LOL, check your stats at the Hungaroring, attendance was down. I hear that about Ferrari but all the teams except AMG seem to have severe issues with the rule changes. That's the nature of any sport, when your on top things look pretty good. Also Force India has been a great team given their limited budgets but that's the rub, in an effort to cut costs the FIA has created artificial areas where innovation has remained stagnant and it takes money to race. I just hope they don't get as daft as IndaCar with the same cars/chassis but no matter we'll see what happens and right now F1 is in trouble, even though the coverage analysts try to make it seem different. I was going to go to Monza this year and the USGP at COTA. I've scratched those off my list because Hockenheim was my first F1 race attendance in this new formula and I'm sorry it wasn't great, it was mediocre. If I'm going to spend lots of money going to a motor sports event I want to see the teams being able to race as hard as they can. I want the experience, not just part of it. The sights, the sounds are all part of F1 and limiting fuel rates, getting rid of refueling and putting artificial excitement into it is killing it as a spectator sport. Shit, if Bernie has to provide Lions in the pit area to attack the F1 mechanics, then so beit! I wanna see how fast Vijay can run. Shit Put Flavio, that cheating SOB, in a monkey suit and make him dance on the grid!

We can debate that sure. Let's roll back to 2013 where there were lots of different podium finishers and then suddenly Silverstone and the exploding tire fiasco. So despite protests from a lot of the teams, the FIA had Pirelli change back to the compounds that favored RBR. After Silverstone 2013 was a completely different season from before. The racing was just as exciting and we even got to see Alonso win at the Spanish GP. It was exciting and it kept fans in the stands.

Switch forward to 2014
Williams has been more successful this year because of the AMG powertrain, McLaren on the other hand I don't know why they're not as successful. If not for Crash Massa you'd probably see more improvement there but all Bottas has to do is drive a smart race it seems. That's not probably fair to Massa but one wonders why he gets tangled up in the shimozzles of others.

RBR in Ricciardo is doing very well because twitchy seems to work for him. Teams with the AMG powertrain have had an advantage and Mercedes is hitting all the right buttons, literally. The new control systems are overly complex and make it look like the drivers are playing angry birds rather than driving a car. Brake by wire is leaving a lot of teams lost and experienced drivers aren't comfortable.

This means that Mercedes will only lose the championship due to their own infighting and mistakes.

I was disheartened to see Vettel in Austria out with another terminal Renault problem too. What you'll see over the next few races in terms of "units used per season" penalties will probably shake that up even more, which to a point is contrived excitement. Hunt/Lauda were never on the same team BTW although Senna/Prost were and Prost to this day was still a crying little bitch, but that's another topic. Oh and last time I checked Vettel still had his head on his shoulders and like Kimi he just needs to get on with it.

That's not a Formula E car. Yes and electrics will get better yada yada yada. Formula E to me will be as exciting as watching flies fuck. (Sorry George Carlin) but if you want a more exciting series put a bunch of old farts on hoverounds, that would be great. Canes flying. Walkers thrown all the while ripping along at 4mph.

I was in the Parabolica stands closer to Turn 4.

Spark blocks are another gimmick just like DRS. They haven't made nor will they make the sport more exciting. Neither will Double points in Abu Dhabi however maybe they'll introduce a chase so that at the summer break, the top 10 drivers/teams will compete for the champsionship. Yeah, that's fucked NASCAR and the NHRA up quite a bit. Well the NHRA fucked themselves by keeping the 1000 foot rule in place after Kalitta's death.

You just pointed out something that's missing in F1, diversity in power plants. The FIA mandates how many cylinders and how energy is to be recovered. That's not innovation, it's targeted bureaucracy.

I was there, where were you? Hockenheim was a great race only because of rain and because of Lewis moving up the pack. If you haven't noticed other than Mercedes AMG, RBR have only gotten to the top podium spot because of their own failures. So measures to improve the competition have led to the same thing. Maybe they should add titanium spark blocks or double points in a race to make it more exciting. Wait, they've already done that with Abu Dhabi and the spark blocks is a TBD.

You mean the 1000ft drag racing or the 1/4 mile drag racing?

