There are some very avid followers of what is the pinnacle of motorsport on this forum. But in any thread to do with Formula 1, for every poster that likes F1, there is another that thinks it is boring and BTCC is much better. illepall
So will driving the BF1 for some LFSers generate a new found respect for F1 drivers and the sport, or is it only the F1 fans that truly enjoy LFS's new open-wheeler?
well it made me see why its tuff to overtake in F1... corners arrive too early, straights run out too quickly, so the only chance you got to overtake is in a mistake (they are elite... it doesn't come too often) or if the cars are very far appart in performance.
overtaking in F1 is an Art... but for the viewer BTCC is more exciting because it happens alot more (slower cars)
I live in the USA, where open wheel racing gets little coverage anymore, unless I would be willing to get up at 3 in the morning to watch speed channel. I'd like to see more coverage here, but the stations are too busy with shows like "cooking with the stars". Oh well, at least I get to spend more time on the computer while my wife watches American idol.
Including F1 cars in racing games should help players recognize just how fast these cars are, and that should help promote open wheel racing in general.
Depends on the track. On a street course, there's no real room to pass, but Spa is large enought that you have some passing that doesn't occur in the pits.
In the Champ car series in the USA, they have 1 minute of extra boost available for a race. This is the "push to pass" button. I don't know if this will help open wheel racing in the USA though. They need to merge the Indy and Champ car back again, so there's a form of racing other than Nascar to watch here.
Correction: What is supposed to be the pinnacle of motorsports...
It's the pinnacle of fast cars and drivers, yes, but not motorsports.
If anything, the BF1 has shown me just how boring F1 today is, and exactly why it is boring. There's no overtaking, the cars accelerate too quickly and equally with TC, and the brakes are exceptional, so late braking is a matter of inches rather than meters. Although the occasional "terrific move" happens in F1, it's mostly a matter of desperately trying to pass that slower car rather than actual racing.
Mind you, from a driver's point of view, the BF1 is a wet dream for the exact same reasons it's (even in LFS) boring to watch from the sidelines.
So no... I won't get more interested in F1... In fact, I stopped watching the races mostly halfway through last season, and am not inclined to get back to them any time soon.
F1 is generally considered to be the pinnacle of motorsports, or more specifically, of open wheel racing. It's widely accepted, but not everyone thinks so. That's a correction to your like, not really a "correction".
Do you watch this year's formula one? Or did you watch last race at Albert Park in Melbourn? If you claim there's no overtaking after you watched a race or two this season, I would think you're kind of illepall .
The speed and look of the BF1 just totally blew me away, from a driver's point of view this machine is bloody quick and the brake is like hell. Boring? No. Exactly the opposite.
Not sure, because I am afraid you're gonna miss a lot of fun.
I am more of a rally fan, and I have RBR, but since this patch has come out I've been racing the bf1 online only so far haha. Although I have tried every car, but not really racing just screwing around. I'm not a big fan of openwheelers, but with F1 being the most popular in the world, of course I want to see what the "in-crowd" is raving about! the buzz will slowly die out soon, just like the f08 did..
Yes, the problem lies in the fact that it is only accepted by those that actually LIKE F1... I don't particularly dislike it... I just find it boring these days... And it's not just the cars either. There is a lack of interesting tracks apart from a couple of oldies. Every new track that's added to the season is more boring than the last. Where have the days gone that tracks were designed by men drawing possible roads on a height map like in the days of the old Zandvoort circuit, or Mosport, for that matter? These days a computer draws a map for you on a preferably flat piece of land, and voila, another Sepang clone to add to the season.
Well... I won't get up for it, or stay home for it like I used to. So, no, up until now I haven't seen any GPs. I'll be at my gf tomorrow, so there's a chance I won't see Imola either. And there's a difference between an overtaking manouvre, and racing. If you're behind a slower car, you'll just have to overtake him/her. But the problem with F1 is that there are no equal cars... Even cars of the same team often seem miles apart.
Wet dream would be a dream about sex... Sex is good, and as such a wet dream is something positive I agree with you on this.
