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Generally speaking the lack of variety is the problem. Even back in 2004, Ferrari's most dominant season, there were still 4 different winning constructors, 8 different pole sitters and half the teams on the grid finished the season with at least 1 podium place.

The last few years you can have a pretty good stab at predicting the podium after the Friday and usually get 2/3 right!

F1 has 3 teams, and the rest - and it doesn't look like changing either unless the Honda is a dog. There is just a massive gap between the front and midfield. Even at the front, it's two teams and another - with Red Bull having mostly been in a formula by themselves. A good stride ahead of the midfield, but a half step behind Merc/Ferrari.

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That's because you put more value on the WDC, something I never questioned in the first place.


How is that really any different from a tier 1 driver in a dominant car? Whoever was in the 2014-2016 Mercedes would have won the WDC. Does it make it better that it happened to be a tier 1 driver in 66% of those years?


Then how do you explain endurance racing? There's no individual champion, and plenty of drivers dedicate their careers to doing it.

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Fans might not directly relate to race car designers and what, but with Mercedes winning F1 a lot, and being WCC means they are usually operating near the front. It will have done Mercedes and their sponsors brand reputation no harm at all. Being seen to be the best team in F1 carries a lot of prestige in the short term, even if it gets forgotten about quickly. An iconic livery or car can also help lots!

Am I more likely to buy Tommy Hilfiger, Petronas or even a Mercedes as a result of the projected image and exposure F1 is currently giving? My honest answer is - probably.

I recently bought Petronas oil for my own sprint car, how much of that was down to exposure F1 had given? I can't say, as it really is at a subliminal level - but then would Petronas have been in a position to have their oil stocked by what was, a small supplier, if it was wasn't for increased brand reputation from winning in F1?

Motorsport pedigree has definitely had an influence on products I've bought for both road and track/race cars.

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Same reason I include 2012 for Red Bull. I'm not talking about dominant cars, but fan reaction to dominant results.

2002 was their most dominant season in race wins percentage with just 3 winning manufacturers, Ferrari only lost 2 races, 2004 they lost 3 races. In 2014 Mercedes lost 3 races, in 2015 they lost 3 races, in 2016 they lost just 2 races.

The different pole sitters is because the qualifying system was a bit of a lottery.

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F1 has never been a spec formula nor has it ever been a level playing field that's why the best drivers endeavor to get in the best teams which started in its inception in 1950, Fangio constantly changed teams to ensure he was in the best car.

Given all this it's always better that the WDC is seen as an elite driver, I just don't understand the reasoning that it's better and more honest when a tier 2 driver becomes the WDC as it shows F1 for what it is, in respect to Rosberg I think he was a little bit better than a tier 2 driver.

For the last part Bob is referring to F1 fans.

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I've never bought anything that relates to F1 but then again I guess I look at cars as an expensive commodity, I buy what's practical for me.

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Well that must then just be a F1 thing because other sports don't suffer like this, are there calls for Marc Marquez to carry success ballast because his domination of MotoGP is damaging the sport, I know Rossi fans don't like him but that's for other reasons.

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Not only does that not challenge my position that having only a WCC would be a more accurate representation of the championship, it even reinforces it. F1 has, indeed, always been an engineering challenge as much as or more than a driving challenge, even in the days before the WCC was instituted.


Yes, but why does a WDC need to exist at all? It could exist purely as an auxiliary award, just like in any other team sport. The only real reason to promote the driver over the team - when the former is in fact almost wholly dependent on the latter - is because it's easier to market the driver. In actual fact, the driver is just one highly visible component of a machine with a thousand parts. But the bottom line is - and every F1 fan knows this - that it is the team that determines what the driver can achieve, not the other way around.

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The fact that Mercedes dominated for so long is also due in no small part to the fact that the rules protected their position quite heavily in the initial years. It was virtually impossible for anyone to close the gap between 2014 and 2016, given the massive restrictions not only on testing but also on development. That simply never existed in the past, not to anywhere near that extent. The moment Mercedes emerged with the advantage they had in 2014, their position was virtually guaranteed for the next few years and it took a premature change in the rules before anyone even got close.

