This year only half of the races made it on to free TV down under, and half of those were the ones that were on after midnight rather than 10pm.
And honestly, I found that I didn’t miss it. That makes me sad.
Namery Quired
It was ok I guess, but somewhat soured by:
Clever aero making close racing essentially impossible – too many times we saw people closing gaps on slower cars only to be unable to close that last second and get past. Indy cars seem to be able to stay right up each others tailpipes for laps at a time, so it can’t be that hard to sort out. Stop the DRS crap and just simplify the aero so people can just overtake anyway.
Also, the tyres. We need tyres made out of something durable rather than the thinnest possible layer of useful rubber with, I dunno, cheese underneath? I understand the different strategy blah blah blah, but I don’t recall it ever making much of a difference.
Maybe make the brakes a bit dodgy too, to lengthen the braking zones. Being 5% better on the brakes doesn’t matter when the braking zones are so short.
Lew Isamilton
Has it finished then? Who won?
Flagging
Like others, I missed a few races this year for the first time. Lost sky coverage half way through season as moved house.
Too many races became missable for me to arrange to have it set up in the new house.
Richtea
Stopped watching after a few races. Not the sport it was a few years ago even
Have switched to watching BTCC. The coverage isn’t quite as high quality but the racing and action more than make up for it. Plus there’s all the support races shown
PBeeodd
Tried watching two races this year, didn’t make it all the way through either of them. F1 just doesn’t have the same character it used to have whereas the likes of the BTCC has it in abundance. Blancpain GT also an excellent watch with close racing every year so I now watch those two instead.
Stephen
*yawn* I kept saying that I wouldn’t watch the next race, and then I watched the next race. I would then be pissed off with myself promising that I wouldn’t watch the next race. I am the embodiment of the definition of insanity.
Pawel Zubrzak
It was boring.
Again two Mercedes at front. Finally Ferrari started to catch up.
Tires policy rubbish. It kills whole idea of the sport.
The difference between teams are so vast, that something need to change.
I do not want to see again next year -Hamilton first, Rosberg second and Vettel third-, for whole 2016 season
I ended up stop watching races, just highlights.
Jamie
Missed a lot of races this year but did catch ones that were deemed “classics” by most media coverage… Still managed to fall asleep on the sofa whilst watching them.
In fact, I might just get the season dvd as it’s a perfect way to ensure I fall asleep, a bit like the box set of Planet Earth or whatever current David Attenborough series is about.
F1, the new Nytol.
James Nethercoat
I watched every race. The earth didn’t move. It was predictable and whilst the racing was okay in parts, the constant tyre saving is just really boring.
I’d rather watch Canada 2011 19 times, including the 2 hour delay.
Gareth
Apathy set in early in the year. So I only watched a couple of races. But as I’m not old, filthy rich or have dubious morals I’m probably not part of Bernie’s intended target audience.
Shame really I used to watch it religiously.
Pill Ockonna Forum
I stopped watching F1 five hundred and sixty four years ago before it was even thought of because I knew that it would never be as good as The Outer-Mongolian Lawn-Mower Championship. I’m so glad you asked because I am dying for a reason to wang on about a championship I claim to never watch yet, mysteriously know all the facts and seem to be able to compare to every other form of motorsport in the world…even though I don’t watch it, cos it’s shite now, not like the old days…I’ve spent enough time playing Forza Motorsport to know my stuff and let me tell you, i know my stuff, enough to know I would have overtaken Nicholas Rosebergensminster five times in that last race, not like that namby pamby Hewis Lamilton and the News. Not that I watch it, cos it’s shite now, not like the ol’ days….
Etc. Etc.
Dave
I want to file a class action lawsuit against F1 for the hours of my life lost that can never be recovered while watching this season
Nick
Some interesting battles in the midfield, however the excessive need for tyre saving seems to really kill the action.
Hopefully next year we might get a tyre that degrades a little more gradually [rather than falling off a cliff] so we get less tyre management and more racing.
Steven
There’s a style of driving that’s been popularized since the Pirelli tyres came in/refueling was banned:
Man drives very fast car from Pole very fast for about 6 laps.
Man drives very fast car at front of the race maintaining a medium sized gap for the rest of the race.
Rest of the field drives round in circles behind him.
Maldonado.
Andrew
As the insightful motorsport commentator Paul Calf once mused, “Bag o’ shite.”
Calum
Looking forward to it moving completely to sky, mean I have an excuse to stop watching. I know what I will be watching on the 19th of June, I expect F1 ratings to take a hit for that stupid decision.
Pionir
Watching only the BBC highlights was quite exciting, mainly because they cut out the dull bits, plus as a bonus you could watch most races in 15mins meaning more time for other stuff!
Grumpy Old Git
Boring as **** better quality racing in BTCC!
However cars are still no match for the bikes in BSB, MotoGP or best of all IoMTT, ClassicTT, UlsterGP, NW200 etc
NicoHamilton
Wow, for sure it was a really great season! I’d just like to thank all you fans who have been absolutely amazing and also the organisers of the FIA Rolex Vodafone Petronas Santander Bernie-Tastic Formula One World Championship Series for putting a great show on.
Taq
Season saved from complete boredom by ‘YTS’ Max driving like he was throwing a 2l Clio Sport around Bury St Edmunds Tesco car park on a Saturday night. Next season give him some techno blasting out of the back and he’ll get podiums galore!
Jenson once again proved what an under-rated driver he is with consistent and comparable performances to Alonso, and as a reward was completely ignored by the team bosses in the driver ratings thing that just got released.
Sandy Kippling
Sky’s coverage was decent but I was more entertained by days of time filling at Austin than the race they managed to squeeze in.
I wonder if Simon, Damon, Johnny, Crofty and Lumsden Bumhat might be wasting their time on F1 and would be better utilised on a new show not unlike Noel’s House Party.
In full oh psychophantic mode now, but there were a few races where you and Fake Charlie doing your Twattering stuff was much, much better than the racing.
How to fix it ? Ground effect is a must, Gordon’s fan car could do with a modern twist, and making Kwik Fit supply the tyres and do the pit stops has to be worth a laugh, can’t be any worse than Williams.
Sweeping_Curves
It was a bit shit. Even the politics, which, weirdly, I often find more interesting than the racing even in a reasonable season, were dull. Too many pernickety decisions, too much decided by rules instead of on the track and utterly laughable penalties. Next!
Nick
Dull.
Some good races but only with one or two good moves to shout about, most of it was the usual drivers tip toeing around circuits managing tyres/fuel not doing anything fun. Coverage was mixed, obviously missed a lot of races due to Sky and got bored through a lot of the BBC stuff.
Overall….meh again
Rob Cook
Watched the Start of all the races, but not the Finish of most, at no point did I feel compelled to buy at Rolex, fly Emirates or Bank with a Spaniard.
Most races seem to involve some slow cars, passing other slow cars, pitting, then re-passing other slow cars. Followed by a LOTUS (not lotus) having a prang for no apparent reason, praise be for the Venezuelan Frank Spencer, without him it would be really shit!