Maybe, but if it takes missing some fun to save me from watching yet another boring F1 race, then so be it. Honestly, I thought it would be awesome to see someone else win GPs instead of MS all the frikkin time. Of course there were the fun parts, such as 6 car races at Indy, but once it became clear that Renault were starting to dominate it became boring very quickly indeed.
And believe me, I am a 100% race fan. Anything that has 4 wheels and goes fast I love. Even F1... If only they would start making the series interesting again, instead of changing the whole thing over and over again without ever fixing anything on the pretence that it will make the series 'cheaper and more exciting'. A1GP did in one season what F1 was unable to do in 2 decades. Look at other series and why people are attracted to them, and implement those things in their own series. I'm talking: Rolling starts, standing starts, p2p buttons, short races, pitstops, caution periods, close racing... Of course A1GP made some mistakes, such as their qualifying system. But as a whole, the A1GP, for me at least, is a winner. And I guess a completely sold out Zandvoort proves I'm not alone.
Ive always been a fan of F1. I kmow there isnt much over taking etc and some people think its boring. I agree it can get a bit "lets just watch the cars driveround and round in the same order" but if i look back to the "good old days" then it looks good then, but i no that i thought it was boring then too. There was more over taking yes, but it always seemed one team was dominate and won every race nearly.
The BF1 wont make F1 more popular IMO i just think that it will give people a respect for the drivers. It will show how hard over taking can be, how fast corner come up and straights end.
As for BTCC i like it also. So tomorrow i will be watchin 4 huors anf 45 minutes of tv. As the san marino GP is followed by BTCC.
When I raced the BF1, it was nearly impossible to pass someone except at braking into a corner or slipstreaming on a really long straight... This car has just so much power...
I hate F1, and have since.. well, since the rules changed and the cars got gooved tires and were forced to be much narrower. Of course, I was too young then to realise what great racing was, I just liked fast cars.
I have great respect for all F1 drivers, always have, so that's not the reason I hate F1. It's just boring to watch. And it's not just the lack of passing. It's the lack of attempts, lack of close racing in general. Not to mention the only track worth a damn is Spa. Monaco and Monza have both been raped by FIA.
Anyways... the BF1 will not renew interest in F1 for myself, and I won't be driving it very often, just like the FO8. I like tin-tops, and Prototypes.. and slower open wheelers like the FOX. That's what I'll keep on driving, and watching
Spa, Suzuka and the new Turkey circuit are the only good ones left, if you ask me. Yeah, Turkey's a GREAT track even if it was designed by that sad excuse of a track designer called Hermann Tilke. The same man who raped Hockenheim, Imola and who designed Sepang, Shanghai... tracks I'd drop a bombshell into. illepall
Last GP in Australia was hell fun, openning lap saw a huge battle between Alonso/Button/JPM/Raikkonen for P1, Button despite his tyre temprature problem beautifully defended his position and led the first lap, then safety car came out b/c accidents at the back, when it went in Alonso made a well timed overtaking down on the backstraight, and Button suddenly under great pressure from Raikkonen and JPM, who as teammates, battled each other big time.......safety car came no less than three times......at last guess what, Button's engine blew spectacularly 100 meters before finish line.
It happens to attract the biggest viewing audiences worldwide, much bigger than any other sport on the planet, so I guess there's a lot more F1 fans than you understand there to be. It's also known as the pinnacle of motorsport because of cutting edge development using aerospace technologies, sometimes new developments occur in F1 and are then adopted by the aerospace industry. This is a motorsport where engineers squeeze every possible advantage out of the car, within the designated formula for the sport. New components may appear on any given car on a per-race basis so agressive is the development. F1 is the cutting edge and there are several "races" being fought behind the scenes that add a strategic element to the sport which many casual fans don't see.
If all you see is fast cars going around a track then you don't have a good understanding of F1 and that is probably why you are at odds with the opinions of true fans. F1 may be a little too technical or perhaps intellectual for the average couch potato sports fan to easily digest, but it is rewarding and entertaining once you take all aspects of the competition on board.
