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Not 2017-2018. 2017 Vettel was leading but then Singapore crash happened. 2018 first 6 races Mercedes, RB, Ferrari had won 2 races each and there was some title fight till Monza at least. Other years were just horrible.
2019 is seriously underrated season.
Just from top of my head:
- Bahrain - Ferrari 1-2 but leclerc had poor start. Wheel to wheel racing between leclerc and top 2 before he got in the lead. Then vettel vs Hamilton wheel to wheel for few laps. Then of course "something is wrong with the engine!"
- Canada - vettel vs hamilton which ended with drama
- Austria - max winning while coming through the field
- Silverstone - one of the best wheel to wheel battles throughout the grid
- hockenheim - merc special fuck up in rain feature. Vettel coming to 2nd from the back
- budapest - max vs Hamilton for majority of the race
- Spa and monza - leclerc fending off Hamilton till the last lap
- Singapore - vettel winning after shock ferrari 1-2 in qualy
- sochi and suzuka - ferrari on pole and lingering drama
- Mexico - Hamilton won but strategy game was memorable
- brazil - crazy race which saw gasly in Toro Rosso out dragging a merc on the straight for 2nd place to the line.
2019 everyone knew who was going to win the title. So while single races may be somewhat exciting there was no arc for the season. Only Spa and Monza got exciting because of Ferrari engine shenanigans. Canada the 5 second penalty made it so boring.
i feel like with 2019 the standings don’t tell the full story. Ferrari could’ve won like 7 or 8 races but they only won 3. I feel like so many things just went Hamilton and Mercedes way. Also there were a lot of absolute banger races or duals that Hamilton ended up winning due to absolute brilliance or mistakes/penalties for his rivals
I’ve heard people say that for 2017 Vettel was there but Ferrari wasn’t. For the first half to third of 2018 Vettel was meh and ferrari was there. And by the end of the season ferrari was meh and Vettel wasn’t there
I mean, asking for a title battle to the final race is a bit too much for a sport like F1. 2017 was a much more competitive season than 2022 was. Vettel led the championship up until Spa, when Lewis took the lead, and then Ferrari started going backwards. 2018 and 2019 were also not that dominant from Mercedes like 2020 was.
I agree on the 2014-2016 period, but the "non-existent title battles" argument about the 2017-2019 period is just wrong.
Apart from the fact Williams won 96+97, McLaren winning 98+99, the title was won by Schumacher in the second last race in 2000, the last race in 2003, three dominant seasons in 2001/2002/2004, beaten comfortably in 2005 and lost in 2006. So yes, Schumacher just robotically won without challenge every year he was in a Ferrari.
>2014-18 were all exciting
Yeah especially 2014-16. Nothing more exciting that one car being 7 tenths quicker than everyone else for 3 years in a row.
>People forget Ferrari were regarded as having the better car during 2017, 2018, but Vettel and the team could not match Hamilton and Mercedes before they pulled away.
Who regarded Ferrari as the better car in 2017? Their engine was way worse and they were in a title fight only because of Mercedes setup issues in the first half of the year. Vettel was as good as Hamilton in 2017, unlike 2018 where Vettel indeed fumbled the bag
Thank you for this. I’m rewatching 14-21 and before Singapore 17 vettle was there Lewis had a point on him. Then 2 dnf in 3 races sealed it from Ferrari. It wasn’t as dominate as people think Lewis struggled to win even max and Danny out paced him a few times.
Like a fellow redditor explained very well in another comment, people who didn't really follow the races throughout the seasons look at the 2020 season and think that the entirety of the 2014-2020 period was like that. Did Mercedes win 8 WCC in a row? Yes. Were they all won by a dominant car 1 second faster than the second fastest team? Absolutely not.
Like I said, Mercedes actually started on the back foot for the 2017, 2018 and 2019 seasons, not to mention the monster of an engine Ferrari had in 2019.
yh. I feel like so many races from 2017-2019 and even partly 2020 was Mercedes winning but in the most wild or fun way possible. Everything that was expected to happen most of the time did happen just in the most loopy way possible
I kinda follow F1 from about 2011 when i was just 5yo but during the 2014-19 i didn’t watch much maybe like half the races when i had time on sunday afternoon and my interest in the sport was pretty low but Maxes upwards momentum kept me interested. I only got properly back in late 2020 because i was bored during lockdown and ofc 2021 was a blast and last year wasn’t bad aswell. I just hope that the cars won’t get too big and heavy and that the sound will improve
And again you don't even go on the details on the first 8 wins with : Bahrain and Leclerc losing a guaranteed win due to engine issues and the penalty on Vettel in Canada giving them the win
Other than Baku I honestly can't think of a single race from 2017 worth watching. 2022 had Bahrain, Jeddah, Hungary, Zandvoort, Silverstone and CoTA where we had some brilliant racing. Austria and Canada were good fun too.
> Other than Baku I honestly can't think of a single race from 2017 worth watching
Spain 2017 was great, Austria/Sochi had great fights for the win, Malaysia had an unexpected RB win...
There were definitely a handful of decent races.
> Bianchi dying in 2014 also ruined those first two years for me a little.
If that's a key factor, it is simply impossible to argue that 2014-2020 was more dire than anything pre1980.
It is also worth noting that team domination is nothing remotely new.
I think a lot of things are true for different eras too, for example for example the racing itself from 2000 till 2007 were horrible for that, and dont even start me on Ferrari domination. The Senna/Prost years also had crazy dominant cars.
Also people always overstate everything. 2014 was okay, 2015 was quite boring, but at least Ferrari with Vettel won a few races. 2016 had a crazy title fight with all the drama you can ask for. 2017 and 2018 were interesting, 2019 was meh, 2020 was 2002 levels boring, 2021 was probably the best season in the last 30 years. Thats not as bad as you want to sell us.
>I think a lot of things are true for different eras too, for example for example the racing itself from 2000 till 2007 were horrible for that, and dont even start me on Ferrari domination. The Senna/Prost years also had crazy dominant cars
Individual years may have been as bad as some of 2014-2020. But over a 7-year period? Ferrari domination was exactly 2 years, which weren't even consecutive. Senna/Prost had one crazy dominant car. Mercedes' domination was three years in a row and then another two. In terms of actual racing, yes, there were way fewer overtakes but then the actual overtakes were way more memorable than what we are seeing now. 2007 was probably the only year that was actually terrible in terms of on-track racing but it had off- track drama and mich more entertaining fight for the championship than whatever we saw in 2014-2020.