Kerry
I watched a couple of races this year, and they were really quite dull. The rest, I saw the 10-minute highlights videos on the BBC website… even some of those were pretty dull.
garcon
It was exceptionally Rosberg.
The motorsport equivalent of a Nissan Pulsar, only in Red Bull’s case less reliable, and in McLaren’s case slower.
YAWN
I watched all of it because I’m a complete loser.
Dave
Er, I’d just like to say that someone has stolen my name and posted something that I didn’t say.
With that out of the way, has anyone else noticed that “for sure” is slipping out of the vocab of most drivers? Nico the exception, obviously….
John A Lacey
It was unbearably tedious for the most part, even the supposed “classic” that was the US GP was tedious in the extreme. The only entertainment came prom Lewis’s childish petulant strops every time he failed to win, and the Fernando Alonso clown car sweepstake where you guess how many laps his McLaren lasts before the next embarrassing failure.
I’ve loved F1 since I was a very small boy, but the last couple of years I’m really struggling to care.
Me
The most entertaining part was watching Red Bull engage in some furious back peddling when no one else would give them a decent engine.
Bin the aero trickery and DRS and get the drivers tripping over each other. Also need to penalise teams who are too reliable, maybe disconnect a spark plug for a couple of laps.
More fun when the results aren’t predictable and the front runners don’t finish every race.
tenkasen
For a long time I’ve been watching F1 as a matter of duty, I remember it fondly from my youth watching truly talented drivers in truly innovative cars with knife-edge performance verging on the uncontrollable.
I remember watching the insane turbo cars in qualifying, the first on-car filming I can remember of the drivers dancing the cars at the limits of boost and grip.
I remember overnight prepped qualifying tyres, engines that practically melted themselves solid on the cooldown lap, I remember watching the results of proper performance chasing R&D.
I remember singing v16s, howling v12s and aggressive v8s.
I remember historical, challenging tracks, built around the existing roads or designed to be difficult.
What do we have now? A rule book of things you’re not allowed to do that weighs more than the car, economical hybrid shopping trolley engines designed to last 2000 miles, penalties for undoing a bolt, crappy tyres and forced pit-stops to ensure “drama” on the undercut, 3/4 of the season conducted on anaesthetised Tilke tracks with 1000 yard run off areas in cash-rich dustbowl countries with utterly no racing heritage, the other 1/4 of the races on the sullen ghosts of hastily sanitised old tracks like Spa and Monaco where all the hard corners have been removed in favour of TV advertising friendly constant-radius corners, a formula so dependant on aero design that you need an overtake button to get past another car.
All capped off by a shower of mediocre daddy’s money pay drivers filling half the seats, maybe four decent drivers and a diamond-earring touting mediaberk who can’t even wear a baseball cap right?
It’s bad, it’s boring, and every rule and change made over the last 15 years has taken it further in the wrong direction. I still watch because I remember how good it was / how good it could be, but every race makes me sad now.
Max Turbo
Pill’s post is amazing. Is that you, Richard? ??
Personally enjoyed the inter-team rivalries, especially Sainz vs Verstappen and Hamilton vs Rosberg.
Like all things, it’s only any good if you pay attention, and F1 requires more attention than most Motorsports. Half the action is off the track. I’ve lost count of the times people have moaned they should be in equal cars, yet the same people refuse to watch GP2 (which I think has been worse than last year, funnily enough).
Ferrari moving forward, McLaren losing the plot with Ron back (well, Honda and their ERS integration). Decent midfield fight between Red Bull, Williams, Torro Rosso, etc. Reasonably unpredictable races considering the same trio regularly appeared in the podium.
Chuck in Lewis spectacularly giving Monaco away, Vettel turning into a comedy genius at pressers and Alonso slagging his car off mid-race – I’d say it’s been an entertaining season. Not a classic but definitely enjoyable.
Here’s to next year, Rosberg getting the crap parts again, Bernie growing more hair and the cars becoming ever more difficult to follow. Huzzah says I.
Rob Cook
Truth be told, its always been a bit crap, with the odd exciting race, its always lived on past glories, which is why people still tune in.
I’ve found formula E more exciting, with deliberately shit cars, at least they have been racing on track.
Allegro Driver
I think I’ll buy myself a Honda next year. I don’t like driving fast.
Seriously, JB will be on the podium next season with Alonso , why else would drivers with their talents still be hanging around if not for the new car next year. As they have said in interviews, they have enough zeros in the bank.
As for this season, who comes up with stupid rules about tyre pressure, toe angle drs, kers ? Just stick a big efn engine in, with a big efn turbo and a nitro button.
Hopefully next year they are allowed to race.
Rod Panhard
Pretty much in total agreement with tenkasen, who I think put it perfectly.
I think what’s missing is any element of machinery: we watch highly-polished laboratories efficiently run around a sanitised track driven by featherweight robots programmed to do a specific job. Compare that to the scene, say, 30-40 years ago where drivers were hard-drinking, cigarette-smoking and drove cars with engines you could see, hear and watch explode on a regular basis.
I get that technology has moved on, but it seems to have removed all the spectacle.
Football has gone the same way.
Leigh Verreepli
I watched the first 3-4 races, then gave up for the year. I felt free.
I think there just wasn’t enough access to the drivers. We need characters and stories to keep us interested. With diluted access to the drivers, especially on the grid, we lost that part. It left just boring driving around. Usually any exciting were 1-2 overtakes in the whole 90 min race. It’s just not good enough.
Sam
Pill Ockonna Forum knocks on it on the head for me.
It was a decent season. Some pretty dull races, but what season hasn’t had them? And some downright exciting races, with great racing and drama, with some real talent on the field shining through. F1 has a lot to improve and a lot to sort out but spectacles with the thickest and rosiest lenses man can devise isn’t going to help at all.
Makes me laugh when people talk about BTCC. You can keep your circuit dodgems, I’ll watch some real racing thank you.
Sam
I’ll also say, people who complain about the tyres don’t know what’s good for them. They’ve been one of the most interesting parts of the sport since they were introduced. You really think we should go back to the 90s and 2000s when the races were actually boring because the tyres never did anything…?
Andy
I didn’t watch any races this year – just read the results afterwards. Did I miss it – no.
Kinda says it all…..
Barry Twatmagnet
Well, watched it all, I even paid some Belgians to sit on a concrete slab and burn for 3 days (interjected with a daily 200 mile walk to the carpark)
I was impressed by the F1ness of it all, I was disappointed by the fact that the same old pundits (pro and am) are still spouting the same crap they have done for the last 30 years about F1 being “wrong” for some reason or other.
F1 will never be right, because it’s watched by insufferable know-it-alls who love to think they can do it better. Enough already, puuurlease.
Anyway, I will watch it all next year, attempt to throw a Ginsters Pasty and a packet of M&M’s into JB’s cockpit as he goes by on the way to Eau Rouge and generally enjoy it.
#Blessed
pitflaps
I liked it when the tall badly dressed man punched the man with the clipboard and everyone lost their jobs.
seb
I watch it for Bernie, I know he hates it and I’m sharing his pain, when he dies I’m out.
E-diff Piaf
I spent most of the season in garden centres.
