I woke up this week and to my surprise, I realized I have become a casual F1 fan.  There, I said it!  I am.  I haven’t watched an entire F1 race all season.  Actually, I can’t remember when the last time I actually did!  I’ve had them on, but didn’t really focus on any of them, except maybe Monaco and COTA.  Even then, I really can’t remember much…

I used to get up at 2:00AM to watch the races live. On ESPN, no less. I got CompuServe to get the up to the minute news before everybody else. Then, I got Autosport, imported from the UK, to learn the latest from McLaren, Ferrari, Tyrell, and Brabham.   What happened to me?  What have I become?

I have lost interest.  It’s that simple.  I just realized that I no longer care what happens.  To me, it has become a kind of parade, like a vintage race.  Theres some passing, but…. not a whole lot.

So I ask myself, what is racing and why do we watch it?  It’s a very simple question, but one that, over the years, I feel many a series seem to have overlooked, including F1.

What is a race? In its simplest interpretation, it is to see who the fastest driver/car/team is over a set distance or time for a given set of design rules.

Why do we watch?  That’s easy.  TO SEE WHO WINS!

Now back to F1.  I commented on a couple of motorsport news sites (Motorsport.com, Racer.com and Jalopnik) that I didn’t see racing in F1.  I got blasted!  I was told that there was great racing, for 5^th, 6^th and 7^th!  And there probably was.  I don’t watch racing to see who’s 5^th, 6^th or 7^th!  I don’t watch racing to see who’s 2^nd, 3^rd or 4^th, either.  I watch to see who wins and I want to be surprised.  I want a reasonable expectation that anybody COULD win on any given day.  There is NO fun in a forgone conclusion.  I can’t watch expecting the leader to fail or to crash, therefore somebody else wins.  I want to see people racing each other for the win.  Is that too much to ask for?

And, frankly, that doesn’t happen in F1 any more.  It hasn’t happened for a long time.  I’ll go back to the Schumacher/Barrichallo days of domination with Ferrari.  Hell, I could go back even further, to Senna/Prost winning 15 of 16 races.  No, I really did not enjoy that, and I am still a Prost fan!

Now the big question I have is why?  Why is Mercedes winning every time they finish? Why can’t Red Bull, McLaren, Ferrari and Willliams even come close?  Most importantly, why doesn’t someone in F1 realize their show is sub-par?  Why do we accept a Michael Schumacher/Sebastian Vettel level of domination as “normal”?  What happened to a team coming up with a lightning strike idea that beats everybody else, then only to have another team one up them?  Why do so many drivers look like they barely made it out of drivers school?

I want drama on the track, not on the side lines.  I want to be surprised!  I want my guy to win!  I want my guy to lose a close one!  I want better racing at the front of the pack.  I want everybody fighting and clawing for a win, not 3rd place.  And most importantly, I want to feel that someone there cares for the end product and feels my pain.  I want someone who will say that it’s the racing that brings in the fans, not the advertisers or the manufacturers or the technology. Someone who realizes that while all these are important, its not that the cars are on the track, or even how many cars are on the track, but what they ALL do on the track that I am interested in.  And it is simply not happening!

There it is.  I have found a way to blame someone else for my problem (my wife would be so proud).  But, there are too many whys and too few answers from those who should know better.  And that, my friend, is a story for another time.