> Hmmm, I wish I had gone for a walk instead....
> We now know why F1 was so much more exciting pre 1967... no wings, no
> engine and suspension management systems, no programmed gear shifts.
(except for maybe 1988 but damn, Prost/Senna/Mclaren were so
impressive that year who cares).
I think the biggest problems are 1. the money (in the 80's there were
tons of small teams and it still took creativity rather than just a
pile of cash to build a nice car) and 2. the piddly tracks. I mean,
it wasn't long ago that there was a chicane at Eau Rouge! WTF? And
Monza, man, what a joke that is. A bunch of short straights
punctuated by chicanes with some curves in the acceleration zones.
With the exception of 1 corner at Spa every single remotely
challenging corner in F1 is gone. As recently as 1994 there was still
a challenge to most of the tracks, even with the chicanes that had
been added for safety, because the tracks still had some challenging
corners and part of their character. When racing consists of GAS GAS
GAS BRAKE BRAKE BRAKE CHICANE GAS GAS GAS BRAKE BRAKE BRAKE CHICANE
over and over naturally it's going to become nothing more than a
battle over whom has the better car. Basically if your car can out
accelerate every other car you win.
Jason