And Goodwood.
Skid Mark
I cancelled my Sky subscription half way through the year as I was tired of watching half decent broadcasters polishing a turd. Watched what was on the BBC but it was no better. Sick of Rosberg and Hamilton behaving like petulant 5 year olds. How is that good for the Merc brand image? Will be watching WEC and MotoGP from now on.
Bernie Eccle$tone
Very profitable.
The FIA
I especially enjoy F1 when Nico Rosberg wins, leaves his helmet in the car, as at Abu Dhabi (and that after Mexico) then gets weighed without it in contradiction of the rules and when the other teams finally spot it I can tell them to collect some extra, non-taxable cash from Bernie.
The look on his little face as he is forced to handover the readies is priceless.
Lewis
Unlike Nico, I thought it was really amazing season. Hard work with the best team always pays off. (sorry Jenson)
mike
First time in my life that I didn’t watch a single race. Just checked to see the results. Has become too much like a sport run by robots and computers, in which some token humans are allowed to participate for revenue purposes.
Michael
Agree with Linday – Australian TV is taking F1 away from us, not that ther’s much to take away at the moment
Trevster McPundit
In order to manage my lifespan I have been instructed, via an instruction,to manage my anger. So the season was a mixed bag of highs and lows punctuated by…. Wait, there’s a comment gaining fast and ignoring the anger management protocols… Doctor on the radio, switch to anger management strat 6? is that an instruction? yes?, ok then… It was fucking shite. phew, that was a close one, oh wait a minute, no it wasn’t.
Bob
Watched nearly all the races, the other few I had on the radio while working. It was… alright. Couple of good races but more I fell asleep in than last year. One of the ones on the radio the commentators even sounded bored (I can’t remember which, sadly.) and I mentally tuned out.
Watched some of the WEC races though, and alot of LeMans, and that was cracking. I’ve always enjoyed watching sports car racing, and tbh at the moment, looking back at both seasons, I would say for me, it’s the better series.
I’m still going to watch the F1 though. I might just sleep through more of it.
Phill
Well clearly it really was a pile of crap. I never watch them live only recorded so I can fast forward to the end. With so many so called clever people why can’t they sort it out. I love the idea of F1 but not the reality. Thankfully there is Moto GP and Valentino Rossi
John
Well I watched it all apart from most of Brazil which I partly fast forwarded and partly slept through!
Not as good as last year and not as good as other seasons but to put it in perspective a lot better than the early 2000s when Ferrari wouldn’t even let Reubens challenge their number 1 driver!
It could have been so much better though if Mercedes had not gone out of its way to be fair to everyone. Let the drivers pick their own strategy and tyre choices. If it doesn’t work out then fine but essentially we saw that whoever made the first corner first (usually the one on pole) win.
Re the BTCC comments above – Weirdly having been a huge fan of the BTCC since the mid 90s and watching every race and attending some, I got a bit sick of it this year and at times even resorted to just watching the highlights shows. It has so much potential but ITV is just so poor. It hasn’t moved the coverage on from when it was on Motors TV as a full day programme in 2003(?). Total quantity over quality. Far too many adverts (if you actually calculate the percentage of the programme that is just advert breaks it is shocking), I have never been able to get away with Louise Goodman, lack of replays, poor camera work (and/or directing) which misses half the action, too many rubbish teams and pay drivers – teams should be called Honda, Vauxhall, MG, Audi etc not “Exocet AlcoSense Racing”!!! Hadn’t heard of most of the sponsors. No analysis and decent review of a race, just more adverts a crap interview with Louise and then into the next support race.
If you gave the BTCC coverage to Sky they would move it on so much.
Which brings me back to F1 – watched one race on BBC (can’t remember why) and the coverage is so poor compared to Sky now. The coverage has stood still – which is more than the presenting team can do. So distracting with them permanently walking towards the camera!
Anyway rant over bring on next season
#alonso
I watched it all apart from most of Brazil which I partly slept through.
Yugguy
Everything tenkasen said.
James Hunt would despair at today’s racers. Then he’d knob their wives in their own trailers, drink half a bottle of their scotch and then thrash them round the track.
Shady Glen
Missed this thread, and seeing it will end up at the bottom of the page, doubt anyone will read it……But if you do, do yourself a favour and forget F1 and start following the World Endurance Championship and GT racing. There has been some amazing racing all year, Unbelievable when you think about it. That you can be truly gripped for a six hour race and bored to tears by F1 in about 15 minutes.
Lord Custard Smingleigh
I think it puts it most eloquently that I have spent more time deleting the endless free practice/quali/track parade/pit lane live/blah programmes broadcast by Sky than I have paying the slightest attention to F1 this season.
I have been a fan since sitting on daddy’s (Lord Creme-Brulee Smingleigh) lap saying I liked the red cars, so to arrive at this juncture some 40 years later is very sad.
I have the last 5 races sat unwatched where, truth be told, they will remain until I admit defeat and delete them – unwatched. Those races I did watch were generally run at 6x speed slowing only for accidents, pitstops, car radio or a decent overtake.
Next season I am not sure I will bother even to show up – save myself an expensive Sky subscription.
Whingebag Carmansson
“Whinge, whinge, boring, whine, paint drying, whinge, not what it used to be, whinge, whinge, boring, whinge, no overtaking, whine, blahblahblah, should change everything, whinge, engine noise, whinge, more fun watching my son racing Scalectrix, blah…”
I enjoyed the season and watched every race. It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to see that there is competition, effort and skill of the highest magnitude involved in the racing. Both in the engineering and driving. Just because someone leads from start to finish doesn’t mean 1) that it was easy (a lot of work getting to that standard has gone on at the background for years) 2) there isn’t any racing behind the leader.
If you want the lead to change every lap and you prefer a lottery, the yes by all means watch some other form of motorsport. Why use every opportunity to slam F1, though? Just don’t watch it. And if you don’t watch it, you’re not qualified to comment on it because you don’t know what goes on.
What’s that? “I’ve watched F1 for 20 years, and it isn’t the same as it used to be.” Of course it isn’t. Nothing else is the same, either. If F1 had remained the same from the 1970’s then it would REALLY be boring. Part of the attraction of the sport is that it keeps developing. Yes, some seasons will be less interesting than others for various reasons (rules, dominating cars, wrong kind of tyres, a dominating driver etc.), but the sport evolves all the time. It won’t remain boring indefinitely.
For some of us, every season is interesting for various reasons (driver personalities, points situations, clashes between teams/drivers, the strategies, lap times of individual drivers during a race etc etc). It’s not just about who wins.
For those, who think there is no overtaking in F1, keep your eyes open and don’t give up after 2 laps of race 1. There were some unbelievably tightly contested races with loads of overtaking this season. Not every race, and not much overtaking for the lead – but the competition behind the leader was sometimes intense.
I’m soon coming up to 40 years of following F1, and I’m not bored, yet. F1 has changed a lot in that time, and I see that as an entirely positive thing. Think about it. It needs to change again, and it will.
Whingebag Carmansson
Oh, and Tenkasen had a good point.
The biggest problem in F1 is clearly people not knowing how to wear a baseball cap “right”.
