I Long For The 80's

[Guntherpotbelly 0]

Am I the only one that watches Youtube videos of 80's F1 on board footage and longs for the days when the drivers had to actually shift gears, they didn't have near the downforce, the cars were overpowered and the tracks were breath-takingly fast? Today's Hermann Tilke designed tracks are sterile and lack anything that even resembles charictor. I don't know why he thinks that a series of left and right corners taken in 2nd and 3rd gear are interesting. We need more tracks like Spa and Monza, less of the crap he's been designing.

[Quiet One 15]

Welcome aboard, Gunther

I for one, I'm never sure about the whole "missing the X decade". Rosy tinted glasses and all that, you know?

I do agree that there are too many tilkedromes for my taste and I do miss many of the long gone tracks, old Hockenheim included. But I was never too fond of mere top speed tracks like the old Monza (or even the nerfed down new one). A couple of those are good, but not every track or last year's championship would have ended after the third race.

As for the cars, they also broke down which is good in a sense, because that levelled the chances somehow but also massively disappointing when a guy had done everything great, only to lose to some mysterious gemlin on the last lap (think about Seb's disapointment with the alternator, for an example). And regarding a more levelled field, with DRS and Pirelli surprise tires you get the same result as with the unpredictable 80's engines.

If you think about "legit" overtaking as opposed to DRS overtakings I do agree that I don't like DRS/KERS overtakings, I'd rather see the old draft regular ones. But then again, in nowadays cars that would be either impossible or imposed through new "artificial" rules and in the end it will merely make unbeatable cars even more unbeatable with the current levels of reliability.

So it's a mixed bag. This season is being memorable so I don't have that many complaints, but then again I am an Alonso fan so no need to take anything I say for granted

[Grabthaw the Hammerslayer 4]

The music was better then.

But not the haircuts. Even Andres had a mullet...

[Rainmaster 7]

Most of the 80's races I've seen or read about were often massively spaced out, much more so than recent F1 seasons. I like the closer competition between cars that happens with increasing commercialism and professionalism, it also means you get a better picture of the drivers talents. Admittedly, those things also bring some negative traits as mentioned already (like "artificial" overtaking devices). In the end, I think it probably balances out. What would be great is a series where you had the good tracks, some of those 80's car characteristics, but also the teams were as professional (reliability and so forth), and the cars as close, and the depth of talent as strong as today.

[Guntherpotbelly 0]

Thanks for replying and adding y'alls input to the "ideal" F1. I would like to see the driver have to conserve the car some. Again, the flappy paddle gearboxes were cute when they first came out but I think it takes away from the racing. When I autocross I have to work to keep my car in the right gear. Sometimes I have to short shift and lug the car around so that at the exit of a critical corner I don't have shift in an awkward part of the track. When you have flappy paddles that shift the car for you in 4 trillionths of a second it really doesn't matter where you shift. This then negates a motor with a wide usable powerband versus a car with a more powerful narrow but less useful powerband. It also takes away from a driver that is smooth in the c#ckpit and conserves his equipment versus a driver that beats on his equipment until it breaks. I don't know, I guess we all watch racing and look for different things. My frame of referance is the common element of driving. I don't know what it is to pull 3G at launch, 5G braking and 4G cornering, so I like to watch the drivers work because I can identify with that.

[Massa 0]

Welcome to the forum.

I think plenty of people out there share your perspective. For me personally, I want whatever tomorrow's F1 is, literally tomorrow and figuratively, i.e. the future.

But there are people who long for something from the past, and maybe thirty years from now I'll be longing for this era, who knows.

As for shifting, I guess it's just more the nature of F1 to evolve around car technology than to evolve around what would be more of a challenge for the driver (assuming the old style of shifting would be). But again, I never experienced the old way, so I can't exactly comment.

Probably some tradeoffs, too. I really like refueling and fuel strategy. Getting that back would change everything, though, and I'm enjoying this season a lot, so I wouldn't want to get too dramatic in altering race procedures.

From my own view: I like to have at least one, maybe two, but never more than that, races to watch in a given weekend (best for me is to have a sports car race Saturday and a Grand Prix on Sunday). I just figure out what's the best thing to watch that weekend and watch it. F1's taking priority over any other races for me this year, so I figure I must be enjoying it.

The music was better then.

Yeah, that's the thing I long for from the 80s...glad there's live stuff all over YouTube...

[dribbler 6]

I saw the title of this thread and wondered if you had a geriatric fetish.......

[AleHop 0]

I think experts reckon the 80's were the golden years of F1 and I suppose there are a few reasons for them to say that. Yes, one reason is the old they are. I don't remember which one was the last race from the 80's that I watched on a PC from the lights-off to the checkered flag but on average I don't think it was much better than today's. It's great watching a few laps on board, highlights here and there... But you have to watch the whole race to really make a valid judgement. AFAIK there are few races of old on the cloud and most of them are cherry picked. In terms of racing, profesionalism, levelled grid, drivers... I don't think it's too bad nowadays.