Absolutely! I do think this season has been a bit more interesting than last years. The V6's need to go. But we do have 24h Le Mans very soon! I'm very excited for Porsche! They have had an excellent test session.

I don't know what race you were watching, but I saw bunches of overtaking, lead changes, crashes, and the fall of mighty, "untouchable" Mercedes. It was probably the most exciting race of the season because of the drama from early retirements (even Marussia knocking each other out was a surprise), and the absolute intensity of the final 15 laps or so. Massa on the drive of the season only to careen into the back of Perez, who was eyeing a win for himself. Rosberg was trying to hold off FOUR attacking opponents in a crippled car. And Ricciardo took everything he could to finally get an incredible win.

Yeah, the technology still has a lot of quirks, but it was pretty goddamn boring watching Vettel win race after race for 4 years, and I'm very happy to see things turned on its head. Now, even though it's been MB all the way (at least until today), there has been a STRONG fight between Lewis and Nico; a fight that we never got to see with Webber and Vettel. And the "best of the rest" battle has been close and strong all season long, providing some amazing intra-team battles in just about every other team.

No, they don't sound like they used to or go as fast, but today was actually an exciting race to watch with an unbelievable and totally unexpected last lap.

I'll take driving skill over mechanical supremacy or breakage any day. The series fails on all counts, is slower than expected, the cars are ugly, overtaking is most often a result of breakage and I take no pleasure in crashes and injuries. Time for Todt and Eccelstone to consider stepping aside.

http://www.f1fanatic.co.uk/2014/06/0...ospital-crash/

And maybe you missed it, but Red Bull teammates have had their moments:

[ame="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vx9zIQvrdZU"]Webber and Vettel - Turkey 2010 - YouTube[/ame]

congrat's riciardo
who knew he was this good

Ricciardo had an awesome race.
I was actually really excited for Sergio Perez, he was having the drive of his life until Massa creamed him (who does that?).
Sucks for Hammy...that second retirement is gonna hurt him in the driver's championship

What I meant was Webber was never a threat to Vettel. Even in 2010, when Webber had a points lead, all the team was focused on was helping Vettel... at the cost of Webber. Then, the EBD designs were built solely around Vettel's driving style while they pretty much left Webber high and dry. I take great pleasure in seeing Vettel struggle in these new cars.

I was very tired of the "vettel show" of the last few years, happy to see him struggle but you have to give it to him, he's a great driver.

It seems Rosberg gets his edge over Hamilton by running off-track. 2nd time now he's gained a big advantage with off-track excursions.

Good on Ricciardo, he deserves the win.

Massa's car broke, causing the wreck I think, he was on a great drive.

Half the field didn't finish. Sucks for my fave Hamilton, when the electronics failed, the braking load was lost at the rear, so the car needed to bias more brakes to the rear and burned them out.

I thought it was a great race to watch, sure the Mercs were fastest out the door but you also need to be reliable.

Great drives by a lot of drivers, some less than proud moments for a few others.

Bullshit. Speed does not equal excitement. I'll take 5 year olds in 4hp go-karts over a 10,000 hp parade lap.

For example:

[ame="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EeUx1tZeuqA"]750mc Stock Hatch Snetterton 200 2014 Race 1, Lap 1 DRAMA!! - YouTube[/ame]

Also, the cars technically are faster, as their trap speeds are significantly higher. They have slightly slower lap times due to the decreased grip from downforce, which requires a lot more finesse from the drivers. One of the reasons Vettel steamed away with that kind of dominance was he could just plant his foot down super early and trust that his EBD or coanda EBD would give him the grip he needed to pull out of a corner (also they made significantly less torque in the low revs of the V8s).

In case you guys are interested, Perez was at fault for that crash and has been given a 5 grid spot penalty as a result:

http://en.espnf1.com/canada/motorspo...ry/162103.html

That video shows overly aggressive drivers, not much else. I've seen that class racing at Snetterton and some of the biggest shunts imaginable that keep the ambulance crews busy. That's not exciting, it's absurd and unsafe.

It's relative speed that's exciting to me whether Formula 1 cars, boats, aircraft or what I used to race, bicycles. And that's the dilema F1 finds itself in. Not only are the cars significantly slower than last year, they sound like tractors and with M-B early season dominance (when they stay glued together), there's too much relative speed difference to cause anything but boredom.

Slower cars aren't progress. Relatively equal, clean competition is, something F1 has to re-learn.

https://www.google.com/search?q=f1+l...sm=93&ie=UTF-8

Re-learn? The fastest cars came form the most boring era of F1: Schumacher dominance. At least we agree that clean, equal competition is the best for the sport, in the mean time there are plenty of series sporting wheel to wheel racing to keep me entertained.

:cheers:

But that's the thing, they're not significantly slower. In fact they are faster and more powerful with more torque and more top speed. They're slower because unlike the older cars where they could just bury the throttle and video-game-aero grip fixes everything, they have to deal with wheelspin and lack of grip. In theory, it will showcase better skilled drivers much more than the last few generations. In practice it hasn't been because of the huge advantage MB has thanks to their engine, but it's very refreshing seeing people fight the cars on the limit and still come relatively close to last years times, especially there in Canada.