Sometimes I despair… Some people should just stick to watching crash compilations on Youtube, because that’s all their attention span is good for.
A. Market-Researcher
I haven’t read any of the comments written here because there are utterly irrelevant for they are not the customer.
The customers are the people who pay for F1 & that is the governments that subsidise the circuits so they can then socially humiliate those nations that do not have a GP.
The fact that Bernie still has all of his limbs indicates that, on the whole, the customers are happy.
spd rdr
One more season like this and the F1 show is over for this long-time fan. Then again, I said the same thing this time last year, and will probably do so again this time next year. One thing is for certain, though, F1 will never attract the new fans it needs to keep its bloated balloon in the air until it re-discovers its soul: competition.
Captain Mungo
Watched about 2/3rds of the season and the first time since 1996 just didn’t bother with the rest and to be honest won’t bother next year. I think it’s lost it’s way and is desperately out of touch.
Obviousfish
I can’t remember a single detail from any of the races I watched and I have no idea why I seem to have spent my life savings on gaudy, second rate watches.
Where-ze-gone?
Where the hell did James Hunt go? He was fun and provided entertainment on and off the track, unlike drivers now who tow the corporate line. Some good drivers are there, Button (intelligent), Alonso (brilliant driver) and Raikkonen (surly sod) but then you have the Mercedes lads throwing hissy fits every time they don’t get their way, Red Bull bitching and moaning etc etc. If I wanted to watch political bitching I would visit the House of Commons or Maranello. The sport, like the cars, are being over-engineered.
Doc James
Um, I’m guessing that you genuinely don’t know that Hunt died tragically in 1993.
To detract from the awkwardness, we can at least all rejoice in the fact that it got him out of a tricky contract that would have seen him have to take Alonso’s seat at McLaren next year….
Carroll
It worries me that I find MoTD at least as interesting as watching ‘my favourite sport since a boy’ these last couple of years – I missed 3 races this year and did’nt care as much as I felt I should have.
I’d be first to admit things in F1 were not always great in years past, but given the advanced hybrid tech, (which I’m sort of warming to) I get the feeling it could be so much better, (and look faster) with a few rule tweaks in the areas of tyres, downforce levels, iffy Tilke track layouts, ill-judged penalties and of course getting rid of that stupid overtake button.
No matter, I’ll have to carry-on watching just because it’s F1 and what that stands for, both in real context and the not quite so reliable image it portrays.
I’m with Sam in thinking that BTCC is no real substitute, ITV’s inept coverage notwithstanding.
Our Big 'un
Season highlight for me was Emerson Fittipaldi touching up the BBC interviewer before one of the Sao Paolo practice sessions. Clearly, like the rest of us, he thought the racing was dull and was looking for some hanky panky to take his mind off it.
T. S. (bastardised) Eliot
This is the way the sport ends; not with bang but a whimper.
Where-ze-gone?
To Doc James. Yeah, I know he died (heart attack I believe). I was just lamenting the loss of drivers who bought a little anarchy, ergo fun, to the sport. They all seem to be stamped out of the same corporate mould these days.
BL Fan
the Turbo Motor sounds excellent, makes me fall asleep after 5 laps.
BBC Highlights seems to be the format to watch the race in now. What little action there is is niceless compressed. If you can manage to blank out the top 2, the races still are vaguely interesting. But it has been a long time since the 80s, when racing was fun and BL sponsored Williams…
Andy
Watched every race and every practice session! Luvvin it…..F1 rules and SKY’s coverage is brilliant (except for the continuous apologizing for the nearly bad language).
BTCC a substitute for F1? Really?
Dr Technical
I almost didn’t watch Abu Dhabi because those useless sillybollocks at the BBC switched it onto BBC2 and forgot to tell my record-o-bot, so I got three hours of fucking tennis instead. It was mostly a bit rubbish apart from the Toro Rosso lads and the boy Button’s lapses into being human when he thought Ron Dennis wasn’t listening.
@Taq: I used to live practically next door to Bury St Edmunds Tesco (the big one down by the station), but mercifully only for a month before moving across town and living next door to the brewery instead.
Ernie Becclescone
I found it fascinating that week in week out despite the lack of any tangible opposition to Mercedes, shitty tyre regulations, protocols and products, aero dynamic regulations that minimise overtaking opportunities and selling my soul to pay per view televisuals I was able to extract maximum dollars and patronage out of the elderly, filthy rich, suck ups and of dubious morals politico’s, VIP’s and Formula1 Paddock Club attendees that are part of my intended target audience.
Personally I couldn’t give a flying Maldonado what your jumped up little website or the spotty oiked readers of it think. You don’t add any value to my wealth by only buying a Saturday ticket because you can’t afford to spend the equivalent of a months mortgage attending a full weekend event. And buying a shit baseball cap that cost me £0.50p to make for £25 isn’t going to fill my helicopter with fuel is it?
Ernie B.
P.S. New baseball caps from all teams will be available for Christmas. Get yours now!!!!
Don Rennis
Free to good home.
Large collection of TAG Heuer watches.
Mickolo
Usually ended up going for a tug instead.
Mathias
Weltschmertz. That’s the word you’re looking for. If you don’t know what it means, ask those strangely mustachio’d blokes in the Mercedes garage who were so keen to prevent the Abu Dhabi GP from being a race. It’s their language. Wankers.
BoyzInDaMerc
For sure it was sure challenging to stay for sure awake during the challenging for sure racing this season. For sure next year awakeness will challenge again but I am for sure looking forward to more challenge for sure.
Jennifer Warts
I genuinely think there’s more action at one BTCC meeting than there was during the whole F1 season.
Incomprehensible rules regarding tyres and aero, relying on an overtake button for any chance of passing anything, petulant automaton drivers at the front…
Far too much money, politics, rules (and Bernie) involved for it to be as fun as it used to be. Those who disagree might want to actually read all the other comments and realise they are in a very small minority.
Martin Schanke
Needs more oversteer and more fighting.
Any race where the driver changes hats in the post race interview more than he changes places in the race should drive the next race with angry wasps in his helmet
Only highlight of the season was seeing Max race, clearly immense talent but stupid though it sounds, he is probably wasted in f1. Would like to see him in sportscars.
Jarrod
Damp.
Chris C
Missing DI Blundell and the small ads are good but Trentham Sleaves is getting a bit repetitive (even though he might make a good T shirt)
Those podium interviews are majorly cringeworthy.
Funniest bit was Eddie Jordan’s predictions.
Rather watch rallycross and Australian V8 supercars, eg Bathurst.
thirdbrother
would like the F1 channel. wouldn’t mind paying for it either. but the spunk trumpets at sky insist on subscribing to all the sports channels. I don’t want to see grown men with lovely hair falling over, crying. why should i pay for it?
Cleremy Jarkson
Box of turds. Without the box.
Al Dente
Bolloxs, Now C4 have F1, How am I going to watch Back to The Future now on a Sunday afternoon?
Basil Smash
I can’t decide which is worse, Eddie Jordan or the 2015 Formula One (R) season.
