I saw this for "free" on Sky One in the UK (NowTV entertainment pass) and I'm definitely not going to be rushing to pay £9/£15 to watch any other race weekends anytime soon, I'll stick to Ch.4 highlights and try and not find out the result.
I used to only ever really want to watch F1 because I knew it was the pinnacle of Motorsport and the top flight of drivers in the world competing, but for entertainment value it has come to disappoint me way more than it has excited me. Compare that to the short and snappy and unpredictable Formula E races I've watched in this current season (the first time I've followed it) and the difference in fun watching the two is stark for me. It helps of course that I can watch all the FE sessions live and on demand on the ubiquitous service that is YouTube making it the easiest and cheapest of the two to follow by a country mile.
I'll follow the F1 season and I'm sure like every season it will have it's unmissable races and moments, but I'm genuinely more excited to watch the next FE race and to continue growing my knowledge on the teams and drivers competing there than I am to see the Bahrain F1 race.
Even if I wasn't being expected to pay anything from about £200+ just to follow F1 properly I think I'd still feel much the same, but I'd follow F1 anyways as I have done for years.
What I want now is a good FE SIM game in the style and approachability and authenticity that Codemasters has done with F1. How exciting a racing game would that be if they captured the sport properly (roll on GT Sport getting FE cars eventually).
Formula 1 nowadays is not entertaining for a neutral spectator not familiar with the ins and outs of the series. It remains the pinnacle of motorsport because it has some of the finest drivers ever, the biggest teams, tons of history and glamour... but every now and then there is a legit good race, most are processions.
A good analogy would be an edition of the UEFA Champions League in which the nets are 90% smaller and there's twice as many defenders. You still see Ronaldo, Messi and the others playing brilliantly, but nearly all matches end 0-0, and you lose your shit when somebody somehow manages to score. It's high quality in many ways but the entertainment value is low.
Formula 1 has exciting tech, huge teams, insanely good drivers. But there are no passes, unreliable rules and regulations, needlessly confusing things that make races hard to follow for those who aren't hardcore about it. The vast majority of the races of this century were not good on their own, not if you account the championship points or the general driver "stories". It's uncomparable to something like Formula E or IndyCar where most races feature exciting battles, twists, multiple lead changes and so on.
But like a TV show I'm invested in, I'm sticking around. I've been following these teams, people, tracks, tech for like a quarter of a century now. It's always fascinating, one way or another. But at the same time, there have been far more boring weekends and predictable champion results (just think how 2 drivers won all titles this decade, bar one in which it was one of the teammates in an equally dominant car) than outright amazing times. For every 2009 and 2012, we had to endure through lot of shit races as well. People think back fondly of 2007's championship battle, but often forget that most races were abysmal in terms of emotions and excitement. People love the Hamilton/Vettel rivalry, but then in 13 years or so they probably had less than 10 actual on-track battles that led to an overtake or side-by-side action that wasn't dictated by largely different performances or strategies.
This is what F1 currently is, and what it's been for quite some years. To many, like me, it remains fascinating. I woke up at 6am today to watch a boring race. I have no regrets. But this Formula 1 long stopped being "good", it's enjoyable only to those who are happy to invest a lot of time and effort. On their own, most races are not good. The best races of the decade are mainly stuff that would go down as a slightly above average event elsewhere. Just look at MotoGP: Marquez is winning championships left and right, but nearly every race has 10+ lead changes and sick battles. Nothing of the sort in F1, and this season won't be any different.
