Unpopular Motorsport Opinions

[Pete05]

Whilst not wishing to extend an argument, it got me thinking about drivers being in the right car at the right time, or moving teams just as they were on the up...

Has anyone (driver or constructor) won a title that either the driver, car, or both really shouldnt have?

I would argue that Constructors don't 'luck themselves' into a championship.

They have to have a decent, reliable car & two drivers that consistently score in order to clinch the title.

 

[Boedefeld]

Vettel seems to live in your head, free of charge, just as easily as Webber, Ricciardo, and Leclerc live in his. It's like he ran over your puppy once, or dated your sister and left her at the altar. As @Liquid says, it's an obsession to almost unhealthy levels.

We get it. You hate Vettel. Now try posting about something else.

In his career as an F1 driver, Vettel has insulted other drivers, blamed his teammate after he himself crashed into him, has shown to be a sexist, has shown road raging tendencies multiple times, even intentionally crashing into Lewis Hamilton because he thinks it’s the correct way to show your displeasure, he has ignored team orders throughout his whole career, costing his team a multitude of points and even wins.

How someone can possibly like him after all this is beyond me, and here again we have another user defending maid Vettel. Other drivers get **** on repeatedly with no one steeping in to defend their honor like you just did, once again.

 

[Famine]

In his career as an F1 driver, Vettel has insulted other drivers, blamed his teammate after he himself crashed into him, has shown to be a sexist, has shown road raging tendencies multiple times, even intentionally crashing into Lewis Hamilton because he thinks it’s the correct way to show your displeasure, he has ignored team orders throughout his whole career, costing his team a multitude of points and even wins.

Yes. We know.

How someone can possibly like him after all this is beyond me, and here again we have another user defending maid Vettel. Other drivers get **** on repeatedly with no one steeping in to defend their honor like you just did, once again.

No, I didn't. I pointed out that you decided another user was defending Vettel simply because he said you seem to have an unhealthy obsession with him, without actually defending him anywhere. Which you just did yet again.

Here, enjoy these search results if you think I like Vettel.

You'll want to re-evaluate how you're posting and engaging with other users, because continually acting like people have said things they demonstrably haven't is not conducive to a healthy arena for discussion.

 

[Roger the Horse]

Honestly I think something a lot of people fail to pick up on when it comes to drivers is that it's not just how they perform out on track which defines how good they are at their job. A lot of Hamilton and Schumacher's success comes down to behind the scenes workings which fans aren't particularly privy to, in terms of their ability to work within a team. It's known that Prost had problems with this on multiple occasions, and it's quite possible that if he had handled some of those situations better he would have had even more success than he did. If Alonso had been as good at building the Ferrari team around him as Schumacher was then I'm sure he would have won multiple world championships with them. Ditching Schumacher for Raikkonen was, in hindsight, an extremely poor move on Ferrari's end, and while it wasn't the only factor at play it was definitely a big factor in the team's downfall. If Schumacher had stayed on for a few more years with the team I think he could easily have picked up multiple more championships. On the opposite end I think the value of a truly strong number two driver gets overlooked. It takes a lot of mental strength for a lot of drivers to be able to say "I am here to do a job and that job is to get the best possible result for the team".

 

[kungtotte_]

I think there's generally not a lot of F1 drivers that are good #2 drivers, due to the competitive nature of actually reaching an F1 seat.

You have to be #1 at everything you do from your first time in a kart through all the feeder series up to when you get signed into the big league, and then you're told to take the back seat? That's a big ask.

 

[Boedefeld]

If Alonso had been as good at building the Ferrari team around him as Schumacher was then I'm sure he would have won multiple world championships with them.

Ah yes, Alonso should’ve changed the regulations back to the V10 era, hired Rory Byrne, Ross Brawn, Jean Todt etc. and also forbid Newey from making the perfect cars during the V8 era.

Oh Fernando, it’s all your fault

Good god, have all these opinions been around for longer or is this just a byproduct of the Netflix series?