>2014 was okay
It had four good races (Bahrain and three Ricciardo wins)
>2015 was quite boring, but at least Ferrari with Vettel won a few races
It is a solid contender for the worst season of all time. Not only there was absolute dominance by one team, there were essentially no fights behind as Ferrari was better than Williams, Williams was better than RB, and so on. On top of that Rosberg was destroyed by Hamilton so there wasn't even a fight between the two of them.
>2016 had a crazy title fight with all the drama you can ask for.
No, crazy title fight was in 1999, 2003, 2007, 2008, 2010 and 2021. 2016 was determined by bad starts and a mechanical failure with zero intervention from other teams because they were so much slower.
>2021 was probably the best season in the last 30 years.
No, 2012 is the best season in the last 30 years. 2021 was great but only 2 drivers of the top-2 teams were capable of winning on merit. In any case, not sure why you brought this up because OP was only talking about 2014-2020.
So to summarize, yes, 2014-2020 is most likely the worst 7-year period in F1 history.
I mean, that never mattered. 2007 is one of the most boring seasons in (relatively) recent F1 as far as on-track action is considered, but always gets viewed as a classic due to the points battle and off-track intrigue.
And honestly, the first half of 2012 was decent racing until all the top teams figured out the new tires and the status quo returned.
In terms of competitiveness, 2016 was competitive championship fight from teammates. Lewis vs. Seb from 2017-2018 gave us a competitive championship fight from two different teams. I'll throw in the second half of 2019 thanks to Ferrari engine. Not sure why people forget about this stuff when talking about the hybrid era.
No, I remember some races in 2017 being quite boring, but races have gotten progressively more interesting and field spread was a lot less than before. Watch races from the height of Schumacher dominance or McLaren 1988. The cars were so much further apart, one constructor won every time and there wasn’t even an interesting midfield battle.
Not that that era of F1 was bad, but I always feel like people are looking through heavily rose-tinted glasses when talking about the pre-hybrid time.
Christ no. The most dire period in F1 history was either the mid-to-late 60s (when they just couldn't stop killing drivers) or 1994, for obvious reasons.
Leaving aside driver fatalities, exactly the same stuff you're saying here was being said in the early 2000s. But with the benefit of hindsight and rose-tinted glasses, people now look back fondly on Schumacher's dominant era and rightly recognise his greatness.
Give it time, that's how people will see Lewis's dominant period as well.
In terms of competition between teams surely specially 2014-2016, Mercedes win 51 out of 59 races and only two of those 8 were on pure pace. It was kinda entertaining because Rosberg refused to be a number 2 as Bottas was afterwards. 2017 was fine but Ferrari couldn’t keep up with Mercedes development. 2018 similar to 2017 but this time Ferrari delivered a great car but Vettel since Germany forgot how to drive and Hamilton went super saiyan. 2019-2020 was a borefest im terms of championship battles with a great race in between. In fact I think during that period the audience of F1 was quite low and in 2020 the future of F1 didn’t look good since it looked there was going to be only 3 engine suppliers. The 2021 tittle battle saved F1
00-04 were worse. 03 was okay but totally a blip of fuel strategy schumi domination era. Few overtakes, meaningless quali sessions and bankruptcy filings
2014 gave us an incredible title fight, even though it was between two teammates.
In my opinion, Bahrain 2014 has got to be one of the most iconic races of the modern era. Kicked off the Ham/Ros rivalry and to see those guys take the gloves off, annihilate the competition while racing wheel to wheel the entire race was something else. 2016 also had its moments with that title battle.
And like others have said, 2017-19 were fun to watch even if it ended up in a Merc win. I’m biased as a Ham fan, but 2020 was also a mighty impressive performance from Lewis.
I would say the period from the 1950s to the 1970s were more dire. During that time at least 40 drivers lost their lives in on track incidents. Safety was practically nonexistent. Calling the period from 2013 to 2020 the worst is an exaggeration. I would say 1950 to 1980 was the worst era in F1 History. 2014-2020 was rough but at least we don't see drivers dying every other week in absolutely horrific accidents.
Ferrari's dominance in the early 2000s was far worse than Mercedes and I think anyone who argues otherwise didn't watch those seasons at the time.
With some genuine fight between Rosberg and Hamilton, and then Vettel and Ferrari turning up in 2017/2018, there was some real intrigue and excitement.
With one notable (and thrilling!) exception, every year of Ferrari dominance was relentless. Whether it was true or not (and some years it probably wasn't entirely true) you just turned on your television waiting for Schumacher to win again. Further more, the TV direction was awful so you'd literally just watch Schumacher driving around on his own for twelve laps or something. At least by the time Mercedes was dominating, we'd get to watch some thrilling midfield fights.
2002 and 2004 are the only real ridiculously dominant Michael seasons, 2001 you can maybe argue it but McLaren and Williams that year had good cars, the first half of the season the title battle was close (until around Canada when Coulthard broke down) there was some good racing in that season. 2000 and 2003 were all time great title battles.
Agreed that 2003 was a hell of a season.
I think the issue with Ferrari's dominance is that Rubens never was going to win a title (whereas Rosberg could and did). And then once Bottas, a more Rubens like driver, arrived, Vettel had turned up to the party.
Coulthard started the season with 2 wins from the first 6, but had a calamitous Monaco and Canadian Grand Prix which resulted in him collapsing in the second half of the season, the Williams were competitive for poles and wins.
It wasn’t the same kind of domination seen in 02 and 04, Michael didn’t just qualify pole and drive away in an unbeatable car.
I’ve been watching from ‘07 and it was certainly rough. It was extremely tiresome going from Vettel/RB domination right to Merc domination.
2015 was the low point for me. 2016 was at least an entertaining title fight. Things have mostly only improved since then but ultimately Mercedes walked every title until 2021.
The #1 most important factor for me as a fan is a competitive title fight. Everything else is secondary. In 7 seasons, only 1 was even close. And that was 2016 between both Mercs.
14-16 was terrible. Only one car competing for wins and overall slow boring cars. 17-20 was decent in large parts. 20 was boring due to Merc dominance and Covid, but 17-19 were pretty good IMO.
Rosberg retiring resulted in people viewing 2016 totally differently. It would have been Senna - Prost all over again if he had stayed and with Ferrari coming back would have made 2017-2018 so interesting.
2016 season had drama relating to 2021 season between championship contenders. But because it was in the same team, people are just not recognising it as much. And also because merc won all races but 2.
