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I feel like 3 of your ratings are bad, the middle is ok and the top two mean great/excellent. I would say this season was a good one, but no real option for that so had to go classic which it wasn’t really

I see

All F1 seasons for me are 4 or 5 stars generally. Maybe a few 3 star ones.

Voted 3 since I think it was closer to OK than a classic. Overall I'd say it was pretty good.

Edit: without descriptions I'd probably go 4*

It's a 3 star for me. There was plenty of drama, some great moments too. But what hurts it for me is that gap between the big three and the rest, and too many easy one stop races.

Through the German Grand Prix there was never more than 17 points between Lewis Hamilton and Sebastian Vettel. The lead kept going back and forth between the two. 2018 was shaping up to be a five star season. It was still a pretty good season till Monza where Sebastian really started conceding points to Lewis and Lewis put on a masterclass in Formula 1 driving. (Italy through Japan)

By Singapore or Russia, it was evident that it would take some major problems at Mercedes for Sebastian and Ferrari to get back into the fight.

If the second half of the season had gone like the first half, it would have been heralded and one of the greatest of all time. It would have been right up there with 1976 (Hunt/Lauda), 2012 (Vettel/Alonso), 2010 (Vettel/Alonso), or 1988 (Prost/Senna).

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Mission WinLater

I gave it a solid 3 stars. A few highly enjoyable races and some hideously dull ones. There was some good close competition between the top three teams for most of the season and there were very few races where the winner could be predicted with any real confidence beforehand, and this gave us an intriguing title battle at least for 2/3 of the season. My overriding feeling about the season as a whole though was that the quality of the actual racing was really quite poor because of the difficulty the cars have following each other, I'm looking forward to seeing what next year's aero rules bring us.

For the second year in a row it was looking like a 5 star season up to the half-way point and then Vettel/Ferrari fell off. I'd still give this year 4 and last year 3 overall.

Was good, every season where more than 1 guy can win is actually good recently. I hate periods like Schumacher Ferrari or Vettel in Red Bull, so pointless when you know the result before the race. This year 2 teams could take WDC and third one could win from time to time so it must be good for F1 standards. Another thing is that I have a feeling that simply the best driver won the title, not the best car, just driver, didn't have this feeling in a while at the end of season.

4 stars for me. Would be 5 stars if Hamilton had a teammate who can and wants to win and Red Bull would be a bit closer to the Merc/Ferrari.

It was pretty good. The end is always the freshest in our minds, but we shouldn't lose sight of the fact that this season represented a genuine fight between two titans of the sport and two of the most successful drivers of this era.

I rated it four stars. Without the Vettel implosion, it could have been five.

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PICK 10 COMPETITION (4 wins, 14 podiums): 3rd in 2016
TOP THREE CHAMPIONSHIP (No Limit Excedrin Racing): Champions in 2015 & 2018 | 2nd in 2017
AUTOSPORT GP PREDICTOR: 2017 USA & P-F1 Champion | #2 in the world in 2017

Four stars to me. There were a lot of exciting races, and often the top three constructors were genuinely close. There were a few less interesting races, of course, but that's realistically always going to be the case. The midfield battles were tight as well. If there were either less of a gap from the top three to the rest of the pack, or if Vettel hadn't fallen back as much as he did in the latter half of the season, I could've seen five stars.

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Pick 10: 1 win, 8 podiums | 2016: 22nd | 2017: 21st | 2018: 3rd |
[size=85]Top Three: 9 wins, 26 podiums | 2016: 9th [6th] | 2017: 16th [6th] | 2018: 4th [4th] |

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Mission WinLater

One star.

The series will continue to be boring until

A) The gap between the Mercedes, Ferrari and redbull compared to the rest of the teams narrows, and more than just those 3 teams and 6 drivers can consistently fight for podiums

B) the title isn't locked up with two more meaningless races to go.

Prediction for next season.

