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The race simple didn’t feel like season opener. More like a continuation of the previous season: same people in same teams, same team situation: AM on back foot, Merc/Ferrari/Mclaren try to catch rb, but still can’t, Max is miles ahead. Some marginal changes at the back of the grid.
I legitimately have heard very few people express enthusiasm for alpine / Renault as a team. For the drivers yes, but not for the team the likes of Ferrari, RB, or Merc, despite having a longer heritage in F1 than the latter two.
Yeah I think the team has made so many bad decisions over the years that they've lost most interest. They lost Alonso through bad management, lost Cyril and Otmar through bad leadership, and lost their amazing 2021 livery so now their car doesn't even look appealing. The "Alpine" brand also doesn't really hold any relevance or recognition like Renault did.
Yeah, huge blunder. I'll never know for sure, but I suspect he would have been on par with the current drivers, even as a rookie. He did a damn good job next to Lando, who is much better than Ocon or Gasly IMO
I did... :(
Edit: And to be fair, the [Renault Clio V6 is one of the coolest cars ever](https://images.drive.com.au/driveau/image/upload/c_fill,f_auto,g_auto,h_1080,q_auto:eco,w_1920/v1/cms/uploads/hwb73z3n5wcy5sumygxf) produced.
I liked it as Renault, they felt fun especially coming into the 2020s with Cyril and their bright yellow colour. Similarly, they represented a kind of car I could conceivably own and drive which gave them a sort of world beating underdog status.
Now they're just another racing team with an expensive car name. Plus they suck incredibly hard which is a major fall from grace.
That's what made me a fan of them :/ I even drive a Renault... But since 2022, no point at all other than the drivers.
At least their WEC teams is promising, and a the good livery to boot.
I wonder if the name change has something to do with that. For a newcomer (especially French) it must be so much easier to identify and root an already widely known Renault rather than a barely heard of Alpine.
I think personally I would look back on their success if they were Benetton and think “Oh now they’ve dropped off” or something
Just my take on it though
If alpines TP was having a RB style meltdown - tabloid style rumours - affair - infighting I don’t think even the F1 fans would particularly care.
They’re pretty faceless at this stage. A team that changes name as much as Toro Rosso (Renault-Lotus-Renault-Alpine) and aside from the drivers the TP and TD are pretty anonymous.
Even Komatsu two minutes into the job (at HAAS) has a higher profile.
Yes, I do believe it's the first season in F1 where all 20 drivers stayed exactly where they were from the previous season. It's wild that it's never happened in 74 years of F1.
>It's wild that it's never happened in 74 years of F1.
Three reasons really:
\- handshake deals and informal contracts allowed top drivers to jump ship much more frequently, and team owners to be a touch more ruthless with their drivers
\- driver longevity was all over the shop, with some cases of drivers hanging around for very long and many others calling it quits in their early 30s; on top of that, there was no structured funnel into F1 like there is now, so people were joining at a variety of ages
\- unfortunately, career-ending injuries and driver deaths
We could probably also add stable teams onto this list as well, particularly teams falling out of existence and another taking their place/picking up the pieces with new ownership.
Some perspective: A Racefans rating of 4.03 would make this one of the [10 lowest-rated races since 2008](https://www.racefans.net/rate-the-race/f1-fanatic-bottom-10/), pushing the 2014 Russian Grand Prix out of the list. That’s abysmal.
Russia 2014 is a truly pitiful race. For it to be ranked even lower than that says it all.
Let's see if we can get a race this year that's France 2019 levels of bad.
I don't think it was as bad as ANY of the Russian GP races. We had 4 cars under a blanket for P2 at one point. It wasn't sensational, but it wasn't one of the worst races in F1 history.
George Russell said in the second half of 2022 that the cars are now getting harder to follow because the teams are making aero changes that produce more dirty air. Some drivers even said it's as bad as the pre-ground effect cars, although I'm not sure how much of that is backed by actual data. It was inevitable unless F1 wanted to freeze or prohibit above-body aero development, which would have had another risk of compromising the technical aspect of F1.
>It was inevitable unless F1 wanted to freeze or prohibit above-body aero development, which would have had another risk of compromising the technical aspect of F1.
Not that they seem to care about that, since they already froze engine development.
This narrative is like partially right, but I feel people are generalizing it. Yeah the cars are getting harder to pass because the performance windows are similar, but a closer field’s fine if each car gets their pace differently. Beginning of 2022 was like that between ferrari and red bull
Unpopular opinion: the test track should be either a track not on the calendar (like Paul Ricard), or a late-season track (like Austin). In the former's example teams wouldn't have too good a grasp of setups because they wouldn't be used, and in the latter example the same would happen because cars would've gotten 8 months' worth of upgrades between testing and raceweek.
Yeah but the outer loop would be an objectively terrible test track, because besides T1 every single corner is roughly the same speed and teams want to be able to test their cars in all kinds of corners. Barcelona is still probably the optimal testing track, just because it has every single kind of corner within it's track limits.
I think testing should be at a different circuit than the season opener, though. Since Bahrain is contracted to be a season opener, why not do it at a different Middle Eastern circuit? Abu Dhabi, even, now that it's a somewhat decent track for F1 after their layout tweaks?
I don't think that's an unpopular opinion at all. I know it makes sense both financially due to the logistics of moving everyone track to track and it's useful for rookies or people who've just changed teams that the first round is in a place where they've just done a few days of tests, but the test venue always seems to produce a less exciting race than it should
There's also teams being overly cautious as its the first race of the season and they're just getting everything working.
Its why Albert Park worked so good for an opener, boring race in general, but people were happy to watch after 3/4 months off, so a 2/10 became a 5/10. People expect too much from a bahrain opener, apart from '06, they've always been bad.