In this drive-thru society we live in it's somewhat refreshing to watch something that is complex and not as pre-fab as many other sports can appear to be. I enjoy the struggle between rival team's engineers, managers, pit crews and of course drivers. I enjoy seeing the pit stop and fuel strategies unfold or alter over the course of a race. I respect the difficult task that the drivers have to hold on to these machines at amazing speed and still think and race under strong G-forces while experiencing rediculous levels of heat and vibration.
There are many aspects of F1 racing that I don't get to experience in a series like BTCC and vice versa. They are two different animals living in the same jungle.
Yeah, I've been begging for my local TV stations to broadcast NASCAR live or on tape delay, but apparently they won't try anything that hasn't "proven itself yet". So I'm stuck with F1, as are millions of people outside the US.
Unless of course there is a chauvinistic aspect to it, like they did with Darts when Raymond van Barnevelt won the world championship, or A1GP when Jan Lammers signed up to form a dutch team. So I'm hoping some dutch fellow will win the Daytona 500 someday. Hmmm, maybe that should be me.
And your statement is not entirely true... The World Bowl has the biggest audience worldwide. There's more people watching F1, yes, but no single GP reaches the audiences the World Bowl has each year. Even the Indy 500 and Daytona 500 have bigger audiences if you look at the amount of people that are able to view it at home, and the percentage of people that do.
Most of the time it's the other way around though. The aerospace techs find new stuff, and the F1 guys use it on their cars. Stuff designed for F1 makes it to roadcars often enough, though. ABS, TCS, EDL, etc etc. For that I salute the F1, and the people running it.
But motorsports isn't about technology, it's about fast cars going round and round on a track until a certain distance or amount of time has passed. Hence why I said it was the pinnacle of fast cars.
Even the FIA thinks F1 is boring, or they wouldn't make all these changes to try and get the cars closer together.
Maybe "true fans" are fans for the wrong reasons then.
Once I took all aspects of F1 on board, it instantly became twice as boring, because it truly is not about the best driver. Not even about the best car. And definitely not about the best team. It's a matter of money. He who invests most money makes best technical advancements, and wins title. For years the FIA supported this format, up until last year. And why? Because they saw the sport destroying itself because of Ferrari and McLaren, and the other big teams. Now they wanna make F1 cheaper starting 2008, and look what happens... No less than 22 teams have written up for 2008. We used to have 26 cars on each grid. There were times there was a pre-qual to determine which 26 cars of the 32 available ones would make the actual race. But no, it had to become the Ferrari versus Mercedes versus Renault versus Honda show. We ended up with 18 cars on the grid, if one of the manufacturers was kind enough to give some low team a couple of engines. F1 has stopped being motorsports long ago. And only now does the FIA realise that was a big mistake.
BTCC is sprint racing, and yes, they are very different.
Watch a NASCAR/CART/IRL/A1GP/ALMS race sometime... There's team engineers, managers, pit crews, and drivers that battle it out every week. The point is, F1 stopped being about those people a long time ago. Only now are the FIA trying to get them back into the picture.
I would argue that the F1 pit strategies used are childishly simple compared to those of NASCAR.
But hey, you like F1, I don't so much anymore. Let's not get into a huge discussion about it... (oops, too late )
I think this thread has clearly illustrated that the people who like F1 (Me ) will continue to like it, and the people that don't still aren't going to like it, although some of them may have a greater respect for F1 drivers (assuming they didn't already).
Also, racing in LFS and watching a race are quite different things. When YOU are racing, it tends to be a lot more fun than just watching it on tv, regardless of the car/class. Oval racing is pretty equally boring though
So let's all just agree to disagree okay? People aren't going to change their mind because of a forum argument, afterall you know what they say about arguing on the internet
I agree with TagForce. In fact, the FIA is doing everything to lure the manufacturers away. They're all in for independant teams with manageable budgets, not the crazy ass sums of cash you see in teams like Toyota. illepall
Hopefully from 2008, Formula 1 will become a better 'place'.
