[Official] Rate the race: Italian Grand Prix

[Aysedasi]

Very.



(High, that is).

[MarkG]

I give the race a 5 for some of the interesting moments.

I also am tiring of F1 "racing", especially since watching more Superbike and MotoGp bikes. I haven't tired of F1 cars themselves, and would happily watch them all day testing etc (not on tv), but to watch them racing on TV is a bit of a bore really. Having said that, I know I will still keep watching them, but maybe, nowadays, not so bothered if I missed one.
It would be exciting if every race was wet/slippery conditions, or if aero performance was cut to less than a tenth of current, but neither of these things will happen. Can't see racing improving while aero is king.
I get having some aero to stop cars lifting when at high speeds over humps etc, and maybe good aero for sprinting, but not car racing.
I doubt that road-car manufacturers are chomping at the bit to waste billions on making family cars with masses of downforce.

[Danny27]

5. Boring

[Bononi]

Originally Posted by Mekola

7. Quite high? Hamilton did great entertaining.

Maybe if it wasn't so TGFish...

[Lancsbreaker]

I really do wonder why some of you guys bother either watching (or of course in some cases not watching, but still *****ing about something you haven't watched?) and then commenting on something you plainly don't like.....the race I watched, whilst dominated by Vettel, of whom we saw little, included quite a lot of overtaking moves, successful and otherwise, and some hard-charging throughout the field, not least from Kimi and Lewis after being disadvantaged for accident and puncture reasons.....

I'm just not sure what you moaners actually want F1 to produce?

[AngusJ]

Originally Posted by Lancsbreaker

I'm just not sure what you moaners actually want F1 to produce?

An on-track lead change more than twice a season

[Teretonga]

Originally Posted by Marbot

I'm a little puzzled by your post. I've seen way more boring racing at Monza pre-BCE. The best car and driver won, which is what usually happened pre-BCE. The race was actually quite closely fought, which hardly ever happened pre-BCE. To be complaining now about what is happening post-BCE seems to be leaving it rather late with regard to this being your last GP?

Oh, err....7 for me.

Shout out for the stupid people who 'boo' at F1 races.

I'm with Marbot. Not brilliant but much better and more interesting than Spa. The producers helped by making the racing battles 2-12th the focus and basically ignored Vettel till the last couple of laps. Hamilton, Kimi, Hulkenberg, Alonso-Webber, Rosberg, Button, Perez, Grosjean et al provided some interest and between them got the bulk of the coverage.
I gave it 7 before I read anyone's posts so I still think I am right.

However if I was an advertiser I would be gravely concerned about the general tone of the posts..... If the sport over the year has been that bad something is very, very, wrong and without a major injection of competition interest it is not worth watching let alone worth putting $30-$40 million into. Who would want to do that.......

[wnut]

Originally Posted by Teretonga

I'm with Marbot. Not brilliant but much better and more interesting than Spa. The producers helped by making the racing battles 2-12th the focus and basically ignored Vettel till the last couple of laps. Hamilton, Kimi, Hulkenberg, Alonso-Webber, Rosberg, Button, Perez, Grosjean et al provided some interest and between them got the bulk of the coverage.
I gave it 7 before I read anyone's posts so I still think I am right.

However if I was an advertiser I would be gravely concerned about the general tone of the posts..... If the sport over the year has been that bad something is very, very, wrong and without a major injection of competition interest it is not worth watching let alone worth putting $30-$40 million into. Who would want to do that.......

I quite enjoyed it, 6 for me!

Enjoy seeing the cars go full chat, and some really fast corners!
Some good dices down the pack!

Vettel was pretty good, still opening a quick three seconds in 2 laps despite a flat spot!

[Beetle]

After seeing the results of the race and the poll quite frankly I could care less to watch the race. If it's another "Vettel charging away into the distance snoozefest" it's not my cup of tea. I'll tune in for Singapore just because it's one of my favorite events of the year but otherwise... I'm not sure.

[Greem]

Right, I'm going to get on my soapbox for a minute...

Stop it. Stop whinging. Even better, stop whinging *about the whinging*.

Currently, one team have superb management & a brilliant designer; they have superb facilities; they have a lot of money; they have a fabulous driver (like him or not) who applies himself to the job at hand with a passion and a commitment that other drivers lack.