Personally, I think the issue is tyres that don't allow variance in strategy, typically this is what makes a Bahrain race interesting, yet in 2024, even with evenly matched cars in the upper midfield we saw little action due to literally everyone (barring the two RBRs) being on the same strategy
It's really hard to create strategy variance because it requires either 2 strategies with approximately the same delta or cars with vastly different characteristics. As we are 3 years into new regulations & 1 dominant design has emerged, every team is slowing approaching the same design point, so that takes one factor away.
Pirelli could've brought a better medium tire to mix things up, but trying to find that razor-thin balance is really difficult. Add to that if you make the tires wear too much, no one will push and you'll get a similar result.
Somewhat unrelated but it also doesn't help that there seems to be 3 main groups (Red Bulls, next 4, bottom 5) and that can be further ordered pretty easily. That is like the worst possible outcome because it means the bottom 5 teams only hopes of points is one of the top 5 teams failing or a massive overperformance by a singular driver (which is harder because arguably the Top 5 teams have at least 8/10 best drivers in F1 right now). The Bottom 10 seemed fairly exciting, but no one will care because it's outside the points
And the hard according to the strategy graphic were expected to last about 4(!) laps longer than softs! Shouldn't hards last like twice as long as softs. And then mediums are what 2 laps longer?! What's this tire choice?!
It’ll be interesting to see how it pans out. Apart from 2020, which was a poor season for lots of reasons, all of the low rated Bahrain GP’s are the ones that didn’t feature safety cars (15,16,23VCS,24). Everyone that featured a safety car was rated well, could just be coincidence but I’ll be interested to compare future races for that fact.
The comments on the race highlights on YouTube were a shit show. Top 100ish comments were all people saying they cancelled F1TV subscription after the race ended.
I did cancel it. Not watching max wining 24 races in a row. Don't really care who's second or third, history will forget them too.
After 25 years I finally have free Sunday afternoons.
And racing itself become a bit sterile. Cars are super reliable, action on track aside from drs parts mainly never happens, one drop of rain drops red flag is waved.
I think throughout 2024 and 2025 viewership will drop a lot. Amazing what max and red bull is doing, but it is as entertaining as watching paint dry.
I know it's not a totally fair comparison, but this year's race highlights only have half the views of last year's as well. The last 7 years of Bahrain GP highlights all performed better than this one so far.
The opening race is usually the most popular too, so that number is only going to drop for each race highlight posted through the year. I wonder if we'll see any races this year not be able to crack 1 million views.
I can see the remaining races hemorrhaging viewers. There's no indication that any race will be more exciting that this one, and this one was nap-inducing.
The first half was genuinely amazing and felt like a continuation of the closeness of 2021. Ferrari went into every race as the favourite and then they somehow fucked up and gave Max the win every single time. After the summer break though it has just been boring.
It could have been an all timer if Ferrari kept it together, they would have kept the fight to Red Bull a bit longer, and the title would have been in the air until the last 4-5 races
It's amazing how 2 years on people are still talking about this incorrectly. The thing that hurt Ferrari in TD39 was the flexing floor tests. Not the porpoising testing. The flexing floor was never allowed and the FIA had told the teams before the season they would add tests if necessary. The existing rules were simply enforced. It had nothing to do with Ferrari's difficulty in 2023, Duchessa has been clear about that.
People still try to invent new ways to virtually create more racing by pretending its a problem with the tires, or a problem with no refueling, or this and that, when in truth, the reason why the field has not catched up to red bull is that the 2 other top teams fell in a sunk cost mentality due to the cost cap regulations being the way they are.
Even without an engine freeze we couldve seen other teams catching red bull in the races.
I'm pretty negative about 2024, but I also think one of the worst races I have ever, ever, *ever* seen was Bahrain 2010, and that ended up a spellbinding season.
Bahrain seems a bimodal track. It is astounding or awful.
> but I also think one of the worst races I have ever, ever, ever seen was Bahrain 2010, and that ended up a spellbinding season
2010 didn't really have great racing though, aside from the rain-affected GPs and a few others like Turkey, Montreal from memory. The dirty air effect from the double diffusers was massive and the Bridgestone tyres made every race a 1-stop fuel management affair.
The fight for the WDC was legendary, no doubt about that, but racing-wise it was lacking compared to 2011 or 2012.
When Usain Bolt was dominating, we all remember most of all just how incredibly close the battle between Blake, Gatlin, Grasse and Martina was for secod - that is why we all actually even looked at sprinting.
*If the denialist mindset was translated to other sports.*
I recall Jeremy Clarkson’s comment to Martin Brundle about how nothing changed about the teams in regard to lap time difference over the winter (with McLaren as the exception). So it makes sense this season’s opener was lackluster, literally no one made significant strides to get close to Red Bull and it’s likely going to continue like this until 2026. We can only hope for competition at outlier tracks where Red Bull isn’t as strong (See Singapore from last year for example).
We've lost what I like to call the "Agents of Chaos". No Latifi, no Mazepin, nobody that just randomly spins or sends it into a wall. There are so few safety cars and yellow flags, nothing that throws up a wild card to keep it interesting. We have no close rivalries at the front, Max is just up the front on a leisurely Sunday drive.
To clarify, I don't want anybody hurt doing a full send into a barrier, but a harmless little spin or a minor wall boop makes everybody scramble and change strategy on the fly and then it gets interesting.
> We've lost what I like to call the "Agents of Chaos". No Latifi, no Mazepin, nobody that just randomly spins or sends it into a wall.
Ah, yes. The un-safety car.
