F1 was my first exposure to international motorsports. I think it was the most accessible auto racing discipline for me to watch and follow, back in my home country, where they'd air each Grand Prix live. I believe I develop a hardheaded attachment to the series because of that.
I do watch other races from other racing series when I get the chance to do so, or when there's nothing good on TV and I encounter a rerun, but I don't constantly follow what's going on in them. I'd try to find streams for major endurance races like 24 Hours of Le Mans and 24 Hours Nürburgring, and watch them for a few hours.
Last year, other than F1 races, one other race aired live that I watched in full length was the Indy 500. It's my first full-length exposure to open-wheel racing on an oval. The high frequency of overtakes was a stunning sight, but after a while, some of them felt just like being passed on the freeway. (just like passing with DRS in F1, after all, but with more effort, without using the incentive of reduced drag with the hit of a button) I haven't fully watched the IndyCar races in road courses, but I've heard they're pretty eventful for the most part. But it still doesn't make me wanna ditch F1, somehow.
I still find F1 somewhat intriguing. I appreciate the high technicality, how each team makes their own cars, and the huge challenge they take when there are so many restrictions. I kinda lament it a bit when I look back into history and see how cars from different teams could have so much difference in terms of looks. But again, I'm only 19, so maybe I don't fully share the same sentiment with the older fans. The first time I watched an F1 race, it was already the V10 era. Even Ayrton Senna was already gone when I was born. To some people, the middle of the V10 era was already getting boring, despite the uniquely high-pitched V10 noise, and aggregate lap times eventually being faster compared to now or other eras. Seeing the name M SCHUMACHER beside the number 1 on TV was such a common thing, and being a very naive Ferrari fan that I was, it wasn't hard for me to relish that. Seeing him at the front of the grid nearly all the time with his red car created the impression that Ferrari and him were the heroic icon of Formula One, or something along the lines of that.
Maybe inherently, I didn't start out as a proper fan of the sport. Maybe I appreciated it more like a spectacle, than a competition of utter fairness. I do always think of motor racing as another full-fledged expression of cars as a form of exhilaration; knowing the attempt to build cars to be as fast as they can under a set of regulations, and seeing them being pushed near or to the limit by those dedicated to follow such lives, simply pleases the partly hedonistic inside of me. But now, as a grown up, do I just enjoy the sights and sounds of such extraordinary, purpose-built machines going at ridiculous speeds around a racetrack, or do I expect to see more to be satisfied, to see greater quantity of on-track battles between drivers, which will actually add to the spectacle as well? I do, and do I still get it in the first racing series that introduced me to the world of motor racing? Well, sort of, it's just not that frequent! The same person winning over and over again? Witnessed that a decade ago already. Some cars managed to be superior? Witnessed that a decade ago already. Strange new rules? Well...they're not very much appreciated. But once in a while there are tight battles on the track that keep me glued to the screen, even though they're not in front. And the idea of the spectacle is still not gone when there are no battles at a point in time. I still really like it. There's the potential of me following it less in the future, gravitating towards another racing series. But again, I'll watch F1 when it comes around and I have the chance, and I won't ditch it.
"Why do we do this? Each year, 2 of us die."
Are you talking about the first scene in "Rush"? Because I don't think the real Niki Lauda said that for real. You made it sound like he was racing simply because he had a death wish.
If I recall correctly, the sentence before, "And each year, two of us die", was him telling that there were twenty-five drivers in a season, or something along the lines of that.
