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This year we had a 2.4s difference between first and last in Q1.
We had a roughly 4s difference in fastest laps and everyone that finished were on the lead lap. The retirements were mainly due to crashes.
If you read it that way it does not read much different to 1977. The difference is two things: the overall grid is much more competitive than it was 10, 20, 30 40 or 50 years ago. During those time the wins by "small" teams were outliers as they are today, most of the time caused by the more frequent retirements of the faster cars.
The cars are almost bulletproof, thanks to the regulations and quality control. It will not happen as often that fast cars break down and this mixing up the grid and the results.
The old times look nice, feel nice in memory but were not better.
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