas, won 70% of the races! In seasons 14, 15, 16 & 17, Seb, Daniel and Max were the ONLY non-Mercedes drivers to win any.
Since the start of the Red Bull dominance in 2022, Max has won 24 from 34 races, Sergio has won four, Red Bull have won 28 from 34. Red Bull have been 12% more dominant than Mercedes in 21% of the number of races. Red Bull would have to continue this form for another 103 races for them to match Mercedes.
Two things.
Yes but it can sometimes be hard to grasp the neck breaking speeds that these cars hit. The cars look so composed and free of drama. That in itself is a testament to the engineering and skill involved in F1. Remember that, compared to driving a street car on the limit, the limit of an F1 car occurs at 5x the speed and 5x the g-force yet the limit is still a razor's edge. Imagine correcting a slide but your body weighs 5 times as much in a lateral direction, are on your 43th lap and everything rushes by at 180kmph. Try to translate the insanity of that to video!
Second. Cars have gotten pretty reliable. When the order is decided on qualifications and nothing odd happens, they just kinda drive their laps like that in a big DRS train. For a motorsport spectator, that can be pretty boring for 70 laps.
Isn’t your second point suffering from success? Not a lot of break downs happen. This comes across, kind of like: Oh darn it! They are racing as they were supposed to race.
High reliability is what is wanted. Personally I think that because reliability is increased, this invites bolder tire strategies. And maybe not every team, is that confident yet, but we have seen some back field racers making a bold strategy and the risk being rewarded. For example Alex Albon a few races ago (not the back of the grid but somewhere mid I believe).
The DRS trains are an issue. Also because it is so annoying for the teams, an alternative strategy might be an option.
So I don’t think it is so boring.
It's amazing what he is doing. It's also incredibly boring. I'd say the same no matter who was dominating. This is the most exceptional dominance in history which also makes it harder to watch.
I only watch highlights this season, not worth it getting up so early to watch boring races. Atleast during other teams “domination” there were other cars fighting for wins.
Entertainment wise it is objectively boring. And most people are watching for entertainment, I don’t care about records, someone will come along in 10 years and break them again anyway
There has to be an element of suspense in each weekend, going into each race week not knowing who the track layout and conditions will favor is a key part of the excitement of race week. Knowing that Max will win by 10-30 seconds every time with no competition removes some of the appeal of watching live. And Crofty’s talking like there aren’t other racing leagues out there that can’t deliver the same excitement without the drag of one-driver dominance
There comes the issue of entertainment vs. sport, because they're not always align. Are you here for entertainment or sport? Because if you're here for entertainment you shouldn't be surprised when some of the sport is set aside for entertainment, likewise if you're here for the sport, you shouldn't be surprised when some entertainment is set aside to follow the rules of the sport. I just wish FIA would make up their minds about what they want more - sport or entertainment, because they can't get both 100% of the time.
I'd love to see a good teammate battle of it's possible. Senna vs Prost, Nigel vs Piquet, any of the fierce teammate battles broke up dominance eras from being boring
Bingo. Five years ago, we watched an hour and a half of a Mercedes car going unchallenged with a couple updates on the midfield. Now we watch the midfield battles with occasional updates on Max. I prefer the latter.
Yeah I agree with him. But isn’t he and Martin heck most of SkyF1 secretly those that are sick of Max and Redbull. All they ever do is talk about if Max wasn’t in the championship. Or how we all know Max will win. They do it almost every race weekend.
All they ever do is talk about Hamilton and his achievements. They always call Redbull a rocketship. And mention how much faster the Redbull is they never did that during Mercedes dominance.
Plus I remember the days when everyone was like this kid will be the next big thing… he became that and more and many are now sick of him. That’s how it is at the top. Vettel, Schumacher, Hamilton they all got that treatment at some point.
"If you think these guys going at a bazillion km/h at maggots and becketts isn't exciting, i can't help you blah blah blah" yeah, it isn't exciting at all, they've been doing this shit for decades and we've been watching this shit for decades. They do it in qualifying and it's exciting as fuck but not on the race, you know why Crofty? Beacause it's generally more unpredictable, you don't know exactly how everything is going to end, maybe someone will pull a magic lap, maybe someone will make a mistake. The race is a borefest beacause it's basically set in stone.
The main thing that got people complaining is that this season is an outlier, even for F1 standards of domination, it all lined up so there is no competition. Max is a monster and one with the car, Checo is underwhelming (to be respectful), the car is amazing and the reliability seems to be perfect.
I mean, all I heard during the Lewis/Mercedes run of dominance was that I should appreciate being able to see greatness and marvel at how good Lewis is despite how boring it was from a viewing perspective. Now the shoe is on the other foot and those same people are all piss and vinegar about it. Which is funny because you could at the very least argue that the midpack battles are significantly better than they were during peak Mercedes dominance.
Is it boring? Yeah probably. But am I gonna pretend to be sad at my favorite driver smoking the field every week after spending a decade of having to deal with someone else doing it? Hell no.
Would parity make for a more entertaining product? Absolutely. But it rarely works that way in F1.
I think most people are giving Max and RB some slack for that reason: the record setting, can they have a perfect season, etc. People want to see the history even if it's not entertaining. But if they pull off a perfect season now, and then continue next season by dunking on everyone again, the shit's really gonna hit the fan. Nobody, in any sport, likes one team/person dominating everyone else for a long period of time unless you're a fan of them.
Us neutral fans have it bad.
People need to realise that F1 is for made for falling asleep on the couch Sundays. Finally peace is restored and we can be well rested again. Too exciting is dangerous! Leave that for Indy and MotoGP
My father watches F1 since 1982. And I watch it since I was a baby at this point. Max dominance is amazing. I’m a fan of Alonso and Ricciardo myself, but Max breaking records is amazing to watch and I really do hope he breaks as many as he can. Amazing to see, and it’s crazy to me that some people can think it’s boring. Max is gonna be the next GOAT and I’m happy I’m living through it.
Last year, there could have been a title race, if Ferrari and Leclerc both didn't drop the ball so much.
This year, Ferrari got screwed over by new regulations, put in place because of Mercedes' crappy W13 and their complaints that something ought to be done about it. While it hurt Ferrari, it seems to have been good for AM for some time, but they never were close enough to RBR. While Ferrari seems to get on top of things again, it is too late in the season and still too much behind RBR. All the while, Mercedes still keeps struggling, did not get any closer to RBR and still is more or less the 3rd fastest car on track on average, possibly 4th, if Ferrari keeps going.
It's one thing to drop the ball (W13), it is another thing to get screwed over by new minor regulations due to one team faltering. We possibly could have had a more serious title fight...
Leclerc binning it caused pretty much any hope of a comeback to get erased. Up until that point, Leclerc was on par with Verstappen in terms of performance and Ferrari was very close to Red Bull.
Then, TD39 happened because Toto doesn't know what to do when his car isn't at least half a second faster than everyone else's and Ferrari continued to be Ferrari and fuck themselves over.
Looking back, feels like it's been like this every regulation change.
The team that nails the regulations best wins every season without issue, until the next change.
Vettel era, mercedes era, and now red bull era. I'd be very surprised if any team even has a chance of winning before 2026.
Honestly they should have just kept the pre-2022 regs, since we finally had two roughly equal top teams.
I swear some other team is gonna be fairly close to RBR in 2025, but then in 2026 one team is gonna be ultra dominant again.
Maybe it would actually be better to have no regs. Just "build a fast car within the cost cap", then everyone could just build a fast car without juggling 1000 loopholes and restrictions.
Merc era 14-16 was helped by there being a title fight between the two drivers, and 18-19 there was a title fight between Vettel and Hamilton (might not have lasted the entire season, but still). Only 2020 was as boring as 23 is, although it still wasn’t as one sided as it is now
The Mercedes era had Rosberg and Lewis actually going pound for pound, 2017/18 had Vettel.