Will C4 migrate the BBC team en masse (including the Irish Gnome) or will they dream up a new team? Please, please can we do without the faux-drama slo-mo build up montage pieces, which are universally terrible.
I always think there’s been room for a mid-week F1 pundit knockabout show: review the last race, chat about the next one, bring in some old drivers/back room staff for a natter, prize draw, Q&A bit etc.
Hames Junt
Well all I’ve got to say to that Murray is, bullshit!
OldChap
2015? well the best F1 season since 2014, which was the best season since, err 2013… anyways how is it we go from Lotus Renault-Not Benetton anymore and Team Tony Lotus Racing Renault Caterham F1 to Sans Loti in the space of one season or so.
So I suppose that was the best bit of 2015 ending of the whole sad pseudo Lotus joke.
89 Comments
This year only half of the races made it on to free TV down under, and half of those were the ones that were on after midnight rather than 10pm.
And honestly, I found that I didn’t miss it. That makes me sad.
It was ok I guess, but somewhat soured by:
Clever aero making close racing essentially impossible – too many times we saw people closing gaps on slower cars only to be unable to close that last second and get past. Indy cars seem to be able to stay right up each others tailpipes for laps at a time, so it can’t be that hard to sort out. Stop the DRS crap and just simplify the aero so people can just overtake anyway.
Also, the tyres. We need tyres made out of something durable rather than the thinnest possible layer of useful rubber with, I dunno, cheese underneath? I understand the different strategy blah blah blah, but I don’t recall it ever making much of a difference.
Maybe make the brakes a bit dodgy too, to lengthen the braking zones. Being 5% better on the brakes doesn’t matter when the braking zones are so short.
Has it finished then? Who won?
Like others, I missed a few races this year for the first time. Lost sky coverage half way through season as moved house.
Too many races became missable for me to arrange to have it set up in the new house.
Stopped watching after a few races. Not the sport it was a few years ago even
Have switched to watching BTCC. The coverage isn’t quite as high quality but the racing and action more than make up for it. Plus there’s all the support races shown
Tried watching two races this year, didn’t make it all the way through either of them. F1 just doesn’t have the same character it used to have whereas the likes of the BTCC has it in abundance. Blancpain GT also an excellent watch with close racing every year so I now watch those two instead.
*yawn* I kept saying that I wouldn’t watch the next race, and then I watched the next race. I would then be pissed off with myself promising that I wouldn’t watch the next race. I am the embodiment of the definition of insanity.
It was boring.
Again two Mercedes at front. Finally Ferrari started to catch up.
Tires policy rubbish. It kills whole idea of the sport.
The difference between teams are so vast, that something need to change.
I do not want to see again next year -Hamilton first, Rosberg second and Vettel third-, for whole 2016 season
I ended up stop watching races, just highlights.
Missed a lot of races this year but did catch ones that were deemed “classics” by most media coverage… Still managed to fall asleep on the sofa whilst watching them.
In fact, I might just get the season dvd as it’s a perfect way to ensure I fall asleep, a bit like the box set of Planet Earth or whatever current David Attenborough series is about.
F1, the new Nytol.
I watched every race. The earth didn’t move. It was predictable and whilst the racing was okay in parts, the constant tyre saving is just really boring.
I’d rather watch Canada 2011 19 times, including the 2 hour delay.
Apathy set in early in the year. So I only watched a couple of races. But as I’m not old, filthy rich or have dubious morals I’m probably not part of Bernie’s intended target audience.
Shame really I used to watch it religiously.
I stopped watching F1 five hundred and sixty four years ago before it was even thought of because I knew that it would never be as good as The Outer-Mongolian Lawn-Mower Championship. I’m so glad you asked because I am dying for a reason to wang on about a championship I claim to never watch yet, mysteriously know all the facts and seem to be able to compare to every other form of motorsport in the world…even though I don’t watch it, cos it’s shite now, not like the old days…I’ve spent enough time playing Forza Motorsport to know my stuff and let me tell you, i know my stuff, enough to know I would have overtaken Nicholas Rosebergensminster five times in that last race, not like that namby pamby Hewis Lamilton and the News. Not that I watch it, cos it’s shite now, not like the ol’ days….
Etc. Etc.
I want to file a class action lawsuit against F1 for the hours of my life lost that can never be recovered while watching this season
Some interesting battles in the midfield, however the excessive need for tyre saving seems to really kill the action.
Hopefully next year we might get a tyre that degrades a little more gradually [rather than falling off a cliff] so we get less tyre management and more racing.
There’s a style of driving that’s been popularized since the Pirelli tyres came in/refueling was banned:
Man drives very fast car from Pole very fast for about 6 laps.
Man drives very fast car at front of the race maintaining a medium sized gap for the rest of the race.
Rest of the field drives round in circles behind him.
Maldonado.
As the insightful motorsport commentator Paul Calf once mused, “Bag o’ shite.”
Looking forward to it moving completely to sky, mean I have an excuse to stop watching. I know what I will be watching on the 19th of June, I expect F1 ratings to take a hit for that stupid decision.
Watching only the BBC highlights was quite exciting, mainly because they cut out the dull bits, plus as a bonus you could watch most races in 15mins meaning more time for other stuff!
Boring as **** better quality racing in BTCC!
However cars are still no match for the bikes in BSB, MotoGP or best of all IoMTT, ClassicTT, UlsterGP, NW200 etc
Wow, for sure it was a really great season! I’d just like to thank all you fans who have been absolutely amazing and also the organisers of the FIA Rolex Vodafone Petronas Santander Bernie-Tastic Formula One World Championship Series for putting a great show on.
Season saved from complete boredom by ‘YTS’ Max driving like he was throwing a 2l Clio Sport around Bury St Edmunds Tesco car park on a Saturday night. Next season give him some techno blasting out of the back and he’ll get podiums galore!
Jenson once again proved what an under-rated driver he is with consistent and comparable performances to Alonso, and as a reward was completely ignored by the team bosses in the driver ratings thing that just got released.
Sky’s coverage was decent but I was more entertained by days of time filling at Austin than the race they managed to squeeze in.
I wonder if Simon, Damon, Johnny, Crofty and Lumsden Bumhat might be wasting their time on F1 and would be better utilised on a new show not unlike Noel’s House Party.
In full oh psychophantic mode now, but there were a few races where you and Fake Charlie doing your Twattering stuff was much, much better than the racing.
How to fix it ? Ground effect is a must, Gordon’s fan car could do with a modern twist, and making Kwik Fit supply the tyres and do the pit stops has to be worth a laugh, can’t be any worse than Williams.
It was a bit shit. Even the politics, which, weirdly, I often find more interesting than the racing even in a reasonable season, were dull. Too many pernickety decisions, too much decided by rules instead of on the track and utterly laughable penalties. Next!
Dull.
Some good races but only with one or two good moves to shout about, most of it was the usual drivers tip toeing around circuits managing tyres/fuel not doing anything fun. Coverage was mixed, obviously missed a lot of races due to Sky and got bored through a lot of the BBC stuff.
Overall….meh again
Watched the Start of all the races, but not the Finish of most, at no point did I feel compelled to buy at Rolex, fly Emirates or Bank with a Spaniard.