 

[MaxAttack]

Ah yes, Alonso should’ve changed the regulations back to the V10 era, hired Rory Byrne, Ross Brawn, Jean Todt etc. and also forbid Newey from making the perfect cars during the V8 era.

Oh Fernando, it’s all your fault

Good god, have all these opinions been around for longer or is this just a byproduct of the Netflix series?

What is it that compels you to insult those you respond to here? Your response would have been enough without the rhetorical arsery on the end there, you know.

 

[Liquid]

At least it's a post without mentioning Vettel.

 

[Sabertooth]

Ah yes, Alonso should’ve changed the regulations back to the V10 era, hired Rory Byrne, Ross Brawn, Jean Todt etc. and also forbid Newey from making the perfect cars during the V8 era.

Oh Fernando, it’s all your fault

Good god, have all these opinions been around for longer or is this just a byproduct of the Netflix series?

How would that even be a byproduct of the Netflix series?

 

[HaydenFan69]

Love watching you guys get trolled up by someone who feels Mike Trout is a special enough player to be used as his avatar photo.

Now back to our regular televised program;

“Corvette Racing has done more damage than good in endurance racing.”

They promoted the idea of it being cool to race GT’s. Before, outside Le Mans and the FIA GT series, full factory supported efforts where small, if not existent. But here comes GM. While they threw their chips into both LMP900 and GT cars, when the bean counters came about and told the board how much it’ll cost to beat Audi, the Cadillac prototype got the axe. A smart business decision, but again, it hurt the overall sport.

I love the team. But now they are the lone entry left in 2 separate racing classes over time, and if allowed to move to a GT3 style class as a GM funded effort, it will quickly become 3.

 

[mustafur]

BMW are the uncommitted whore of racing.

 

[Boedefeld]

At least it's a post without mentioning Vettel.

Just watched the Top 10 Button Moments video and was again reminded of a few Vettel screw ups I forgot over the years. The guy just keeps on giving.

 

[PeterJB]

Well, this is one way for me to dump potentially several dozen unpopular opinions on those of you that have it in you to stomach an 80-minute video

 

[Sabertooth]

Well, this is one way for me to dump potentially several dozen unpopular opinions on those of you that have it in you to stomach an 80-minute video

I think Leclerc has been put far too low on this list. He’s only had 3 full seasons in F1, and he’s shown promise of potentially winning a title with Ferrari. At least, before Ferrari went to 🤬. Personally, I’d put him ahead of both Valterri and Button, and then move Rosberg right behind Leclerc. I think he’s a tad overrated in this list.

 

[PeterJB]

I think Leclerc has been put far too low on this list. He’s only had 3 full seasons in F1, and he’s shown promise of potentially winning a title with Ferrari. At least, before Ferrari went to 🤬. Personally, I’d put him ahead of both Valterri and Button, and then move Rosberg right behind Leclerc. I think he’s a tad overrated in this list.

Leclerc's ranking is mostly due to lack of experience, and Rosberg's ranking is helped in part by how Bottas has performed at Mercedes.

 

[TenEightyOne]

Grosjean's escape was miraculous and I'll admit to having a tear in my eye when I saw him being pulled to safety. Incredible scenes, I'm so glad he escaped. And it's horrible that he received burns - any burns are painful but the hands are a particularly difficult and painful place to have them, I'm told. Hard to start your mental recovery when you have physical pain to remind you of something traumatic, and I know that one from personal experience.

But wind it in a bit now Romain, you're actually managing to overdo it.

Yours sincerely, a grumpy old man with an unpopular opinion.

 

[Pete05]

Grosjean's escape was miraculous and I'll admit to having a tear in my eye when I saw him being pulled to safety. Incredible scenes, I'm so glad he escaped. And it's horrible that he received burns - any burns are painful but the hands are a particularly difficult and painful place to have them, I'm told. Hard to start your mental recovery when you have physical pain to remind you of something traumatic, and I know that one from personal experience.

