Modern Formula 1 is Artificial - Jacques Villeneuve.

And he's right !
This years decision to award double points for the last race of the season is just pathetic and on top of DRS , kers and the removal of refuelling F1 has become a joke , the tracks are now mostly kiddie playgrounds sanitised beyond belief and as Villeneuve says the drivers "lack personality" , there's no spark or fire in any of them.

He added: "What's the next thing that will come? It becomes more and more artificial and, instead of having a positive effect, you end up making it where people don't respect it any more."

That's already happened in my case I used to love F1 but over the last few seasons have grown bored with watching a procession of F1 cars for the most part only overtaking on straights and in DRS zones.
As for the dominance of one team I remember the dominance of Williams in the eighties and McLaren in the nineties yet the races had action and danger and were a thrill to watch ....F1 RiP .

Modern Formula 1 is artificial - Jacques Villeneuve

What makes matters even worse is the only real high performance motorsport left (Moto GP) has been hijacked by BT Sport so is now unavailable to me after over a decade of happy viewing

Get well soon Michael

Let's make it completely artificial and remove the drivers.
I am sure the development of automated driving cars could benefit of their experience.

reply to post by Dumbass


just replace it with scalectrix.

reply to post by gortex


Totally agree and I stopped watching around 20 years ago

When Formula 1 was created, people knew how dangerous it was, drivers got killed every other week and yet, drivers still wanted to race because of their love of the sport. It has become so diluted over the years that I fail to see how drivers can even get motivated for it anymore, the excitement, energy and skill has gone.

reply to post by gortex


Yes because back In the 80's where cars had traction control, ABS, active suspension and launch control it wasn't "artificial".

Must admit I got bored of it when Schumacher kept on winning.
Now I only watch the start to see If anyone crashes then turn it off. They have to do something because many people are turning away from it.
Maybe throw in a ferret or two into the car when pit stopping.

reply to post by boymonkey74


yeah. or get attacked by a samurai.

I just always found it boring. Its a waste of gas and natural resources. A sport for the rich only and when they win they get to waste more expensive champagne on each other.

More false idols.

reply to post by taoistguy


What if the guy who comes in last is killed? Maybe gets shot by the guy who wins, or every grand prix has to think of a particular way to kill the dude.
In UAE they stone you, in brazil you are drowned, Indianapolis you get lethal injection, in Australia you are thrown into a pit full of snakes.

Death Formula!

Can't say I disagree with Villeneuve on this one...

My interest started fading a few years ago, but hubby is still a die hard fan, although I notice he's complaining about it more these days too.


Maybe it's time for Bernie Ecclestone to take up some golf lessons and step down from his pole position...

reply to post by gortex


Although I would agree with the sentiment, Jacques Villeneuve should have applied some of his own opinions to himself...

the tracks are now mostly kiddie playgrounds sanitised beyond belief and as Villeneuve says the drivers "lack personality" , there's no spark or fire in any of them.

Says the guy who's always played "safe". His father though, another story.


Gilles Villeneuve

I am going to follow this season, but only cause we finally got a danish driver in the F1.

Kevin Magnusson, he is a young driver with a lot of potential, but agree that F1 has become rather borring, it's pretty much follow the leader after lap one, and the tracks are to slow and narrow to do any pack or close competitiv racing.

I am not the guy that wait for the crashes, but crashes means that you are taking some chances, but today noone is taking any chances cause it simply to expensive.

Money is ruining the competitiv racing.

reply to post by SonoftheSun

Says the guy who's always played "safe".

Not sure I agree with that , I think Villeneuve was a racer in the same vein as his father , he wasn't afraid to mix it with other drivers and also had some pretty big crashes in his time , I remember him saying the big one at eau rouge was one of his favourites


The part you quoted about the tracks are now mostly kiddie playgrounds sanitised beyond belief were my words not his

reply to post by gortex


I gave up watching it years ago,.. it was just becoming a procession with no excitement whatsoever.
Now I prefer to watch a real motor sport event that the health and safety brigade haven't destroyed!

reply to post by gortex


Oh. Ok. Then I would agree. F-1 is nowhere close as what it used to be.

Sadly.

reply to post by cahlmac


And you don't need to be a millionaire to get started either. If you can plop $10K on a 180MPH capable street bike and are willing to take that kind of risk, you might have what it takes to be competitive. (More to it than that, but still not going slow at the starting levels.) With the exception of drag racing, in a car you likely wont be doing much more than demoliton derbys or time trials around traffic cones on the budget which can get you going seriously fast on a bike.

reply to post by pauljs75


Very true. Not that I would even try it myself! I'm happy enough to park up my own little bike and just watch.
There's nothing better than watching those racers taking insane risks purely for the love of the sport.
No big paychecks for those lads. Very often it's back to work to make more money to fund the next race. Have to respect that sort of dedication to their sport.

Agreed.

When they starting putting more and more devices to make the speed safer and faster, i starting getting bored and got my car kicks in the form of dirt rallys

reply to post by Mianeye


I think Button is going to have a hard time to beat him

This season could well be the best season in years.

At first it was a downer to know that there would be an end to the v10/v8 era.
With the v6 1.6 ltr turbo with around 600 pk i thought F1 would be a lot slower but that is not the case.
In the last test Mercedes set a time of 1:33.2 which is only 7 tenth down from the pole during qualifying in 2013 on Bahrain.
Less grip but higher speed, we have yet to hear and see the maximum of the engine and car but i think it will be great.
The points should stay like they were though, a bit stupid in my opinion to give double points in the last race.