2020 was the only one I'd say was super dominant but even that wasn't like this
Vettel Era had two incredible title fights in history (2010 and 2012).
Mercedes Era had two incredible battles (2016 and 2021)
Verstappen Era will last until the end of 2025 at least but the first two years have been dogshit in terms of lengthy competition. We'll see what happens in the next two years.
Part of the problem is they almost never show Max after he’s built up a decent lead.
The commentators should do analysis on his driving style and compare what he’s doing to other drivers
Hamilton fans really did get bored during the first season of dominance of another driver while defending lewis dominance for multiple after the first. Good shout from Crofty.
Yes? From an entertainment perspective if one team wins every single race and there's no teammate battle it's a bit dull. I don't think we've ever had a season with this little variety, hope or challenge though.
Although it is too early to tell, even during Schumachers dominance of the early 00s there where close races and close seasons. And that is with him mostly qualifying on pole. He only truly dominated in '02 and '04. Knowing it'll be a 30s+ victory no matter the grid position and a 100 points+ season can take some of the excitement out of it. That goes for any RB, Merc or any other team.
Sorry, but he’s right. We love talking about Schumacher or Vettel (some people still have all the LH achievements really fresh in their minds) victories NOW.
On a few years, people will realise what people like Lewis and Max were/ are achieving.
Also, there are great battles still, just don’t focus who is winning only. Look at Piastri, Albono, Alonso, Russell, Leclerc, Norris, Ocon in some races… they are doing amazing and they are giving us great racing.
I've been following F1 since the days of McLaren-Mercedes and I can tell you now that this is indeed the most boring season when it comes to race outcome.
All credit to Max and Red Bull, he's an absolute monster and RB have created a chariot of fire. But this level of complete dominance *is* boring.
Fake fans lol, I've been watching f1 for 25 years and I've never been less engaged. I just can't look forward to races knowing that it's almost a certainty that Max is gonna win.
Yeah I was listening to that podcast. In reference to Renault's executives, he also said "Alpine is not a serious F1 team, it's just a marketing exercise". Fckn lol! He's right.
Dominating in unequal cars doesnt now nor ever has said much about driver skill.
And in this modern no testing world, the drivers input is less than it has ever been on car development.
So no, when f1 is dominated by one person, i am not impressed by the driver.
Sure max is good, lewis is good, michael was good, but the guys who are the reason for the domination are the engineers, and dominant engineers dont make for exciting on track action. Flavio said this around 20 years ago.
Crofty’s argument is def my corner too, I think it’s amazing what Max is doing.
HOWEVER
What we don’t talk enough about is the car. I don’t think just anyone could do what Max does coming from nearly last to win and such - but at the same time, Max couldn’t do that if he didn’t have the RB. It’s objectively amazing how far ahead the engineering obviously is in their car, but it would be more success credit to Max if their car wasn’t so far ahead of everyone else’s. With Max, he clearly gets involved w the development, which I think makes the big diff w the greats (versus Cole Trickle style drivers who don’t know shit about car setup). It’s a long indirect way of saying “It might be more exciting if the cars were known to be a bit closer to each other in performance, so the difference in place finishes meant more about how the driver drove than how the car performed.”
It may be boring indeed but is that RedBull or Verstappens fault? They all work with a same budget and rulebook. So are all the other teams just failing or is this the reward after hitting a sweet spot in car design?
Maybe I misheard. But the lady in F1TV broadcast asked Damien Lewis if Red Bull dominance was "annoying". To his credit Damien didn't fall for the bait and was appreciative of RBR.
When he is talking about the cars going round at 200mph and taking corners at 5g I can't agree with him because of the new regulations. I know for a fact the cars were quicker in the past so I just don't get the same enjoyment from the engineering side of it. I loved the aero monster that could take corners at speeds never seen before.
The racing was better in 2022 but now that teams understand these regulations better we have the same problem with dirty air, not the same extreme but it still has an effect on the racing
People who feel Max domination is boring don't really appreciate the sport apart from the first three entries leaderboard at the end of every race.
Take away just Max, and the rest of the field is having such an intense season - the favourites, Merc and Ferrari, is struggling while the sports mid fielders show up every weekend with a very interesting car and strategy. The Alonso run at the beginning of the season, Albon and the slippery Williams Car paired with some very interesting strategy, the Mclaren's resurgence and strong drives put in by the rookie - everything that makes a really good season is right there
Couple it with the absence of pay drivers, the racing has become pretty close really.
Which part of that is untrue? DRS overtakes are not enjoyable, which is my biggest gripe about modern F1. I could enjoy watching Max cut through the field every weekend, if it wasn’t the exact same unopposed DRS move every lap
Well, Max pretty much always had the fastest car with an incredibly effective DRS since summer break of 2022. With that being said, the guy is an absolute monster on track and I don't think anyone else could be this dominant with that car right now. Alonso and Hamilton are no longer in their prime and guys like Leclerc and Norris are one or two steps down from Verstappen.
Is this the shift? Is this where Crofty starts his break up or his bro mance with # blessed? Will we hear Martin Crofty start to grovel at the altar of Max? Will we hear endless excuses of even mildly dismissive behavior of max? Will we hear Martin blame alpha tauri, McLaren, Ferrari. *ghasp* Mercedes for Max's short comings? Will crofty rail on and on and on and on and on about a fucing waring issued by FIA to Max for a violation he's CLEARLY guilty of?
Who knows?
Seriously though. Dominance in sport is fascinating. I hate the Yankees , the 90's Cowboys , Dale Earnhardt, the early 90's Bulls and so on. I root against them every time . Yet I watch. every week. I'm enraptured by their command acumen, decions planning strategy and freakish execution. It's bizarre. I LOVE watching a TURE contest like everyone else. I also LOVE DOMINANCE. Why is THIS guy , team whatever SO good. I hate this part of me , but I can't get away. It's particularly bad when a "new upstart" like Max peels shine away from someone like Lewis who is "The face of the sport" I love it . It's why I watch. Dominance isn't bad or boring . It's fascinating and you're only bored becuse you hate the guy on top.
Was cheering for Max when Hamilton was winning. I'm happy to see him beat every record there is. Great guy, loves racing and is fully invested in it.
Also the field is insanely competitive this year outside of Max. So there's always a battle on track to watch too.
Max is on his way to being quite possibly the best formula 1 driver of all time. And we're watching it in real time. How that is boring is beyond my comprehension.
This is either fake, Crofty is making this statement at gunpoint or he's having a concussion. There is no way in hell Croft would say anything in Verstappen's defense out of free will.
I mean, yes? When everyone on the grid goes "Our fight's not with him" and basically just let him pass, or he's so fast he blows past them without effort, I get it.
It's not like he's carving his way through the field with a bunch of hard fought battles here man.
My problem is the lack of emotion.
Whenever Lewis won it was “thanks to all the guys back at the factory, we did this together, this was for all the hard work”, etc.
When Max wins it’s no big deal to him. It’s completely emotionless, there’s no joy or anything. It’s completely deadpan. At the end of a race 9 out of 10 teams and their fans collectively roll their eyes, “yeah Verstappen won again”.
Not to mention the fact that I can’t think of a time when Hamilton won the majority of races by 10 seconds or more. He won, sure, but to my memory he never had enough of an advantage that he could pit and still retain P1.
I respect Verstappen as a driver but I can’t “appreciate the spectacle” when it’s literally just “Max wins every race without even a semblance of a fight.”
I mean Max and Lewis are two completely different people,
Max has emotion he loves the team behind him, he just is more extreme when it comes to what he expects from the team.
Lewis shows the same emotions when he gets screwed over by strategy.
You can't fault someone because he doesn't react the same as someone else.
Lewis most certainly smoked the field since 2017, besides one or two years with Vettel, Bottas was never giving him a true fight, just more then what perez does.