But wind it in a bit now Romain, you're actually managing to overdo it.

Yours sincerely, a grumpy old man with an unpopular opinion.

Seeing as though you haven't bothered to link any article explaining the reason behind your second paragraph, I have no idea what you're talking about

 

[ShiftingGears]

All motorsport series would be better off without wings.

 

[Sabertooth]

All motorsport series would be better off without wings.

How so?

 

[wowbaggerBR]

Formula 1 should ditch the technology cutting edge appeal and build up something more of a show and forget the eletrification route. In a future where people will rent cars that drive themselves, the motorsport culture will be centered aroudn individuals doing something extraordinary - driving their own cars to insane levels of speed and control by the point of view of those people - and not around the cars. That means no auto-driving, off course, but also more crude and simple tech, as manual gearboxes and whatnot. Don't see huge manufacturers being keen on expending inordinate amounts of money promoting that.

In this context, even loud combustion engines can be used as a way of contributing to the show aspect. Combustion cars racing around a track would be like, after the introdution of the internal combustion engine, going to see horse racing.

I don't know what is the hive mind opinion on short saturday races, but that's probably something that'll drive me away from F1 for good.

All motorsport series would be better off without wings.

Leave the wings, take away the fancy semi auto gearbox and see what happens.

 

[ShiftingGears]

How so?

Look at formula one - the cars can't pass because of the dirty wake, so they end up implementing backwards solutions like DRS and KERS boost to try to overtake, which just leads to phony passing halfway down the straight because they can't dial in a solution that works as organically as not having a vehicle relying on aero.

It also results in the Tilke effect where you have to design homogenous circuits to actually get any overtaking.

They need massive run-off areas for the high cornering speeds because they have to factor in the 1% of accidents when it goes wrong, whereas 99% of the time it forgives poor or sloppy driving. If you have slower cornering speeds with less aero, you can punish mistakes more because you have less run-off.

There's a theoretical limit for how fast your circuits can be anyway, if the speeds drop too much, they can modify the circuits (much like they have done to progressively slow the circuits down)

And cars actually look faster and more spectacular when there is less grip. This is especially apparent in rallying, Group 4, Group B and Group A, the cars all squirrel under brakes and bob and weave, but modern rally, they are just glued to the road. The rallies don't get any faster anyway, there is a theoretical maximum average speed which all events need to adhere to.

More power and less grip is what makes motorsport events exciting.

 

[DriveSpark]

Formula 1 has to ditch the technology cutting edge appeal and build up something more of a show and forget the eletrification route. In a future where people will rent cars that drive themselves, the motorsport culture will be centered aroudn individuals doing something extraordinary - driving their own cars to insane levels of speed and control by the point of view of those people - and not around the cars. That means no auto-driving, off course, but also more crude and simple tech, as manual gearboxes and whatnot. Don't see huge manufacturers being keen on expending inordinate amounts of money promoting that.

In this context, even loud combustion engines can be used as a way of contributing to the show aspect. Combustion cars racing around a track would be like, after de internal combustion engine, going to see horse racing.

I don't know what is the hive mind opinion on short saturday races, but that's probably something that'll drive me away from F1 for good.

Leave the wings, take away the fancy semi auto gearbox and see what happens.

Agree with a lot of that, I can see motorsport going back more to the 60s where it was more a clubman affair - Ken Tyrell built cars in a sheed in a lumber yard for example. Cooper, Chapman, McLaren etc all just went putting a car together.

If we switch to road cars for a moment - leasing will become normal, Volvo are floating the idea of a subscription - just like spotify or netflix. No-one is going to own a car. With that goes the interest and enthusiasts. Cars will become white goods even more than they are now.

Secondly, performance models will just become a trim level, because an EV drivetrain is very powerful already - Volvo for example just unveiled a completely dull/unassuming SUV. It has the equivelent of 400hp and no doubt, loads of torque. Imagine that drivetrain in a saloon car - whats the performance model going to have ? 600hp ? and probably more torque than the tyres can stand off a traffic light - the difference in reality will be so small it just won't be worth buying.