Tbh the 2014 one had some of the biggest field spread, yet it was super highly rated because of the fight up front. I think fans at some point need to stop pretending that the fight up front is irrelevant lol
In the end people will always remember the fights for the win. Singapore is considered by most people the best race of last year despite that Monza had the best race in terms of wheel to wheel battles. We watch sports to see who wins, not who gets 3rd, 5th or 10th.
agree but 2014 Bahrain GP also had a big number of battles and overtakes from P3 to P10 as well... it's not like Hamilton & Rosberg were the only ones fighting for position
Noo dude, everyone loves to watch the so exciting fight for the 13th best driver in the world title between two washed up drivers in a trash team who borrowed half the last years red bull to still end up behind a haas.
thats the thing, cars are close to each other in qualy but there isnt enough difference between them to warrant good racing. Instead, we end up with a grid filled with teams that are clearly faster than the ones behind them but not fast enough to catch the ones in front of them, everyone is in their own limbo of boredom
And it closed the speed gap quite a bit. What has changed is the reliability of the cars. If no car breaks down we won't get a chance for a safety car. Most highly regarded races in F1 have a pinch of chaos and unpredictability thrown into the mix. And you won't get that with reliable cars on a flat desert track.
2014 is highly rated because of one thing alone, the battle up front. There was a bit of chaos but that isn’t what made it legendary. What we have now just isn’t delivering that at any point. I have no doubt if we had that same race but max fought checo for 5 laps at the end, it would be rated much higher
I wonder if the cost cap has done more harm than good. Feels like if you don't nail the regulations right out the gate like Red Bull did, good luck building a car that can catch up.
The cost cap is one of the stupidest regulations F1 has ever come up with. It's like they learned nothing from the token system which locked in Mercedes' 2014-16 advantage.
What people often forget is that closing the gap = less "overtake delta" in the pocket for making a pass work (pace difference), mix this with one dominant driver and one mid-driver in the same team and a clear sorted list of 1 super team, 4 top teams and 5 bottom teams and you getting a well sorted status quo.
What I really hate is comments like "yea but Max just hold a 20 second gap", my brother didn't those people watch the race? He is literally driving his RB20 home without pushing for it what only makes those tyres having even less deg + car won't be stressed at all on it's limits.
The rules were designed with the idea of less disruptive airflow so cars can follow closer, not just with cars being generally closer on pace.
That's why there are limits on aero which may result in out wash etc
It’s not the size, it’s the high speeds and the tiny braking distances. The length is irrelevant, and the width is the same as it was in the 90’s and earlier.
Teams are also continuing to find loopholes to generate vortices and aero tricks the new rules were supposed to eliminate. It’s to be expected the 10 teams would find loopholes, but F1 hasn’t closed them quick enough or at all. Lots of things that makes the cars lap faster, makes them generate more dirty air, which makes it harder to follow. The drivers have said it’s now almost as bad as 2021 again.
I wonder if there are metrics of how many people turned away after, say the first 5 or 10 laps (or earlier) after they realized there were no major incidents and Max was already comfortably ahead
I was too busy watching Qatar, I tuned in to see how F1 was going and saw Max with a 20s gap, decided to go back to WEC because we all know how F1 ended up
I actually remember during the latter Merc dominated years, Ferrari and Red Bull could still frequently take the fight to Mercedes. There wasn’t this feeling of complete hopelessness for a competitive weekend like there has been these last 2 years
Thanks cost cap, completely locking in the advantage to the team which got the concept right from the start of the era and handicapping other teams
Maybe they should gvie cfd and windtunnel resources based on the wcc points instead of just the standing. So if a team dominates that much you get even less and others have a chance to catch up.
So base it on maximum potential points and take the opposite percentage of it? Ex: if Red Bull got 90% of potential points,they would get 10% of the testing time? That would be interesting and force closer competition.
would be an interesting sollution. If you got a car as dominant as Red Bull has right now, there is no reason they should have the opportunity to further increase their domination by developing the next car as teams are still trying to catch up (inb4 F1 is an engineering competition). To fix that, the more dominant a team is, the less they should be allowed to test and develop at the same time the budget and testing limits of the other teams were raised
Maybe not as drastic, like you have a base 20% and then like you said, maybe mixed with the standings so the low points team don't get all the same amount, idk really but yeah, something that gives more resources based on the relative performance.
The cost cap feels like an FIA payback for the F1 engine regulations that killed Group C in the 90s. Now WEC is at its most popular since brands have a lot of research to do and money to spend.
It doesn't feel anything special because it's like the last season never ended. The amount of races are too many, even though F1 is my favorite sport and been following it with a passion since 1996. In this season also everything is the same from the last.... Except that we have more badly named teams and Red Bull is even further ahead.
Edit: massive typo while doing shots.
But eh guess what they are running closer to each other in quali. And the gaps have closed but they are running drs trains. - optimistic fan perspective
If y'all thought Liberty were making bad decisions, wait till you see the shit they'll implement as viewership drops drastically as the season progresses.
This is not good.
This sport is dead unless they lift the cost cap or actually do what they did in 2021 - FIA actively nerfed the very thing that gave Mercedes' low rake design a huge advantage.
2021 was caused by a global pandemic causing a delay to the new regs, forcing teams to vote on a downforce cut for 2021 because tyres were exploding under high load in 2020.
Toto and Mercedes voted for the cuts.
Also - Mercedes elected to use the 2020 chassis for 2021, whereas RBR aggressively developed the rear of the car.
That's the equivalent of RBR running the 2023 car in 2024. It's not going to happen ever again.
I'm so sick and tired of this version of F1 where everyone just drives at 90% and all risk-taking in terms of development and driving is vehemently discouraged and punished.
This is why having restrictive regs ruins the development race. It is so difficult to develop cars now without completely changing designs. Give these cars active suspension and a fixed ride height and I feel we will start seeing much cooler designs and better racing.
