Formula 1 is one of the craziest sports you can watch. If you think it’s boring, you must have been watching the wrong thing. If you find cars pushing the limits of what’s physically possible in terms of pure speed, and engineering technology that’s straight out of the future boring, then you need to reevaluate how you see this great sport.

Even if you’re hard to convince, don’t worry, because we’re confident that by the time you finish reading this post, you’ll understand how F1 is actually the total opposite of boring.

Here are 5 reasons why you’re wrong for thinking F1 is “boring”.

1. You think it’ll be non-stop action

The first reason you’re wrong for thinking F1 is boring is that you’ve probably got the wrong idea of what it is. You could have unrealistic expectations in your head, wanting to see spinouts, exhaust flames, a constant fight for first place or for all the cars to be really close to each other the whole time.

This is not what F1 racing is. It’s a strategic sport, where each successful turn will put you a fraction of a second slightly further ahead. It’s about fuel and tyre management just as much as it is about high-octane racing. Although it’s a very fast sport, it’s actually sort of slow. Unfortunately, it’s not as glamorous as a high-speed movie car chase. If you lower your expectations then you can’t be disappointed, right?

2. You’re expecting to see crashes

Sure, it’s wrong to be entertained by drivers having potentially fatal crashes, but we all know it looks spectacular on TV. Even so, if one of the main reasons you watch Formula 1 is to see chaotic, fiery, debris-filled messes on the track, you’re watching for the wrong reasons. You’d be better off just looking up crash compilations on YouTube, because crashes are actually not that common.

F1 is a lot more tame than we realise. If you want to watch a motorsport that’s full of that kind of action, watching something like Nascar may be far more satisfying.

3. Formula 1 isn’t just dominated by the big teams anymore

Formula 1 has actually got a little more competitive over recent years, thus making it less boring. For instance, in 2000 no team other than the top two won a single race and in 2004, Schumacher once won 15 of 18 races. However, if you look at 2017, Red Bull (generally seen as a weaker team) won the Mexican Grand Prix.

This is probably thanks to FIA evening the playing field in various ways so smaller and bigger teams all have a fairer chance. For example, from 2000-2004 Ferrari (Schumacher) was dominating thanks to their in-season and pre-season testing. Since the rules became stricter, the competition has become much more balanced and Ferrari can’t rely on their state-of-the-art testing as an advantage. Also, a win is now worth 25 points rather than 10, meaning it’s more possible for teams to make unexpected comebacks.

4. The cars are getting faster now

Even though they made the engines smaller, we can’t claim that it makes that much of a difference. Yes, they’ve been reduced down to 1.6 litre V6 engine, but that’s no excuse to claim that Formula 1 is going in the wrong direction. In fact, the 2017 cars got significantly faster thanks to various changes to the them such as increased body width, tyre width and wider front and rear wings.

Raikkonen beat Hamilton’s 2016 Barcelona lap time by 3 seconds in his new 2017 car, so there’s no longer reason to say the sport is boring because the cars suck! Who knows how fast the cars will get in the next few years.

5. It’s paving the way for motoring technology

If you can appreciate that the experimental technology that F1 engineers produce helps to improve the tech on the cars we drive everyday, you may like Formula 1 a little more. The tyres that grip the road like glue, the brakes that stop the car like a wall, the aerodynamics that pierce the air like a knife. All of these technologies are not just made to make F1 cars go faster, but as research and development for motoring vehicles in general. Formula 1 is responsible for the future of the automobile industry, which is amazing. So next time you watch a race, just think the vehicles you see are a peek into what the future could be.

So there you have it. Even though grid girls are gone and the increase in safety regulations are making races more tame, Formula 1 is still not “boring”. No matter what you may think, the facts are undeniable.

Formula 1 has cars reaching speeds of over 200 mph, some of the richest and most famous people attend the Grand Prix and the average team is worth $337 million. Did you also know that the best pit stop teams can refuel and change the car’s tyres in under 3 seconds, F1 cars are capable of 0 to 100 back to 0 mph in four seconds and that the drivers lose about 4 kg of weight in one race on average? After learning all that, can you still say it’s boring?

We understand that overtakes are not as crazy as they used to be and races can become quite dry when the cars are spread 20 seconds apart from each other, but there are always reasons to love the motorsport and we hope that our 5 points helped change your views.

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