Unpopular Motorsport Opinions

  • Thread starter Liquid
  • 1,944 comments
  • 169,645 views
Liquid
On the topic of the Formula One driving position being raised to a more seated position at the top of this page:

I remember my Formula 1 97 on the Playstation. Murray Walker comments in the game that the drivers are lower in the car with their feet raised up to reduce cramp. Martin Brundle also said that the drivers being lower in the car reduces the turbulance created by the driver's helmet interfering with the aerodynamics of the airbox and the air that goes into it.

You're right there, Murray.
Click to expand...
Mine usually rotated between "It's Michael Schumacher!", "That's a Ferrari!" and "Bit of a knock on the barrier right Martin?"
 
Alfred1
Formula One rejected Andretti's entry to join the grid in 2025 or 2026. I think the bid was deserving and this is just the teams trying to squeeze more money out. An awful decision by the F1.
Click to expand...
I don't think that's an unpopular opinion, but to me it just epitomises what I call the "Super League-ification" of F1. No matter how far off the pace Haas are, they'll still be worth at least €500m just because they have one of the 10 "franchise slots".
 
Blitz24
Mine usually rotated between "It's Michael Schumacher!", "That's a Ferrari!" and "Bit of a knock on the barrier right Martin?"
Click to expand...
WiisardNic
Don't forget the science lesson about tear-offs
Click to expand...
Enjoy. It appears that 60-70% of what was recorded wasn't included in the game, including lines about Lola, Ricardo Rosset and Vincenzo Sospiri.

 
Liquid
Enjoy. It appears that 60-70% of what was recorded wasn't included in the game, including lines about Lola, Ricardo Rosset and Vincenzo Sospiri.

Click to expand...

Now that would have added some franchise value.
 
Alfred1
Formula One rejected Andretti's entry to join the grid in 2025 or 2026. I think the bid was deserving and this is just the teams trying to squeeze more money out. An awful decision by the F1.
Click to expand...
I don’t think that’s unpopular!! F1’s “decision” to reject Andretti was set in stone months ago, everyone knew it was coming. Based on very sketchy justification about ‘adding value’ from a bunch of self-serving teams who want their little club to be exclusive and closed to new entries because F1 is such a great way of making money in its current form. They’d have rejected a full multi-millions works entry from Hyundai or something too, they just would have found it harder to justify it but would still have done their best to do it.
 
I like the look of the bare-carbon-with-a -splash-of-paint F1 liveries we've had these last few years.
 
With the sad death of Red Bull owner Dietrich Mateschitz, was it inevitable there was going to be a power struggle controlling their F1 interests ? ........& it seems like Mr Horner is in the cross-hairs. ............I cant believe this guy has upset someone on his climb up the ladder ? :lol:

​

 
Last edited:
From what I've read there's been a power struggle at the team and the parent company since Mateschitz's death.
 
Roo
I like the look of the bare-carbon-with-a -splash-of-paint F1 liveries we've had these last few years.
Click to expand...
I think a lot the complaints are just aping others' comments, and missing the big picture; these vehicles use more carbon fiber than ever before, so why waste the weight of paint on all of it? People didn't say that race cars from 1895-1995 had too much bare metal exposed...
 
Last edited:
So F1 this year has been poor, I don't think that's an unpopular opinion. Just a stale continuation of one of the blandest seasons we've had for years, with little realistic prospect of it getting better any time soon. Pretty depressing stuff.

So I'm getting nostalgic, but for once not for the V10 era, but for F1 circa 2017-18. I'm remembering the genuine Hamilton vs Vettel scraps, seeing Max on the way up rather than at the peak of his powers, Ricciardo making his divebombs while still full of confidence and able to take it to Max, the Alonso/McLaren Honda controversies, some genuinely pretty cars (see 2017 Toro Rosso), modern F1 but in the era before Drive to Survive, before memes took over the internet, before hybrids and back in the days where Haas seemed to be on an upward trajectory, everybody still liked Felipe Massa and none of us had heard of Visa Cash App RB or Stake F1 Team Kick Sauber.