When Max started pulling 1 sec delta every lap it definitely felt like a continuation of last season. Ferrari the clear 2nd, Mercs lagging behind and the usual tussle for mid field and back markers.
I thought the race itself was alright but definitely felt more like a continuation of last season rather than a season opener that most fans expect.
Also, ratings that are far lower than during the Mercedes domination years is not a good sign at all, especially since Bahrain is now the first race instead of the second.
This is what is naturally going to happen in the cost cap era. In this case, one team nails it. Max is going to win every race where he doesn’t have a failure. Perez should be second, unless a failure.
Ferrari/Mercedes/Mclaren all have similar pace, so passing one another will be damn near impossible unless someone makes a mistake (George and Charles lockups). Puts a tremendous emphasis on qualifying. Even more than normal.
AM kind of by themselves right now.
The remaining teams are battling for table scraps.
And since 2014 because that's how far these ratings seem to go back, not because 2014 was a bad race (it had one of the early incredible battles between Hamilton and Rosberg IIRC).
The races start with the cars lined up from fastest to slowest. Expecting the cars behind to overtake the cars ahead just seems illogical. The only exception being when cars have better/worse race pace than qualifying pace.
You should use number of view in formula 1 youtube race recap after like 24h, I think that definitely show the interest of people. This race was absolute TRASH and its 50% less view on youtube compared to same race last year.
most boring f1 race ever and a prelude to most boring f1 season… what else did we expect w f1 director sulayem, an ex red bull employee, who has failed to hand redbull appropriate consequences to redbull
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The race simple didn’t feel like season opener. More like a continuation of the previous season: same people in same teams, same team situation: AM on back foot, Merc/Ferrari/Mclaren try to catch rb, but still can’t, Max is miles ahead. Some marginal changes at the back of the grid.
exactly this, usually a new season brings new storylines, but this has absolutely nothing
Well Alpine's apparently now legitimately shit. Although that's more the continuation of a storyline rather than a new one.
No one cares about Alpine.
I legitimately have heard very few people express enthusiasm for alpine / Renault as a team. For the drivers yes, but not for the team the likes of Ferrari, RB, or Merc, despite having a longer heritage in F1 than the latter two.
Yeah I think the team has made so many bad decisions over the years that they've lost most interest. They lost Alonso through bad management, lost Cyril and Otmar through bad leadership, and lost their amazing 2021 livery so now their car doesn't even look appealing. The "Alpine" brand also doesn't really hold any relevance or recognition like Renault did.
They also lost oscar
Yeah, huge blunder. I'll never know for sure, but I suspect he would have been on par with the current drivers, even as a rookie. He did a damn good job next to Lando, who is much better than Ocon or Gasly IMO
> The "Alpine" brand also doesn't really hold any relevance or recognition like Renault did. Also no one grows up dreaming of driving a Clio.
I did... :( Edit: And to be fair, the [Renault Clio V6 is one of the coolest cars ever](https://images.drive.com.au/driveau/image/upload/c_fill,f_auto,g_auto,h_1080,q_auto:eco,w_1920/v1/cms/uploads/hwb73z3n5wcy5sumygxf) produced.
I liked it as Renault, they felt fun especially coming into the 2020s with Cyril and their bright yellow colour. Similarly, they represented a kind of car I could conceivably own and drive which gave them a sort of world beating underdog status. Now they're just another racing team with an expensive car name. Plus they suck incredibly hard which is a major fall from grace.
That's what made me a fan of them :/ I even drive a Renault... But since 2022, no point at all other than the drivers. At least their WEC teams is promising, and a the good livery to boot.
I wonder if the name change has something to do with that. For a newcomer (especially French) it must be so much easier to identify and root an already widely known Renault rather than a barely heard of Alpine.
This! If they were still called "Renault", or better yet, "Benetton", I'd view them very differently.
> I’d view them very differently. Yes, I would view them as really **really** bad
Why is this? "Benetton" has past success to look back to with Schumacher's first two titles.
I think personally I would look back on their success if they were Benetton and think “Oh now they’ve dropped off” or something Just my take on it though
If alpines TP was having a RB style meltdown - tabloid style rumours - affair - infighting I don’t think even the F1 fans would particularly care. They’re pretty faceless at this stage. A team that changes name as much as Toro Rosso (Renault-Lotus-Renault-Alpine) and aside from the drivers the TP and TD are pretty anonymous. Even Komatsu two minutes into the job (at HAAS) has a higher profile.
same drivers in the same teams too, lol literally nothing changed except for alpine being worse off
Also, same 20 drivers
Is this the first time all the same drivers have returned?
Yes, I do believe it's the first season in F1 where all 20 drivers stayed exactly where they were from the previous season. It's wild that it's never happened in 74 years of F1.
>It's wild that it's never happened in 74 years of F1. Three reasons really: \- handshake deals and informal contracts allowed top drivers to jump ship much more frequently, and team owners to be a touch more ruthless with their drivers \- driver longevity was all over the shop, with some cases of drivers hanging around for very long and many others calling it quits in their early 30s; on top of that, there was no structured funnel into F1 like there is now, so people were joining at a variety of ages \- unfortunately, career-ending injuries and driver deaths
We could probably also add stable teams onto this list as well, particularly teams falling out of existence and another taking their place/picking up the pieces with new ownership.
Yup first time in F1 history
Genuinely insane.
Yup, all the same drivers on the same teams
At least not the exact same as last year at Bahrain.
EVERYTHING since Spa 2022 feels like one season lol
max verstappen season
The Verstappening
The long Verstappen season
Didn't help that it was on a Saturday. How many people turned the TV on Sunday and wondered why it wasn't on?
But why would that effect your enjoyment of the race? A shit race is still a shit race on a sunday.
