Im sorry, f1 has lost something... (tl;dr: Its baseless confidence)

MattD1zzl3

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I dont mean to create a thread for a rant, but i just needed to say something after reading "Force india targets fifth place" on GPupdate... Does anyone else see something wrong with this "I don't know who will win/ Of course McFerrari will win/too early to tell" attitude from everyone in f1.

Personally if i was a driver for f1, even for torro rosso, and some reporter asked me what place i expected to be next year, i would say without thinking "First place, torro rosso 1-2 championship". Anything else is a lack of confidence in your team, and you dont belong in this category of motor sport. All this politeness and conservatism are part of what causes f1's problems, and there needs to be a couple of brash young drivers telling us all how they intend to school old man schuey, i would, wouldn't you?
 
It's call being realistic.

Saying you'll finish first place and end up dead last will make you the biggest tool on Earth.

Do the talking on the race track, and humble in front of the TV camera = Great sportsman.

Claiming you will win the championship with a B spec car is just bluffing, and everyone will know you are talking crap from your arse.

And there is nothing wrong with Force India's 2010 target. I say that's a realistic goal and a great result for such a small team like them.
 
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I'm sure that every team and every driver want to be first. But they are realistic like MadCow said. It doesn't mean they don't work hard, they are giving 100% and trying their best.
 
Exactly what MadCow809 said. No team this season has dared offer a solid prediction of where they'll end up. It's likely they still don't really know given the variance in testing and that any one of four teams could win the championship. Mercedes, McLaren, Ferrari and Red Bull know they're part of the four and in with as good a chance as each other, but they don't know in what order and are therefore unwilling to make predictions lest they look like numpties later on. They'll talk about the challenge and how strong their competitors are and generally make sure no unguarded quote said now in the offseason will come back to bite them later. It's good PR policy.

Force India are much the same, and of course internally they'll be aiming for podiums and maybe even a win. Fifth place is a very reasonable target and an achievable one. Imagine if a team like USF1 came out and said 'oh yeah, we're aiming for the championship, we'll knock everyone flat'. The world would rock with laughter. Their aim is to simply make it to Bahrain with two complete cars. So there's different expectations for different teams.

I remember a quote from 1998 preseason when Tyrrell launched their car. Ken Tyrrell said 'it's a good car, and I think we have the chance for a few podium finishes'. As it happened, he didn't even trouble the point scorers, let alone take home any silverware.
 
You know what baseless confidence is, attempting to drive around a drenched track on inters! The driving has always been the pivotal part of F1 and that's all that matters. When the flag drops, the bullshit stops; a saying that is getting ever truer in this sport.
 
Yes i know you shouldnt go around hooning about how everyone sucks and youre the best, but shouldnt they all be a litte more sure of themselves? Otherwise what is the point?
 
Force India is very sure of themselves aiming for fifth considering where they were last season.
 
It's all to do with reinforcement. If Force India say "our goal is to win the championship" and then they don't come close (ie. BMW 09), they will lose motivation (ie. BMW 09). While fifth place is an ambitious but achieveable target which, if they achieve it, will reinforce all the good work they put in and will motivate them. You've got to set achieveable but ambitious goals, it's one of the first rules of life.
 
What MadCow said x10.

You know what baseless confidence is, attempting to drive around a drenched track on inters!

That's not baseless confidence. That's called talking a GINORMOUS (just like my penis) gamble - a gamble taken with a lot of uncertain hope rather than confidence.

And it's not really even that baseless, the weather predictions still have a certain amount of validity to them.
 
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Yeah, I knew I was going to get called out on that but I couldn't come up with a better example to back up that the on-track action was the most important part of Formula 1.
 
To me all F1 has lost is its sheer boringness. Last season I actually watched every race.
 
To me all F1 has lost is its sheer boringness. Last season I actually watched every race.

x2

didn't realy watch all of them, but it was the first year i got excited if a race was on...before i just couldn't care
 
Personally, I wished the cars still would look a bit better.

If theres something F1 lost in the past few seasons, its beautiful cars. I mean what the fuck, take a look at the MP4-20 and MP4-21, you'd realise 22 is still okay but 23 was a pot of bonzai arrangements. By Brazil the MP4-23 is just a monster that outgrown itself.

And yes, being realistic and humble is the "politically correct" way of doing things, but I bet deep down, every driver wants to secure the championship from day 1 they step into any series.
 
To me all F1 has lost is its sheer boringness. Last season I actually watched every race.
There's some boring left but I mostly blame todays tracks for that. Whenever F1 got to a good track we had a phenomenal race last season, whenever it got to a crappy track it was at least somewhat boring if not a complete snooze fest. The new tracks are mostly crap, not designed for overtaking opportunities and are generally shit. Some of the old ones still deliver every time F1 is there and the last 2 seasons showed just how important the track is for F1.
 
^so what makes a good F1 track? what provides overtaking opportunities?
 
^so what makes a good F1 track? what provides overtaking opportunities?
Crazy priests running onto track, rain coming at the worst moment.

Upon watching Silverstone 2003 I believe they should hire a man to run out onto the track randomly in the race and force a safety car.
 
F1 lost it's competitive spirit years ago. This isn't new.
 
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