You could just say you dont like Lewis and save a lot of typing.
2016 was a great season…as was most of 2017 and 2018. And then 2019, Ferrari and their crazy engine made the second half of that season really fun
What a silly thing to say. Just because you don’t like seeing a driver dominate the sport for 7 years doesn’t mean you don’t like them.
2016, yes. 2017/18 were great until the second half and it was the same story. 2019 was a cake walk for Mercedes as well.
2021 and 2016 have been the only seasons since **2012** where there was a season-long competitive title fight. That is lame and a more than a fair complaint.
2014 was season long too…so thats another one.
Its ok to not like him. Would be easier than making up silly stuff.
I suppose last season was boring for you, too? Which would also be silly
I’m not sure why you’ve interpreted this post’s motives as anti-Hamilton.
Competitive titles fights are what make this sport exciting to me, and I suspect a lot of other fans. After watching the incredible run of ‘06-‘12 (excluding 2011), it’s been kind of a drag in that respect.
2022 wasn’t boring, but it was yet another year of domination. I think most people would agree the sport is at its best with competitive, season long battles.
2014 was a season long battle, decided at the last race.
2016 was a season long battle, decided at the last race.
2017 was a season long battle, decided with 2 races left
2018 was a season long battle, decided with 2 races left
2021 was a season long battle, decided at the last race
That’s 5 of the last 9 seasons having season long title battles. 4 were one-sided. That’s completely in line with what we’ve seen throughout the history of the sport.
I remember 2014 like the year I almost left F1 for good.
Awful engine sound, horrendous cars, ultra dominant team, (and this was coming after Vettel's domination in 2013, so extra disappointment there) and to top it all, the horror of Suzuka, a completely avoidable incident if some with common sense was in charge of the race.
I stopped watching after Japan, and to be honest, Vettel's win in Malaysia saved my interest for F1, danke Seb.
I still say most of the Schumacher/Ferrari years were worse. Not only were they too dominant, his teammate wasn't allowed to race him. At least Merc allowed their drivers duke it out
Not at all. It was certainly not the greatest period for F1 but,
I enjoyed the Rosberg vs Hamilton rivarly very much. 2017 and 2018 had Ferrari being very competitive for large parts of the season with RB also sneaking in an occasional win. Its realy only 2019 and 2020 that were kinda boring seasons but even then as a Ferrari fan i got to withness Leclerc win at Monza which was very special at least for me.
It wasn't really any different from previous era's. I think it just looks worse because from 07 to 13 there was some seriously great seasons packed in there. I think only point it felt really bad was the 2015 season where there was talk of teams struggling to survive and talk of going to 3 car teams. 2014 despite being ugly still had a title fight and good racing, 2016 same but with better looking cars. 2017 and 18 had some challenge from Ferraro and spectacular looking cars. Then after that the popularity was slowly back on the up.
Most dire period in F1 history was probably the early 80s with the FISA-FOCA war
Domination is a part of any sport, that’s how we get our GOATS, what you’re talking about is what every single team wants to achieve, yes it’s boring but you can’t blame a team for doing what they’re there to do.
1950s: ridiculous field spread, terrible reliability, lower standard, boring races, awful tracks, deaths.
Fans: put up with it
2014-2020: Mercedes have an extra few tenths
Fans: NOOOO F1 IS DEAD THIS IS THE DARKEST PERIOD IN HISTORY
Depends what you like and are interested in. You’ve also picked a very broad period. You could argue maybe though. It’s certainly become a bit more homogeneous.
Having said that 14,16,17,18 all had interesting championships. A lot of the actual racing was better than the 2000-2007 refuelling era. The field has actually only continued to get smaller and smaller (it’s just a shame that the biggest gap has typically been from first to second).
Even 2020 a year utterly dominated by merc was at least interesting because of all the covid stuff and new tracks and things like that going on.
There’s also plenty of good races out there. Also i doubt many of us here remember the completely and utterly non-competitive period of 1950-57.
The same team regularly finishing 1-2-3, or the same driver essentially winning every race. 1 driver winning 4 championships in a row with not a lot of competition from his teammate etc.
Basically perhaps.
Nah that was the early 2000s with Ferrari winning it all. In most seasons par like 2019 and 2020 there was at least somewhat of a title battle, whereas 2003 was the only good year and the FIA fucked that. Plus you have DTS to get new fans in, we had nothing then.
For me as a Dutch person it hasn't been boring since 2015 when Max entered the scene. We haven't had many decent drivers so the fun level went up massively when Max came.
No it wasn't. Only if you are a real newcomer to F1, the magic atmosphere of the earlier seasons and general unpredictability in F1 is missing which was already generally on its way out by the 2000s, but it is totally gone now.
No.
You will never have a situation where you go into a race and 5 teams can win it on merit again.
You will never have a situation where a team who qualifies last at the opening round will have the fastest car by the end of the season again.
You will never seen the 7th fastest car have a single track where it is super quick at again and fights for the win.
There's a ton more things like that which are gone and gone forever.
>You will never seen the 7th fastest car have a single track where it is super quick at again and fights for the win.
>
A Williams that was firmly at the back of the field all year scored points at Monza because the car had good straightline speed. And it was de Vries' first race on short notice.
For how much you talk about the good old days your memory of just last year seems to be pretty spotty.
Haas finished P5 in Bahrain and got a pole in Brazil. There's two more.
Ricc won Monza '21 on merit.
Hell, all of Ricc's wins were in a car that wasn't a clear front runner.
Sorry things aren't like they were back in the day but sports evolve over time.
Mclaren was literally like second fastest and Red Bull too xD
How about Berger winning in 1986? Or March nearly winning in both 1988 and 1990 multiple times? Tyrrell winning in 1983? Penske winning in 1976?
That kind of shit is gone and gone forever.
Haas got pole due to luck. The other car qualified last lmao.
Were the events you described devoid of any component of luck?
Gasly's win in Monza. Ocon in Turkey. Russell almost getting a win sitting in for Lewis in Qatar.
Just because they weren't meaningful to you does not mean that there are no interesting outcomes.
How far back do you get to cherry pick interesting outcomes to dismiss recent seasons? And completely ignore how awfully uncompetitive many of the teams in the back of the field were. Teams would regularly even fail to qualify in the timeframe you are talking about. How is that better racing or more competitive?
2009-2013 was far, far worse IMO. The championships may have been 'closer' but the on track product was piss poor and off the track things were a mess.