Mercedes wins drivers championship and constructors championship. Ferrari in second. Red bull in third. All but one podium is won by red bull Ferrari and Mercedes and its makes multiple retirement from the top 3 teams for it to happen. So exciting!

It's a 4 for me. It could well have been a 5 if Ferrari/Vettel didn't drop the ball.

The first half of the season was fantastic and it was all so close, i really thought Vettel was going to take it this year. The points do not show the whole picture.

This has been the norm for F1 for many many years. I am not sure how this is different this year. Did you prefer the "one team - two drivers" battle? Or the two-three teams multi driver battles? I surely think that the second one is better.

Gap between teams? Look some of the gaps in the past, you'd be surprised. Gaps of over 2 seconds were the normality, remember they brought the 107% rule to stop cars that were too slow competing...

As for the winner, we had it sewn up from much earlier before. But there is still interest in many other fronts, it's not only the WDC that is on. I found it quite good to watch the 3rd place fight this year, Kimi, Max or Valteri? You can find a lot of interest outside the WDC fight.

I thought it was a reasonable season, but it wasn't close points-wise in either championship yet again, and there were only a handful of genuinely exciting races. Off the top of my head only China, Germany, Italy, USA and Brazil were really decent fights for the lead, with possibly another one or two tops that I am not remembering.

Altair has a legitimate complaint in that I don't believe there was any time in the past where the gulf between the slowest tier one team and the quickest tier two team was so pronounced. People talk about 'Formula A' and 'B', and it really feels like mixed class racing - the winner of the 'B' formula might as well be a class winner for all the chance they had of beating the slowest 'A' car. That much, I'm in complete agreement on. There should not be a cliff between the spending classes.

The rest comes off as just whining, to be honest. I wonder who Altair supports, and if they're competitive right now?

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PICK 10 COMPETITION (4 wins, 14 podiums): 3rd in 2016
TOP THREE CHAMPIONSHIP (No Limit Excedrin Racing): Champions in 2015 & 2018 | 2nd in 2017
AUTOSPORT GP PREDICTOR: 2017 USA & P-F1 Champion | #2 in the world in 2017

Decent season overall.
first few races after the summer break were very meh! But enjoyed the 'fly away races'.

Biggest concern for me is the ENORMOUS gap between the top 3 teams and the rest. Its horrible.
Only 1 podium all season not from Ferrari, Red Bull, Mercedes. Thats appalling.

I see your point, I just can't think of a season that the teams across the field were much closer. How do we measure the gulf, in sheer speed or points? In either case, I think in most seasons there is indeed a considerable gap between the top teams to the leading tier two ones. And lower than that, bloody hell, it is abysmal. I opened the 1991 season in Wiki just for fun; the last 11 teams (from 19!) have an impressive collection of DNQ and DNF, they managed to gather 9 points between them (obviously different points system).

In the past the gaps seemed bigger, it was not unusual for the first and last car to have 6+ seconds difference in qualifying (and I am aware that different quali systems play into this number as well, it's just an easy comparison as we do not have the lap times readily available). The lower cars got some scraps when the front runners retired, something that happened far more than today with the reliability they had back then. But no, I do not think that today the gulf between the cars is so terrible, compared to the past at least.

Different era's get different kind of racing. But one thing is for sure; you always have the top teams that get the lion's share of the points.

Way to easy for Merc this time around again, a 2 from me.
No matter what the top teams do, they will drive to top positions without any hazzle, some even get waved through.

Merc have now won >75% off the races during this hybrid era and it doesn't look like it will end anyway soon.

Hyperbolic much? Up until the summer Mercedes and Ferrari were trading wins and the points gap between the drivers at least was very close.

If you have a beef, your beef should be with Ferrari and Vettel for not capitalising on the advantage when they had one. If you just focus on the points it makes it look like Mercedes just walked it home when that really wasn't the case. This season, much like 2017, was a case of Ferrari chucking away points. Not Mercedes domination like 14-16

One Mercedes driver wins the WDC and the other comes in 5th place. Both Ferrari's are 2nd/3rd in the WDC standings and you say it was too easy for Mercedes? Sour grapes?