Good days .....I think?
 
Being nostalgic for two particular years is just liking those years, it's not an "era". It did seem more competitive though, that's not in doubt.
 
m355y
So F1 this year has been poor, I don't think that's an unpopular opinion. Just a stale continuation of one of the blandest seasons we've had for years, with little realistic prospect of it getting better any time soon. Pretty depressing stuff.

So I'm getting nostalgic, but for once not for the V10 era, but for F1 circa 2017-18. I'm remembering the genuine Hamilton vs Vettel scraps, seeing Max on the way up rather than at the peak of his powers, Ricciardo making his divebombs while still full of confidence and able to take it to Max, the Alonso/McLaren Honda controversies, some genuinely pretty cars (see 2017 Toro Rosso), modern F1 but in the era before Drive to Survive, before memes took over the internet, before hybrids and back in the days where Haas seemed to be on an upward trajectory, everybody still liked Felipe Massa and none of us had heard of Visa Cash App RB or Stake F1 Team Kick Sauber.

Good days .....I think?
Click to expand...
Eh? Hybrids been around since 2014.

I agree that the pre-ground effect hybrid era (2014-2021) is underrated as far as competition and excitement goes. I'd certainly rather have Mercedes dominance if it meant we saw exciting racing at the front and through the field than the Red Bull dominance now with no competition and scarce overtakes.
 
MagpieRacer
Eh? Hybrids been around since 2014.

I agree that the pre-ground effect hybrid era (2014-2021) is underrated as far as competition and excitement goes. I'd certainly rather have Mercedes dominance if it meant we saw exciting racing at the front and through the field than the Red Bull dominance now with no competition and scarce overtakes.
Click to expand...

Yeah, brain fart, I guess 'ground effect hybrid' is what I meant but mainly the late '10s after the rule change. I'd argue that 2017 rule change where the cars got faster was maybe the sweet spot of that period especially given that it allowed Ferrari to catch up and even if Hamilton and Mercedes used to ease away after the summer break, there was still quite a bit of jeopardy in terms of who'd be ahead on any given weekend and cars were actually still affected by reliability so even if the field spread was greater (I remember lots of moaning about that), results were still harder to call.

I'm giving it as an unpopular opinion because I don't ever hear people mentioning this as a genuinely good period in F1 but increasingly I think it was.
 
Last edited:
Here's one I've thought about for a while:

Nigel Mansell's BTCC cameo is incredibly overrated.

It's lauded as one of the best things about the supertouring era but, out of six races he competed in, only one of them actually gets mentioned; that one race at Donington. And even that is grossly mythologised.

The narrative is that he started at the back and ended up leading the race and it's the greatest race ever... without mentioning that he actually finished 5th. There are so many caveats to his drive. Firstly, it is absolutely true that he started 19th and ended up leading the race. That isn't in doubt. But it was a wet race that had a safety car which greatly helped Mansell catch up to the rest of the field. At one point before the safety car, the two Nissans of Anthony Reid and David Leslie were fifteen seconds ahead of John Cleland in 3rd, never mind how far ahead of the rest of the field.

Mansell started 19th and made his way to 16th which was typical of his actual BTCC performance but more on that in a tick. Because it was a wet race, there were obviously several retirements ahead of him so Mansell jumping from 15th to 6th is not quite the storming drive some would have you believe; Will Hoy, Paul Radisich, Peter Kox, James Thompson, Alain Menu, Rickard Rydell and Jason Plato are just some of the names who retired ahead of Mansell. That's seven places whilst Mansell scrapped with Matt Neal and Gianni Morbidelli for minor places outside the points.

Mansell found himself in 6th and then 4th position by the time the safety car came out and within a few laps he was indeed leading the race. It just so happened that the 1998 Ford Mondeo was very good in the wet; the poorly performing Craig Baird led at Knockhill in a rainstorm and Will Hoy actually won at Silverstone in the wet. So it's not a major surprise that Mansell was suddenly competitive compared to how he and the Mondeo drove in the dry.