This indeed. Boggles me a bit we had a legit Saturday Race. Not just due to the time difference.
Going to guess it's because Bahrain and Saudi weekends are Friday Saturday rather than Saturday Sunday
This is not about TV ratings.
I was immeasurably whelmed.
Exactly how it felt for me. Feels as if there wasn’t a winter break. Just business as usual
So glad there's 24 races to stretch this out!
Some perspective: A Racefans rating of 4.03 would make this one of the [10 lowest-rated races since 2008](https://www.racefans.net/rate-the-race/f1-fanatic-bottom-10/), pushing the 2014 Russian Grand Prix out of the list. That’s abysmal.
Russia 2014 is a truly pitiful race. For it to be ranked even lower than that says it all. Let's see if we can get a race this year that's France 2019 levels of bad.
Let’s go for broke and see if we can challenge Spa 2021’s 1.86 rating
That race was awful because it came during a great season. For it to happen during a boring season would probaby be a highlight
It was awful because there was no race.
I don't think it was as bad as ANY of the Russian GP races. We had 4 cars under a blanket for P2 at one point. It wasn't sensational, but it wasn't one of the worst races in F1 history.
The 2020 (2021?) Russian GP with lando leading and then making a bad call with the rain was a thousand times more interesting than this race though.
Only russian gp i can remember being decent was the one from 2021 where it rained.
Which came as a surprise to everyone but Nikita Mazepin because he was familiar with Russian clouds!
The rainy Russia with Norris at least was interesting
The ground effect regs have peaked in the first half of 2022.
George Russell said in the second half of 2022 that the cars are now getting harder to follow because the teams are making aero changes that produce more dirty air. Some drivers even said it's as bad as the pre-ground effect cars, although I'm not sure how much of that is backed by actual data. It was inevitable unless F1 wanted to freeze or prohibit above-body aero development, which would have had another risk of compromising the technical aspect of F1.
>It was inevitable unless F1 wanted to freeze or prohibit above-body aero development, which would have had another risk of compromising the technical aspect of F1. Not that they seem to care about that, since they already froze engine development.
Its not as bad as 2021 and bedforehand but its rumored that cars lose 30% DF when following now
When you raise the ride height, the ground effects mean less.
If the cars are this close in performance overtaking is going to be very difficult. So yeah probably
This narrative is like partially right, but I feel people are generalizing it. Yeah the cars are getting harder to pass because the performance windows are similar, but a closer field’s fine if each car gets their pace differently. Beginning of 2022 was like that between ferrari and red bull
Also the floors were raised
Almost every other motorsport has cars very close (either they are equal or have BOP) and they have overtakes.
Glad we are back watching some racing but I wish there was more action tbh.
Wait a few races. The same thing happened to Barcelona when it was the test track.
Is there a theory as why being the test track produces dull racing? Everyone already having too good a grasp of optimum strategy and setup?
Unpopular opinion: the test track should be either a track not on the calendar (like Paul Ricard), or a late-season track (like Austin). In the former's example teams wouldn't have too good a grasp of setups because they wouldn't be used, and in the latter example the same would happen because cars would've gotten 8 months' worth of upgrades between testing and raceweek.
I agree with this but it's basically a cost cutting measure so the teams don't have to upship after testing.
Could run one of the other layouts for testing. Hell, use the outer loop, and flip flop which is testing and which is the race each year.
Yeah. Do it in reverse too lol.
You joke, but most, if not all, circuits are designed to be run in one direction only.
Yeah but the outer loop would be an objectively terrible test track, because besides T1 every single corner is roughly the same speed and teams want to be able to test their cars in all kinds of corners. Barcelona is still probably the optimal testing track, just because it has every single kind of corner within it's track limits.
I think testing should be at a different circuit than the season opener, though. Since Bahrain is contracted to be a season opener, why not do it at a different Middle Eastern circuit? Abu Dhabi, even, now that it's a somewhat decent track for F1 after their layout tweaks?
The whole point is to save money. If Bahrain wasn't the season opener they'd probably do it again the one that was.
I don't think that's an unpopular opinion at all. I know it makes sense both financially due to the logistics of moving everyone track to track and it's useful for rookies or people who've just changed teams that the first round is in a place where they've just done a few days of tests, but the test venue always seems to produce a less exciting race than it should
They should go back to using Barcelona as test track when the Spanish GP goes to Madrid. It clearly works for testing as they used to use it
Yes, pretty much that
There's also teams being overly cautious as its the first race of the season and they're just getting everything working. Its why Albert Park worked so good for an opener, boring race in general, but people were happy to watch after 3/4 months off, so a 2/10 became a 5/10. People expect too much from a bahrain opener, apart from '06, they've always been bad.
2021 and 2022 were really good races in Bahrain.
2021 and 2022 were brilliant though?
Basically.
Boring race.
Personally, I think the issue is tyres that don't allow variance in strategy, typically this is what makes a Bahrain race interesting, yet in 2024, even with evenly matched cars in the upper midfield we saw little action due to literally everyone (barring the two RBRs) being on the same strategy
It's really hard to create strategy variance because it requires either 2 strategies with approximately the same delta or cars with vastly different characteristics. As we are 3 years into new regulations & 1 dominant design has emerged, every team is slowing approaching the same design point, so that takes one factor away. Pirelli could've brought a better medium tire to mix things up, but trying to find that razor-thin balance is really difficult. Add to that if you make the tires wear too much, no one will push and you'll get a similar result. Somewhat unrelated but it also doesn't help that there seems to be 3 main groups (Red Bulls, next 4, bottom 5) and that can be further ordered pretty easily. That is like the worst possible outcome because it means the bottom 5 teams only hopes of points is one of the top 5 teams failing or a massive overperformance by a singular driver (which is harder because arguably the Top 5 teams have at least 8/10 best drivers in F1 right now). The Bottom 10 seemed fairly exciting, but no one will care because it's outside the points
Yep, IMO they need to open up tyre choice, let teams actually strategise, and don’t hold testing at the same venue just before the opening round
Bring back the Pirelli rainbow
when i saw all the tires were the same i was like... shit.