Most races seem to involve some slow cars, passing other slow cars, pitting, then re-passing other slow cars. Followed by a LOTUS (not lotus) having a prang for no apparent reason, praise be for the Venezuelan Frank Spencer, without him it would be really shit!
I watched a couple of races this year, and they were really quite dull. The rest, I saw the 10-minute highlights videos on the BBC website… even some of those were pretty dull.
It was exceptionally Rosberg.
The motorsport equivalent of a Nissan Pulsar, only in Red Bull’s case less reliable, and in McLaren’s case slower.
I watched all of it because I’m a complete loser.
Er, I’d just like to say that someone has stolen my name and posted something that I didn’t say.
With that out of the way, has anyone else noticed that “for sure” is slipping out of the vocab of most drivers? Nico the exception, obviously….
It was unbearably tedious for the most part, even the supposed “classic” that was the US GP was tedious in the extreme. The only entertainment came prom Lewis’s childish petulant strops every time he failed to win, and the Fernando Alonso clown car sweepstake where you guess how many laps his McLaren lasts before the next embarrassing failure.
I’ve loved F1 since I was a very small boy, but the last couple of years I’m really struggling to care.
The most entertaining part was watching Red Bull engage in some furious back peddling when no one else would give them a decent engine.
Bin the aero trickery and DRS and get the drivers tripping over each other. Also need to penalise teams who are too reliable, maybe disconnect a spark plug for a couple of laps.
More fun when the results aren’t predictable and the front runners don’t finish every race.
For a long time I’ve been watching F1 as a matter of duty, I remember it fondly from my youth watching truly talented drivers in truly innovative cars with knife-edge performance verging on the uncontrollable.
I remember watching the insane turbo cars in qualifying, the first on-car filming I can remember of the drivers dancing the cars at the limits of boost and grip.
I remember overnight prepped qualifying tyres, engines that practically melted themselves solid on the cooldown lap, I remember watching the results of proper performance chasing R&D.
I remember singing v16s, howling v12s and aggressive v8s.
I remember historical, challenging tracks, built around the existing roads or designed to be difficult.
What do we have now? A rule book of things you’re not allowed to do that weighs more than the car, economical hybrid shopping trolley engines designed to last 2000 miles, penalties for undoing a bolt, crappy tyres and forced pit-stops to ensure “drama” on the undercut, 3/4 of the season conducted on anaesthetised Tilke tracks with 1000 yard run off areas in cash-rich dustbowl countries with utterly no racing heritage, the other 1/4 of the races on the sullen ghosts of hastily sanitised old tracks like Spa and Monaco where all the hard corners have been removed in favour of TV advertising friendly constant-radius corners, a formula so dependant on aero design that you need an overtake button to get past another car.
All capped off by a shower of mediocre daddy’s money pay drivers filling half the seats, maybe four decent drivers and a diamond-earring touting mediaberk who can’t even wear a baseball cap right?
It’s bad, it’s boring, and every rule and change made over the last 15 years has taken it further in the wrong direction. I still watch because I remember how good it was / how good it could be, but every race makes me sad now.
Pill’s post is amazing. Is that you, Richard? ??
Personally enjoyed the inter-team rivalries, especially Sainz vs Verstappen and Hamilton vs Rosberg.
Like all things, it’s only any good if you pay attention, and F1 requires more attention than most Motorsports. Half the action is off the track. I’ve lost count of the times people have moaned they should be in equal cars, yet the same people refuse to watch GP2 (which I think has been worse than last year, funnily enough).
Ferrari moving forward, McLaren losing the plot with Ron back (well, Honda and their ERS integration). Decent midfield fight between Red Bull, Williams, Torro Rosso, etc. Reasonably unpredictable races considering the same trio regularly appeared in the podium.
Chuck in Lewis spectacularly giving Monaco away, Vettel turning into a comedy genius at pressers and Alonso slagging his car off mid-race – I’d say it’s been an entertaining season. Not a classic but definitely enjoyable.
Here’s to next year, Rosberg getting the crap parts again, Bernie growing more hair and the cars becoming ever more difficult to follow. Huzzah says I.
Truth be told, its always been a bit crap, with the odd exciting race, its always lived on past glories, which is why people still tune in.
I’ve found formula E more exciting, with deliberately shit cars, at least they have been racing on track.
I think I’ll buy myself a Honda next year. I don’t like driving fast.
Seriously, JB will be on the podium next season with Alonso , why else would drivers with their talents still be hanging around if not for the new car next year. As they have said in interviews, they have enough zeros in the bank.
As for this season, who comes up with stupid rules about tyre pressure, toe angle drs, kers ? Just stick a big efn engine in, with a big efn turbo and a nitro button.
Hopefully next year they are allowed to race.
Pretty much in total agreement with tenkasen, who I think put it perfectly.
I think what’s missing is any element of machinery: we watch highly-polished laboratories efficiently run around a sanitised track driven by featherweight robots programmed to do a specific job. Compare that to the scene, say, 30-40 years ago where drivers were hard-drinking, cigarette-smoking and drove cars with engines you could see, hear and watch explode on a regular basis.
I get that technology has moved on, but it seems to have removed all the spectacle.
Football has gone the same way.
I watched the first 3-4 races, then gave up for the year. I felt free.
I think there just wasn’t enough access to the drivers. We need characters and stories to keep us interested. With diluted access to the drivers, especially on the grid, we lost that part. It left just boring driving around. Usually any exciting were 1-2 overtakes in the whole 90 min race. It’s just not good enough.
Pill Ockonna Forum knocks on it on the head for me.
It was a decent season. Some pretty dull races, but what season hasn’t had them? And some downright exciting races, with great racing and drama, with some real talent on the field shining through. F1 has a lot to improve and a lot to sort out but spectacles with the thickest and rosiest lenses man can devise isn’t going to help at all.
Makes me laugh when people talk about BTCC. You can keep your circuit dodgems, I’ll watch some real racing thank you.
I’ll also say, people who complain about the tyres don’t know what’s good for them. They’ve been one of the most interesting parts of the sport since they were introduced. You really think we should go back to the 90s and 2000s when the races were actually boring because the tyres never did anything…?
I didn’t watch any races this year – just read the results afterwards. Did I miss it – no.
Kinda says it all…..
Well, watched it all, I even paid some Belgians to sit on a concrete slab and burn for 3 days (interjected with a daily 200 mile walk to the carpark)
I was impressed by the F1ness of it all, I was disappointed by the fact that the same old pundits (pro and am) are still spouting the same crap they have done for the last 30 years about F1 being “wrong” for some reason or other.
F1 will never be right, because it’s watched by insufferable know-it-alls who love to think they can do it better. Enough already, puuurlease.
Anyway, I will watch it all next year, attempt to throw a Ginsters Pasty and a packet of M&M’s into JB’s cockpit as he goes by on the way to Eau Rouge and generally enjoy it.
#Blessed
I liked it when the tall badly dressed man punched the man with the clipboard and everyone lost their jobs.
I watch it for Bernie, I know he hates it and I’m sharing his pain, when he dies I’m out.