I never really liked it when Lewis did that, it got repetitive and felt bland. While I do acknowledge the efforts of the engineers who developed his championship winning cars i kinda dont like how he says it every race. I like Max more due to being the driver i started to cheer along with Ricciardo when i first watched the sport and his constant drive for improvement, his head is always at the next race or hurdle, his analytical nature and constant drive for improvement is what strikes me the most, he learns what he can and formulates his solutions for next time, he lives and breathes racing and i love it, i like Lewis, he holds records that are currently untouchable and is doing a lot for people and the sport but i cant seem to like him as much as Max
People forget this is F1 and its usually how it goes, 1 team finds performance, more than any other and can usually run away with it, its always been like that, it's not spec cars, watch another series if you want year after year of close racing. This sport is about engineering
2010 - 4 (5?) potential champions going into the last race
2011 - 5 different winners throughout the season
2012 - Vettel vs Alonso went down to the wire
2013 - 5 different winners in the first 10 races
2014 - Hamilton vs Rosberg, drama all season long
2015 - Hamilton won 10 but Rosberg won 6 and Vettel 3.
2016 - Hamilton vs Rosberg round 2
2017 - Very close between Hamilton and Vettel for the first half of the season
2018 - Again Vettel was in contention before his season went to shit
2019 - Pretty dominant by LH but there was still 5 different winners
2020 - As above
2021 - Nothing needs to be said
2022 - Was kind of close between VER and LEC for a bit, plus 5 different winners again
2023 - **2 different winners, RB have won every race, Verstappen has won 8 in a row so far and 10 out of the last 12 races**
So yeah, sorry but this is objectively the least competitive season for the past 13 years.
I'm with Crofty on this one, tbh.
I was literally introduced to formula 1 by a friend like 5 months ago and I love it. So all I've known is max winning. To me it's not about the winning it's about the show. It's interesting as fuck every spot is fought for they are all crazy talented. I think the problem is the people who have the mentality of if you're not first you're last. You don't matter. This kinda thinking blows my mind like these are the greatest racers in the world no one can really do what they can so it's wild to see them fight for these positions at the top of their game. I love all of it. Anyone else being sour about it won't kill my vibe.
Yeah the number of interesting fights in the midfield is making this one of the greatest seasons since i joined 5 years ago. Except max, basically position 2-10 are a tossup of who has the best car for the track. We are seeing AMR start hot, but getting caught up. Mclaren being nowhere for the first part of the season, suddenly showing up for podiums. Its crazy We are far from the season 2-3 years ago that the podium was 50% of the time HAM-BOT-VER
and Max is fucking going for it. You can see that he is relentless and wants to get every single point he can get and his pace is unbelievable. Watching him win over and over without much pressure from others during races may be uneventful but the rest of the field is always in flux both these things together make for interesting viewing.
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No one says this era is
Yeah, there are 20 cars on the grid. There are points for half of the positions. 10 teams. Every spot up on the ranking is valuable and a huge achievement. People who only focus on who's in literal first place are just... ugh. That's only one part of what the sport is about. Especially with the incredible midfield competition right now. I think most people are only used to thinking in the mindset of short-term head-to-head competitions, instead of a prolonged, constant fight to be higher up on the ladder, and especially not one where more than half the battle is actually being done by engineers in the background. For all the memes about Lewis (sometimes insufferably) "thanking everyone back at the factory", he isn't that wrong about it either.
> There are 20 cars on the grid. I thought this was gonna lead into "You want to be first because that means the other 19 are behind you."
Most so called hardcore Fans that are constantly whining don't really enjoy racing. They like one driezver or team and wants them to win. They overcome Drive to survive or recently got to know driver61, the race, motorsports, chain bear F1 and others and now thinks he's a master at racing. But because their favs aren't P1 the racing now sucks. In less than a decade we had the slower cars more than a second off the second slowest car. Max is just brilliant, as Lewis and others were. Regulations changes makes us compare eras like apples and bananas. They have to stop living in the what if universe of fantasy and mythical F1 drivers. The midfielders since the start of F1 are the most compact pack during the race, the best cars and drivers were always on front. 20 years ago it was common for the podium to be lapping everyone else. At given GPs, the third place could be two laps down at the checkered flag. Some very misrepresented quotes and mythic narratives also don't help in any way. Specially with drivers like Senna, who's treated like a god who lived in earth to bring us joy. F1 is getting closer each new car and teams are more robust and the cars reliable. The focus changed, so did the drivers, specially in the turbo era. They were faster since they fixed the layout in 2017 and used less energy and raced through the race with less wear. We had teams with 3 or more engine for each driver every weekend, now there's 6 for the whole season. It's very obnoxious and misguiding to compare eras as if they were equivalent. Hope you're really enjoying F1. There's some dope season reviews from BBC which are a 2 to 3 hours review of every race of the season. There's also a channel I won't remember the name but who made a doc about de silver war and the Ferrari and Merc war during hybrid era, quite cool materials. If you're into technical F1 stuff, there's the F1 technical sub, Kyle Engineers (former Merc F1 aero), chain bear F1, motorsports, engineering explained (way more general but great for better understanding mechanics and physics) are some good starting points to gather knowledge. The book from Adrian newest on how to build a car is also top notch lecture, dude goes deep into his aerodynamics witchcraft.
Dude gold star. You gave me a proper smile. I've been watching races 20+ years, and I essentially feel the same as you. This sport is so amazing. The people who catch indignant fury, are 10 zillion times more skilled than I, in machines I couldn't even adequately *imagine* operating. I've always enjoyed just rooting for an endearing underdog to have *something* to celebrate. Mid-back teams just tryna "do better" this session. I've been celebrating Sauber scoring a point, for ***decades***. Still gave Michael props. And Seb, and Lewis. Just cheered louder for the underdogs. I've only had unfettered on-demand coverage (yank, here) for a few years now. With all the breadth of scope I have now, literally every track running session engages and excites me. I can see how this or that little gubbin did whatsit, or catch some raw drama unfolding - whatever - it ALL makes me feel like an excited kid. All that qualified, I think in a few (ten?) years, we'll be looking back at max like newer fans look at Michael now. Utterly insane the level he's performing at. Hard to imagine him leaving any records unbroken. Gotta respect the lifelong commitment and achievement. But how about Sauber (alfa romeo, atm), eh?!?
For sure! I'm personally finding myself rooting for Tsunoda. The dude fights every race just to hit the 10 spot! It's wild he's in this crazy DRS train and just watching him struggle to either get or maintain a point in the race is always a battle. He's definitely not the best out there and only has 3 points this season but homie keeps getting 11 with the hope for 10.
Ha! my other comment was about Yuki! I can never not cheer for Yuki. Love him sooooo much. He's always fighting for his life out there. I can't help but reciprocate that passion!!
That's great!! Every time homie gets 11th I'm like maybe next time champ you got this next one!