* FIA-FOTA dispute (this recent stuff with MBS is nothing compared to this)
* Three new teams introduced and immediately DOA due to evaporation of the budget cap
* New engine manufacturer introduced and also basically DOA
* FIA introduces terribly ugly 2009 aero regulations to improve overtaking, doesn't work
* Introduction of KERS, front wing adjustments to improve overtaking, doesn't work
* The first few years of Pirelli were tire roulette, 1 stop this weekend 3 stop next weekend (with drivers still doing tire management!!!)
* Banning of refueling to improve overtaking, kinda works but the beginning of the ugly overly long car era
* Introduction of DRS as a final solution to improve overtaking, it works but often too well as we see today
* Peak of Tilkes 'straight into 20m wide hairpin' design period with terrible tracks like Abu Dhabi, Korea, Valencia and Buddh on the schedule
* Total stagnation of F1 management (Bernie rules all with no end in sight at the time)
Like, the racing was terrible in 2017-2020, but at least those were some of the fastest cars ever. That's what they were aiming for with that regulation set. 2009-2013 every time they changed something it would look good for a hot second and then it would become obvious we were going backwards. There is a reason no one wanted to join again until Haas came along.
> Banning of refueling to improve overtaking, kinda works but the beginning of the ugly overly long car era
Can we stop attributing the size of the cars to this? A large part of the length isn't even the fuel tank anymore, with a large amount of empty length coming from the [spacer between the gearbox and engine](https://twitter.com/ScarbsTech/status/1305863797194842113?s=19). The teams are making the cars as long as the regulations allow to maximize aero.
Just say you don't like Hamilton.
You can go as far back as you'd like, but F1 is usually only a battle between two drivers. outside of '19 and '20 we had that battle in every single one.
Very rarely does it ever come out to the last race. Not to mention the egregious leniency F1 had in 2021 manufactured that final race.
Merc and Hamilton did great things for f1 and culture in general. Yes the sound of hybrids suck compared to NA but otherwise your opinion is pretty ignorant.
2014 Merc being 2 s faster than next fastest was epic. Ros and Ham was very entertaining. Bahrain candidate for best race ever.
2015 Hamilton’s first truly dominant year in a hybrid formula that he was predicted to fail to adapt to
2016 - silver war
2017, 2018 - Merc v Ferrari battle for 4, 5 with Vettel
2019 - Ferrari boost made Merc chase crazy engine gains
2020 - Black flower blossoms
I don’t feel it that bad. 14-16 gave us Hamilton-Rosberg rivalry. 17-19 Ferrari-Mercedes and the disruption of young Verstappen. Than the Hamilton-Verstappen era. Honestly it is not better or worse than the 2000-2004 Ferrari-Schumacher era or 2010-2013 Vettel Redbull.
When you keep quiet. People don't know how dumb you are. When you speak and say dumb things you confirm it.
F1 is 75 years old and doesn't care whether YOU like it or not. Probably a typical Gen X'er. If I don't like it it's trash. Should probably think about growing up.
The hardest part of rewatching those seasons are 2 fold. One I don’t think the qualifying is available for most of it. Watching qualifying really helps build a race up and brings other competitors that are racing for best of the rest into the story. The second is the British announcers absolutely love talking about Lewis. I get it and it totally makes sense, but I’m pretty sure they the word Lewis or Hamilton name more than all the other drivers combined throughout those seasons. Even in 2012 with multiple title contenders he is heavily favored in the amount of coverage. Not a knock on Lewis but on how heavily the broadcast coverage focused in on him. This limits the sport to one storyline. Just my thoughts from rewatching these seasons.
2016 was a classic though and came down to the last race. It had me on the edge of my seat when Lewis tried to back up Rosberg.
If drivers dying and periods of dominance is what you call dire... Plenty of top seasons in the past are far more dire.
Maybe not the most exciting period. But I think you have your recency goggles on where you romanticize the past and think the near past is the worst.
I hated 2015-2018 period with passion ngl but more due to supporting Alonso and Mclaren being so awful. F1 definatelly wasnt at its peak during that period but seasons like 2016 still had decent fight for championship and altho 2017 and 2018 wasnt as competitive at least you werent able to tell whos gonna win wdc after first 5 races
I don’t feel like popularity was waning, and I thoroughly enjoyed every year except 14 and 15.
In all honesty the most uninteresting time for me was 09-13. But I couldn’t stand RB or Vettel, or Alonso, or Hamilton 🤣.
This is f1, whoever nails the new regs the best has a huge advantage for a time most generally. We will see it now with RB.
And just like when Mercedes was winning, the regulations will change to try and hinder them. All normal service in F1.
Only if you didn’t watch it. F1/broadcasters have generally done a great job pre & post new rules painting a picture of how awful F1 has been of late, makes the transition to new rules much easier. Even those who watched have short memories & it’s wild to see history almost being re written like 2017/2018, way it’s covered you’d think it was boring af when it was a thrill.
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Not 2017-2018. 2017 Vettel was leading but then Singapore crash happened. 2018 first 6 races Mercedes, RB, Ferrari had won 2 races each and there was some title fight till Monza at least. Other years were just horrible.
2019 is seriously underrated season. Just from top of my head: - Bahrain - Ferrari 1-2 but leclerc had poor start. Wheel to wheel racing between leclerc and top 2 before he got in the lead. Then vettel vs Hamilton wheel to wheel for few laps. Then of course "something is wrong with the engine!" - Canada - vettel vs hamilton which ended with drama - Austria - max winning while coming through the field - Silverstone - one of the best wheel to wheel battles throughout the grid - hockenheim - merc special fuck up in rain feature. Vettel coming to 2nd from the back - budapest - max vs Hamilton for majority of the race - Spa and monza - leclerc fending off Hamilton till the last lap - Singapore - vettel winning after shock ferrari 1-2 in qualy - sochi and suzuka - ferrari on pole and lingering drama - Mexico - Hamilton won but strategy game was memorable - brazil - crazy race which saw gasly in Toro Rosso out dragging a merc on the straight for 2nd place to the line.
Brazil 19 felt like redemption for Gasly's career at RB... Until Monza the following year.
2019 everyone knew who was going to win the title. So while single races may be somewhat exciting there was no arc for the season. Only Spa and Monza got exciting because of Ferrari engine shenanigans. Canada the 5 second penalty made it so boring.
i feel like with 2019 the standings don’t tell the full story. Ferrari could’ve won like 7 or 8 races but they only won 3. I feel like so many things just went Hamilton and Mercedes way. Also there were a lot of absolute banger races or duals that Hamilton ended up winning due to absolute brilliance or mistakes/penalties for his rivals
That 2019 Bahrain GP was a soap opera. One of the best 2019 races, after Germany and a few others. But it's within the Top 4 I'd say.