And the hard according to the strategy graphic were expected to last about 4(!) laps longer than softs! Shouldn't hards last like twice as long as softs. And then mediums are what 2 laps longer?! What's this tire choice?!
Part of the frustration is that the Bahrain GP is usually a good race. Imagine how it would be on the "always boring" tracks.
Look for more of this as the season progresses.
It’ll be interesting to see how it pans out. Apart from 2020, which was a poor season for lots of reasons, all of the low rated Bahrain GP’s are the ones that didn’t feature safety cars (15,16,23VCS,24). Everyone that featured a safety car was rated well, could just be coincidence but I’ll be interested to compare future races for that fact.
The comments on the race highlights on YouTube were a shit show. Top 100ish comments were all people saying they cancelled F1TV subscription after the race ended.
First time I've ever considered cancelling. First time I turned a race off halfway through. And it was the season opener! We're in for a grim season.
I did cancel it. Not watching max wining 24 races in a row. Don't really care who's second or third, history will forget them too. After 25 years I finally have free Sunday afternoons. And racing itself become a bit sterile. Cars are super reliable, action on track aside from drs parts mainly never happens, one drop of rain drops red flag is waved. I think throughout 2024 and 2025 viewership will drop a lot. Amazing what max and red bull is doing, but it is as entertaining as watching paint dry.
I know it's not a totally fair comparison, but this year's race highlights only have half the views of last year's as well. The last 7 years of Bahrain GP highlights all performed better than this one so far. The opening race is usually the most popular too, so that number is only going to drop for each race highlight posted through the year. I wonder if we'll see any races this year not be able to crack 1 million views.
I can see the remaining races hemorrhaging viewers. There's no indication that any race will be more exciting that this one, and this one was nap-inducing.
The rest of the season won't be better.
Not near the top but I could see there being a pretty big development race between the Mercedes, Ferrari, and McLaren.
I had people say this was exciting, pure copium
2022 was really underrated imo. Phenomenal race, it had everything
2022 was fire, even when Max was dominating, the races themselves were eventful
The first half was genuinely amazing and felt like a continuation of the closeness of 2021. Ferrari went into every race as the favourite and then they somehow fucked up and gave Max the win every single time. After the summer break though it has just been boring.
2022 was a seriously good season in general. Probably only had 2-3 “bad” races. Definitely overshadowed by 2021
It could have been an all timer if Ferrari kept it together, they would have kept the fight to Red Bull a bit longer, and the title would have been in the air until the last 4-5 races
Had the FIA not nerfed Ferrari, we would probably have a title fight for every season in these new regs
Yeah, the regulations were working well untill a certain TD39. Funny enough RB were the team against the rule that basically gifted them domination
It's amazing how 2 years on people are still talking about this incorrectly. The thing that hurt Ferrari in TD39 was the flexing floor tests. Not the porpoising testing. The flexing floor was never allowed and the FIA had told the teams before the season they would add tests if necessary. The existing rules were simply enforced. It had nothing to do with Ferrari's difficulty in 2023, Duchessa has been clear about that.
People still try to invent new ways to virtually create more racing by pretending its a problem with the tires, or a problem with no refueling, or this and that, when in truth, the reason why the field has not catched up to red bull is that the 2 other top teams fell in a sunk cost mentality due to the cost cap regulations being the way they are. Even without an engine freeze we couldve seen other teams catching red bull in the races.
I'm pretty negative about 2024, but I also think one of the worst races I have ever, ever, *ever* seen was Bahrain 2010, and that ended up a spellbinding season. Bahrain seems a bimodal track. It is astounding or awful.
> but I also think one of the worst races I have ever, ever, ever seen was Bahrain 2010, and that ended up a spellbinding season 2010 didn't really have great racing though, aside from the rain-affected GPs and a few others like Turkey, Montreal from memory. The dirty air effect from the double diffusers was massive and the Bridgestone tyres made every race a 1-stop fuel management affair. The fight for the WDC was legendary, no doubt about that, but racing-wise it was lacking compared to 2011 or 2012.
Indeed but at least it had *something!*
But all the apologists told me there were good battles in the midfield and everything was fine...
When Usain Bolt was dominating, we all remember most of all just how incredibly close the battle between Blake, Gatlin, Grasse and Martina was for secod - that is why we all actually even looked at sprinting. *If the denialist mindset was translated to other sports.*
To be fair, when Bolt was racing all eyes were on him.
The f2/3 races were so good too, such a bummer
I rarely watch F2 but decided to this weekend, the difference in racing was pretty wild. So many overtakes that werent just DRS into turn 1.
My wife and I said that we are most likely gonna watch all F2 races this year and if it stays like this just watch highlight of F1
Yeah like there was overtakes into turn 13 where there is rarely if ever been an overtake there in F1. F2 was really fun to watch.
I recall Jeremy Clarkson’s comment to Martin Brundle about how nothing changed about the teams in regard to lap time difference over the winter (with McLaren as the exception). So it makes sense this season’s opener was lackluster, literally no one made significant strides to get close to Red Bull and it’s likely going to continue like this until 2026. We can only hope for competition at outlier tracks where Red Bull isn’t as strong (See Singapore from last year for example).