I spent most of the season in garden centres.
And Goodwood.
I cancelled my Sky subscription half way through the year as I was tired of watching half decent broadcasters polishing a turd. Watched what was on the BBC but it was no better. Sick of Rosberg and Hamilton behaving like petulant 5 year olds. How is that good for the Merc brand image? Will be watching WEC and MotoGP from now on.
Very profitable.
I especially enjoy F1 when Nico Rosberg wins, leaves his helmet in the car, as at Abu Dhabi (and that after Mexico) then gets weighed without it in contradiction of the rules and when the other teams finally spot it I can tell them to collect some extra, non-taxable cash from Bernie.
The look on his little face as he is forced to handover the readies is priceless.
Unlike Nico, I thought it was really amazing season. Hard work with the best team always pays off. (sorry Jenson)
First time in my life that I didn’t watch a single race. Just checked to see the results. Has become too much like a sport run by robots and computers, in which some token humans are allowed to participate for revenue purposes.
Agree with Linday – Australian TV is taking F1 away from us, not that ther’s much to take away at the moment
In order to manage my lifespan I have been instructed, via an instruction,to manage my anger. So the season was a mixed bag of highs and lows punctuated by…. Wait, there’s a comment gaining fast and ignoring the anger management protocols… Doctor on the radio, switch to anger management strat 6? is that an instruction? yes?, ok then… It was fucking shite. phew, that was a close one, oh wait a minute, no it wasn’t.
Watched nearly all the races, the other few I had on the radio while working. It was… alright. Couple of good races but more I fell asleep in than last year. One of the ones on the radio the commentators even sounded bored (I can’t remember which, sadly.) and I mentally tuned out.
Watched some of the WEC races though, and alot of LeMans, and that was cracking. I’ve always enjoyed watching sports car racing, and tbh at the moment, looking back at both seasons, I would say for me, it’s the better series.
I’m still going to watch the F1 though. I might just sleep through more of it.
Well clearly it really was a pile of crap. I never watch them live only recorded so I can fast forward to the end. With so many so called clever people why can’t they sort it out. I love the idea of F1 but not the reality. Thankfully there is Moto GP and Valentino Rossi
Well I watched it all apart from most of Brazil which I partly fast forwarded and partly slept through!
Not as good as last year and not as good as other seasons but to put it in perspective a lot better than the early 2000s when Ferrari wouldn’t even let Reubens challenge their number 1 driver!
It could have been so much better though if Mercedes had not gone out of its way to be fair to everyone. Let the drivers pick their own strategy and tyre choices. If it doesn’t work out then fine but essentially we saw that whoever made the first corner first (usually the one on pole) win.
Re the BTCC comments above – Weirdly having been a huge fan of the BTCC since the mid 90s and watching every race and attending some, I got a bit sick of it this year and at times even resorted to just watching the highlights shows. It has so much potential but ITV is just so poor. It hasn’t moved the coverage on from when it was on Motors TV as a full day programme in 2003(?). Total quantity over quality. Far too many adverts (if you actually calculate the percentage of the programme that is just advert breaks it is shocking), I have never been able to get away with Louise Goodman, lack of replays, poor camera work (and/or directing) which misses half the action, too many rubbish teams and pay drivers – teams should be called Honda, Vauxhall, MG, Audi etc not “Exocet AlcoSense Racing”!!! Hadn’t heard of most of the sponsors. No analysis and decent review of a race, just more adverts a crap interview with Louise and then into the next support race.
If you gave the BTCC coverage to Sky they would move it on so much.
Which brings me back to F1 – watched one race on BBC (can’t remember why) and the coverage is so poor compared to Sky now. The coverage has stood still – which is more than the presenting team can do. So distracting with them permanently walking towards the camera!
Anyway rant over bring on next season
I watched it all apart from most of Brazil which I partly slept through.
Everything tenkasen said.
James Hunt would despair at today’s racers. Then he’d knob their wives in their own trailers, drink half a bottle of their scotch and then thrash them round the track.
Missed this thread, and seeing it will end up at the bottom of the page, doubt anyone will read it……But if you do, do yourself a favour and forget F1 and start following the World Endurance Championship and GT racing. There has been some amazing racing all year, Unbelievable when you think about it. That you can be truly gripped for a six hour race and bored to tears by F1 in about 15 minutes.
I think it puts it most eloquently that I have spent more time deleting the endless free practice/quali/track parade/pit lane live/blah programmes broadcast by Sky than I have paying the slightest attention to F1 this season.
I have been a fan since sitting on daddy’s (Lord Creme-Brulee Smingleigh) lap saying I liked the red cars, so to arrive at this juncture some 40 years later is very sad.
I have the last 5 races sat unwatched where, truth be told, they will remain until I admit defeat and delete them – unwatched. Those races I did watch were generally run at 6x speed slowing only for accidents, pitstops, car radio or a decent overtake.
Next season I am not sure I will bother even to show up – save myself an expensive Sky subscription.
“Whinge, whinge, boring, whine, paint drying, whinge, not what it used to be, whinge, whinge, boring, whinge, no overtaking, whine, blahblahblah, should change everything, whinge, engine noise, whinge, more fun watching my son racing Scalectrix, blah…”
I enjoyed the season and watched every race. It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to see that there is competition, effort and skill of the highest magnitude involved in the racing. Both in the engineering and driving. Just because someone leads from start to finish doesn’t mean 1) that it was easy (a lot of work getting to that standard has gone on at the background for years) 2) there isn’t any racing behind the leader.
If you want the lead to change every lap and you prefer a lottery, the yes by all means watch some other form of motorsport. Why use every opportunity to slam F1, though? Just don’t watch it. And if you don’t watch it, you’re not qualified to comment on it because you don’t know what goes on.
What’s that? “I’ve watched F1 for 20 years, and it isn’t the same as it used to be.” Of course it isn’t. Nothing else is the same, either. If F1 had remained the same from the 1970’s then it would REALLY be boring. Part of the attraction of the sport is that it keeps developing. Yes, some seasons will be less interesting than others for various reasons (rules, dominating cars, wrong kind of tyres, a dominating driver etc.), but the sport evolves all the time. It won’t remain boring indefinitely.
For some of us, every season is interesting for various reasons (driver personalities, points situations, clashes between teams/drivers, the strategies, lap times of individual drivers during a race etc etc). It’s not just about who wins.
For those, who think there is no overtaking in F1, keep your eyes open and don’t give up after 2 laps of race 1. There were some unbelievably tightly contested races with loads of overtaking this season. Not every race, and not much overtaking for the lead – but the competition behind the leader was sometimes intense.
I’m soon coming up to 40 years of following F1, and I’m not bored, yet. F1 has changed a lot in that time, and I see that as an entirely positive thing. Think about it. It needs to change again, and it will.
Oh, and Tenkasen had a good point.
The biggest problem in F1 is clearly people not knowing how to wear a baseball cap “right”.
Sometimes I despair… Some people should just stick to watching crash compilations on Youtube, because that’s all their attention span is good for.
I haven’t read any of the comments written here because there are utterly irrelevant for they are not the customer.