Consequently, they are wiping the floor with everyone else's efforts. This isn't the first time it's happened.

Sound familiar? Horner & co/Brawn & co, Newey/Byrne, Milton Keynes/Maranello, Red Bull/Marlboro, Vettel/Schumacher.

And there have been others who haven't quite reached the pinnacle of dominance, but you could put McLaren, Williams & Benetton up there as well - the perfect car for the regs with the perfect driver, at points.

Sure, there's a "dark side" to Vettel - he appears petulant sometimes, but he doesn't deliberately drive into people, nor is he (at least outwardly) campaigning to the FIA about certain drivers or cars.

As much as the races can appear to be boring because one car romps off and stays out front, there's loads of stuff going on further back down the grid - and if you call yourself an F1 fan (rather than simply a fan of one team or driver) then that should be enough to keep your attention going throughout a season.

People are already looking back with rose-tinted specs at the Schumacher years (at least, the successful ones) despite spending 3 of the 5 sequential years moaning like crazy about Ferrari winning everything. Hell, we collectively look back at Senna's 1988 WDC season where McLaren totally dominated (15 of 16 race wins!) and get all misty-eyed about it, yet Senna - although a sublime driver - was willing to do practically anything to get his way. The difference between this period and that one was that he was in a team which allows its drivers to *race each other*.

That last point is the hinge to this period: Vettel, like Schumacher before him, is dominating because his own team appear to be manipulating things internally to make that happen. It suits their image, it suits their marketing, and Mateschitz must be laughing his head off.

To paraphrase: stop moaning. This is, believe it or not, a golden age of F1 for a lot of people. All the other teams have to catch RBR.

It's that simple.

[steve_r]

7. I don't get the negativity. It was a good race down in the field. Shame that Vettel had no-one to race against though.

[Moneyseeker]

Originally Posted by Teretonga

I'm with Marbot. Not brilliant but much better and more interesting than Spa. The producers helped by making the racing battles 2-12th the focus and basically ignored Vettel till the last couple of laps. Hamilton, Kimi, Hulkenberg, Alonso-Webber, Rosberg, Button, Perez, Grosjean et al provided some interest and between them got the bulk of the coverage.
I gave it 7 before I read anyone's posts so I still think I am right.

However if I was an advertiser I would be gravely concerned about the general tone of the posts..... If the sport over the year has been that bad something is very, very, wrong and without a major injection of competition interest it is not worth watching let alone worth putting $30-$40 million into. Who would want to do that.......

Take all the connected/self sponsored deals off the cars and see what's left and there's your answer...

The global brands are not looking at F1, it's USP as a platform for global reach has been taken by other sports and dare I say the internet, you can launch a brand worldwide at the press of a button you don't need an F1 car tearing around a track to do it any more.

On top of this, the 'young' viewers that most brands are interested in reaching, won't sit through 2 hours of a Grand Prix (in large numbers) and F1 hasn't really bought into new media significantly enough.

[Razzzor]

While everyone calls it boring, there were 15 cars still on the lead lap and the entire top 6 were within 10 seconds at the end.

That would have been a dream race in the 80s or particularly 90s when normally there would often be less 6 drivers on the lead lap at the end.

Halfway through the race and Vettel only had a 5 second lead. It was close'ish, even though they weren't swapping the lead back and forth. That's the nature of motorsports when the fastest driver leads into the first corner.

[paddy]

One man domination of the sport is never interesting. The Schumacher years turned a lot of people off and Vettel will do the same. It's more of a recent thing ( last 15 years) caused by the incredible improvement in reliability and race tracks that don't punish mistakes. Jim Clark would have done the same in the sixties if his car had broken regularly. It's made worse if people don't find the driver involved engaging as a personality. Of course Red Bull do a great job and Newey is the best at what he does, but it does tend to make Sunday afternoons predictable and always leaves questions as to how good the driver actually is. Put Hamilton and Alonso in the Red Bull with Webber as team mate and they'd be doing the same thing I expect. We can only hope that next year's regs shake things up a bit.

[steve_r]

Yes, Vettel is dominating. zzzzzzzzzzzz. But there are 21 other cars out there producing some good racing, unlike in the late 90s when Schumacher dominated, and it was follow the leader, or if we were lucky a pass in the pits.

