F1 is Going Through Crisis 

Formula 1 is going through a crisis and the upcoming silly season is crucial to engagement in the sport. The dominance of Red Bull and more specifically Max Verstappen just isn’t fun to watch.

The Drive to Survive series is too dramatized and no longer encapsulates the sport as it did in the first place. F1 just isn’t a sport where it has the factor of unknown and we are seeing a period of predictability and less competitiveness.

F1 Red Bull Dominance

First, I want to talk about the damaging effect that Red Bull dominance is having on the sport. I would like to clarify that this is not Red Bull’s fault. They have many incredible people in that team that make them so good. Despite this, the sport is too predictable and has little to no competitiveness between teams to win races.

Since Max Verstappen won his first world title, we have seen nothing remotely like the title challenge we saw. It has simply been Max and Red Bull winning. Great for Red Bull, but awful for the sport. As we saw with Mercedes’s dominance with Hamilton, there is a sense of animosity that grows towards teams and drivers because they make it boring to watch.

This is not their fault; they are simply good at their jobs. Now we see spectators and fans of the sport disliking Verstappen, not because of himself as a person but because of himself as a driver. This is creating a toxic environment within the sport which is not conducive to good viewing. 

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The Red Bull dominance is highlighting the disparity within the sport which is leading to boring races. The sport consists mostly of casual fans and unlike football, it is hard to “support a team”. There just simply isn’t that comparison.

This means that casual viewers are subject to copy and paste like races where Verstappen goes off into the distance with Perez trying to stay behind. For a more “caring” viewer, the midfield battles are something of interest, but yet again it is not exacly wheel-to-wheel action for more than a few laps a race.

This is not helped by TV crews who must cover the whole grid, which is so far apart it is difficult for a casual viewer to piece together what is happening. While I have mentioned the sport from a casual viewer standpoint, this isn’t a huge pressing matter in the grand scheme of things. 

My argument more lies with the lack of actual racing. Red Bull just must finish the race to win, while teams fighting for 2nd, 3rd and 4th are usually a few seconds apart. Thus, relying on pit stops and tyre degradation rather than overtaking.

This has been a large criticism of tracks like Monaco, except this style of racing is becoming increasingly common due to the disparity in the quality of teams and the equipment they have. I am by no means suggesting they follow an F2 style.

Teams creating their cars is great, that is what F1 is about, but at what point does the sport of competitiveness turn into a one-team sport?

Other Teams

Teams like Haas are not helping, with their lack of funding and falling further down the grid. It is just another team which is part of this decline in actual racing. Teams like Alpine this season have produced the worst car in their history.

How is it possible to allow teams to get so bad that they are willing just to accept the fact they are going to be poor and just go again next season?

I get it’s easier said than done, but surely the teams must know that the car is not acceptable, nor is it contributing to a sport which was going through a period of growth to know which seems like an anti-climax. 

Money

Moving on, I would like to highlight the money side of the sport. Teams like Aston Martin who facilitate pay to drive drivers should have a level of penalty against them. Obviously, pay to drive drivers can help a team operate like Williams with Lance Stroll and Haas with Nikita Mazepin.

But teams like Aston Martin who let Lance Stroll continue to race, solely due to his father funding in the team are not good for the sport. It’s like the owner of a football club letting their child manage or play for the team despite not being up to standard. Lance Stroll is a race car driver, yes. He is good at racing, yes. But should he be an F1 driver, no. Drivers like Lance Stroll do give the sport a bad name in the form of a money sport.

A very much pay-to-win kind of environment. Aston Martin has a good car and a good set-up. Fernando Alonso performs very well in that team and rightly so. But should Aston Martin not be owned by Lawrence Stroll; it would not pick Lance Stroll as a driver. 

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The sport is allowing itself to become a money sport and thus becoming very money orientated rather than being just a sport. This is facilitating crisis. 

What is F1 without actual fans? Fake? Boring? Unengaging? We see the grid walks and all we see most of the time are clueless celebrities who don’t give a dam about the sport but rather the glitz and glam of it.

I must agree that glitz and glam of F1 do benefit it in many ways like in Monaco or Vegas. However, this element of glitz and glam is hiking up ticket prices to a level where the sport is becoming inaccessible to genuine fans. 

F1 Tracks

We have seen this repeatedly, most recently in Las Vegas. The ticket prices were extortionate. The sport became a show and nothing more. The attention was brought away from racing and just made into a tourist trap. It’s in the DNA of the sport to have people clambering to see the cars go past.

Finding places to watch it, whether that be up a mountain in Austria or Belgium or a little gap in the fence in Italy. In Las Vegas, we saw bridges built to block the view of the track, windows covered and bodyguards making sure that anyone that didn’t have a ticket couldn’t see anything.

I get that if you pay for a ticket then you don’t want people just watching for free. That is fair enough. But when you start charging people for tickets that are the prices of new cars, the sport has to look at itself.

The track in Mami, was it built to make a new racetrack in America or was it built as part of a show around an NFL stadium?  

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The new tracks in Saudi Arabia are a move made for money, as is the one in Qatar. The sport advocates for human rights and LGBT rights yet moves into countries that do not hold the same views. I know the sport is expanding its horizons and to get to more spectators. However, it does very much feel like a money-orientated move. 

The calendar is too long now, and some races like Qatar, Las Vegas and Maimi don’t need to be on it. Especially at a time when the same person is winning every race. 

The sport needs to better regulate its ticket prices to ensure that real fans can go and watch races.

Silly Season

The silly season that is highly likely will reinvigorate the sport to both casual spectators and fans. The move of Hamilton has sparked rumours across the grid. With one of the big seats available, it is going to require a particularly good driver to fill it. Hamilton is also replacing another heavyweight in the sport Sainz. It is unlikely that Sainz would go to Mercedes.

If Mercedes were to go for Alonso this would generate a lot of hype already for the next season. To go further, if Perez gets dropped, an immensely popular replacement for Riccardo would again draw fans and casual viewers straight back. Blocks are sliding into place to potentially make the sport more exciting from a driver’s standpoint.  

Image Credit: Red Bull Content Pool