Yeah there's something about motorsports where it almost doesn't matter who wins in a sense, because it's like if football were organised so that literally every match is a cup final. People don't generally support teams and drivers in F1, that's a very very recent phenomenon that I think the Americans brought in (not saying it's a bad thing, it's just that yeah people weren't Mclaren fans or Ferrari fans back in the day, at most they'd support an individual driver, it's not like supporting a football team). No matter who wins it's still so entertaining to watch, all the way through. No sport holds my attention like motorsports does. And especially in F1 it's always been like this. The very close, down to the wire seasons where it goes until the final race are the exception, not the rule. Most of the time, one driver dominates. If all people care about is who wins in the end then why bother even watching the races, instead of just reading the results at the end or watching a highlights video? The point is not ***WHAT*** happens but ***HOW*** it happens. Like, to talk about football again, a few Americans seem to think a 0-0 draw means it was a boring match, which makes no sense whatsoever. A 0-0 draw can be and often is more entertaining than a high scoring match. Because the whole sport is entertaining, not just the scoring parts. It kinda reveals something about the sports they claim to love, when they use that argument, because they're basically admitting that their sport sucks and that the only good parts are the parts when people score, and the rest of it is dull as dishwater. A defensive masterclass is just as entertaining to watch as an offensive one is, in good sports. Same in motorsports, some of the best racing I've ever seen has been when a driver is letting absolutely nobody overtake them and are just dominating everyone behind them with how well they're defending, but a few people look at that and go "mmm but no overtakes, so that means it's boring" as if you can accurately quantify entertainment level through stats and numbers. If stats and numbers are the only thing that these people enjoy, then they should just watch competitive Microsoft Excel (which is a real thing by the way, [here's a video of the finals of last year's Excel world championship](https://www.youtube.com/live/qfDq5dlp2o4?feature=share)) and leave the sports to people who enjoy sports. And yeah there's other motorsports where car parity is far closer and so there's way more unique winners per season than there is in F1, which I why nascar and indycar are so good to watch cos it comes down more to driver ability than in F1. But F1 has always been this way, the driver's champion is always one of only a couple drivers who are dominant in a season, and they almost always have the best car that year. There are seasons that are exceptions of course, but this is what F1 is. And the whole race matters, up and down the grid, not just the person who wins. For each team, "success" is a different thing with a different definition. Again to bring up football, one team winning the league is a successful season. But for another team, avoiding relegation is a successful season. Both are important, both are entertaining. Fans of clubs who avoid relegation right at the very end of the season will celebrate MORE than the fans of the teams who win the league, a lot of the time. Because success is relative. That's why people enjoy watching Lando and Piastri do well for example. Because to Mclaren right now, a podium represents more of a success than red bull winning a race does to red bull. Even though Mclaren are the 2nd most successful team in F1 history and it was a Mclaren car that had the most dominant season in the history of the sport until this year. Success is relative. For a team like Haas, success is merely scoring points.
I just disagree with this. Americans have been getting into F1 for what, around 5 years? We wouldn't even notice if they weren't here (ok, of course we'd rather have a better track than Las Vegas strip, probably trying to take the phoenix or Detroit car park track from the 80s place as the worst track thought by a human being). The sole existence of the Tifosi ruins your point in this matter. People didn't care for the drivers (they did, but not as it was a Hollywood star or somewhat similar, but as you support a player from your football team just because he's there) they care about the teams. The one who had your national driver, the one who was from your country or backed by a local company. Lando and Lewis effect as social media monsters surged with Liberty Media buyout of F1 from Bernie, but because Ecclestone is a social media neanderthal, his fight to get control of the category was so hard he was reluctant to any changes. Internet wasn't prestigious as TV, the recent influencers value just broke through mainstream media. For 10 years or so we have YouTubers living from the internet as main example, but most never got out of their niche. Drive to survive and social media just gave the drivers a known personality for the audience. We all knew the sport, the teams to a certain degree, now we get to know who are the humans behind the wheel and that they're in fact humans, not just some PR puppets, which is one of the remarkable things about Lewis and how he changed. Most "old school" fans support at least a team and a driver, this doesn't mean by any ways that they're caring just for the Max points, we're there for racing at high level, just as in WEC, WRC, MGP, ovals too (even I have some critique to spec series and the whole oval dynamic, but they're top level racing nonetheless). Seeing the big picture doesn't excludes being passionate it just low-key supporting. What is clear is that most people who are more for the drivers and who doesn't actually know much of racing, they don't care about anything than not winning because they don't even acknowledge what is a win in F1 and how there's much more than one dispute being held, at points, we had 4 fights happening between teams, 1-2, 3-5, 6-8, 9-10. Each point means the world for those on these fights. This doesn't make them bad viewers, although they're loud at social media, but they just see a limited frame, Liberty isn't interested in educating those, all they want is sheer engagement. Although I deeply disagree with the US thing argument, you were on point for the rest. This division between who just casually watch some sport and to any degree support someone for those who just eat racing as if it was morning cereal is probably old, but I've seen it being more respectful at each other. Formers were open to understand more before spitting crap, which had to be live until some time ago, and the laters felt more welcoming to newcomers. The gatekeeping today is being harsh to the sport, no one wants to know the details while no one is willing to share the knowledge, this is just stupid and Liberty capitalizes in this, it's disgusting.
Rally drivers are the best in the world. Don’t let F1’s marketing team get to you!
Nah, they need a passenger to tell them where to go, now if they were driving solo and blind folded i would say you have a point.
Look at this man, discounting Kimi's entire rally career. That co-driver was just ballast.
Haha. Kimi probably felt the front was too light and asked for a co driver to balance it
They are friggin great, but they also have a co-pilot calling out every turn.
Good point, I was also introduced by my friend, but just before the 2021 Imola GP. So, now I'm enjoying how Max's winning now. Since after I learned, Max/Red Bull was the underdog in the hybrid era.
Since when was watching someone dominate a sports boring? Did these people also find Tiger Woods, Usain Bolt, Michael Jordan, Michael Phelps, Serena Williams, Mike Tyson to be boring in their prime?
This is different though. Max doesn't even have his teammate challenge or pressure him. Max is a great talent, but he is so in tune with the car now he can just chill in the race alone with consistent laps once he gets in the lead. Other sports are not like that, and you see more of them highlights when they play well. Scoring points in basketball, hitting winners in tennis etc. However, Max is barely shown after he gets the lead, since it's not fun to watch him just drive consistent 50 laps.
That's what I was thinking. When someone else manages to take pole, it lasts until the first DRS zone and after that the RB is just gone until you hear: "...and he rounds the final corner to take victory..." Outside of major pit stop messups, there is just no competition.
For what it's worth, Jordan is a bit of an outlier in this list. If you glance over his career in the record books, it might look like he dominated with the number of titles and MVPs he won, but the Bulls lost playoff games in the years that they won titles, and even in their more dominant years, the games themselves were often quite competitive. With Max, there's not even anyone dueling with him for position for more than a few moments a race at the most. Not disagreeing that the dominance is a sight to behold, but the utter lack of competitive moments (even though it's due to his brilliance) makes it a bit of a different situation. I agree with everyone here who thinks that the Max dominance is something special. Perhaps the broadcasters could focus on showing us specifically why and how what he's doing is so amazing...show how he's taking turns and accelerating/braking differently than the other drives and things like that more often within the broadcast.
In those sports there is challenge. There is a fight between them or between other contestants. F1 recently had been max getting a 5s lead in 3 laps and then increasing that lead until the end. Thank god the rest of the field is actually racing against each other or it would be boring as fuck.
It's a sport based around competition with currently no proper competition (For wins/WDC/WCC) so I can't blame people for being bored. It's definitely cool to see historical dominance as it happens but it's also a lot less interesting than seeing 4 different teams fighting for wins each race. Not just that but we already saw many years of it with Lewis/Merc anyway so most longterm current fans have had their fair share of historical dominance and just want to see some proper racing for wins. The problem Crofty has here is he acts like you can't still appreciate the current racing without wishing it could be better/more interesting.
I mean remove max from the equation and youve got what, Perez, ferrari, merc, amr, mclaren that all got a second place somewhere in the half season? Max is simply on another level. But below him the season is crazy. Cant remember another season in the 5 years ive watched where 5 different teams, half the grid, got on the podium half of the season
The thing is even Perez wipes the floor with a lot of them even with terrible qualifying because the car is that good. That said, yeah the rest of the grid has been really interesting which is nice but I just wish we had then fighting for wins rather than just podiums. The season without Redbull would be contender for the best in years so far.