[Aysedasi]

It's a discussion topic. It was a dull race. I consider myself entitled to whinge.

[nicanary]

Originally Posted by Lancsbreaker

I really do wonder why some of you guys bother either watching (or of course in some cases not watching, but still *****ing about something you haven't watched?) and then commenting on something you plainly don't like.....the race I watched, whilst dominated by Vettel, of whom we saw little, included quite a lot of overtaking moves, successful and otherwise, and some hard-charging throughout the field, not least from Kimi and Lewis after being disadvantaged for accident and puncture reasons.....

I'm just not sure what you moaners actually want F1 to produce?

You're right. F1 today is what happens when gifted designers and engineers take the rules to the limit, and produce the ultimate racing car. They're visually boring.

I had a moan earlier in the thread about F1 in general, and the way it has evolved in the BCE/CVC era. But there's nothing wrong with the cars and drivers - they're simply too good now. Nobody spins off and dies. Sorry for that ghoulish remark, but as most folks on this forum know, racing was often boring in days gone by, but interest for the spectator and viewer was maintained by the fact that it was dangerous, and the cars unreliable.

F1 today just churns out the result everyone expects anyway. It's predictable. The problem is, if we take away the acme of technology, we're defeating one of the purposes of GP racing, and returning to the dinosaur age. It's not just entertainment, it's also a showcase for engineers to shine. Vicious circle.

And, if F1 was forced to backtrack, so would all the other formulae. Chaos.

[stripedcat]

I gave it a 6. Perhaps not the most exciting race of the season, but it was better than the last race at Spa. I was hoping for rain, but it never came.

Once I saw that Vettel had got into the first chicane(only just and with he locked up his wheels), I was expecting it to be a bit of a snoozefest. He just knows how to push and get a gap to keep him safe. However, there was an intriguing sight of a red car behind him - and it wasn't Alonso. The battles down the field were quite interesting(Alonso on Webber was probably the bravest and best, Kimi and Lewis' late charges). There was something to salvage from the race.

[MagnetON]

3. GP2 and GP3 races were much better!

[FAS33]

Originally Posted by paddy

Put Hamilton and Alonso in the Red Bull with Webber as team mate and they'd be doing the same thing I expect.

well aren't we glad that Hamilton and Alonso aren't driving for RedBull then..

[bjohnsonsmith]

Originally Posted by paddy

One man domination of the sport is never interesting. The Schumacher years turned a lot of people off and Vettel will do the same. It's more of a recent thing ( last 15 years) caused by the incredible improvement in reliability and race tracks that don't punish mistakes. Jim Clark would have done the same in the sixties if his car had broken regularly. It's made worse if people don't find the driver involved engaging as a personality. Of course Red Bull do a great job and Newey is the best at what he does, but it does tend to make Sunday afternoons predictable and always leaves questions as to how good the driver actually is. Put Hamilton and Alonso in the Red Bull with Webber as team mate and they'd be doing the same thing I expect. We can only hope that next year's regs shake things up a bit.

I have to agree with that. I stopped watching and following F1 especially after the nonsense at the 2002 Austrian GP. I only got back into it while watching Monaco in 2005.

That's what I'm hoping for too, that the changes in the regs will produce a less predictable season.

[Aysedasi]

I agree too. Stupid though it sounds, the incredible reliability of cars these days means that full chat lights to flag victories are commonplace now, especially if you have a Red Bull. It seems daft to complain about vastly improved reliability but how many engine failures to we see in a season now?

[ECW Dan Selby]

Originally Posted by Lancsbreaker

I really do wonder why some of you guys bother either watching (or of course in some cases not watching, but still *****ing about something you haven't watched?) and then commenting on something you plainly don't like.....the race I watched, whilst dominated by Vettel, of whom we saw little, included quite a lot of overtaking moves, successful and otherwise, and some hard-charging throughout the field, not least from Kimi and Lewis after being disadvantaged for accident and puncture reasons.....

I'm just not sure what you moaners actually want F1 to produce?

What we had before they changed the tyres, mate.

Also, bin the DRS. I've been fair, waited, and I still haven't converted.

Selby

[jsTrecu]

Just re-watched the race, it seemed far more entertaining Sunday while under the effects of alcohol

4... Worse than Spa in my opinion.

[Beetle]

A generous 3.