So in that respect I'd say Ferrari's and Red Bull's dominant years look at least as impressive, given they didn't have the rules to protect them in the same way.

Like you say people relate better to other people rather than machines, machines will never get feted to the same level hence why the WEC is far less popular than F1 and why the WDC carries more importance than the WCC to the fans.

Teams still need to put the best drivers in their cars otherwise it puts more pressure on those teams to win titles, we have seen in the past the best car fail to win the drivers title because the drivers have not been good enough.

If you took away the WDC and never had a world champion driver, F1 would probably be not much more popular than the WEC?

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That only lasted 1 year.

In respect to protected positions Renault were allowed to equalise their engine during the V8 frozen engine period but this was just a ruse for them to engineer cold exhaust blown technology for Red Bull something their rivals couldn't copy because they were not allowed to modify their engines.

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That's not true

As to the second part, firstly that's speculation, not fact; secondly it was open to everyone to copy Red Bull - you can't seriously be comparing the type of restrictions teams had before and after the introduction of the hybrids? They had nothing like the token system which was only dropped in 2017

I honestly don't know if I could stomach another Mercedes domination season.
If it turns out to be the case, you'd be as well skipping rest of 2019 and 2020 seasons and wait for 2021 to save us!

I think the Red Bull dominant period has been well and truly surpassed by Mercedes 2014-18 run.

Weren’t there 7 different winners from 5 different teams in the first 7 races in 2012? Can you possibly imagine that happening in the past few years?

Admittedly I wasn’t as big a F1 follower during the Ferrari/Schumacher dominant years, but looking back I’m sure I can remember Raikkonen, Montoya, Coulthard and others being competitive.

The Mercedes domination has been devastating.

Like Sky’s departure in pro cycling, you can’t help but think without Mercedes F1 would be a far more interesting sport all of a sudden...

The token system lasted 1 year then it was a free for all.

The other engine manufacturers couldn't copy Renault's cold blowing system developed in conjunction with Red Bull because they were not allowed to modify their engines because engine development was frozen.

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We haven't had Merc domination since 2016. Winning does not equal Dominating.

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That is absolutely not true. The token system was abandoned in 2017 but was very much alive and kicking before then.

The alleged modifications were software related, not down to engine architecture, IIRC. Nobody was restricted in anything like the way teams were after the introduction of the hybrids. You're trying to draw a parallel but be reasonable here, it was a totally different landscape

BTW, it's not like I'm alone in thinking this:

t all seems obvious in retrospect, but the problem with the token system was that those who got off to a flying start under the new rules – Mercedes and to some degree Ferrari – had a more significant advantage than they normally would.

The token system made it more difficult for struggling rivals to catch up. More importantly perhaps, the public was quick to recognise that.

In the past you could always allow the benefit of the doubt, and assume that if so-and-so got it wrong one year, be it with their chassis or engine, they could make a big step for the next season.

The token system, especially as restrictions were due to grow tighter over time, suggested that unless a manufacturer turned things round very quickly (as Ferrari did in its second year), it might never catch up.

https://www.motorsport.com/f1/news/analysis-the-winners-and-losers-from-the-end-of-f1-engine-tokens-671783/671783/

Fair enough in the first year they were not allowed to be modified during the season but in the second year they could be modified during the season but still under the token system, however the article mentions Ferrari being able to improve considerably in the second season.

Now back to what I said about the V8 era were the engine manufacturers were unable to copy Renault's cold blowing system because the engines were frozen in development.

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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)

I have never seen a rival F1 team say the Renault engine was the reason Red Bull won their championships. Don't you think that would have been the first thing the teams would have blamed, if they had a convenient frozen part to point to?

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I think you're making a link that isn't there, or at least one which wasn't either proven or established as the main reason for Red Bull's dominance. I seem to recall the phrase of the day was invariably "Newey Rocket Ship," not "Renault Wonder Engine."

I stand by my point that the hybrid era introduced development and testing restrictions which were unprecedented in F1 and which contributed heavily to Mercedes retaining the lead they established from the beginning. There are whole threads on the subject over the years so it's not like it's a new claim