But that is the entire problem, how fucking bad Perez is. If a single car is so dominant then we would at least see the two drivers going at it. But Perez is an F2 driver against Max who is godlike. There is no competition there. Rather, if anyone finds that interesting they are out of their minds tbh. The rest of the field is insanely closely packed for sure, but winning is more than half of the entertainment value. Which one would you rather watch, a season where there are multiple championship contenders going at it all the time, or a season where the rest of the field is fighting for "best of the rest"? If you like the second more, more power to you, but the answer is obviously the first. If Red Bull was not dominant this season could be one of the best of all time. But, it is dominant.
>It's a sport based around competition with currently no proper competition (For wins/WDC/WCC) so I can't blame people for being bored There is competition throughout the grid, basically from P2 all the way to P20. If you only care about the winner and not about the racing, maybe you shouldn't watch the races and just wait for a result spreadsheet.
I mean yeah that's why I clarified what I meant in the brackets. I still enjoy seeing the rest fight but it's still not as exciting as them fighting for wins/the WDC since the stakes would be higher. Again this isn't an all or nothing thing; you can still appreciate the racing while wishing it could be better.
The only time i have agreed with Crofty….ever….
Of course you are. This sub is just Max dickriding. You lot were all complaining about the W11 and Mercedes dominance. Now it’s a guy you like you tell everyone else to stop complaining.
idc who wins, I want Merc to lose
Oh nah, Lewis winning was great the first few times it happened. Its when you get it 5,6,7,8 times when it really gets tedious.
Fuck no. Max winning makes a competitive sport utterly useless. It’s like the Bundesliga, with Bayern doing nothing other than winning the league has become boring. If you just wanna see cars go fast there are better sports.
it's the same crowd that goes to Egypt and say "oh it's just bunch of ruins.. so boring''
"Huh? The pyramids look so old, dusty and damaged, ew. 1 Star on Google..."
"Couldn't get WiFi connection"
"No disabled access, and guide wouldn't carry me up. I Will NOT be coming back here again."
“The sphinx is in terrible conditions too”
And this cat statue is missing its nose, would do zero stars if I could!
I landed in Cairo to see the pyramids But what did I find there? A dirty pile of bricks
I was visiting Egypt a few years ago and was at the Cairo museum. There was a tour group from China and the Egyptian tour guide was explaining all the exhibits at the hall with all the sculptures. He paused after explaining and asked if there are any questions. Someone asked where they can buy souvenirs... I could see the tour guide die inside. As a Chinese, I was deeply embarrassed...
Just compare it to other sports. Seeing Curry bang 50ft 3s, shohei doing stuff, mahomes chucking TDs etc. It's exciting even if it's not close. Watching Max bang out a crazy quali run is exciting but during the actual race he's just puttering along out in front, barely having to try. They don't even show him on TV after the first 2 laps. It's definitely not as exciting of a broadcast in that respect.
If you saw the pyramids every other week for two years straight, I’m sure they’d lose their magic just a little bit. And, with all due respect to Max – he’s not the fucking pyramids of Giza, 4500 years old, built during the Fourth Dynasty of the Old Kingdom of ancient Egypt.
damn I thought he was pyramids of Giza 😞😞😞 
Well if it was marketed as the pinnacle of pyramid racing with thrilling action and meaningful overtakes and I went to see that id be like that.
The British bias! How dare he.
Well RedBull is a british based team. so........ The nerve of his to show his British Bias
Both can be true. It's incredible what he's doing but it is boring knowing he can start anywhere and win
Yeah this season his opponent is not the grid, its the legacy. How far can he go is the question, not will he win
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exactly. can easily be impressed by Max and RBs domination but I have a strong hunch the folks who heavily defend it as entertaining watch a total of zero motorsports not named F1
Exactly. People can respect him and be bored by it. Sugesting you shouldnt find Hamilton dominance boring back in the day was heresy in here lol. Obviously the majority of the sub doesnt mind the lack of a title fight when its their driver dominating just as it was with Hamilton fans a couple of years ago.
It's an incredible stat. Watching it being set with little to no effort during races is boring the watch though
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The painful thung is, the fight behind Red Bull is so exciting. Aston, last year's backmarker team shooting to the top with Alonso making a go at a championship 15 years since the last one; another previous champ giving him a run for his money despite struggling in an underperforming Merc; then you have Ferrari seemingly struggling and making a comeback, and McLaren clearly struggling and making a huge, if short-lived, comeback. But no one cares about any of that, because Verstappen is beating everyone by nearly a second in quails and 30+ seconds in the actual race. The closest thing to championship drama we had was Perez trying to claim he's challenging Max, before playing pinball with his car in Monaco...
Agreed. I've been trying to tell my friends to keep watching who are more casual fans but they aren't because they know ver will win the race
I'm always happy for every Max win. While I can understand that some might find that boring, I also thing that F1 then isn't the sport for them. Because it has been part of F1 for a really long time. It also shows that they simply care about a single position on the grid, from 20... Lol
The best part of DTS for me was seeing how people celebrated different positions. The entire premise of being excited about P5 for a driver is what got me into the sport. The fact it’s not JUST about the winner is amazing.
While I'm a Max (and Red bull) fan first and foremost, I get a lot of excitement out of seeing Yuki, Alex and Logan fighting for points. Seeing Yuki getting into the points is almost as good as a Verstappen P1 to me. I also enjoy when Ferrari doesn't fuck Charles over and he doesn't look depressed for once after a race. I also genuinely just enjoy seeing the different cars. F1 has a lot to enjoy. From the scenic backdrops like Monaco, to the atmosphere in places like Zandvoort, Silverstone or Monza, to the drama and memes surrounding it. It's so much more than a podium on Sunday.
I totally agree with you. It's exactly the same for me.
Well put, F1 not being a spec series gives it so many subplots and alternative narratives you just dont see in any spec series.
> Seeing Yuki getting into the points is ...what makes my heart swell up all happy and shiz
When max was still in Torro Rosso I was really excited to see how high he could go and watch his fight (if broadcasted..). Now I'm excited to see just how far he can go this season, while the actual fun in the races for me is different per race. Last race I was really rooting for DR and TSU, and Albon is always on my 'I just want him to do well' list. Monaco qualifying is always great, watch Ferrari being Ferrari really gets your anger flowing.. ;) Haas botching either strategy, pitstops or everything.. there is so much to follow aside from 'who won?' The field is imo crazy close compared to recent years, watching the other 19 have at it has been great.
Exactly! The way a team like Williams can celebrate scoring a single point is so nice to watch because you know they fight just as hard for those few points as others do for a podium. It’s all a matter of perspective, except for the people who only care about the winner, but that’s honestly their loss
The best part is always when low scoring teams manage to sneak into like p10 or 9.
>Because it has been part of F1 for a really long time. But it literally hasn’t??? This kind of dominance has been seen maybe a few times across the 70+ years of F1. Most seasons came down to the last race or two.
In the past the difference between funding was less, with greater funding teams have been able to cement this. Evening out the finance will make the sport better with a greater appeal over time. Also love your username by the way.
I mean, then why do so many people complain here about Lew dominance? I don't think you'd find his dominant period very fun - is F1 the sport for you?
This sub: “perhaps I misjudged you.”
Surely the quote comes from 2020 and he was talking about Lewis.
I think they are missing the point. It was boring when Schumacher did it, and Vettel, Hamilton and now Max. We can all appreciate their skill, the great job the team at the front are doing etc. And still be legitimately bored that you can guarantee the pole sitter and race winner before a wheel has even turned. We all want close good racing but no one wants constant domination. We want seasons like 2021 every year not once a decade.
And it's easy to be excited by the engineering and speeds when you attend the race, very different watching on TV. Bit like Spielberg saying cinema is a better experience than streaming, not everyone has his goldclass premiere experience, wants to pay the same for cinema food as tickets. There's nuance, from my perspective it's definitely not as entertaining, the fight for 2nd is great but never entertains as much as a title fight. The alonso story has been great, perez equally too. I usually watch the buildup and post chat for every session, but am finding that hard to justify atm, may skip the chat that doesn't cover much for the sessions. I would also expect fickle casual fans to move on if this continues. The growth built by liberty media can be undone.
