2014 Formula 1 season - overview, review & your thoughts

[F1Steve]

Hi,

I'm new here but I'll put my two penny'worth in.

I've been watching F1 and a fan since 1970 and I think 2014 was probably in my top 10 most boring seasons in all that time. I'm not a fan of Lewis, Nico or Merc so I guess that didn't help. But the car was just a joke, by rights they should have won every single race by miles if not for reliability issues. I also found the last couple of RBR/Vettel years boring but I feel this year was worse, no one was even remotely close to them.

It could have been better if we had more wheel to wheel action between the Mercs but I suspect after the Spa accident they wanted to avoid that as much as possible. Overall I'd give the season 3 or 4/10 at most. I suspect only die hard Merc fans could give it 9-10/10. Roll on 2015 and maybe someone will give them a slight challenge.

[PlatinumZealot]

Hi,

I'm new here but I'll put my two penny'worth in.

I've been watching F1 and a fan since 1970 and I think 2014 was probably in my top 10 most boring seasons in all that time. I'm not a fan of Lewis, Nico or Merc so I guess that didn't help. But the car was just a joke, by rights they should have won every single race by miles if not for reliability issues. I also found the last couple of RBR/Vettel years boring but I feel this year was worse, no one was even remotely close to them.

It could have been better if we had more wheel to wheel action between the Mercs but I suspect after the Spa accident they wanted to avoid that as much as possible. Overall I'd give the season 3 or 4/10 at most. I suspect only die hard Merc fans could give it 9-10/10. Roll on 2015 and maybe someone will give them a slight challenge.

I find your view very interesting. I am a Lewis and Alonso supporter and I thoroughly enjoyed the year, so my view may be biased. But, Pops.... what about the fight for Championship? Didn't you enjoy it? There wasn't any fight for the championship between teammates over the last 26 years I reckon. This was the first time for me and it was astounding to see two drivers in the same machine pushing to get every bit of an advantage over the other. Just, pure... pure racing... man against man, right down to the wire. I guess you are more for car against car type of fight?

[NathanOlder]

At least they were allowed to fight. Unlike the boring bull --- Red Bull and Ferrari fed us for a good 10 years. So just for allowing this, I say thank you and we'll done for.making this season entertaining the whole way through.

[Moose]

The only frustration I had with the season was Merc's odd definition of "equal terms" that didn't allow Hamilton to turn his engine up, even though his driving style meant he had used less fuel. It effectively meant he was driving with a weight handicap at the end of all races.

[markn93]

That's an interesting way of looking at it. I assumed he started with less.

[TzeiTzei]

Negative. Mostly because of the politics and the direction F1 seems to be heading. Racing was sometimes fairly good, but having only the Mercs at the front wasn't very exciting.

[Richard]

Positive

• The sheer technical complexity of the new PU
• Torque often exceeds traction so we see cars squirm as the power goes down exiting from corners
• Hearing tyres squeal in pit stops
• The sound of the turbo and ERS
• Close competition for the WDC between team mates up to the last race
• Ricciardo establishing himself
• Alonso race craft
• Williams showing its worthwhile sticking through the hard times
• The driver merrygoaround has gone on for longer than I can remember
• Massa enjoying his post-Ferrari career
• Button smiling even though he is being treated appallingly - he's come out with some good one liners too
• The curious case of Vettel missing in action.
• The drama of teams going bust (not a good news story, but it has livened things up)
• Driver changes, normally everything has gone cold long ago.
• The improvements at Interlagos showing that new doesn't have to mean bad.
• Tyres have sensible durability

As for the political aspects, F1 has always had political argy bargy. Not so long ago FOTA were threatening to break way, then there were the years of Ferrari International Assistance.

[sectionate]

I have enjoyed it - saw my first Live race and it was an experience. I would stick to watching it on the TV though, the trackside information at Malaysia in the cheap seats was terrible IMO.

The only thing for me is that , 2014 season tells me how normal as a driver Vettel is, and what an excellent job Newey did in the past four years.

I would say it is more of how good a job Newey did to build a car that worked perfectly for Vettel.

[PlatinumZealot]

Agreed with Turbo. Hearing the tyres made watching F1 more real for me.

I will post this very interesting article here for you guys. A Technical review of the 2014 drivers using a mathematical model. Some surprises inside. I recommend you read it but save the fanboy ying yang for it's own thread please.

https://f1metrics.wordpress.com/2014/11 ... -rankings/

[Kiril Varbanov]

Team, I have expanded the topic to a poll on the main page - http://www.f1technical.net/poll/index.php?dispid=289
I will leave this poll for quite some time and early next year, just as the previous season, I will be crunching some numbers.

[Radley]

For me, the defining moment of the 2014 season will be the Red Bull- Renaults during the pre season tests. With Twitter and YouTube we are able to follow the pre season tests with some good pictures and reports. Just seeing the Red Bull garage doors shut day after day was mind blowing. This was the 4 time world champs! This was Renault- the same company with the awesome V-10s and V-6 Turbos! Can you imagine how they must have felt?

Some of the "new kids", Ricciardo, Kvyat & Bottas were phenomenal.

I don't like the artificial limitations in F1. When the drivers have to save tires & fuel is ridiculous.

The craftsmanship, the engineering and the science that is Formula One is still there. As long as that is still there, so will I.

[Kingshark]

This was my 13th season of following Formula 1. I felt that 2014 was more exciting than;

2002
2004
2005
2011
2013

About equally exciting to;

2006
2007
2009

But less exciting than;

2003
2008
2010
2012

Just my honest opinion. I'm taking both on-track racing and the championship battle into account.

[SiLo]

I think it was an exciting year, but mostly because of the battle between Rosberg and Hamilton, going down to the wire and with Rosberg on pole, if it wasn't for his reliability issue and Hamiltons rocketship start, it might have been even more tense that it was all year.

I still think as nice as DRS is for overtaking, sometimes it can be a bit silly. I think they could do with trimming some zones down a little.

[Just_a_fan]

Agreed with Turbo. Hearing the tyres made watching F1 more real for me.

I will post this very interesting article here for you guys. A Technical review of the 2014 drivers using a mathematical model. Some surprises inside. I recommend you read it but save the fanboy ying yang for it's own thread please.

https://f1metrics.wordpress.com/2014/11 ... -rankings/

What a bizarre model.