I went for four stars, as it was looking pretty good the first half of the season.

If they could stop the top two / three teams doing Q2 on the harder tyre may help the racing a bit, but them's the rules I guess..

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Should I grow a beard?

I don't think it's ever been that different in terms of the top teams' superiority, it's just that improved reliability and the lack of gravel-based punishments for driving errors have resulted in fewer opportunities for the smaller teams to score big results. Look back 20 years to the 1998 season and I don't believe anyone from the rest of the field scored a podium without some mishap befalling the Ferrari or McLaren drivers, and all but 2 of the race wins (one of which being the bizarre race in Belgium) were taken by Schumacher and Hakkinen.

If anything we were fortunate this year that there were three teams in contention for wins on pure pace alone; I'd be willing to bet that that has not been the case for the majority of F1 seasons.

I always get up early, and started to watch the race. But before half-way I got bored and decided I would watch it later. That afternoon when I had a spare hour I watched the remainder of the race, then walked the dog. Walking my dog was more interesting than the entire Formula One season.

Formula One is a competition, but it is not between drivers or teams, but rather teams of engineers back at the factory. The drivers just have to be able to go fast and operate the car's menus because they do not need anything but a voice in their ear telling them what to do.

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Only dogs, mothers, and quality undergarments give unconditional support.

Are you saying there is always a tier two and always a tier of top teams? Where did tier two start in 1997? The gap between Benetton and Jordan? The gap between Jordan and Prost? The gap between Prost and Sauber? I personally don't think in that season there were any clear tiers between teams, just a nice, healthy 0.2 seconds performance gap between the next ranked team over the majority of the season. The same in 2012 and probably many other seasons.

So in my opinion if there are ever seasons where a supposed tier or class gap is very distinctive and apparent to see, then this is a black mark against the quality of the season as not all seasons have this dynamic.




In those seasons wasn't the 6+ second gap between the pole man and the likes of Simtek, Pacific and Forti? We don't even have those types of teams in current F1 as they are all busto due to the terrible income distribution, so I don't think you can make this remark fairly as the eras are not comparable in that way. Once we get back to having 13 teams on the grid then maybe.

I recall:

(i) Villeneuve getting a podium on pure speed/merit in Germany
(ii) the Benetton's being very close to Ferrari/Schumacher pace in Brazil, Spain, Monaco and Canada, (that's 25% of the season)
(iii) many times when McLaren and Ferrari could not pass Williams, Jordan and Benetton cars and were stuck behind them for a while, e.g. Schumacher and Coulthard stuck behind Hill and Frentzen in Japan - nowadays the top three teams just fly past the Renault's and Force India's like they're not even there

The 1998 equivalent of 2018 would be:

Ferrari and McLaren = Mercedes, Ferrari and Red Bull
Williams, Jordan, Benetton and Sauber don't even compete in the season as there are no current day equivalents
Arrows, Stewart and Prost = Renault, Force India, Haas, McLaren, Sauber Torro Rosso and Williams
Tyrrell and Minardi don't even compete in the season since they have no current day equivalents as teams similar to this are busto and are not competing in the series at present

As for your comment about all but two wins being taken by Schumacher and Hakkinen, this is because there were only two fast teams and not three, (so no 1998 Red Bull-type team), and Irvine was in a supporting role like Bottas the gentleman, (who also was winless this year like Irvine in 1998), and Coulthard was that year's Raikkonen with one win.

But surely you know as well as anyone that Formula One has always been first and foremost an engineering competition, ever since Alfa Romeo locked out all top four grid slots at the 1950 British Grand Prix. The nature of the skills demanded of the driver have evolved over the years but their ultimate success or failure has always been at the mercy of the machinery with which they have been provided. That doesn't mean that the driver's input is meaningless or that they are a mere passenger, and surely this season as much as any in recent years has been evidence of that given that the engineering team behind the Drivers' World Champion was only able to direct his team mate to 5th in the table.

