Why do you watch?

[flatlandsman]

This is not meant to be an attack..

It is simply means to be almost a survey.

What is it about F1 that attracts you?

Is it driving, passing, venues, engineering, celebrities, glamour? Or is it simply habit and FOMO?

I am 50 odd and cannot recall a time when I was not even remotely interested in watching an F1 race, but the hybrid era has left me stone cold.

Is that because of domination? Yes partly, is it the sound, for sure, the cars are unappealing to look at, the tracks are too safe in some ways, the venues the series goes to are about money in most cases rather than challenge and history? It has always been expensive to watch but that seems to have gotten worse especially in the UK.

What are your reasons for still watching, are you a new fan, are you a lifer? Have you been and come back, especially if you used to watch but you love this modern era?

I find this fascinating as I have completely lost any love for F1, I still keep up to date but no longer watch races or anything, and I am interested in what it is that maintains an interest?

[Greem]

You've asked this before - on more than one occasion, if I recall - but not in a standalone thread, so... from

https://tentenths.com/forum/showthre...82#post4204513

I've been an F1 fan and latterly enthusiast since 1982. That's a lot of eras, a lot of changes, and an awful lot of laps. There's more to F1 than one race, it's a year long season, the intrigue and shenanigans never stop whether I like them or not. I can watch a single race and it could be amazing or dreadful but it's just one part of a whole - and that's a whole for me which is now in its fifth decade.

I've been a Manchester United fan for even longer - and I still am, despite them not being at the peak right now. There's more to most sports than just one match, race, or season.

Maybe I'm a glutton for punishment!

To turn the question around though - if you find F1 so diabolically bad these days, why do you persist with it? As a comparator, I find an awful lot of pop music these days a complete mystery, but I don't force myself to listen to it just so I can have a bad opinion. There's much more music out there than the big stuff, and it's the same with motorsport.

I'm not particularly enamoured with the WRC but I don't go out of my way to watch it and then tell everyone I don't like it. I just don't watch it!

[Richard C]

Probably easier to just quote my answer from the last time you asked.

Link for that answer to provide more context...

https://tentenths.com/forum/showpost...3&postcount=51

As my response was cut up a bit, the quote below may not make full sense of the context, so I tried to inject the context a bit into the info below

Originally Posted by Richard C

(context... when did you start)
I think I started watching around 1988 and pretty consistently a few years after that.

(context... why do you watch and what else do you watch)
I find it interesting that you use the very narrow "watch" vs. something broader that covers more of the overall experience.

I "follow" F1 (including watching races and qualifying, keeping up on news, participating in social media such as this site) as I enjoy the technical competition of the power unit and manufactures and the on track battles between the teams (drivers, strategists, pit crew, etc.). As to what I get out of it... it is a competition. There is always something of interest happening. I would love to see more F1 races in which there is tighter competition and more lap by lap action (such as driver battles). But... not at the expense of "helping hand" rules (see my comments about BoP below). Because to me those series are fiction. I am not here to watch fiction.

As to "watching". While I may occasionally watch something like a race or qualifying "live", I generally am watching it delayed and have no issues with fast forwarding through and skipping as needed.

What else am I watching/following? I used to follow WRC many years ago when it was much easier to watch in the US. I pretty much almost love endurance and GT racing as much as F1, but give the predominate series stopped having any real technological competition and are ruled by BoP strategy I pretty much lost nearly all interest (at the end of the semi-recent Porsche/Audi era). This may be fighting words for some people here, but for me, WEC, etc. is just one step away from theatrical wrestling.

Maybe that is a bit of a strong statement, but it illustrates how much of a priority I put upon competition that does not include "helping hands" for the purposes of entertainment. I think the fiction element of something like WEC is too much for me. If something like WEC moved back toward something that was focused on working to technical specifications and let the best team win, I would be instantly back to following it.

(context... F1 is not an open tech spec)
I get your point to a degree. F1 is a business. And the sandbox in which development is open is pretty small. But also larger than people think. As to "true innovation" what racing series today is doing that? None of the top ones for sure!

(context... F1 exists just to keep F1 employees employed and well paid)
I didn't quote this entire thing, but I just don't really get what you are saying here. People are over paid or something. I don't quite understand.

Question back at you flatlandsman... What do you think are good motorsports series that DONT have problems that you say F1 has? I have yet to find a perfect series out there.

Richard

Another question... what do you expect to get out of this that you haven't already? You admit you don't find it interesting and don't watch races, but at the same time you follow the sport. Why follow if you don't like it. I don't care for many sports so I don't keep up on what happens with them. It would just be a waste of my time.

Richard

[flatlandsman]

Forgive, I had no idea, I do not recall other members names or replies.

And in fairness I am not telling everyone not to watch it am I? Merely wondering what it is about this modern era that has made me lose interest. Yet gained a staggering amount of NEW fans, what is they see? I guess my feeling is a bit like football, I take a passing interest but feel no desire to pay and watch it, where I did in the past. I think with that moving around away from my home team and the expense are the reasons.

If you want to be tetchy about it, fair enough, that was not my intention. But no shock, it is a common theme.