So, if people aren't interested in performance, is motorsport going to sell cars ? I don't think so, and if it doesn't then manufacturers will pull out. Once the big money has gone it will rev ert to "blokes (and ladies) in sheds". Ross Brawn made a comment some time ago when he joined the FIA that at some point Manufacturers and Formula 1 will head in different directions.
For an example, look at Roborace and how its failed to gain any significant interest - loads of technical innovation to be explored but it doesn't have the commercial appeal. Even Formula E has seen both Audi and BMW quit recently.

Future generations will look back to the car culture/motorsport we've had since the 20s and how 100k people turned up to see a couple of dozen cars get driven around a circuit or how we used to buy cars, spend a fortune on "tuning" or making them look individual and so on and they'll be utterly baffled by how it was ever a thing.

I think enthusiast/fan interest will increasingly switch to historic racing and retro cars - right from the 20s through to say the 1990s or so - its already seeing increased interest over the past few years and I think it'll continue, gradually dying out through a few of generations.

I stopped watching F1 a few years ago, I realised I spent more time chatting with friends/browsing the internet than I did watching the actual race - I just had it on in the background. it just didn't really captivate me like it used to, so I just stopped watching and to be honest, I don't really miss it. I watch the GT/endurance/sportscar stuff more than I did and even NASCAR from time to time.

The last 4 or 5 generations have lived a golden age of motorsport and cars, there's probably a couple left and then it'll all be gone.

 

[PeterJB]

If you take the wings off of F1 cars you go from less grip to no grip at all. They'd be blindingly fast in a straight line but have absolutely no stability and become extremely dangerous to drive. The brakes would have to be twice as strong as they already are as the cars will now be braking earlier for each braking zone because they're approaching them much faster, no longer have any aerodynamic drags from the wings, and have to go through the corners much slower due to the absence of wings. A solution to this was thought up 40 years ago with ground effect. You take away the drag issue of the wings but instead you have cars that are extremely aerodynamically sensitive and also extremely uncomfortable to drive as you need to run rock-hard suspension to maintain the air seal under the skirts when going over bumps.

 

[ShiftingGears]

If you take the wings off of F1 cars you go from less grip to no grip at all. They'd be blindingly fast in a straight line but have absolutely no stability and become extremely dangerous to drive.

I think you are assuming that this proposal involves cutting the wings off cars designed with wings and telling them to race as is, which is incorrect.

Motorsport teams always design cars to be as fast as possible and stable enough that the drivers dont crash them, within the parameters they're given. That has never changed.

The brakes would have to be twice as strong as they already are as the cars will now be braking earlier for each braking zone because they're approaching them much faster, no longer have any aerodynamic drags from the wings, and have to go through the corners much slower due to the absence of wings.

They don't have to be stronger. Longer braking zones are a good thing, it means more passing.

A solution to this was thought up 40 years ago with ground effect. You take away the drag issue of the wings but instead you have cars that are extremely aerodynamically sensitive and also extremely uncomfortable to drive as you need to run rock-hard suspension to maintain the air seal under the skirts when going over bumps.

I don't think ground effect is a better solution than no wings and no ground effect.

 

[Veinz]

I like Vettel, he seems like a good guy. He was better when the less torquey V8s were around though. He has been average during the hybrid era.

 

[Sabertooth]

I like Vettel, he seems like a good guy. He was better when the less torquey V8s were around though. He has been average during the hybrid era.

Is that really an unpopular opinion though? I feel like that was the general consensus.

Here's a (not really) unpopular opinion: I don't think we'll see anything special from Seb in the future. I think he'll do better in Aston Martin than he did at Ferrari. He'll score the odd podium and beat his teammate, but nothing more. Sad as it is, his days are done. He will retire the same year Hamilton does, or one year before or after.