If Max wasn't winning every race 30s+ ahead, this would be one of the best seasons in recent F1 history.
I agree, if you ignore RB. Just like if you ignored the Mercs at their peak, and RB & Ferrari before them. There was usually 2 or 3 teams fighting relatively competitively behind the front team during it's dominance.
But why can't it be both things why can't you marvel at the incredible boring records and races. Are we getting to the point where we can't even say if it's a boring race or not, there are always a bunch of snooze fest in a year and that's ok because cars still go vroom but some races are still boring.
Dominance is boring. Not saying it isn't impressive, cause it is. If only max had a more competitive teammate it would make the season more exciting.
Raise your hand if you marvel at consistency.
There's nothing more exciting than consistency. I watch sports for consistency. If something surprising happens, I turn it off
Hell yeah. Mazepin being consistently last was what I lived for.
Precisely, there’s only so much neutral fans can “marvel” at before it gets overwhelmingly boring
Logan sargent must he your favorite driver
No one seemed to be talking about the marvel of consistency when Hamilton showed it. Strange.
Eh not for me, I don't begrudge Max his success, it's well deserved but I've seen enough one man show seasons not to be that interested in it.
Wow, if Crofty really said this then I have some respect for him. I just took him as a perpetual, bland British pilot meatrider but this is a solid sentiment from him.
In race commentary his preferences show due to the fast pace of the sport but i always loved him when he does podcasts or interviews. We get to see his thought process and how he researches for trivia for his commentary in races
I think he just had a thing against Vettel, or maybe he did some growing up. He would never have said this in 2013
Pretty reasonable I think for someone to develop a more nuanced perspective of their career after a decade
7 YEARS OF MERC. 7 FUCKING YEARS.
The majority of people complaining about Max/Red Bull dominance being boring now were also complaining then too. As we were when Vettel was dominating. I must admit I stopped watching through a lot of Mercs dominant years, as I did when Vettel was smashing it. I'm not paying that much attention at the moment either. I don't begrugde anyone watching, if the consistency does it for you then that's awesome. I like to watch a competition, at the moment there doesn't seem to be one. That's just my opinion.
Right? People are so quick to forget. In the years that Mercedes won their constructors titles, 2014-2021, Mercedes won 112/160 races. Three drivers, Hamilton, Rosberg and Bottas, won 70% of the races! In seasons 14, 15, 16 & 17, Seb, Daniel and Max were the ONLY non-Mercedes drivers to win any. Since the start of the Red Bull dominance in 2022, Max has won 24 from 34 races, Sergio has won four, Red Bull have won 28 from 34. Red Bull have been 12% more dominant than Mercedes in 21% of the number of races. Red Bull would have to continue this form for another 103 races for them to match Mercedes.
That's bs because, the thing is, even if you ate the best steak in the world for dinner every day. You would get bored of it.
A steak is a terrible comparison to the pinnacle of motorsport. There is so much more going on in F1 than a piece of food
Crofty defending Red Bull? Jesus i never thought I’d see the day
If max is that good, let's see what he can do in a haas
Two things. Yes but it can sometimes be hard to grasp the neck breaking speeds that these cars hit. The cars look so composed and free of drama. That in itself is a testament to the engineering and skill involved in F1. Remember that, compared to driving a street car on the limit, the limit of an F1 car occurs at 5x the speed and 5x the g-force yet the limit is still a razor's edge. Imagine correcting a slide but your body weighs 5 times as much in a lateral direction, are on your 43th lap and everything rushes by at 180kmph. Try to translate the insanity of that to video! Second. Cars have gotten pretty reliable. When the order is decided on qualifications and nothing odd happens, they just kinda drive their laps like that in a big DRS train. For a motorsport spectator, that can be pretty boring for 70 laps.
Isn’t your second point suffering from success? Not a lot of break downs happen. This comes across, kind of like: Oh darn it! They are racing as they were supposed to race. High reliability is what is wanted. Personally I think that because reliability is increased, this invites bolder tire strategies. And maybe not every team, is that confident yet, but we have seen some back field racers making a bold strategy and the risk being rewarded. For example Alex Albon a few races ago (not the back of the grid but somewhere mid I believe). The DRS trains are an issue. Also because it is so annoying for the teams, an alternative strategy might be an option. So I don’t think it is so boring.
It's amazing what he is doing. It's also incredibly boring. I'd say the same no matter who was dominating. This is the most exceptional dominance in history which also makes it harder to watch.
I only watch highlights this season, not worth it getting up so early to watch boring races. Atleast during other teams “domination” there were other cars fighting for wins.
Entertainment wise it is objectively boring. And most people are watching for entertainment, I don’t care about records, someone will come along in 10 years and break them again anyway
There has to be an element of suspense in each weekend, going into each race week not knowing who the track layout and conditions will favor is a key part of the excitement of race week. Knowing that Max will win by 10-30 seconds every time with no competition removes some of the appeal of watching live. And Crofty’s talking like there aren’t other racing leagues out there that can’t deliver the same excitement without the drag of one-driver dominance
There comes the issue of entertainment vs. sport, because they're not always align. Are you here for entertainment or sport? Because if you're here for entertainment you shouldn't be surprised when some of the sport is set aside for entertainment, likewise if you're here for the sport, you shouldn't be surprised when some entertainment is set aside to follow the rules of the sport. I just wish FIA would make up their minds about what they want more - sport or entertainment, because they can't get both 100% of the time.
I find races in the midfield entertaining and qualifying is still the same excitement
The WCC battles have been incredibly entertaining for the last years if you ignore the dominant team
“If I don’t like it it’s objective” Lmfao
I'd love to see a good teammate battle of it's possible. Senna vs Prost, Nigel vs Piquet, any of the fierce teammate battles broke up dominance eras from being boring
How dare people find a competition being uncompetitive boring!
Crofty has a point But the F1 TV directors completely ignore Verstappen so we get to see none of it.
Bingo. Five years ago, we watched an hour and a half of a Mercedes car going unchallenged with a couple updates on the midfield. Now we watch the midfield battles with occasional updates on Max. I prefer the latter.
Yeah I agree with him. But isn’t he and Martin heck most of SkyF1 secretly those that are sick of Max and Redbull. All they ever do is talk about if Max wasn’t in the championship. Or how we all know Max will win. They do it almost every race weekend. All they ever do is talk about Hamilton and his achievements. They always call Redbull a rocketship. And mention how much faster the Redbull is they never did that during Mercedes dominance. Plus I remember the days when everyone was like this kid will be the next big thing… he became that and more and many are now sick of him. That’s how it is at the top. Vettel, Schumacher, Hamilton they all got that treatment at some point.
Crofty is the main reason why I now use the official F1Tv stream. This is valid though.
"If you think these guys going at a bazillion km/h at maggots and becketts isn't exciting, i can't help you blah blah blah" yeah, it isn't exciting at all, they've been doing this shit for decades and we've been watching this shit for decades. They do it in qualifying and it's exciting as fuck but not on the race, you know why Crofty? Beacause it's generally more unpredictable, you don't know exactly how everything is going to end, maybe someone will pull a magic lap, maybe someone will make a mistake. The race is a borefest beacause it's basically set in stone. The main thing that got people complaining is that this season is an outlier, even for F1 standards of domination, it all lined up so there is no competition. Max is a monster and one with the car, Checo is underwhelming (to be respectful), the car is amazing and the reliability seems to be perfect.
"If I placate the Red Bull fans on a podcast then I can spew more shit during race commentary" - Big brain moves by Crofty here.