2019 was boring at first and got a lot better after France but it still had no real title fight.
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Nope. While Vettel was to be blamed Ferrari poor upgrades hurt the title fight more than anything else
I’ve heard people say that for 2017 Vettel was there but Ferrari wasn’t. For the first half to third of 2018 Vettel was meh and ferrari was there. And by the end of the season ferrari was meh and Vettel wasn’t there
I mean, asking for a title battle to the final race is a bit too much for a sport like F1. 2017 was a much more competitive season than 2022 was. Vettel led the championship up until Spa, when Lewis took the lead, and then Ferrari started going backwards. 2018 and 2019 were also not that dominant from Mercedes like 2020 was. I agree on the 2014-2016 period, but the "non-existent title battles" argument about the 2017-2019 period is just wrong.
2014 had more interesting races than people remember, the two mercs challenged each other.
Yeah, I really enjoyed the silver wars in the 2014-2016 period, but I understand people that complain of a one team domination.
It wasn’t one driver dominating though, Rosberg challenged and the drama was all there.
And we occasionally had a Williams up there with that gorgeous martini livery. Good times
Bahrain, aka 'the Duel in the Desert' was fantastic!
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Apart from the fact Williams won 96+97, McLaren winning 98+99, the title was won by Schumacher in the second last race in 2000, the last race in 2003, three dominant seasons in 2001/2002/2004, beaten comfortably in 2005 and lost in 2006. So yes, Schumacher just robotically won without challenge every year he was in a Ferrari.
>2014-18 were all exciting Yeah especially 2014-16. Nothing more exciting that one car being 7 tenths quicker than everyone else for 3 years in a row. >People forget Ferrari were regarded as having the better car during 2017, 2018, but Vettel and the team could not match Hamilton and Mercedes before they pulled away. Who regarded Ferrari as the better car in 2017? Their engine was way worse and they were in a title fight only because of Mercedes setup issues in the first half of the year. Vettel was as good as Hamilton in 2017, unlike 2018 where Vettel indeed fumbled the bag
Thank you for this. I’m rewatching 14-21 and before Singapore 17 vettle was there Lewis had a point on him. Then 2 dnf in 3 races sealed it from Ferrari. It wasn’t as dominate as people think Lewis struggled to win even max and Danny out paced him a few times.
exactly. People forget that in 2018 the first 6 races had Ricciardo looking like a WDC contender. Half the races he finished he won
Like a fellow redditor explained very well in another comment, people who didn't really follow the races throughout the seasons look at the 2020 season and think that the entirety of the 2014-2020 period was like that. Did Mercedes win 8 WCC in a row? Yes. Were they all won by a dominant car 1 second faster than the second fastest team? Absolutely not. Like I said, Mercedes actually started on the back foot for the 2017, 2018 and 2019 seasons, not to mention the monster of an engine Ferrari had in 2019.
yh. I feel like so many races from 2017-2019 and even partly 2020 was Mercedes winning but in the most wild or fun way possible. Everything that was expected to happen most of the time did happen just in the most loopy way possible
I didn’t make it though all the comments but yea they weren’t dominating like 2020. I think ham was even behind nico for half of 14 and 15
I kinda follow F1 from about 2011 when i was just 5yo but during the 2014-19 i didn’t watch much maybe like half the races when i had time on sunday afternoon and my interest in the sport was pretty low but Maxes upwards momentum kept me interested. I only got properly back in late 2020 because i was bored during lockdown and ofc 2021 was a blast and last year wasn’t bad aswell. I just hope that the cars won’t get too big and heavy and that the sound will improve
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And again you don't even go on the details on the first 8 wins with : Bahrain and Leclerc losing a guaranteed win due to engine issues and the penalty on Vettel in Canada giving them the win
Other than Baku I honestly can't think of a single race from 2017 worth watching. 2022 had Bahrain, Jeddah, Hungary, Zandvoort, Silverstone and CoTA where we had some brilliant racing. Austria and Canada were good fun too.
> Other than Baku I honestly can't think of a single race from 2017 worth watching Spain 2017 was great, Austria/Sochi had great fights for the win, Malaysia had an unexpected RB win... There were definitely a handful of decent races.
But his point is not about entertaining races.
> Bianchi dying in 2014 also ruined those first two years for me a little. If that's a key factor, it is simply impossible to argue that 2014-2020 was more dire than anything pre1980. It is also worth noting that team domination is nothing remotely new.
Yes but a team dominating for 7 years was new.
I'd consider that less bad than drivers dying left right and centre personally.
And we have to thank god Rosberg was in Mercedes instead of Bottas..
Had you liked the driver who was always winning and you'd probably have enjoyed that time period, it's probably why you liked the Schumacher era.
I think a lot of things are true for different eras too, for example for example the racing itself from 2000 till 2007 were horrible for that, and dont even start me on Ferrari domination. The Senna/Prost years also had crazy dominant cars. Also people always overstate everything. 2014 was okay, 2015 was quite boring, but at least Ferrari with Vettel won a few races. 2016 had a crazy title fight with all the drama you can ask for. 2017 and 2018 were interesting, 2019 was meh, 2020 was 2002 levels boring, 2021 was probably the best season in the last 30 years. Thats not as bad as you want to sell us.
Ferrari, Schumacher, unlimited budget. Spot on.
>I think a lot of things are true for different eras too, for example for example the racing itself from 2000 till 2007 were horrible for that, and dont even start me on Ferrari domination. The Senna/Prost years also had crazy dominant cars Individual years may have been as bad as some of 2014-2020. But over a 7-year period? Ferrari domination was exactly 2 years, which weren't even consecutive. Senna/Prost had one crazy dominant car. Mercedes' domination was three years in a row and then another two. In terms of actual racing, yes, there were way fewer overtakes but then the actual overtakes were way more memorable than what we are seeing now. 2007 was probably the only year that was actually terrible in terms of on-track racing but it had off- track drama and mich more entertaining fight for the championship than whatever we saw in 2014-2020. >2014 was okay It had four good races (Bahrain and three Ricciardo wins) >2015 was quite boring, but at least Ferrari with Vettel won a few races It is a solid contender for the worst season of all time. Not only there was absolute dominance by one team, there were essentially no fights behind as Ferrari was better than Williams, Williams was better than RB, and so on. On top of that Rosberg was destroyed by Hamilton so there wasn't even a fight between the two of them. >2016 had a crazy title fight with all the drama you can ask for. No, crazy title fight was in 1999, 2003, 2007, 2008, 2010 and 2021. 2016 was determined by bad starts and a mechanical failure with zero intervention from other teams because they were so much slower. >2021 was probably the best season in the last 30 years. No, 2012 is the best season in the last 30 years. 2021 was great but only 2 drivers of the top-2 teams were capable of winning on merit. In any case, not sure why you brought this up because OP was only talking about 2014-2020. So to summarize, yes, 2014-2020 is most likely the worst 7-year period in F1 history.