F1 is not perfect and there are aspects of it at the moment that I would like to change as well, but to suggest that it has suddenly lost its purity as a driving competition in the past few years, sorry I can't agree with that.

It's surprising how many people apparently had managed to convince themselves that F1 was about drivers first for as long as their favorite driver was winning...

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PICK 10 COMPETITION (4 wins, 14 podiums): 3rd in 2016
TOP THREE CHAMPIONSHIP (No Limit Excedrin Racing): Champions in 2015 & 2018 | 2nd in 2017
AUTOSPORT GP PREDICTOR: 2017 USA & P-F1 Champion | #2 in the world in 2017

You are new here right? Welcome to the mad house!

You'll see that I mentioned "most seasons", not all. Not all seasons are the same. Answering to this:

"A) The gap between the Mercedes, Ferrari and redbull compared to the rest of the teams narrows, and more than just those 3 teams and 6 drivers can consistently fight for podiums"

My answer remains the same, most seasons see a big performance gap between the front runners and the back markers. I am not sure why Altair brings it up specifically for this season, the performance gap it is inherent in F1. Unless we want to go to spec formulae, which is not to my interest, there are other series for that.

Regarding your second point, what do you mean? You are re-enforcing my point actually, that today it is much better than back then, no more 6+ secs difference, it is a much closer grid. Still not close enough for some people. Also, you left out the part that I mentioned that they are not really comparable due to a lot of differences between the eras, but hey ho.

I remember in 1992 the Williams car out qualify the field by 2 seconds, in the Red Bull years there was a few times were they out qualified the field by a second.

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PF1 Pick 10 Competition

2013: 5th Place
2014: Champion
2015: 3rd Place
2016: 4th Place
2017: 9th Place
2018: 7th place

Wins: Canada 2018, Abu Dhabi 2017
Podiums: (6)

Altair has a valid point. This season we saw two distinct competitions. There were the three top teams attracting the attention, and there was the rest, as they call themselves, "Formula 1.5". This is because they are usually 1.5 seconds off the pace. It is a shame they did not receive the attention they deserve, because the battle in Formula 1.5 was interesting all year. Within that mix, any team could have out-performed the rest of Formula 1.5 on any given day.

The sadness is because although the cars will receive a slight tweaking for 2019, it will not be until 2020 when a new set of rules comes floating out of Liberty. 2019 will be stasis, I may lose more interest. But who knows what will happen in 2020, but any change will be a good thing.

I am a huge fan of the World Endurance Championship, and I cheer for the Dane Train, the Aston Martin driven by Nicki Thiim and Marco Sorensen. For 2018 the team came out with a brand new design and engine. For the first half of the season they struggled. But in the last race at Shanghai, they won their class. This is what I desire, for teams to have the opportunity to improve and move from "we suck" to "we win" within one season. I do not see that in Formula One.

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Only dogs, mothers, and quality undergarments give unconditional support.

Indeed Hamilton being a 5 time Champion doesn't sit well with someone who wouldn't be an admirer as such.

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PF1 Pick 10 Competition

2013: 5th Place
2014: Champion
2015: 3rd Place
2016: 4th Place
2017: 9th Place
2018: 7th place

Wins: Canada 2018, Abu Dhabi 2017
Podiums: (6)

Today it is worse than back then. For example drivers like Frentzen in a Williams having to fight his way past the likes of Diniz in the Arrows in Luxembourg 1997. Diniz did not just immediately get out of the way. If you were a fast car starting at the back of the grid in those days, your race was over in terms of getting a podium because no one would be letting you through as your car was only a bit faster than most of the field.

Now you have the 3rd best team lapping the 4th best team, I have never seen such a performance gap like this, it's absurd and wrong quite frankly. You get the majority of the field just getting out of the way of the top 3 teams instead of fighting for position, due to the huge performance gap. It is awful and I pray that the bottom 7 teams all catch up massively next year.