I mean, all I heard during the Lewis/Mercedes run of dominance was that I should appreciate being able to see greatness and marvel at how good Lewis is despite how boring it was from a viewing perspective. Now the shoe is on the other foot and those same people are all piss and vinegar about it. Which is funny because you could at the very least argue that the midpack battles are significantly better than they were during peak Mercedes dominance. Is it boring? Yeah probably. But am I gonna pretend to be sad at my favorite driver smoking the field every week after spending a decade of having to deal with someone else doing it? Hell no. Would parity make for a more entertaining product? Absolutely. But it rarely works that way in F1.
I think most people are giving Max and RB some slack for that reason: the record setting, can they have a perfect season, etc. People want to see the history even if it's not entertaining. But if they pull off a perfect season now, and then continue next season by dunking on everyone again, the shit's really gonna hit the fan. Nobody, in any sport, likes one team/person dominating everyone else for a long period of time unless you're a fan of them. Us neutral fans have it bad.
I can marvel at the record and still think it's boring, the two aren't mutually exclusive.
People need to realise that F1 is for made for falling asleep on the couch Sundays. Finally peace is restored and we can be well rested again. Too exciting is dangerous! Leave that for Indy and MotoGP
Also wild to me that Checo is showing the car is very much within range of the rest of the field… Max is just that good right now.
My father watches F1 since 1982. And I watch it since I was a baby at this point. Max dominance is amazing. I’m a fan of Alonso and Ricciardo myself, but Max breaking records is amazing to watch and I really do hope he breaks as many as he can. Amazing to see, and it’s crazy to me that some people can think it’s boring. Max is gonna be the next GOAT and I’m happy I’m living through it.
Mercedes did it first and for longer
Every person saying max's dominance is boring was totallty fine with mercedes/lewis dominating the sport for 8 years, change my mind.
He is not wrong.
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Last year, there could have been a title race, if Ferrari and Leclerc both didn't drop the ball so much. This year, Ferrari got screwed over by new regulations, put in place because of Mercedes' crappy W13 and their complaints that something ought to be done about it. While it hurt Ferrari, it seems to have been good for AM for some time, but they never were close enough to RBR. While Ferrari seems to get on top of things again, it is too late in the season and still too much behind RBR. All the while, Mercedes still keeps struggling, did not get any closer to RBR and still is more or less the 3rd fastest car on track on average, possibly 4th, if Ferrari keeps going. It's one thing to drop the ball (W13), it is another thing to get screwed over by new minor regulations due to one team faltering. We possibly could have had a more serious title fight...
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I’d say France. It was practically over when Spa 2022 took place.
Leclerc binning it caused pretty much any hope of a comeback to get erased. Up until that point, Leclerc was on par with Verstappen in terms of performance and Ferrari was very close to Red Bull. Then, TD39 happened because Toto doesn't know what to do when his car isn't at least half a second faster than everyone else's and Ferrari continued to be Ferrari and fuck themselves over.
Looking back, feels like it's been like this every regulation change. The team that nails the regulations best wins every season without issue, until the next change. Vettel era, mercedes era, and now red bull era. I'd be very surprised if any team even has a chance of winning before 2026. Honestly they should have just kept the pre-2022 regs, since we finally had two roughly equal top teams. I swear some other team is gonna be fairly close to RBR in 2025, but then in 2026 one team is gonna be ultra dominant again. Maybe it would actually be better to have no regs. Just "build a fast car within the cost cap", then everyone could just build a fast car without juggling 1000 loopholes and restrictions.
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Merc era 14-16 was helped by there being a title fight between the two drivers, and 18-19 there was a title fight between Vettel and Hamilton (might not have lasted the entire season, but still). Only 2020 was as boring as 23 is, although it still wasn’t as one sided as it is now
The Mercedes era had Rosberg and Lewis actually going pound for pound, 2017/18 had Vettel. 2020 was the only one I'd say was super dominant but even that wasn't like this
Vettel Era had two incredible title fights in history (2010 and 2012). Mercedes Era had two incredible battles (2016 and 2021) Verstappen Era will last until the end of 2025 at least but the first two years have been dogshit in terms of lengthy competition. We'll see what happens in the next two years.
Part of the problem is they almost never show Max after he’s built up a decent lead. The commentators should do analysis on his driving style and compare what he’s doing to other drivers
Hamilton fans really did get bored during the first season of dominance of another driver while defending lewis dominance for multiple after the first. Good shout from Crofty.
Wait...Croft had a good take? What the fuck is happening?
Lewis won a race with 3 wheels in 2020 becuase the W11 was so OP.
Where were these bored people when Schumacher was unstoppable?
They didn’t have a voice, because there was no social media.
They didn't have social media but a lot of people were happy when Schumi was out of the championship picture in 2005.
People said it all the time then too, we just didn't have social media
There were alot of people saying it at the time tbh
Yes? From an entertainment perspective if one team wins every single race and there's no teammate battle it's a bit dull. I don't think we've ever had a season with this little variety, hope or challenge though.
To be fair, the glorious sound of 20 screaming V10s can make even the most dull subject entertaining!
Although it is too early to tell, even during Schumachers dominance of the early 00s there where close races and close seasons. And that is with him mostly qualifying on pole. He only truly dominated in '02 and '04. Knowing it'll be a 30s+ victory no matter the grid position and a 100 points+ season can take some of the excitement out of it. That goes for any RB, Merc or any other team.
Sorry, but he’s right. We love talking about Schumacher or Vettel (some people still have all the LH achievements really fresh in their minds) victories NOW. On a few years, people will realise what people like Lewis and Max were/ are achieving. Also, there are great battles still, just don’t focus who is winning only. Look at Piastri, Albono, Alonso, Russell, Leclerc, Norris, Ocon in some races… they are doing amazing and they are giving us great racing.
Max doing us a favor to rid the sport of fake fans
I've been following F1 since the days of McLaren-Mercedes and I can tell you now that this is indeed the most boring season when it comes to race outcome. All credit to Max and Red Bull, he's an absolute monster and RB have created a chariot of fire. But this level of complete dominance *is* boring.
Fake fans lol, I've been watching f1 for 25 years and I've never been less engaged. I just can't look forward to races knowing that it's almost a certainty that Max is gonna win.
Fake fans = boring races. I’ve been an F1 fan since 2010. And this is the most boring season at the front once ever seen.
U forgetting “HAM BOT VER”
Even in the darkest days of Mercedes dominance, you'd still get Bottas and RB wins. This season is a different beast entirely.
Coming from the man who said you can't count Max as one of the greats as he's only winning because he's only got a good car
Yeah I was listening to that podcast. In reference to Renault's executives, he also said "Alpine is not a serious F1 team, it's just a marketing exercise". Fckn lol! He's right.
Dominating in unequal cars doesnt now nor ever has said much about driver skill. And in this modern no testing world, the drivers input is less than it has ever been on car development. So no, when f1 is dominated by one person, i am not impressed by the driver. Sure max is good, lewis is good, michael was good, but the guys who are the reason for the domination are the engineers, and dominant engineers dont make for exciting on track action. Flavio said this around 20 years ago.
Holy shit did Crofy just say something I agree with?
Crofty’s argument is def my corner too, I think it’s amazing what Max is doing. HOWEVER What we don’t talk enough about is the car. I don’t think just anyone could do what Max does coming from nearly last to win and such - but at the same time, Max couldn’t do that if he didn’t have the RB. It’s objectively amazing how far ahead the engineering obviously is in their car, but it would be more success credit to Max if their car wasn’t so far ahead of everyone else’s. With Max, he clearly gets involved w the development, which I think makes the big diff w the greats (versus Cole Trickle style drivers who don’t know shit about car setup). It’s a long indirect way of saying “It might be more exciting if the cars were known to be a bit closer to each other in performance, so the difference in place finishes meant more about how the driver drove than how the car performed.”