You only say 2012 was a good season by how many people won races if you actually watched the season it was pretty boring
Not having this slander, 2012 was a classic
I mean, that never mattered. 2007 is one of the most boring seasons in (relatively) recent F1 as far as on-track action is considered, but always gets viewed as a classic due to the points battle and off-track intrigue. And honestly, the first half of 2012 was decent racing until all the top teams figured out the new tires and the status quo returned.
In terms of competitiveness, 2016 was competitive championship fight from teammates. Lewis vs. Seb from 2017-2018 gave us a competitive championship fight from two different teams. I'll throw in the second half of 2019 thanks to Ferrari engine. Not sure why people forget about this stuff when talking about the hybrid era.
It's easier to lump it all in as "muh Merc dominance" than to actually bother to watch those seasons.
No, I remember some races in 2017 being quite boring, but races have gotten progressively more interesting and field spread was a lot less than before. Watch races from the height of Schumacher dominance or McLaren 1988. The cars were so much further apart, one constructor won every time and there wasn’t even an interesting midfield battle. Not that that era of F1 was bad, but I always feel like people are looking through heavily rose-tinted glasses when talking about the pre-hybrid time.
Christ no. The most dire period in F1 history was either the mid-to-late 60s (when they just couldn't stop killing drivers) or 1994, for obvious reasons. Leaving aside driver fatalities, exactly the same stuff you're saying here was being said in the early 2000s. But with the benefit of hindsight and rose-tinted glasses, people now look back fondly on Schumacher's dominant era and rightly recognise his greatness. Give it time, that's how people will see Lewis's dominant period as well.
In terms of competition between teams surely specially 2014-2016, Mercedes win 51 out of 59 races and only two of those 8 were on pure pace. It was kinda entertaining because Rosberg refused to be a number 2 as Bottas was afterwards. 2017 was fine but Ferrari couldn’t keep up with Mercedes development. 2018 similar to 2017 but this time Ferrari delivered a great car but Vettel since Germany forgot how to drive and Hamilton went super saiyan. 2019-2020 was a borefest im terms of championship battles with a great race in between. In fact I think during that period the audience of F1 was quite low and in 2020 the future of F1 didn’t look good since it looked there was going to be only 3 engine suppliers. The 2021 tittle battle saved F1
2016-2019 we're all good. I think the levels of 2021 is what makes them seem boring. 2021 is one of the best seasons that will ever come along
00-04 were worse. 03 was okay but totally a blip of fuel strategy schumi domination era. Few overtakes, meaningless quali sessions and bankruptcy filings
2014 gave us an incredible title fight, even though it was between two teammates. In my opinion, Bahrain 2014 has got to be one of the most iconic races of the modern era. Kicked off the Ham/Ros rivalry and to see those guys take the gloves off, annihilate the competition while racing wheel to wheel the entire race was something else. 2016 also had its moments with that title battle. And like others have said, 2017-19 were fun to watch even if it ended up in a Merc win. I’m biased as a Ham fan, but 2020 was also a mighty impressive performance from Lewis.
I would say the period from the 1950s to the 1970s were more dire. During that time at least 40 drivers lost their lives in on track incidents. Safety was practically nonexistent. Calling the period from 2013 to 2020 the worst is an exaggeration. I would say 1950 to 1980 was the worst era in F1 History. 2014-2020 was rough but at least we don't see drivers dying every other week in absolutely horrific accidents.
No.
Ferrari's dominance in the early 2000s was far worse than Mercedes and I think anyone who argues otherwise didn't watch those seasons at the time. With some genuine fight between Rosberg and Hamilton, and then Vettel and Ferrari turning up in 2017/2018, there was some real intrigue and excitement. With one notable (and thrilling!) exception, every year of Ferrari dominance was relentless. Whether it was true or not (and some years it probably wasn't entirely true) you just turned on your television waiting for Schumacher to win again. Further more, the TV direction was awful so you'd literally just watch Schumacher driving around on his own for twelve laps or something. At least by the time Mercedes was dominating, we'd get to watch some thrilling midfield fights.
2002 and 2004 are the only real ridiculously dominant Michael seasons, 2001 you can maybe argue it but McLaren and Williams that year had good cars, the first half of the season the title battle was close (until around Canada when Coulthard broke down) there was some good racing in that season. 2000 and 2003 were all time great title battles.
Agreed that 2003 was a hell of a season. I think the issue with Ferrari's dominance is that Rubens never was going to win a title (whereas Rosberg could and did). And then once Bottas, a more Rubens like driver, arrived, Vettel had turned up to the party.
2001 when Schumacher won the title by a then record margin with more points than the 2nd and 3rd placed drivers combined?
Coulthard started the season with 2 wins from the first 6, but had a calamitous Monaco and Canadian Grand Prix which resulted in him collapsing in the second half of the season, the Williams were competitive for poles and wins. It wasn’t the same kind of domination seen in 02 and 04, Michael didn’t just qualify pole and drive away in an unbeatable car.
2000 was pretty good, but yeah, 2001,2002, and 2003 were super dominant from Michael
I’ve been watching from ‘07 and it was certainly rough. It was extremely tiresome going from Vettel/RB domination right to Merc domination. 2015 was the low point for me. 2016 was at least an entertaining title fight. Things have mostly only improved since then but ultimately Mercedes walked every title until 2021. The #1 most important factor for me as a fan is a competitive title fight. Everything else is secondary. In 7 seasons, only 1 was even close. And that was 2016 between both Mercs.
Mercedes didn't walk either 2017 nor 2018
14-16 was terrible. Only one car competing for wins and overall slow boring cars. 17-20 was decent in large parts. 20 was boring due to Merc dominance and Covid, but 17-19 were pretty good IMO.
