I'm going  to a motorway bridge near me to see some exciting Sunday afternoon driving!

Yas, it's Valencia all over again! 

That Valencia takes some beating, crikey.

I'd say better than Valencia, but if Bernie is ditching Silverstone for more Middle East circuits with little excitement and overtaking, I'll stop watching F1, even if Lewis wins another WDC.

lewishamiltonmclaren:

I'd say better than Valencia, but if Bernie is ditching Silverstone for more Middle East circuits with little excitement and overtaking, I'll stop watching F1, even if Lewis wins another WDC.

Thats a good point. Nothing worst from bad venue that expensive  bad venue.

This place has the prize for the best yachts so possibly marginally better than Valencia. Still if the racing was any good you'd not notice anything else in the background.

If the venue was designed to house an F1 race with a mixture of conditions (straights, tight corners, etc) and the space to overtake, can you blame the venue for the lack of overtaking? If you are watching it on TV then much of the atmosphere is lost too as you are not among the crowd. So... what would improve the spectacle for a TV audience? If you loosen up the regs and the budgets the rich teams will float to the top and the small teams will be scared away. If you tighten them up and restrict the budgets they get accused of loading the dice and fixing the racing.

Has there ever been huge amounts of overtaking in F1? Or is it just our memories of better days?

people always seem to believe there used to be loads of overtaking in F1, when that simply isn't the case

it's always been exceptionally hard to overtake, unfortunately it's a case of memories playing tricks i'm afraid

once again, it's not necessarily the tracks, but the cars that need to be fixed - no double-diffuser next should help an awful lot like it did at the start of this season

f.eric:

If the venue was designed to house an F1 race with a mixture of conditions (straights, tight corners, etc) and the space to overtake, can you blame the venue for the lack of overtaking? If you are watching it on TV then much of the atmosphere is lost too as you are not among the crowd. So... what would improve the spectacle for a TV audience? If you loosen up the regs and the budgets the rich teams will float to the top and the small teams will be scared away. If you tighten them up and restrict the budgets they get accused of loading the dice and fixing the racing.

Has there ever been huge amounts of overtaking in F1? Or is it just our memories of better days?

When I think of it its a mixture of "good" years and appalingly bad ones with overtaking droughts and huge  advantages of some teams (turbo)

f.eric:

If the venue was designed to house an F1 race with a mixture of conditions (straights, tight corners, etc) and the space to overtake, can you blame the venue for the lack of overtaking? If you are watching it on TV then much of the atmosphere is lost too as you are not among the crowd. So... what would improve the spectacle for a TV audience? If you loosen up the regs and the budgets the rich teams will float to the top and the small teams will be scared away. If you tighten them up and restrict the budgets they get accused of loading the dice and fixing the racing.

Has there ever been huge amounts of overtaking in F1? Or is it just our memories of better days?

Good post f.eric.

f.eric:

If the venue was designed to house an F1 race with a mixture of conditions (straights, tight corners, etc) and the space to overtake, can you blame the venue for the lack of overtaking? If you are watching it on TV then much of the atmosphere is lost too as you are not among the crowd. So... what would improve the spectacle for a TV audience? If you loosen up the regs and the budgets the rich teams will float to the top and the small teams will be scared away. If you tighten them up and restrict the budgets they get accused of loading the dice and fixing the racing.

Has there ever been huge amounts of overtaking in F1? Or is it just our memories of better days?

I suppose its a balancing act with the FIA seeking to cut costs as we are still in a recession but this is depriving viewers of seeing a real race with overtakes rather than the procession we are offered.  I think the 8 engine rule per season has had an impact, whereas drivers would be told to chase for an extra point, now they are told to turn the engine down and save it for the next race. With it being the last one with drivers needing to impress and no engine to save I was expecting more risks to have been taken.

f.eric:

If the venue was designed to house an F1 race with a mixture of conditions (straights, tight corners, etc) and the space to overtake, can you blame the venue for the lack of overtaking? If you are watching it on TV then much of the atmosphere is lost too as you are not among the crowd. So... what would improve the spectacle for a TV audience? If you loosen up the regs and the budgets the rich teams will float to the top and the small teams will be scared away. If you tighten them up and restrict the budgets they get accused of loading the dice and fixing the racing.

Has there ever been huge amounts of overtaking in F1? Or is it just our memories of better days?

Well unless I'm mistaken they were the same cars we saw this year at Spa, Monza, and Brazil?

Yes there is some work to be done on the cars to make overtaking easier. Having said that all these new venues offer little in the way of entertaining racing. They have more in common with Disney Land; fantastic venue, great hotels but all a bit Mickey Mouse and fake.

 

I have got one great solution! It just enlighten me.

 

here commeth:...

 

Remove the long starights !!

 

isn't it simple. No speed, KERS, turbo, or dirty air advantages, just pure mechanical and aero grip..briliant

 

Or not :-/

Believe it or not, Disneyland has a race circuit - the IRL used to drive there in the late '90s

i've said it before and i'll say it again, Bernie, or whoever, are too busy trying to create  'events' instead of creating motoraces. So we get great infrastructure, amazing architecture and dull racing .. thats Valencia, Singapore and now Abu Dhabi. The thing is it only looks good once and thats when you first see it, it soon loses the novelty value and what youre left with is dull racaing (and we'll never have the chance of rain to liven things up!)

twinkle_toes22:

i've said it before and i'll say it again, Bernie, or whoever, are too busy trying to create  'events' instead of creating motoraces. So we get great infrastructure, amazing architecture and dull racing .. thats Valencia, Singapore and now Abu Dhabi. The thing is it only looks good once and thats when you first see it, it soon loses the novelty value and what youre left with is dull racaing (and we'll never have the chance of rain to liven things up!)

I totally agree.