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We all love F1 and we follow it with passion and loyalty. Just like everything else in life, however, F1 is not perfect! It has its blemishes, problems, and dark sides. While the sport is the pinnacle of technological excellence and racing, not everything is 'sunshine and rainbows' with the sport and there are areas that are just hard to digest.
In this feature, we take a look at these gray areas as we list 5 harsh realities of F1 as a sport.
#1 It's the car (and the team), not the driver!
With everyone else in a different car, Nicholas Latifi, who is arguably the lowest-rated driver in F1 right now, would be a world champion if he drove the Mercedes in the 2014 F1 season. Or the Ferrari in the 2004 F1 season. Or the Williams of the 1992 F1 season.
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F1 is a sport that lionizes drivers, as it should. As fans, however, we tend to forget one crucial aspect: the car that a driver has under him is the most important piece of the puzzle. Often, one car will be faster than the other and sometimes the gap is far too big for the other drivers to make a difference.
Lewis Hamilton was a lap away from winning his 8th championship last season, but he's out of contention this season. Why? It's the car! Similarly, Fernando Alonso's lack of title bids after 2012, or Sebastian Vettel's after 2013, comes down to the cars they had under them.
Hamilton had a dominant reign in the sport because he had the perfect car under him and the perfect team behind him. So did Michael Schumacher and Sebastian Vettel. The most important commodity in F1 is not the driver, it's the car under him.
#2 The GOAT debate is stupid
The "Greatest Of All Time" debate, for lack of a better word, is one of the most foolish things in the sport right now. The 'GOAT' debate has fans going after each other's throats to prove that it is their favorite driver who should be considered the 'best of all time'.
Having said that, there are no fixed criteria to anoint someone as the 'GOAT'. Some would argue it's Lewis Hamilton because, in the famous words of SkyF1 presenter David Croft: 'Look at the stats.' There are others with a counter-argument that Hamilton has enjoyed a dominant car for close to a decade, something no other driver has had the privilege to do.
Similar takes exist for Michael Schumacher, Ayrton Senna, Alain Prost, Niki Lauda, and Juan Manuel Fangio. At the end of the day, 'GOAT' is a fictitious crown that cannot be objectively assigned to any driver! Not a fun realization, is it?
#3 Shades of grey exist in all F1 legends
Many drivers are rewarded with an almost god-like status by fans due to their career achievements. In all of this, however, we tend to forget that there is no black-and-white in terms of character for any of the F1 legends. They all have blemishes and have committed acts that are less than desirable.
Max Verstappen's driving has been marginally over the line far too many times early in his career. Lewis Hamilton was involved in the Lie-gate and the secret tire test conducted by Mercedes in 2013. Fernando Alonso was involved in the Spygate as well as the Crashgate. Michael Schumacher has had his fair share of transgressions and the list goes on.
These legends achieve great feats behind the car, but we tend to forget that, at the end of the day, they are humans and humans have shortcomings. It might be difficult to accept, but most F1 legends, if not all, have had a blemish or two in their careers.
#4 Politics and self-Interest take precedence over fairness
It's as cutthroat as it can get at the sharp end of the grid in the sport we love the most. Fair or unfair is not the basis on which most things are done in F1. Every team tries to take advantage of a situation that is put in front of it. If that comes at the cost of another team, great! That's even better.
Toto Wolff would not be shouting off the rooftops for a change in regulations if he was in place of Ferrari or Red Bull this season. Similarly, if Christian Horner found himself in Mercedes' position this season, he would have behaved the same way as Wolff.
At the end of the day, it's not about being fair or unfair and it most definitely is not about "the greater good". It's about finding an advantage wherever possible. Mercedes is trying to do it right now by lobbying for a change in technical regulations. Red Bull did it during the Turbo Hybrid Era when the team was left without a credible power unit supplier.
Eventually, anything that gives teams an advantage over others is all that matters in the end.
#5 The sport is fraught with hypocritical stances
The image of Free Practice sessions continuing in Jeddah while the nearby Aramco facility was getting bombed during the 2022 F1 Saudi Arabian GP this season is arguably the most recent example of the sport's hypocrisy.
At the start of the season, the sport put forward a clear message as the Russo-Ukraine war resulted in teams parting ways with sponsors and even drivers of Russian descent. Most notably, Haas lost out on a huge chunk of money from Uralkali, its title sponsor. Meanwhile, drivers like Nikita Mazepin found themselves out of the sport.
F1 took a stand against Russia because it not only destroyed global peace but was also violating human rights in Ukraine. The sport, however, is in bed with countries like Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, and other Middle Eastern nations, where reports of human rights violations have been commonplace for decades now.
Why? Because at the end of the day, it all comes down to money. Middle Eastern countries have helped the sport by providing huge finances and as a result, an association with them makes utmost sense.
Looking back, as a fan of the sport, one thing that must be understood before anything else is that Formula 1 is a profit-making business. Whenever we're trying to judge it, this should be kept in mind.
