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| Is quantity more important than quality? |
We all know that there's a fair bit of arguing going on these days, concerning the chaotic nature of the 2026 Formula One regulations. Some would argue that it's led to a whole lot more overtaking, which then equates to more exciting racing. Others might say something to the tune of "It's random, contrived and totally artificial with too many gimmicks." Besides these subjective opinions, I'd argue that there's an objective fact; we're incredibly lucky not to have witnessed a worse accident due to badly timed super clipping, than Oliver Bearman's shunt at Suzuka. I'm surely not the only one to have imagined a similar accident happening round one of the many blind corners at Jeddah, with practically zero runoff to boot, with far more disastrous consequences.
I recently noticed a video in my youtube feed, the title of which immediately caught my eye: "A Thrilling Strategic Duel: Fernando Alonso vs Kimi Räikkönen | 2007 Bahrain GP" [1]. I don't know about you, but the combination of words "thrilling", "strategic duel", "Bahrain" and "2007" really don't make *any* sense to me. I watched this video (and several other, far more interesting ones from the same uploader) and I felt some conflicting emotions. On one hand, I know as well as most of you do, that the supposed "good old days" of refuelling and tyre changes produced approximately the same variance of race strategy as today. There will always be an optimum strategy, and the top teams will tend to converge on said strategy. You might also remember, if you were around for F1 around the turn of the century, that the vast majority of the changes of position near the front of the pack happened in conjunction with in-laps, pit stops and out-laps. If I'm brutally honest, it's a fairly dull spectacle.
HOWEVER!
I don't think I'm wrong for also feeling that there was a certain excitement despite all this. The engines were loud, the cars were small and nimble. I know that nostalgia is one hell of a drug, and I know that I wasn't alone in hating how all the messy aero winglets looked. The winglets also contributed to the dirty air that played in part in making passing so difficult. But as I watched Kimi gradually pulling away from Alonso after their pit stops I couldn't help but feel a sense of longing back to a simpler time. The level of gimmicks were so much less, to the point where this "Thrilling strategic duel" felt like I was actually watching two drivers doing everything they could to best one another, using only their pedals and steering wheels. The drivers drove the cars to the best of their abilities. Of course the likes of Max Verstappen and Charles Leclerc are also driving the cars to the best of their abilities in 2026; but they're constantly being micro-managed by the team, aren't they?
Of course, Bahrain 2007 is an example cherry picked from Ciaron Smith's channel [2] to illustrate the dissonance of (what I remember as) a boring race that's now being heralded as some amazing piece of action from back in the good old days. A lot of his other uploads are genuinely fun to watch and feel nostalgic over. There are many instances of amazing overtakes, which of course were all the more amazing due to the fact that it was so bloody difficult to pull one off most of the time. There was an art to it. And it's easy to feel like drivers back then were somehow better that today's whiny little kids, who are constantly running each other off the track and telling on one another for the slightest transgressions. I don't know. Have they always been whiny like that? Because then I'd argue that the broadcasters have a responsibility for this perspective, because they are the ones who choose to broadcast these radio communications.
Finally, I'm going to leave you with something that healed me and put a massive smile on my face when I saw it yesterday. Professional racers, in old touring cars, of various shapes and sizes, going as fast as they possibly can, swapping positions (without contrived gimmicks) almost constantly, and four-wheel-drifting through nearly every corner [3]. I'm not saying that this is what F1 needs to be. But perhaps you need to seek out a different type of motorsport, if you're finding yourself a little bit fed up with what the sport of Formula One is giving you.
[1] https://youtu.be/5aq2mifqCp4
