Are F1 racers racing to win anymore?

[PeteJ]

Well, I know this is a strange question, but I noticed something in the last race. It seems that they have tamed down the race drivers to go for championship points rather than an all out effort to win the race. The strategies are all about how many points you can get rather than two drivers duking it out for position. I say this because I heard a number of pit calls to drivers to "hold position". Hamilton just let Verstappen go for the last 1/3 of the race. He was racing to finish second. No chance that he and Bottas were going to get into it. Pit wall called that.

I suppose this is a result of two car teams. Me, I liked the days of one car race teams. Mano e Mano, go for the gusto, all for the win. Much better racing. No helping out your teammate by blocking the guy behind him. No team orders. Just flat out 20 racers all going for the win! One winner, 19 losers!

Well, those days are gone. All the technology and engineering and money that have to go into racing F1 anymore is staggering, but I wax nostalgic. Small teams, working out of small garages, one engineer and one driver and a half a dozen mechanics. Long gone, but boy what exciting racing.

[donnieleblanc]

Just my opinion...

I think because teams have so much access to data and understand their cars performance capabilities so well, they know when they can compete and they know when they can’t. I think it’s more about risk assessment and management than racing at times.

It seems odd, but middle-of-the-pack cars are the ones that really race. (Sometimes), while back-markers race themselves (Haas).

[donnieleblanc]

Just my opinion...

I think because teams have so much access to data and understand their cars performance capabilities so well, they know when they can compete and they know when they can’t. I think it’s more about risk assessment and management than racing at times.

It seems odd, but middle-of-the-pack cars are the ones that really race (Sometimes), while back-markers race themselves (Haas).

[jaykay]

Agree. The engineers know much better when it's worth the effort than in the olden days when a driver would just try.
Add to that the fact that they need to save the drivetrain for subsequent races the driver's would even hurt their chances in those or risk a dnf so there's even less benefit to try.
Same story with tyres. They understand them so much better and the working window is so small, so they cruise a lot to have some left when it counts.
It's not Ronnie Peterson " i take the black round ones" and just drive as fast as i can anymore. Sadly...

[PeteJ]

Agree. The engineers know much better when it's worth the effort than in the olden days when a driver would just try.
Add to that the fact that they need to save the drivetrain for subsequent races the driver's would even hurt their chances in those or risk a dnf so there's even ledd benefit to even try.
Same story with tyres. They understand them so much better and the working window is so small, so the cruise a lot to have some left when it counts.
It's not Ronnie Peterson " i take the black round ones" and just drive as fast as i can anymore. Sadly...

Agreed. Unfortunately, F1 racing is like watching a bunch of MIT engineering students play a video game. I enjoyed it much more when tires were skinny, budgets were small and drivers were a bunch of guys with big brass ones, testing the limits of a simple car on every turn. I guess I like Formula V racing. Now there is some great racing.

[CK]

Car Manufactures always dominate racing. In the late 30's before the war, it was the fight between Mercedes and Auto Union. In the beginning of the current F1 championship in the 50's, it was between Alfa Romeo, Ferrari, Maserati, and Mercedes. British small teams started to flourish after Mercedes, Alfa Romeo, Maserati pulled out. Ferrari has dominated a long time because they have the resources (money) for them to use.

Team orders were there for a long time. Fangio and others had benefited in the past by taking over their team mate's car when their own car broke down.

Each F1 era has its own characteristics. I would not say it is better than others, just different. One truth is that we started to loose close racing when wings started to appear on cars.

F1 is always a technology competition which needs a lot of money. Even Fangio changed team for better machinery. The world has moved on with technology. We wouldn't even be able to chat here 40 years ago.

[JamesB]

I agree with most that has been said, specially what CK pointed: things were not that rosy in the old days, though time is a nice thrill enhancer, bore forgetter.
One thing I don't think is that Makes championship is the goal. Constructors keep saying that to see if someone believes them, but no one does.
So they race for the driver title (remember "We're racing Lando, not Lewis"... till they thought it could be even worse!) but yes, why try to beat Max if you can't. It was obvious. Many of the races which result we enjoy now, OK, go 30 years back and it was due to lucky tyre choices, bad mistakes of the others, etc.
I always say though that uncertainty, even if it was a bit artificial (in 1982 we saw wins by cars that would have been lapped should things have gone OK with theorethical winners) was a good source of fun and thrill.
Michelin for instance knows how to do that in MotoGP, it seems, right?
One other interesting thing is that due to (I don't know what??) TV coverage realisation, points assigned or whatever, we pay more attention to people between 7th and, say, 14th place, where as some of you say, really interesting fights happen.
i am enjoying this season, honestly.

[Joaquin]

The old days races weren't as fantastic as some of you think. For example, Jarama 1981. 5th classified was less than 2s behind the winner, Villeneuve.
Surely you think it was one of the greatest F1 races ever. Simply not. I was there. Gilles had the fastest car on the straight but was the slowest in the rest of the track. Nobody was able to overtake the others in front and the result was a parade of more than 30 laps. We all knew that it was impossible to overtake so finally the race was boring.

[ronnie1972]

I completely agree with the last three posts. It’s all to easy to look back through the past with rose tinted glasses. F1 has always been dominated by technology. People love to remember 1978, and the golden summer of the Lotus 79, but the races Mario & Ronnie dominated were mostly dull as hell. It was only when reliability reared it’s head (which was no certainty back then) that the races became interesting. Kyalami, and Brands were probably the most exciting races of that season, mostly because the cars that should have walked away with the races broke, ran out of fuel, crashed, etc.

[CK]

This year will be more exciting if Mercedes upgrades can bring their car closer to the Red Bull. Otherwise, it will start to look like the previous years, just this time Red Bull and Max walking over everybody.

With everything still very close between Red Bull and Mercedes, every little bit counts. To win a championship, one needs to look further than one race results. The last two races, the best that Mercedes could do were to get two 2nd finishes, which they did. Unfortunately, Hamilton made a mistake and damage his car and can only got 4th this past weekend.

Drivers still matter. We can see a different performance level from Max and Lewis two week ago. They were both so much ahead of their team mates driving the same cars.

I still hope Mercedes can find some pace down the road to give us an exciting 2021 season.