The customers are the people who pay for F1 & that is the governments that subsidise the circuits so they can then socially humiliate those nations that do not have a GP.
The fact that Bernie still has all of his limbs indicates that, on the whole, the customers are happy.
One more season like this and the F1 show is over for this long-time fan. Then again, I said the same thing this time last year, and will probably do so again this time next year. One thing is for certain, though, F1 will never attract the new fans it needs to keep its bloated balloon in the air until it re-discovers its soul: competition.
Watched about 2/3rds of the season and the first time since 1996 just didn’t bother with the rest and to be honest won’t bother next year. I think it’s lost it’s way and is desperately out of touch.
I can’t remember a single detail from any of the races I watched and I have no idea why I seem to have spent my life savings on gaudy, second rate watches.
Where the hell did James Hunt go? He was fun and provided entertainment on and off the track, unlike drivers now who tow the corporate line. Some good drivers are there, Button (intelligent), Alonso (brilliant driver) and Raikkonen (surly sod) but then you have the Mercedes lads throwing hissy fits every time they don’t get their way, Red Bull bitching and moaning etc etc. If I wanted to watch political bitching I would visit the House of Commons or Maranello. The sport, like the cars, are being over-engineered.
Um, I’m guessing that you genuinely don’t know that Hunt died tragically in 1993.
To detract from the awkwardness, we can at least all rejoice in the fact that it got him out of a tricky contract that would have seen him have to take Alonso’s seat at McLaren next year….
It worries me that I find MoTD at least as interesting as watching ‘my favourite sport since a boy’ these last couple of years – I missed 3 races this year and did’nt care as much as I felt I should have.
I’d be first to admit things in F1 were not always great in years past, but given the advanced hybrid tech, (which I’m sort of warming to) I get the feeling it could be so much better, (and look faster) with a few rule tweaks in the areas of tyres, downforce levels, iffy Tilke track layouts, ill-judged penalties and of course getting rid of that stupid overtake button.
No matter, I’ll have to carry-on watching just because it’s F1 and what that stands for, both in real context and the not quite so reliable image it portrays.
I’m with Sam in thinking that BTCC is no real substitute, ITV’s inept coverage notwithstanding.
Season highlight for me was Emerson Fittipaldi touching up the BBC interviewer before one of the Sao Paolo practice sessions. Clearly, like the rest of us, he thought the racing was dull and was looking for some hanky panky to take his mind off it.
This is the way the sport ends; not with bang but a whimper.
To Doc James. Yeah, I know he died (heart attack I believe). I was just lamenting the loss of drivers who bought a little anarchy, ergo fun, to the sport. They all seem to be stamped out of the same corporate mould these days.
the Turbo Motor sounds excellent, makes me fall asleep after 5 laps.
BBC Highlights seems to be the format to watch the race in now. What little action there is is niceless compressed. If you can manage to blank out the top 2, the races still are vaguely interesting. But it has been a long time since the 80s, when racing was fun and BL sponsored Williams…
Watched every race and every practice session! Luvvin it…..F1 rules and SKY’s coverage is brilliant (except for the continuous apologizing for the nearly bad language).
BTCC a substitute for F1? Really?
I almost didn’t watch Abu Dhabi because those useless sillybollocks at the BBC switched it onto BBC2 and forgot to tell my record-o-bot, so I got three hours of fucking tennis instead. It was mostly a bit rubbish apart from the Toro Rosso lads and the boy Button’s lapses into being human when he thought Ron Dennis wasn’t listening.
@Taq: I used to live practically next door to Bury St Edmunds Tesco (the big one down by the station), but mercifully only for a month before moving across town and living next door to the brewery instead.
I found it fascinating that week in week out despite the lack of any tangible opposition to Mercedes, shitty tyre regulations, protocols and products, aero dynamic regulations that minimise overtaking opportunities and selling my soul to pay per view televisuals I was able to extract maximum dollars and patronage out of the elderly, filthy rich, suck ups and of dubious morals politico’s, VIP’s and Formula1 Paddock Club attendees that are part of my intended target audience.
Personally I couldn’t give a flying Maldonado what your jumped up little website or the spotty oiked readers of it think. You don’t add any value to my wealth by only buying a Saturday ticket because you can’t afford to spend the equivalent of a months mortgage attending a full weekend event. And buying a shit baseball cap that cost me £0.50p to make for £25 isn’t going to fill my helicopter with fuel is it?
Ernie B.
P.S. New baseball caps from all teams will be available for Christmas. Get yours now!!!!
Free to good home.
Large collection of TAG Heuer watches.
Usually ended up going for a tug instead.
Weltschmertz. That’s the word you’re looking for. If you don’t know what it means, ask those strangely mustachio’d blokes in the Mercedes garage who were so keen to prevent the Abu Dhabi GP from being a race. It’s their language. Wankers.
For sure it was sure challenging to stay for sure awake during the challenging for sure racing this season. For sure next year awakeness will challenge again but I am for sure looking forward to more challenge for sure.
I genuinely think there’s more action at one BTCC meeting than there was during the whole F1 season.
Incomprehensible rules regarding tyres and aero, relying on an overtake button for any chance of passing anything, petulant automaton drivers at the front…
Far too much money, politics, rules (and Bernie) involved for it to be as fun as it used to be. Those who disagree might want to actually read all the other comments and realise they are in a very small minority.
Needs more oversteer and more fighting.
Any race where the driver changes hats in the post race interview more than he changes places in the race should drive the next race with angry wasps in his helmet
Only highlight of the season was seeing Max race, clearly immense talent but stupid though it sounds, he is probably wasted in f1. Would like to see him in sportscars.
Damp.
Missing DI Blundell and the small ads are good but Trentham Sleaves is getting a bit repetitive (even though he might make a good T shirt)
Those podium interviews are majorly cringeworthy.
Funniest bit was Eddie Jordan’s predictions.
Rather watch rallycross and Australian V8 supercars, eg Bathurst.
would like the F1 channel. wouldn’t mind paying for it either. but the spunk trumpets at sky insist on subscribing to all the sports channels. I don’t want to see grown men with lovely hair falling over, crying. why should i pay for it?
Box of turds. Without the box.
Bolloxs, Now C4 have F1, How am I going to watch Back to The Future now on a Sunday afternoon?
I can’t decide which is worse, Eddie Jordan or the 2015 Formula One (R) season.
Will C4 migrate the BBC team en masse (including the Irish Gnome) or will they dream up a new team? Please, please can we do without the faux-drama slo-mo build up montage pieces, which are universally terrible.
I always think there’s been room for a mid-week F1 pundit knockabout show: review the last race, chat about the next one, bring in some old drivers/back room staff for a natter, prize draw, Q&A bit etc.
Well all I’ve got to say to that Murray is, bullshit!
2015? well the best F1 season since 2014, which was the best season since, err 2013… anyways how is it we go from Lotus Renault-Not Benetton anymore and Team Tony Lotus Racing Renault Caterham F1 to Sans Loti in the space of one season or so.
So I suppose that was the best bit of 2015 ending of the whole sad pseudo Lotus joke.
K.
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