...or is it just me?

I don't know... I'm just not finding it interesting.

Maybe it's me:
But maybe it's not me:
I'm not sure what it is. But I'm really struggling to get interested. And I've always been a big fan in the past.

What does anyone else think?

Yeah, F1 sucks anymore. I used to tivo every practice, qualifying, and race so I could watch them all and now I struggle to care at all. For me, it is just too much politics and BS and not enough racing. Mad Max is only interested in making sure he has as much power as possible and Bernie only cares about making as much money as he can and not what the teams/fans/anyone want.

During their latest spat, if you listened to the F1 press they all said how horrible of an idea a split was. However, if you actually go on to F1 message boards and talk to the real fans, there was widespread support of a split. I think most of the fans want to go back to teams developing unique designs and solutions (no matter what the cost) and not the stock series that F1 is becoming.

I've already written off this season. Maybe next season will be better, but I doubt it.

I am actually enjoying very much watching the perennial back-markers do so well. Who does this Vettel guy think he is???

I've never found winged cars to be all that aesthetically pleasing, but they are interesting from an engineering point of view. This year's cars still are interesting, so I've not lost anything there.

What I wish they would do with the cars is eliminate as much wing-like appendages as possible and make the cars much less dependent on aerodynamic downforce. If a car is mostly dependent on mechanical grip, then it can follow much closer into a braking zone, and overtaking becomes easier and therefore more common. Of course, the cars will no longer be able to go a zillion miles an hour, but I'd rather watch cars that can pass instead of take a curve at 175+ mph.

Another thing I'd like to see is to have them get rid of the two-compound tire rule. To me, that's just stupid. If a car is good on the primaries but not good on the options, why in the heck should I be handicapped and forced to race the options? The objective should be to *prevent* substandard performance from being displayed on the track, particularly when it is mechanical grip that is being negatively impacted.

edit: I forgot the politics! I miss surfing the web on Monday to see where "they" decided to put people at the finish, and what strange post-race rulings the stewards made.

It's fun to see some different teams up front, but personally I'd like to see the big players, Mercedes, BMW, Ferrari, Toyota, etc. tell Bernie and Max to shove it and then go to the Lemans Series in Europe, America and Japan.

Feff

+1. I couldn't have said it better.

I was also hoping for a split. Bernie is bad for fans because his number one interest is clearly his own damn pocket. Max is bad for fans because he constantly screws with the rules and obviously has NO IDEA how to improve overtaking.

Put me down as another that sees 2009 as one of the best years in many years.

And that's just the racing.

The fact that Max and maybe even Bernie are on the verge of being gone makes it potentially the best in decades.

At first I thought the '09 cars were simply butt-ugly, with the huge front wings and the puny one in back. But I don't like the wings in general, so maybe it's just me. I'm getting used to the look, I suppose I'm ashamed to say.

2009 is proof positive that the cars make the sport, not the drivers. Put a world champion in a dog car (McLaren) and he sits at the back. Put a mid-pack driver in an innovative car (Brawn), and he wins 6 of 8 races. It's all about the cars, I tell ya. But that is what F1 is all about anyway (engineering), so maybe 2009 is good from that angle.

As for the politics, time has come for the teams to take over as it used to be. Too many historic venues being thrown under the bus like a full bed pan, just to make more money. For me, F1 is at least partly about tradition, where records of the masters can be compared to the new upstarts. Some changing of venues is inevitable and I accept that. But throwing away Silverstone, Imola, etc., for the likes of two races in the middle east barely 150 miles apart just sucks.

As for the rules, I advocate that they delete wings entirely, and re-institute downforce venturi "ground-effect" bottoms, ala Lotus 79, so that a good deal of downforce is retained, but that wings that prohibit close racing are abolished. Completely. Shapely cars will follow, as they used to...

Innovation should also be encouraged, that would lead to differentiation between the cars/teams. F1 once was about innovation... today, the cars look so much alike (and are legislated to make them look alike) that if you remove all the paint schemes, you would be hard pressed to tell one car from another.

Leave the spec car racing to Tony George's Neanderthal IRL.