Is F1 now boring?

Azerbaijan hosted the fourth round of the 2023 season and although it was great to see Formula One back after almost a month long break the whole weekend seemed flat and uninspiring.

It showcased the new sprint format with a lot of mixed reviews. Although having two qualifying sessions in a weekend was a strange thing to adjust to, I am willing to see how the sprint format plays out.

But one of the main thing that I would like to discuss is about the main race on Sunday.

Baku is an amazing street circuit with some great places for overtaking and despite this we only saw 13 overtakes in the whole 51 laps.

13.

Many Formula One fans have been calling this race boring and I have to agree with them.

The DRS trains made it impossible for any one to get an overtake or even make an attempt at one.

As well as the Red Bulls being so far in front of any other car, that even before these races we knew that Charles didn’t stand a chance.

But at the beginning of last year the racing was fun and exciting to watch, but what changed?

Well, due to porpoising (and a lot of talk from certain garages) the FIA decided to change the technical regulations and raise the ride height by no less than 15 mm.

Since this decision following the Hungarian Grand Prix, there has only been one winner who has not been driving a Red Bull and that was George Russell at the Sao Paulo Grand Prix.

a group of people watching a race on a track

Photo by Matthew Alexander on Unsplash

But one of the main problems for me is that the mid field teams can’t even fight because they are always stuck in a DRS train or in turbulent air, and this is creating boring and predictable races, which is not a way to keep fans engaged or interested.

Formula One need to think of a way to bring back the close racing that we had at the start of last season, or they might start to see a decline in viewers.