This statement would be good, but for your point, the bolded text just brings F1 down to the level of every other average motorsport out there. Every professional motorsport has engineers who "squeeze every possible advantage out of the car, within the designated formula for the sport."
I'll change a few pieces of text here and see if it sounds familiar in previous threads and discussions on other stuff:
If all you see is fast cars going around in a circle then you don't have a good understanding of Nascar and that is probably why you are at odds with the opinions of true fans. Nascar may be a little too boring or perhaps needing no skills for just turning left for the average couch potato sports fan to easily digest, but it is rewarding and entertaining once you take all aspects of the competition on board.
Everyone has their opinion. Some like or love F1, some like Nascar, some like the local dirt track, some like freakin golf. You ever watch golf on TV? Now, talk about BORING!!! I know some guys at work who watch it as religiously as big F1 fans watch F1 and big Nascar fans watch Nascar.
I have nothing against F1, I just find the competition and the racing boring to watch. But, it's only my opinion. Perhaps I'd think differently if I sat down and paid attention to some races. I felt the same way with Nascar. I thought, why would I want to watch 43 cars driving around in a circle. Until I sat and watched a few back in 1999. I saw the door to door battles, the pit strategies (come on, get 5 of your buddies to fill your car up with fuel and change all 4 tires on your real car in under 13 seconds), etc. It is exciting, just as perhaps F1 would be if I took the time to watch it and understand more than the cars just driving around the track in a train like it looks to me. The problem with both Nascar and F1 is, they are both dominated by big money. The big money gets in the way of the competition. Why does Michael Shumauker (I don't even know how to spell his name) win all the time. Or why does it seem that every time Dale Earnhart Jr or Jimmy Johnson has a problem or is ready to loose a lap, the caution flag comes out for Nascar. It is because of big money. The stars of the show can't loose, the big money can't afford for them to.
^Great post. I totally agree with everything that you said.
As another example; One of my favorite motorsports is rallying, but it's actually really boring to watch on tv, because it's basically just a "highlights" program. When actually doing it or watching onboard cameras it's just freakin crazy though. It's jawdropping whipping through forrests, on the sides of mountains, etc. Yet tv somehow manages to make it boring (IMO).
I'm a big F1 fan and I really dont enjoy the new car. Its simple to fast for me. Still prefer FOX 100 times over BF1 and the fact that its driving only on fictional tracks doesnt help either.
Not saying thats its not well done. Only that I dont like it on skinny tracks...
So people who don't like F1 are not intellectual or technical?
I think that's the biggest load of crap i've ever heard. People can dislike a sport without being ignorant or stupid. I have tons of respect for F1 drivers (and NASCAR drivers, etc) but i do not like the sport at all. Sure, the cars are fast, but to me they are just not fun to watch. Ditto for NASCAR. Yeah, it takes a ton of skill to keep those cars going roundy-round without piling up, but that doesn't necessarily make it entertaining - at least, not to me.
I'll take WRC or BTCC over F1 or NASCAR any day of the week and twice on Sunday. They're just more fun and interesting to watch TO ME. If you prefer F1, fine. But please don't try to say that people who don't like do so out of ignorance or lack of intelligence. That's just insulting.
don't know about it being completly boring, but it's definently lost it's lustre. The rules and regulations, they would have lost nearly a third of the fan base alone for removing the tire changes.... what were those guys doing again, rubbing the tires, what a joke.
At first I thought they were changing the rules in F1 to stop Shuey winning, and before that because they thought they were too fast when Ayrton Senna crashed and died....
Indie/champ cars karts whatever you wanna call them... they still have top speeds of over 350km/h and run full slicks weather permitting... yes F1 are still faster carts but the politics involved, it's taking the racing out of the races. and if I have to watch another GP to see webber bomb out again because of mechanical failure, alonso win by nearly 2 laps, and see the television concentrating on the back markers who are the onlly one's giving it a go, it'll be the last race I watch....if I had to choose between either DTM's or V8's or F1, f1 would be at the bottom....
illepall
the buzz will slowly die out soon, just like the f08 did.. 
I agree with you on this.