Hamilton being a 5-time champion sits well enough with me, but like any driver's championship it had to come with some caveats. Mercedes being a team champion comes with different caveats.

In Hamilton's case, he is the deserving champion among those who had the car to contend for the title - which is to say himself, Bottas, Vettel and Raikkonen. In the case of Mercedes, they are the deserving champions among those with the budget and the engine to contend for the title - themselves and Ferrari.

Over the course of his five championships, Hamilton has beaten 6 drivers who had the same opportunity as himself: Kovalainen, Massa, Raikkonen (three times), Rosberg (twice), Vettel (twice) and Bottas (twice). I'm not taking anything away from him in the scope of F1 champions - that's the way it's always been - but his achievement does need to be considered in the proper perspective. An F1 World Drivers Champion has only ever beaten the people who actually had a car to fight for the title.

Mercedes, similarly, has only really competed with and hence beaten the teams who have the same ability to fight for the title as they do. In the current formula, that means teams with a sufficient budget and access to a competitive engine. Between 2014 and 2018, that's only really one team - Ferrari. Red Bull would qualify, but it's widely accepted that the Renault engine isn't actually good enough to challenge for the title, and Red Bull has no control over this. It is therefore questionable that they're actually in the fight, no matter how good their chassis is.

Hamilton has done a great job. Mercedes has done a great job. But the only people you can say for certain they've done a better job than are the people and teams who had the ability to fight them on equal terms. If Force India had $400m to play with and Alonso to drive the car, could they have won a title? Nobody knows.

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PICK 10 COMPETITION (4 wins, 14 podiums): 3rd in 2016
TOP THREE CHAMPIONSHIP (No Limit Excedrin Racing): Champions in 2015 & 2018 | 2nd in 2017
AUTOSPORT GP PREDICTOR: 2017 USA & P-F1 Champion | #2 in the world in 2017

I also judge the season on if I wake up early to watch races or not.

I only got up once this season....

3 stars for me.

Best most competitive I remember F1 was about 2008-2009.
Within that window every team bar Williams managed either a pole position or a race win.

3 stars from me.

Good:

- Ferrari take it to Mercedes for most of the season even though they faded towards the end
- Hamiltons driving this year was sublime
- Sauber improved
- Leclerc drove well
- Force India saved
- French GP returned
- Raikonnen got a win (probably his last)
- Some of Verstappen's driving

Bad:

- Vettels driving was inconsistent
- Ricciardo suffered chronic car trouble pretty much the entire season (Monaco onward)
- Gap between the have's & have not's was unchanged
- Announcement that engine regs won't change in 2021 (although admittedly, we're so far down the rabbit hole with these disaster of PU's that we might as well keep going until all 4 suppliers are equal)
- 2 tier championship continues unabated
- Only 1 podium for a driver outside the top 3 teams (Perez in Baku)
- Some of Verstappens driving
- All of Verstappens attitude

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Races since last non RB, Merc, Ferrari winner - 118 & counting.

Non RB, Merc, Ferrari podiums won in Hybrid era - 300 spots available, 23 won

2017 WCC CPTTC - Jalopy Racing (Herb & Me)

I was actually agreeing with your original post, F1 has never been a level playing field.

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PF1 Pick 10 Competition

2013: 5th Place
2014: Champion
2015: 3rd Place
2016: 4th Place
2017: 9th Place
2018: 7th place

Wins: Canada 2018, Abu Dhabi 2017
Podiums: (6)

Ah, okay. Cheers, then!

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PICK 10 COMPETITION (4 wins, 14 podiums): 3rd in 2016
TOP THREE CHAMPIONSHIP (No Limit Excedrin Racing): Champions in 2015 & 2018 | 2nd in 2017
AUTOSPORT GP PREDICTOR: 2017 USA & P-F1 Champion | #2 in the world in 2017