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I was watching a roundup of the first test today and was struck by the high level of competition in F1 today. Sure, you can complain that the top three teams are in a different league but the fact is that the whole grid is separated by a pretty narrow margin these days. Williams are legitimately holding up the rear now! Williams! And they're generally within 2 seconds of the pace. Just a few years ago we had teams like Virgin and HRT that might be 4-5 seconds off the pace. Aside from Williams, I don't think that there's another team that would be more than 1.5 seconds off. There are basically 3 frontrunners, 6 midfield teams and only one true backmarker. That's pretty impressive. Probably the best midfield I've seen in F1.

And a highly competitive midfield to say the least. It's practically impossible to pinpoint 1 single midfield team which may be strongest in a upcoming grand prix. 6 teams = 12 drivers fighting for the last 4 spots in the point scoring positions. This year seems it will be a mega feast!

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Feel The Fourth

Have a look at 2009.

It's a natural consequence of today's computer-controlled data-driven environment. Very little is left to chance these days, especially given the tightly-controlled regulations. I'd be more surprised if it wasn't the case tbh

2008 and 2009 there was nearly nothing between the entire field.
Every team except Williams had either a win or a pole in those 2 seasons.
Adding the 3 teams in 2010 was a disaster.

I'd say it's also down to the way that smaller teams cannot survive in F1 anymore. Even the smallest teams have 9 figure budgets these days.

Not a good news week for Williams, is it?

Although I'd welcome more cars on the grid, the three that were chosen were utterly hopeless. I'm still bemused as to why Prodrive weren't granted an entry.

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#KeepFightingMichael

Renault should be 4th with experienced drivers. Surely this year they should get closer to top teams and not get lapped

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Sir Stirling Moss "Quite frankly, Kimi Raikkonen is the fastest driver in the world"

And there was meant to be a 4th team, USF1.
The gap between them was enormous and never decreased.

Why were they so bad? Was it a funding thing?

As far as I remember, Max Mosley had tried to get a budget cap in place.
This was used to attract the 4 new teams (USF1 never got off the ground).
Unsurprisingly in F1, there was no budget gap. And the new teams never stood a chance.

They weren't bad at all, just unable to develop their cars to the level the super rich teams can. Having the money doesn't automatically mean you're going to win, but not having it does mean you're not going to.

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Use every man after his desert, and who should scape whipping? Use them after your own honour and dignity.

Maria de Villota - Jules Bianchi

That's a product of Bernie's model that only the top 10 teams get prize money so to have quality over quantity at a time when F1 was flooded with teams many of which were less professional than F2 teams of today.

I guess basically some of these teams were attracting sponsors into the glamour of F1 whilst hardly spending any money and making their profit off the sponsorship deals?

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Before many of the manufacturers pulled out?

The manufacturers that are the evil of F1 to some?

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PF1 Pick 10 Competition

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2014: Champion
2015: 3rd Place
2016: 4th Place
2017: 9th Place
2018: 7th place

Wins: Canada 2018, Abu Dhabi 2017
Podiums: (8)

It was a disaster because the promised budget cap fell through then they had to survive without prize money.

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2013: 5th Place
2014: Champion
2015: 3rd Place
2016: 4th Place
2017: 9th Place
2018: 7th place

Wins: Canada 2018, Abu Dhabi 2017
Podiums: (8)

I think this thread is pretty accurate. The midfield battle this year will be very intense. Haas, Alfa Romeo, Racing Point, McLaren, Toro Rosso and Renault will all be in with a shout from the looks of things.

Race fuelled qualifying would perhaps produce some questionable poles on what was actually the fastest car?

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PF1 Pick 10 Competition

2013: 5th Place
2014: Champion
2015: 3rd Place
2016: 4th Place
2017: 9th Place
2018: 7th place

Wins: Canada 2018, Abu Dhabi 2017
Podiums: (8)

F1 is better with 12 or 13 teams, more cars on the starting grid equals more action over the season, so please bring back these extra teams to fill out the grid.

1'57.500
1'57.615
1'57.714
1'57.841
1'57.844
1'57.938
1'58.000
1'58.113
1'58.232
1'58.366

Oops, my bad, those were qualifying times for the different WEC GTE Pro teams at Sebring.

I could also post the qualifying times for the MotoGP at Qatar.

In comparison to the remainder of the professional racing universe, Formula One is not that competitive. And the on-track action is a farce in comparison to WEC and Moto GP.

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Only dogs, mothers, and quality undergarments give unconditional support.

We're comparing this year to previous years in F1. Making comparisons to other series is irrelevant. Not sure why you would compare F1 to a sports car series that has BoP regulations to ensure parity anyway; let alone a motorcycle racing series...

I think it could be better with more teams, but only if those teams are competitive, and only if there's a reason to care where the last 14-16 cars place. With points only being paid out to 10th place, you're likely to have teams going scoreless, and it's hard to care about the non-points-scoring positions. There's also the constructor's payout structure which only awards significant money to the top 10 teams. With how it is now, opening up the sport to more teams would mean higher team turn-over, which doesn't look good when you're trying to attract new fans. More cars on track would be more entertaining, but only if they were competitive, had a reason to keep pushing when not in the top 10, and take part in the financial rewards.

High team turnover is good in a lot of ways because the implication is that there are many new entries wishing to join the party like the 80's to early 90's with pre-qualifying etc. That was far more healthy imo.

Because if you begin by a poor standard of reference, any improvement looks good.

If I began with water at 10C and then warmed it up to 11C, does that make the water hot, or just hotter?

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Only dogs, mothers, and quality undergarments give unconditional support.

It was like watching a group of F2 teams competing against F1 teams.

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PF1 Pick 10 Competition

2013: 5th Place
2014: Champion
2015: 3rd Place
2016: 4th Place
2017: 9th Place
2018: 7th place

Wins: Canada 2018, Abu Dhabi 2017
Podiums: (8)

You are basically comparing a spec series with F1, do you want F1 to become a spec series, and bike racing is a different sport.

_________________
PF1 Pick 10 Competition

2013: 5th Place
2014: Champion
2015: 3rd Place
2016: 4th Place
2017: 9th Place
2018: 7th place

Wins: Canada 2018, Abu Dhabi 2017
Podiums: (8)