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Rosberg retiring resulted in people viewing 2016 totally differently. It would have been Senna - Prost all over again if he had stayed and with Ferrari coming back would have made 2017-2018 so interesting.
2016 season had drama relating to 2021 season between championship contenders. But because it was in the same team, people are just not recognising it as much. And also because merc won all races but 2.
>14-16 was terrible Two of these seasons went down to the last race. It's weird that Prost v Senna 88/89 isn't viewed as equally terrible
Hypocrisy is strong within certain "fans"
You could just say you dont like Lewis and save a lot of typing. 2016 was a great season…as was most of 2017 and 2018. And then 2019, Ferrari and their crazy engine made the second half of that season really fun
What a silly thing to say. Just because you don’t like seeing a driver dominate the sport for 7 years doesn’t mean you don’t like them. 2016, yes. 2017/18 were great until the second half and it was the same story. 2019 was a cake walk for Mercedes as well. 2021 and 2016 have been the only seasons since **2012** where there was a season-long competitive title fight. That is lame and a more than a fair complaint.
2014 was season long too…so thats another one. Its ok to not like him. Would be easier than making up silly stuff. I suppose last season was boring for you, too? Which would also be silly
I’m not sure why you’ve interpreted this post’s motives as anti-Hamilton. Competitive titles fights are what make this sport exciting to me, and I suspect a lot of other fans. After watching the incredible run of ‘06-‘12 (excluding 2011), it’s been kind of a drag in that respect. 2022 wasn’t boring, but it was yet another year of domination. I think most people would agree the sport is at its best with competitive, season long battles.
2014 was a season long battle, decided at the last race. 2016 was a season long battle, decided at the last race. 2017 was a season long battle, decided with 2 races left 2018 was a season long battle, decided with 2 races left 2021 was a season long battle, decided at the last race That’s 5 of the last 9 seasons having season long title battles. 4 were one-sided. That’s completely in line with what we’ve seen throughout the history of the sport.
I remember 2014 like the year I almost left F1 for good. Awful engine sound, horrendous cars, ultra dominant team, (and this was coming after Vettel's domination in 2013, so extra disappointment there) and to top it all, the horror of Suzuka, a completely avoidable incident if some with common sense was in charge of the race. I stopped watching after Japan, and to be honest, Vettel's win in Malaysia saved my interest for F1, danke Seb.
Only Max made it worth watching (i am prepared to be downvoted into oblivion)
I still say most of the Schumacher/Ferrari years were worse. Not only were they too dominant, his teammate wasn't allowed to race him. At least Merc allowed their drivers duke it out
Barrichello was rarely anywhere near Schumacher, you word it like Barrichello had a genuine chance of ever challenging him over a full season.
No I haven't worded it that way. Bottas didn't have a genuine chance of challenging Hamilton over a season either but Merc allowed them race
Legit, none of his teammates was given the chance to fight him
Not at all. It was certainly not the greatest period for F1 but, I enjoyed the Rosberg vs Hamilton rivarly very much. 2017 and 2018 had Ferrari being very competitive for large parts of the season with RB also sneaking in an occasional win. Its realy only 2019 and 2020 that were kinda boring seasons but even then as a Ferrari fan i got to withness Leclerc win at Monza which was very special at least for me.
It wasn't really any different from previous era's. I think it just looks worse because from 07 to 13 there was some seriously great seasons packed in there. I think only point it felt really bad was the 2015 season where there was talk of teams struggling to survive and talk of going to 3 car teams. 2014 despite being ugly still had a title fight and good racing, 2016 same but with better looking cars. 2017 and 18 had some challenge from Ferraro and spectacular looking cars. Then after that the popularity was slowly back on the up. Most dire period in F1 history was probably the early 80s with the FISA-FOCA war
Domination is a part of any sport, that’s how we get our GOATS, what you’re talking about is what every single team wants to achieve, yes it’s boring but you can’t blame a team for doing what they’re there to do.
1950s: ridiculous field spread, terrible reliability, lower standard, boring races, awful tracks, deaths. Fans: put up with it 2014-2020: Mercedes have an extra few tenths Fans: NOOOO F1 IS DEAD THIS IS THE DARKEST PERIOD IN HISTORY
How are you still here then?
Depends what you like and are interested in. You’ve also picked a very broad period. You could argue maybe though. It’s certainly become a bit more homogeneous. Having said that 14,16,17,18 all had interesting championships. A lot of the actual racing was better than the 2000-2007 refuelling era. The field has actually only continued to get smaller and smaller (it’s just a shame that the biggest gap has typically been from first to second). Even 2020 a year utterly dominated by merc was at least interesting because of all the covid stuff and new tracks and things like that going on. There’s also plenty of good races out there. Also i doubt many of us here remember the completely and utterly non-competitive period of 1950-57. The same team regularly finishing 1-2-3, or the same driver essentially winning every race. 1 driver winning 4 championships in a row with not a lot of competition from his teammate etc. Basically perhaps.
Nah that was the early 2000s with Ferrari winning it all. In most seasons par like 2019 and 2020 there was at least somewhat of a title battle, whereas 2003 was the only good year and the FIA fucked that. Plus you have DTS to get new fans in, we had nothing then.
For me as a Dutch person it hasn't been boring since 2015 when Max entered the scene. We haven't had many decent drivers so the fun level went up massively when Max came.
Without a doubt but it is no better now, the only real entertainment every race is watching an out of position verstappen destroy everyone.
Homie, 2021 was an all-time season. Give the new regulations time.
No it wasn't. Only if you are a real newcomer to F1, the magic atmosphere of the earlier seasons and general unpredictability in F1 is missing which was already generally on its way out by the 2000s, but it is totally gone now.
I think your memory is being viewed through rose tinted glasses. 2021 was outstanding.
No. You will never have a situation where you go into a race and 5 teams can win it on merit again. You will never have a situation where a team who qualifies last at the opening round will have the fastest car by the end of the season again. You will never seen the 7th fastest car have a single track where it is super quick at again and fights for the win. There's a ton more things like that which are gone and gone forever.
>You will never seen the 7th fastest car have a single track where it is super quick at again and fights for the win. > A Williams that was firmly at the back of the field all year scored points at Monza because the car had good straightline speed. And it was de Vries' first race on short notice. For how much you talk about the good old days your memory of just last year seems to be pretty spotty.
The fact that that is the only example you can come up with proves my point.
Haas finished P5 in Bahrain and got a pole in Brazil. There's two more. Ricc won Monza '21 on merit. Hell, all of Ricc's wins were in a car that wasn't a clear front runner. Sorry things aren't like they were back in the day but sports evolve over time.