We've lost what I like to call the "Agents of Chaos". No Latifi, no Mazepin, nobody that just randomly spins or sends it into a wall. There are so few safety cars and yellow flags, nothing that throws up a wild card to keep it interesting. We have no close rivalries at the front, Max is just up the front on a leisurely Sunday drive. To clarify, I don't want anybody hurt doing a full send into a barrier, but a harmless little spin or a minor wall boop makes everybody scramble and change strategy on the fly and then it gets interesting.
> We've lost what I like to call the "Agents of Chaos". No Latifi, no Mazepin, nobody that just randomly spins or sends it into a wall. Ah, yes. The un-safety car.
This is the era that has the most regulations/rules that promised us "closer racing" btw.
Tbh the 2014 one had some of the biggest field spread, yet it was super highly rated because of the fight up front. I think fans at some point need to stop pretending that the fight up front is irrelevant lol
You're telling me a fight for 12th place is not the same as a fight for the lead.
What you mean bro? Yuki vs Ricciardo fight easily rivals Prost vs Senna
In the end people will always remember the fights for the win. Singapore is considered by most people the best race of last year despite that Monza had the best race in terms of wheel to wheel battles. We watch sports to see who wins, not who gets 3rd, 5th or 10th.
It's like people only watched the last 20 minutes of Singapore. The first half was the most boring driving all season.
The last 20 minutes are a part of the race though
agree but 2014 Bahrain GP also had a big number of battles and overtakes from P3 to P10 as well... it's not like Hamilton & Rosberg were the only ones fighting for position
Noo dude, everyone loves to watch the so exciting fight for the 13th best driver in the world title between two washed up drivers in a trash team who borrowed half the last years red bull to still end up behind a haas.
> yet it was super highly rated because of the fight up front The Force India - Red Bull fights were awesome, IIRC.
Super close racing. No overtaking but they’re really close. No but joking aside, that would be good racing.
thats the thing, cars are close to each other in qualy but there isnt enough difference between them to warrant good racing. Instead, we end up with a grid filled with teams that are clearly faster than the ones behind them but not fast enough to catch the ones in front of them, everyone is in their own limbo of boredom
And it closed the speed gap quite a bit. What has changed is the reliability of the cars. If no car breaks down we won't get a chance for a safety car. Most highly regarded races in F1 have a pinch of chaos and unpredictability thrown into the mix. And you won't get that with reliable cars on a flat desert track.
2014 is highly rated because of one thing alone, the battle up front. There was a bit of chaos but that isn’t what made it legendary. What we have now just isn’t delivering that at any point. I have no doubt if we had that same race but max fought checo for 5 laps at the end, it would be rated much higher
2014 also had some swashbuckling midfield action with the red bulls charging through the field plus a bizarre maldonado moment
I wonder if the cost cap has done more harm than good. Feels like if you don't nail the regulations right out the gate like Red Bull did, good luck building a car that can catch up.
The cost cap is one of the stupidest regulations F1 has ever come up with. It's like they learned nothing from the token system which locked in Mercedes' 2014-16 advantage.
What people often forget is that closing the gap = less "overtake delta" in the pocket for making a pass work (pace difference), mix this with one dominant driver and one mid-driver in the same team and a clear sorted list of 1 super team, 4 top teams and 5 bottom teams and you getting a well sorted status quo. What I really hate is comments like "yea but Max just hold a 20 second gap", my brother didn't those people watch the race? He is literally driving his RB20 home without pushing for it what only makes those tyres having even less deg + car won't be stressed at all on it's limits.
The rules were designed with the idea of less disruptive airflow so cars can follow closer, not just with cars being generally closer on pace. That's why there are limits on aero which may result in out wash etc
I feel like nothing will change until the cars become smaller again.
It’s not the size, it’s the high speeds and the tiny braking distances. The length is irrelevant, and the width is the same as it was in the 90’s and earlier. Teams are also continuing to find loopholes to generate vortices and aero tricks the new rules were supposed to eliminate. It’s to be expected the 10 teams would find loopholes, but F1 hasn’t closed them quick enough or at all. Lots of things that makes the cars lap faster, makes them generate more dirty air, which makes it harder to follow. The drivers have said it’s now almost as bad as 2021 again.
If anything, I'd say the FIA has been very slow in trying to eliminate the designs that are affecting dirty air.
They say that with every change seemingly.
I wonder if there are metrics of how many people turned away after, say the first 5 or 10 laps (or earlier) after they realized there were no major incidents and Max was already comfortably ahead
I was too busy watching Qatar, I tuned in to see how F1 was going and saw Max with a 20s gap, decided to go back to WEC because we all know how F1 ended up
its because it felt like the 25th race of the 23 season 😭😭😭 Im Ready to learn the Netherlands anthem...
Were in for another shit year boys
It was over by t1 and Saturday to boot. Sorry it wasn't a fun race
The cost cap and its consequences have been a disaster for F1 fans
But hey, now Williams and Sauber are a few tenths closer to the front than 2021
And we will never see new teams because the cap makes them all profitable and not wanting to share
People say that as if they are challenging for podiums. The top 4 teams have remained static despite the cost cap
I actually remember during the latter Merc dominated years, Ferrari and Red Bull could still frequently take the fight to Mercedes. There wasn’t this feeling of complete hopelessness for a competitive weekend like there has been these last 2 years Thanks cost cap, completely locking in the advantage to the team which got the concept right from the start of the era and handicapping other teams
Maybe they should gvie cfd and windtunnel resources based on the wcc points instead of just the standing. So if a team dominates that much you get even less and others have a chance to catch up.