As for motor racing, I've followed and attended F1 races for almost 40 years now and in every season there's been controversy. This year however there were too many changes made and if you look over the past 10 years a strange thing emerges. Lap records aren't being broken, most were set in the V10 era and the V8s didn't break them and now the V6s won't either. Sorry the cars are still quick but they're loose, the brake by wire system is leaving drivers uncomfortable in their cars and that means conservative. Couple that with the failure rates and the new "double points" final race and F1 has become something of a joke.

You go to racing events for the total package, the entire sensory experience and part of that experience is gone. Don't believe me? VJ Mallya was quoted as saying "We need the sound, the soul of F1 back" and he owns an F1 team. What about Luca Di Montezemolo who runs Ferrari calling this years edition of F1 "Taxi Drivers." I've watched and attended Indy Car, NASCAR, F1, Air Races, Boat Races and other forms of racing. F1 is special because of its history and the excitement of a series traveling the world. Part of that was the sound, which contributed quite a bit to the sensory experience. It was also allowing teams to innovate and work within the rules, which unfortunately now the FIA seems to put its clamps on more and more. SO, no innovation, lousy cars, losing fans, lose F1. Caterham is on the brink, Lotus is teetering and I don't see a lot of teams standing in line waiting to get in, only Haas right now for 2016. So while the FIA will cheer that their over-abundant meddling in the sport is "eco friendly" it's killing their prized series. Much like when they killed the Mulsane Straight, we have lost something in racing and I've already discontinued going to F1 races until they start listening to their fans again.

Sprint racing is great to see! I recommend it to everybody I know.

No, there's things I like about Windows and hate about it. Just like Solaris has it's quirks but more often than not the software solution drives the platform, not the other way round.

A lot of car makers left F1 in the past, Mercedes has returned, but Honda, BMW and Toyota have left. Honda will be back but only because of the V6 synergy and Nissan does have a relationship with Renault but unfortunately that's not going to probably equate to something you and I would drive for a long time. Motor Racing does help drive innovation but in a sport where the FIA have virtually done away with any concept of innovation, it'll be difficult to see how this new formula will enhance the sport or spur innovation in day to day cars. Fans are leaving, sponsors are worried and that means no money and a dead series coming soon.

the 100kg/hr fuel flow rate limiting is why all teams are well below 15K RPM and they sound like glorified Weed Eaters. The FIA have been working to enhance the sound with changing the exhaust note using a megaphone exhaust pipe. http://www.autosport.com/news/...

I've been watching F1 since the 1970s and this is the most boring, lifeless, set of machines I've seen.

Think oversized RC cars. Maybe they'll give the fans controllers and we can just get rid of those pesky drivers.

And it's the most boring year for F1 ever. Unfortunately the FIA and F1 (two separate entities) didn't realize that motor racing does involve the sound of the sport and the competition. Fans have been reluctant to accept it and aren't showing up at races. This is bad news for a sport that depends on a lot of revenue from people in the stands. Apart from that the FIA in it's eco-green mentality also mandated 100KG of fuel max consumption along with a max fuel rate of 100KG/hr limiting all of the engines in terms of RPM output (read more screaming engines). This has resulted in engines that barely rev above 11000 RPMs whereas last year it was 18000. Despite FIA allowing 15000 RPM limits. Regrettably the powers haven't yet realized that motor racing has nothing to do with being eco-friendly and that will kill F1 as a sport. Oh did I forget to mention the guy who runs F1 is a criminal and just bought his way out of a bribery trial in which he could have gone to prison for $100m? Yeah that's what you want a real life Snidley Whiplash running your races, not to mention the former head of the FIA was caught getting spankings from Nazi themed prostitutes. Yeah, F1 is a mess.

Formula E is no better, actually its worse because they have proposed using twitter during races to provide extra power to the cars. Un-fucking believable.

Unfortunately these cars won't do 200MPH maybe downhill with a tailwind perhaps.

Well you bring up a lot of good points but unfortunately for the past 20 or so years some of these features are less differentiating than we had hoped. It's all driven by the software that runs on top of all of this, not the underlying operating system and its features. Solaris for example has outstanding features but its been languishing while Microsoft still keeps plugging away and Windows Server. Don't get me wrong, I still love Solaris but my customers care about lowest cost platform that delivers the service they need and whether or not their developers have some sort of holy alliance to a particular operating system. That drives what gets installed more than what the sysadmins want.