 

[Veinz]

For me it feels like Vettel is and always has been one of the most disliked drivers on the grid. He’s done some dumb 🤬 but a lot of the hate he gets is unwarranted.

 

[Sabertooth]

For me it feels like Vettel is and always has been one of the most disliked drivers on the grid. He’s done some dumb 🤬 but a lot of the hate he gets is unwarranted.

Ah, I wasn't watching F1 back when he was dominating, so maybe the hate came from there. From as far as I can tell, he's become one of the more likeable drivers since the Hybrid Era began.

 

[NotThePrez]

Ah, I wasn't watching F1 back when he was dominating, so maybe the hate came from there. From as far as I can tell, he's become one of the more likeable drivers since the Hybrid Era began.

It was pretty bad (in terms of reactions to him at the time) during Vettel's time in Red Bull. IIRC, by the time he was making his run for a 3rd title, spectators were regularly booing him during podium ceremonies, and a lot of fans tended to throw some pretty bad crap at him on a regular basis (proverbially, that is).

If I did have any kind of problem with Vettel at any point, is that I got the feeling that during his Red Bull years, his head got a little too big for his helmet. While it's natural (and honestly expected) for the drivers to think very highly of themselves, I got the feeling that Vettel's success got to his head fairly quickly, not helped by Horner and RBR basically building themselves around him, to the occasional detriment of Mark Webber. I had (and still have) mad respect for Vettel as a driver, but the way both he and RBR carried themselves during their championship years left a bad feeling in my gut.

Once Danny Ric came into the fold and showed he could run alongside, and even beat, Vettel, I got the feeling that Vettel had some kind of crashing-down-to-earth moment, when it became apparent that he wasn't quite as fast as he thought (coupled with driving a car that wasn't quite as suited to his preferences as previous variants). In interviews and such, it seemed like, while he was still all smiles, his confidence had take a decent blow from the Australian with the mispronounced surname. However, if that is indeed the case, I'd say that fall also gave us the Vettel that we know today, who is definitely far more likeable than his younger self.

I'm not sure if this is really an unpopular opinion (or fits in the scope of this thread), but I do think that one of the biggest reasons (though probably not the only reason) Vettel left Red Bull was because he surprised by how fast Danny Ric was, and was worried that Red Bull might start favoring Danny more because of that.

 

[Sabertooth]

It was pretty bad (in terms of reactions to him at the time) during Vettel's time in Red Bull. IIRC, by the time he was making his run for a 3rd title, spectators were regularly booing him during podium ceremonies, and a lot of fans tended to throw some pretty bad crap at him on a regular basis (proverbially, that is).

If I did have any kind of problem with Vettel at any point, is that I got the feeling that during his Red Bull years, his head got a little too big for his helmet. While it's natural (and honestly expected) for the drivers to think very highly of themselves, I got the feeling that Vettel's success got to his head fairly quickly, not helped by Horner and RBR basically building themselves around him, to the occasional detriment of Mark Webber. I had (and still have) mad respect for Vettel as a driver, but the way both he and RBR carried themselves during their championship years left a bad feeling in my gut.

Once Danny Ric came into the fold and showed he could run alongside, and even beat, Vettel, I got the feeling that Vettel had some kind of crashing-down-to-earth moment, when it became apparent that he wasn't quite as fast as he thought (coupled with driving a car that wasn't quite as suited to his preferences as previous variants). In interviews and such, it seemed like, while he was still all smiles, his confidence had take a decent blow from the Australian with the mispronounced surname. However, if that is indeed the case, I'd say that fall also gave us the Vettel that we know today, who is definitely far more likeable than his younger self.

I'm not sure if this is really an unpopular opinion (or fits in the scope of this thread), but I do think that one of the biggest reasons (though probably not the only reason) Vettel left Red Bull was because he surprised by how fast Danny Ric was, and was worried that Red Bull might start favoring Danny more because of that.

Wow. I knew he got hate in his RB days but I didn’t realize the extent of it.