And yeah, he led the race but he didn't win the race, Cleland won it. Mansell made errors when leading and finished 4th on the road, demoted to 5th for overtaking under yellow flags.

Don't get me wrong, it's a very exciting, entertaining race but Mansell gets lauded as some touring car genius when in reality, he was lucky to be where he was and made several errors along the way. It's almost like because Nigel Mansell is a bigger name than touring cars, you have to accentuate his achievement (singular) in touring cars.

It's just this one race. A great race but it's really not about Mansellmania. Ask someone what else Mansell did in the 1998 BTCC. Tumbleweed. In the other Donington race he crashed out trundling at the back, he crashed twice at Brands Hatch tangling with the backmarkers he was racing against and at Silverstone he finished 14th and 11th outside the points.
 
Last edited:
Honestly, last year's race for third place in the championship was pretty good, and would have been a great fight in its own right.

I still forget Hamilton narrowly outscored the "best of the rest" and the broadcasts weren't entirely Red Bull festivals as the year went on. Obviously they have to show you the leader when they lead the first few laps, make a stop, or their final lap (or sometimes half-lap). Even though it looked like Russell was more competitive in the same car, people remember Alonso racking up surprise early podiums, and Sainz dominating Singapore; Hamilton just racked it up on consistency and reliability, and history will probably be kind to that, sort of how Hakkinen is measured against Schumacher.
 
Last edited:
I liked Seb Vettel a lot more before he became an activist. Him showing up at the Canadian GP with a helmet about the oil sands while simultaneously having Saudi Aramco stickers plastered all over it was one of the dumbest things I've seen a driver pull off in my 15+ years of watching F1.

helmet-of-sebastian-vettel-ast-1.webp


He even did an interview shortly after iirc, and admitted he was a hypocrite like it was some sort of badge of honor. Hypocrisy is NOT a virtue. He used to be one of my favorites since he was a no ******** type of guy back then, Ferrari broke him.
 
Last edited:
Veinz
I liked Seb Vettel a lot more before he became an activist. Him showing up at the Canadian GP with a helmet about the oil sands while simultaneously having Saudi Aramco stickers plastered all over it was one of the dumbest things I've seen a driver pull off in my 15+ years of watching F1.

helmet-of-sebastian-vettel-ast-1.webp


He even did an interview shortly after iirc, and admitted he was a hypocrite like it was some sort of badge of honor. Hypocrisy is NOT a virtue. He used to be one of my favorites since he was a no ******** type of guy back then, I think his time at Ferrari broke him.
Click to expand...
You know full well he had no control over the sponsor stickers on the helmet, if it were up to him, they wouldn't have been there, and his hypocrite comment in context was completely just. To think he just 'became' and activist is to show a distinct lack of knowledge around the man.
 
He went turbo activist mode after getting fired by Ferrari and had a different theme for pretty much every race. He was never that hardcore in the previous years.
 
Last edited:
m355y
I'm giving it as an unpopular opinion because I don't ever hear people mentioning this as a genuinely good period in F1 but increasingly I think it was.
Click to expand...
Yeh that's probably fair. I personally think the reg tweaks included a bit for aesthetics - which I'm not against, however it's a very risky thing to do with regualations because engineers will find loopholes like the proboscis noses. Then the desire to go faster with huge tyres, huge wings and making the cars much bigger was a bit simplish like moooooooaaaaaar poooooowaaaaaaar faaaaasteeeeeeer!

Personally, I think any improvement in racing was likely from random factors - different rates of teams developments etc - and not due to the regulations. I think the hugeness of the cars was the wrong direction and the sport is still paying the price.

It's basically 2014 revision B, and as much as I was a massive fan of the idea of the turbo hybrid power trains, the entire regulations since 2014 has been a disappointment for me.....

Look at 2009 when they made the cars slower, this introduced more scope for marginal gains by efficiency, trade-offs of compromises and strategies, a little more room for driver error or to make up the gap... just thinking 2009, 2010 and 2012 and first half of 2013 had better racing than all of 2014-2024 including the 2014 rev B cars...
 

Latest Posts

Back