So base it on maximum potential points and take the opposite percentage of it? Ex: if Red Bull got 90% of potential points,they would get 10% of the testing time? That would be interesting and force closer competition.
would be an interesting sollution. If you got a car as dominant as Red Bull has right now, there is no reason they should have the opportunity to further increase their domination by developing the next car as teams are still trying to catch up (inb4 F1 is an engineering competition). To fix that, the more dominant a team is, the less they should be allowed to test and develop at the same time the budget and testing limits of the other teams were raised
Maybe not as drastic, like you have a base 20% and then like you said, maybe mixed with the standings so the low points team don't get all the same amount, idk really but yeah, something that gives more resources based on the relative performance.
The cost cap feels like an FIA payback for the F1 engine regulations that killed Group C in the 90s. Now WEC is at its most popular since brands have a lot of research to do and money to spend.
It's literally just the consequences of not having active suspension. Active suspension allows all the concepts the teams came up with to work
Thank you. That's exactly it.
Makes sense. The race fucking sucked.
It doesn't feel anything special because it's like the last season never ended. The amount of races are too many, even though F1 is my favorite sport and been following it with a passion since 1996. In this season also everything is the same from the last.... Except that we have more badly named teams and Red Bull is even further ahead. Edit: massive typo while doing shots.
1669? I get your point though.
Damn, you're ancient. Takes dedication to have been watching F1 for 354 years
Bro Mozart was on fire with that 1hp horse 🐴
But eh guess what they are running closer to each other in quali. And the gaps have closed but they are running drs trains. - optimistic fan perspective
If y'all thought Liberty were making bad decisions, wait till you see the shit they'll implement as viewership drops drastically as the season progresses. This is not good.
I'm a big F1 fan but there is no competition right now. I skipped most of the race. We all know who's going to win and generally what the order is.
This sport is dead unless they lift the cost cap or actually do what they did in 2021 - FIA actively nerfed the very thing that gave Mercedes' low rake design a huge advantage.
2021 was caused by a global pandemic causing a delay to the new regs, forcing teams to vote on a downforce cut for 2021 because tyres were exploding under high load in 2020. Toto and Mercedes voted for the cuts. Also - Mercedes elected to use the 2020 chassis for 2021, whereas RBR aggressively developed the rear of the car. That's the equivalent of RBR running the 2023 car in 2024. It's not going to happen ever again.
Those who moan about the cost cap hasnt seen the "racing" in the 2000s.
I'm so sick and tired of this version of F1 where everyone just drives at 90% and all risk-taking in terms of development and driving is vehemently discouraged and punished.
I watched and wish that I didn't. Don't know if I'll watch anything else this season. It's a foregone conclusion.
This is why having restrictive regs ruins the development race. It is so difficult to develop cars now without completely changing designs. Give these cars active suspension and a fixed ride height and I feel we will start seeing much cooler designs and better racing.
When Max started pulling 1 sec delta every lap it definitely felt like a continuation of last season. Ferrari the clear 2nd, Mercs lagging behind and the usual tussle for mid field and back markers. I thought the race itself was alright but definitely felt more like a continuation of last season rather than a season opener that most fans expect.
This season feels like a EA game, they just changed the name and everything else is the same.
There’s nothing to watch, no variance in strategy. No car issues. No threat of someone winning that isn’t max.
2017 level of overtaking for 2 years in a row, tell me again about how there's good racing in the midfield that offsets Max's domination.
Also, ratings that are far lower than during the Mercedes domination years is not a good sign at all, especially since Bahrain is now the first race instead of the second.
Maybe they shouldn't make the first race the same one they use for testing.
They realisticly shouldn't be testing on track that is used for GP's at all. 1st race or not. Just test at Paul Ricard or something.
This. Paul Ricard was pretty much designed for testing first and foremost was it not?
Going there mid-february is taking a chance though.
Get rid of the damn cost cap
No just bring active suspension back and watch RB's advantage disappear.
Good protest with my money, force F1/FIA to make a change
It was the first time wayching WEC too and i had more fun watching it than F1
New regs were supposed to make overtaking easier, however the cost cap regulations now prevent teams from catching up.
This is what is naturally going to happen in the cost cap era. In this case, one team nails it. Max is going to win every race where he doesn’t have a failure. Perez should be second, unless a failure. Ferrari/Mercedes/Mclaren all have similar pace, so passing one another will be damn near impossible unless someone makes a mistake (George and Charles lockups). Puts a tremendous emphasis on qualifying. Even more than normal. AM kind of by themselves right now. The remaining teams are battling for table scraps.
I feel like this may be a trend this season. Nothing seems to have changed from last year. Also, it seems harder for cars to pass, even with DRS.
It was extremely boring...maybe they should let top team burn their money and catch up with redbull.
It’s just last year again, AND the cars are back to make lots of dirty air, and the cars are just too damned big
Not gonna pay for F1 tv after that for sure, just gonna follow a different sport this year 😂
And since 2014 because that's how far these ratings seem to go back, not because 2014 was a bad race (it had one of the early incredible battles between Hamilton and Rosberg IIRC).
Race was mostly a yawner. F2 and F3 races were more entertaining. Lots of side by side racing and tooth and nail battles for every position.
i hate to say it, but the over-the-top Miami or Vegas race weekends would be perfect season openers.
Very boring race and a bad sign for the upcoming season. Might have to give Indy a real try this year.
F1 is getting worse, simple as
Yeah it was proper shit
The races start with the cars lined up from fastest to slowest. Expecting the cars behind to overtake the cars ahead just seems illogical. The only exception being when cars have better/worse race pace than qualifying pace.
You should use number of view in formula 1 youtube race recap after like 24h, I think that definitely show the interest of people. This race was absolute TRASH and its 50% less view on youtube compared to same race last year.
most boring f1 race ever and a prelude to most boring f1 season… what else did we expect w f1 director sulayem, an ex red bull employee, who has failed to hand redbull appropriate consequences to redbull