Can't find the actual statistics anywhere on the web, but on the figures shown on the BBC footage during the race Vettel seemed to consistently have used more fuel than any other driver.

 

I'm with Heinz and MB; the race was dull.

And importantly the majority of the people would appear to be dull too.

Adrian Newey may well be a genius apropos race car design, but I wouldn't want to spend much more the 10 minutes in his company, or operate machinery after a conversation with him. He really ought to consider another career reading for audio books; Amazon would have instant worldwide bestsellers for insomniacs.

It's often been suggested F1 is now little more than a 'pantomime' and given Horner's alleged new 'friend', this observation is truer than ever; Ginger Spice has always had the look of an unattractive pantomime dame about her...

 

....and Massa is an eco-warrior - he only used 88% of his fuel over the race distance!

I am struggling a bit with this latest iteration of F1, but have a great deal of sympathy with Dembo's view. There have always been dull F1 races (I have watched pretty much every televised race for the last 30 years...I tremble to think how many months of my life that equates too!)

There have always been better series than F1 for pure racing - BTCC will always give more overtaking and panel bashing. F1 has always been more cerebral (or dull, depending on your view), with much longer races and strategy more to the fore.

If you go down the path of trying to make sport exciting all the time, by definition you end up with something which isn't all that exciting most of the time. The Americans are notorious for looking for instant and continuous gratification, hence they end up with high scoring sports like mens-netball and rounders.

 

Yeah I was forced to watch it

The point is Dembo, we live in hope this year that the rule changes would have created some interest. We live in hope that each year the rule changes make for more close racing. The last time I found F1 exciting was when Button won the championship. That was exciting.

If you're happy watching a procession then fair enough, but that's not racing.

Your point about it always being about tyres and fuel is true, but the fact is there used to be racing.

I will continue to watch for a bit, again in hope that one of the better circuits makes it more interesting, or that McLaren come good.

But it's a far cry from Moto GP or BTCC, and getting worse.

 

"entirely imagined fantasy past"
Really?
I am old enough to have witnessed F1 in the day when close racing was the norm.It is not imagined, I saw it with my own eyes.
I can understand your irritation at my criticism because I do not see it like you do, but please, imagined fantasy past indeed!
Like others, I watch in the hope that things will get better, but when you have drivers instructed to drop back it makes a mockery of racing.
Each to his own, you find these races interesting , others find them boring and I still maintain that technology has superseded racing in F1.

 

V8 supercars is far more fun these days.

 

I can't believe they'll give double points for the last race of the championship, they are clearly not expecting a closely fought season. But then look at the BTCC - if you win a race you get weights put in your car for being too good

 

By definition sport is about entertainment; intrinsically there must be some degree of amusement and enjoyment. I am obtaining very little of either from the first two F1 races thus far.

And I suspect most spectators would consider excitement as playing a part in the enjoyment of sport (then again, people unbelievably watch curling...). If anyone is able to point to any small element of real excitement thus far in this, or the previous F1 season, I would welcome viewing it.

As for being cerebral, there are certainly tall-foreheads aplenty in F1, increasingly as a result of the rules and construction regulations. Ironically the rules and regulations have in part been developed to increase the excitement of F1 and are what propagate the the greater influence of the 'brains' - alas at the expense of those with instinct and emotion. And that IMHO is what is responsible for the diminishing entertainment of the 'sport'.

I am a technophile and I applaud the previous inventiveness/craziness of Williams active suspension, Tyrell 6 wheel car, Alfa fan-car, 12 cylinder engines, Desmodromic valves, electric valves, beryllium pistons, active aero. How amusing is it that the cutting-edge technology in current F1 is developed from road-car based technology first seen in '90's Toyota and Honda hybrids...

And there is something quite saddening when Pirelli, a world-class tyre manufacturer, 'develop' tyres with traits specifically to under-perform in a technology-led sport.

 

I miss the lack of innovation. Too many solutions to artificial problems. The engines this year for instance all sound very clever and promising for road car development, but with such a strict criteria where's the opportunity for something radical the will revolutionise the automotive power unit?

Same with tyres. If they want to limit grip and life span, while also working towards increased efficiency, shrink them. What's the point in such wide monster looking tyres purposely engineered to be weak?

Make them skinny if corner speeds are a concern and let the tyre manufacturers duke it out with development which might have some use in a road car.

 

Malaysia was dull, but Australia was only 2 weeks ago and there was lots of racing there. Nobody could match Rosberg, but at least there was a race for second and Bottas was great to watch. At the end of the day the qualifying system puts the fastest car and driver first, so if you think it's going to be like the much more artificial racing of BTCC then you're mistaken.

The rule changes have at least stopped Vettel winning every week, which was the main reason people were turning off last year. I've watched lots of boring processions, mainly in the Schumacher years - you know, in the past, where things were apparently great.