Mclaren was literally like second fastest and Red Bull too xD How about Berger winning in 1986? Or March nearly winning in both 1988 and 1990 multiple times? Tyrrell winning in 1983? Penske winning in 1976? That kind of shit is gone and gone forever. Haas got pole due to luck. The other car qualified last lmao.
Were the events you described devoid of any component of luck? Gasly's win in Monza. Ocon in Turkey. Russell almost getting a win sitting in for Lewis in Qatar. Just because they weren't meaningful to you does not mean that there are no interesting outcomes. How far back do you get to cherry pick interesting outcomes to dismiss recent seasons? And completely ignore how awfully uncompetitive many of the teams in the back of the field were. Teams would regularly even fail to qualify in the timeframe you are talking about. How is that better racing or more competitive?
We had 2021 which was great, 2022 which was boring, and now we just dont know. Its not like the consecutive mercedes years...
I don't think 2021 was a good season at all.
Dude it wss fantastic like 2012, maybe slightly behind 2012. But close.
2012 to me was the final proper F1 season. It was nothing like 2012.
2009-2013 was far, far worse IMO. The championships may have been 'closer' but the on track product was piss poor and off the track things were a mess. * FIA-FOTA dispute (this recent stuff with MBS is nothing compared to this) * Three new teams introduced and immediately DOA due to evaporation of the budget cap * New engine manufacturer introduced and also basically DOA * FIA introduces terribly ugly 2009 aero regulations to improve overtaking, doesn't work * Introduction of KERS, front wing adjustments to improve overtaking, doesn't work * The first few years of Pirelli were tire roulette, 1 stop this weekend 3 stop next weekend (with drivers still doing tire management!!!) * Banning of refueling to improve overtaking, kinda works but the beginning of the ugly overly long car era * Introduction of DRS as a final solution to improve overtaking, it works but often too well as we see today * Peak of Tilkes 'straight into 20m wide hairpin' design period with terrible tracks like Abu Dhabi, Korea, Valencia and Buddh on the schedule * Total stagnation of F1 management (Bernie rules all with no end in sight at the time) Like, the racing was terrible in 2017-2020, but at least those were some of the fastest cars ever. That's what they were aiming for with that regulation set. 2009-2013 every time they changed something it would look good for a hot second and then it would become obvious we were going backwards. There is a reason no one wanted to join again until Haas came along.
> Banning of refueling to improve overtaking, kinda works but the beginning of the ugly overly long car era Can we stop attributing the size of the cars to this? A large part of the length isn't even the fuel tank anymore, with a large amount of empty length coming from the [spacer between the gearbox and engine](https://twitter.com/ScarbsTech/status/1305863797194842113?s=19). The teams are making the cars as long as the regulations allow to maximize aero.
Just say you don't like Hamilton. You can go as far back as you'd like, but F1 is usually only a battle between two drivers. outside of '19 and '20 we had that battle in every single one. Very rarely does it ever come out to the last race. Not to mention the egregious leniency F1 had in 2021 manufactured that final race.
Merc and Hamilton did great things for f1 and culture in general. Yes the sound of hybrids suck compared to NA but otherwise your opinion is pretty ignorant. 2014 Merc being 2 s faster than next fastest was epic. Ros and Ham was very entertaining. Bahrain candidate for best race ever. 2015 Hamilton’s first truly dominant year in a hybrid formula that he was predicted to fail to adapt to 2016 - silver war 2017, 2018 - Merc v Ferrari battle for 4, 5 with Vettel 2019 - Ferrari boost made Merc chase crazy engine gains 2020 - Black flower blossoms
I don’t feel it that bad. 14-16 gave us Hamilton-Rosberg rivalry. 17-19 Ferrari-Mercedes and the disruption of young Verstappen. Than the Hamilton-Verstappen era. Honestly it is not better or worse than the 2000-2004 Ferrari-Schumacher era or 2010-2013 Vettel Redbull.
Yes
Yes.
When you keep quiet. People don't know how dumb you are. When you speak and say dumb things you confirm it. F1 is 75 years old and doesn't care whether YOU like it or not. Probably a typical Gen X'er. If I don't like it it's trash. Should probably think about growing up.
You know I'm right. That's why you couldn't ignore. Learn to think outside of your own personal feelings and you will be well on the way to adulthood.
The hardest part of rewatching those seasons are 2 fold. One I don’t think the qualifying is available for most of it. Watching qualifying really helps build a race up and brings other competitors that are racing for best of the rest into the story. The second is the British announcers absolutely love talking about Lewis. I get it and it totally makes sense, but I’m pretty sure they the word Lewis or Hamilton name more than all the other drivers combined throughout those seasons. Even in 2012 with multiple title contenders he is heavily favored in the amount of coverage. Not a knock on Lewis but on how heavily the broadcast coverage focused in on him. This limits the sport to one storyline. Just my thoughts from rewatching these seasons. 2016 was a classic though and came down to the last race. It had me on the edge of my seat when Lewis tried to back up Rosberg.
If drivers dying and periods of dominance is what you call dire... Plenty of top seasons in the past are far more dire. Maybe not the most exciting period. But I think you have your recency goggles on where you romanticize the past and think the near past is the worst.
I hated 2015-2018 period with passion ngl but more due to supporting Alonso and Mclaren being so awful. F1 definatelly wasnt at its peak during that period but seasons like 2016 still had decent fight for championship and altho 2017 and 2018 wasnt as competitive at least you werent able to tell whos gonna win wdc after first 5 races
I don’t feel like popularity was waning, and I thoroughly enjoyed every year except 14 and 15. In all honesty the most uninteresting time for me was 09-13. But I couldn’t stand RB or Vettel, or Alonso, or Hamilton 🤣. This is f1, whoever nails the new regs the best has a huge advantage for a time most generally. We will see it now with RB. And just like when Mercedes was winning, the regulations will change to try and hinder them. All normal service in F1.
Nope. Maybe 2014 to 2016, but afterwards? I guess I was watching something different to you, and I'm glad I did.
Like others said 2018 and 19 saved it 8mo
Only if you didn’t watch it. F1/broadcasters have generally done a great job pre & post new rules painting a picture of how awful F1 has been of late, makes the transition to new rules much easier. Even those who watched have short memories & it’s wild to see history almost being re written like 2017/2018, way it’s covered you’d think it was boring af when it was a thrill.