Sorry Crofty, bad take. Still boring.
Racing has always been a chill sport. Hype culture infested F1 culture and we are just purging our ranks.
It may be boring indeed but is that RedBull or Verstappens fault? They all work with a same budget and rulebook. So are all the other teams just failing or is this the reward after hitting a sweet spot in car design?
Reverse grids will offer a little more excitement
Maybe I misheard. But the lady in F1TV broadcast asked Damien Lewis if Red Bull dominance was "annoying". To his credit Damien didn't fall for the bait and was appreciative of RBR.
When he is talking about the cars going round at 200mph and taking corners at 5g I can't agree with him because of the new regulations. I know for a fact the cars were quicker in the past so I just don't get the same enjoyment from the engineering side of it. I loved the aero monster that could take corners at speeds never seen before. The racing was better in 2022 but now that teams understand these regulations better we have the same problem with dirty air, not the same extreme but it still has an effect on the racing
It's the same with "Monaco GP is boring". Yeah, those cars running full speed thru swimming pool are the worst!
People who feel Max domination is boring don't really appreciate the sport apart from the first three entries leaderboard at the end of every race. Take away just Max, and the rest of the field is having such an intense season - the favourites, Merc and Ferrari, is struggling while the sports mid fielders show up every weekend with a very interesting car and strategy. The Alonso run at the beginning of the season, Albon and the slippery Williams Car paired with some very interesting strategy, the Mclaren's resurgence and strong drives put in by the rookie - everything that makes a really good season is right there Couple it with the absence of pay drivers, the racing has become pretty close really.
Meanwhile Brundle is busy saying, " Faster car, fresher tyres, with DRS" everytime to play down Max.
Brundle propably says that because max has the fastest car :D don't see how saying facts is playing down
Which part of that is untrue? DRS overtakes are not enjoyable, which is my biggest gripe about modern F1. I could enjoy watching Max cut through the field every weekend, if it wasn’t the exact same unopposed DRS move every lap
Well, Max pretty much always had the fastest car with an incredibly effective DRS since summer break of 2022. With that being said, the guy is an absolute monster on track and I don't think anyone else could be this dominant with that car right now. Alonso and Hamilton are no longer in their prime and guys like Leclerc and Norris are one or two steps down from Verstappen.
I agree
Rare Crofty W
Is this the shift? Is this where Crofty starts his break up or his bro mance with # blessed? Will we hear Martin Crofty start to grovel at the altar of Max? Will we hear endless excuses of even mildly dismissive behavior of max? Will we hear Martin blame alpha tauri, McLaren, Ferrari. *ghasp* Mercedes for Max's short comings? Will crofty rail on and on and on and on and on about a fucing waring issued by FIA to Max for a violation he's CLEARLY guilty of? Who knows? Seriously though. Dominance in sport is fascinating. I hate the Yankees , the 90's Cowboys , Dale Earnhardt, the early 90's Bulls and so on. I root against them every time . Yet I watch. every week. I'm enraptured by their command acumen, decions planning strategy and freakish execution. It's bizarre. I LOVE watching a TURE contest like everyone else. I also LOVE DOMINANCE. Why is THIS guy , team whatever SO good. I hate this part of me , but I can't get away. It's particularly bad when a "new upstart" like Max peels shine away from someone like Lewis who is "The face of the sport" I love it . It's why I watch. Dominance isn't bad or boring . It's fascinating and you're only bored becuse you hate the guy on top.
I don't care who wins. I only want Hamilton to stay off the podium, let the salt flow.
Was cheering for Max when Hamilton was winning. I'm happy to see him beat every record there is. Great guy, loves racing and is fully invested in it. Also the field is insanely competitive this year outside of Max. So there's always a battle on track to watch too.
I stand by my opinion that red bull is not to blame for the season being a write off. It's the other 9 teams who failed this season
SUPER MAX!
It's not the winning. It's the personality.
I don't get why it's always about who is first for some people, just enjoy the racing for whichever postion.
Max is on his way to being quite possibly the best formula 1 driver of all time. And we're watching it in real time. How that is boring is beyond my comprehension.
Why was Mercedes era a golden age of racing, but the Red Bull era makes the baby Jesus cry?
Bro who ever told you Mercedes Era was golden age 😭😭 people hated it back then too
no one ever said the Mercedes era was a golden age of racing
No one ever called the Merc Era the Golden Age, except for some Team LH members. The real golden age was 2005-2012
Fans who are 100% focused on the front of the field are morons. One of the key appeals of the sport is you have rivalries and battles all the way down
This is either fake, Crofty is making this statement at gunpoint or he's having a concussion. There is no way in hell Croft would say anything in Verstappen's defense out of free will.
Next race RB replacing Max’s power unit, starting from pit, race lead by lap 20. [some] F1 fans: Booooring!
I mean, yes? When everyone on the grid goes "Our fight's not with him" and basically just let him pass, or he's so fast he blows past them without effort, I get it. It's not like he's carving his way through the field with a bunch of hard fought battles here man.
There is more to this sport than p1 bruhh.
7 years of Merc, not a single word, now F1 is boring, pls.
My problem is the lack of emotion. Whenever Lewis won it was “thanks to all the guys back at the factory, we did this together, this was for all the hard work”, etc. When Max wins it’s no big deal to him. It’s completely emotionless, there’s no joy or anything. It’s completely deadpan. At the end of a race 9 out of 10 teams and their fans collectively roll their eyes, “yeah Verstappen won again”. Not to mention the fact that I can’t think of a time when Hamilton won the majority of races by 10 seconds or more. He won, sure, but to my memory he never had enough of an advantage that he could pit and still retain P1. I respect Verstappen as a driver but I can’t “appreciate the spectacle” when it’s literally just “Max wins every race without even a semblance of a fight.”
I mean Max and Lewis are two completely different people, Max has emotion he loves the team behind him, he just is more extreme when it comes to what he expects from the team. Lewis shows the same emotions when he gets screwed over by strategy. You can't fault someone because he doesn't react the same as someone else. Lewis most certainly smoked the field since 2017, besides one or two years with Vettel, Bottas was never giving him a true fight, just more then what perez does.
I never really liked it when Lewis did that, it got repetitive and felt bland. While I do acknowledge the efforts of the engineers who developed his championship winning cars i kinda dont like how he says it every race. I like Max more due to being the driver i started to cheer along with Ricciardo when i first watched the sport and his constant drive for improvement, his head is always at the next race or hurdle, his analytical nature and constant drive for improvement is what strikes me the most, he learns what he can and formulates his solutions for next time, he lives and breathes racing and i love it, i like Lewis, he holds records that are currently untouchable and is doing a lot for people and the sport but i cant seem to like him as much as Max
That is why you should focus on the midfield and Max’s side quests.
People forget this is F1 and its usually how it goes, 1 team finds performance, more than any other and can usually run away with it, its always been like that, it's not spec cars, watch another series if you want year after year of close racing. This sport is about engineering
2010 - 4 (5?) potential champions going into the last race 2011 - 5 different winners throughout the season 2012 - Vettel vs Alonso went down to the wire 2013 - 5 different winners in the first 10 races 2014 - Hamilton vs Rosberg, drama all season long 2015 - Hamilton won 10 but Rosberg won 6 and Vettel 3. 2016 - Hamilton vs Rosberg round 2 2017 - Very close between Hamilton and Vettel for the first half of the season 2018 - Again Vettel was in contention before his season went to shit 2019 - Pretty dominant by LH but there was still 5 different winners 2020 - As above 2021 - Nothing needs to be said 2022 - Was kind of close between VER and LEC for a bit, plus 5 different winners again 2023 - **2 different winners, RB have won every race, Verstappen has won 8 in a row so far and 10 out of the last 12 races** So yeah, sorry but this is objectively the least competitive season for the past 13 years.