
Formula 1 e-sports now more exciting than the real thing - okket
https://arstechnica.com/cars/2017/11/formula-1-esports-now-more-exciting-than-the-real-thing-and-thats-a-problem/
======
justin66
> Indeed, so boring was the final race of the season (and to be honest, the
> two that preceded it)

Abu Dhabi is a boring racetrack that makes passing quite difficult, but if you
could not find something interesting about the Brazil race (Ricciardo started
at 14th and made his way up to 6th and Hamilton started _on the pit lane_ and
clawed his way up to 4th) or the Mexico race (won by Verstappen, a 20 year old
guy who was not driving a Mercedes or Ferrari, with a _19 second margin over
the 2nd place Mercedes,_ which has been dominant and is a much better car),
it's possible you're just not an F1 fan.

That's fine, and it probably points to a good audience for the "e-sports"
racing. Maybe some of those guys will convert to being F1 fans, maybe some of
them won't, but it is not an expensive experiment for F1 to run. Pretty much
all they have to do is push this while not embarrassing themselves too badly
with the fans of motor racing who couldn't care less about e-sports. (who
knows? The loud reaction among fans to the F1 logo change might indicate that
they're all insane anyway, so it is impossible to predict)

~~~
pfooti
Yeah, I think you're right about most of this - I watched most of the races
this season. There's a lot of interesting stuff going on in most races in the
middle of the pack too, like "will force india do well, or will they crash
into each other" or just watching fernando alonso drive the wheels off of his
mclaren, despite it lacking top-end speed.

That said, I also noticed that a lot of cars had to hold back quite a bit: the
current aerodynamics of the cars means the choppy air seems to run about 1.5
seconds off of the back of the lead car, so if you're staying in clearer air,
you're out of DRS. Meaning: people even trying to get into overtaking of the
lead car are drastically lowering the lifetime of their tires if nothing else.
Combine that with the wider car and there's not a lot of actual overtaking
going on in race-leadership positions. It happens, but not a lot - more often
I think there's the under/overcut calculations about when a pit stop happens,
and the pass happens virtually with time lost in the pit lane.

This is all exacerbated by mercedes's dominance in the qualifying rounds. In a
season where so many races were won from the front row if the leaders get out
of the first lap clean without a crash, this is all huge. It adds up to:
Hamilton totally dominated the second half of the season, easily winning the
championship and Mercedes taking the constructor's championship even earlier.
In terms of leadership swaps and contention for first, it's a boring season.
Still: can't discount Hamilton here, he is an amazing driver and clearly the
best on the circuit.

Overall? I had to start watching the red bulls and force india scrapping over
the midfield, because the front of the pack was indeed boring. And I'm not
sure that really appeals to average viewers.

~~~
DC-3
You're absolutely right here - DRS is just a little too short to be useful
without a massive pace disparity between the two cars (attacking car is on far
better tyres, for example). Hamilton has said that the point where turbulence
kicks in is about 1.1 - 1.2 seconds and I have reached the same conclusion
this year.

Formula 1 should seriously consider mandating reduced aerodynamic complexity.
It might not be a great solution, but it's a better alternative to artificial
DRS and snooze-fest races.

For what it's worth, the Sauber, Toro Rosso and Haas cars had a great battle
last race. That said, turbulence affected them too, almost as badly as it did
the front-runners.

------
microtherion
I misread the title, thinking they were talking about Formula E.
[http://www.fiaformulae.com/en](http://www.fiaformulae.com/en)

Watching other people play video games has never felt remotely appealing to
me. Must be one of the things somebody my generation truly does not get.

~~~
Fripplebubby
For those who haven't followed the link, Formula E is essentially just like F1
but with all-electric cars. It's a bit slower, but the competition is great,
it's my personal favorite racing series. The official youtube channel uploads
the full races for those interested.

As mentioned in the article, Formula E also runs an e-sports version of its
series. They had live e-races at every racing event last year. Unfortunately,
the races were quite bad to watch - pretty much exactly like playing racing
games online (everyone goes in hard at the 1st corner, lots of collisions).
The F1 esports final was 10x more fun to watch, although there was some
aggressive driving, they mostly drove the same way the pros do.

~~~
exDM69
Formula E has one huge issue: the tracks they race on. Street circuits with
mostly 90 degree corners and not much overtaking opportunities. It is somewhat
mitigated by the energy management aspect, where the following car can reduce
their power for a while and then come back with a vengeance to grab the
position.

The best Formula E race I've seen was the practice race before Season 1 at
Donnington Park, a real racing track with sweeping, cambered corners fast and
slow, uphills and downhills and a few big braking spots that allow for
overtaking.

The world is full of race tracks that can't be used for Formula 1 any more,
but would suit Formula E cars very well. Like Brands Hatch for example. Of
course, the tracks are not usually suitable for large audiences or are at
remote locations which makes it unappealing for the series from a business
point of view.

------
munchbunny
When it comes to racing, the new push into e-sports is really exciting to me
because it adds a huge element of accessibility. Cars are expensive, and
actually owning a car that you take on the track is expensive and time
consuming, but with a racing wheel, a PC/console, and a VR headset, you can
get a pretty visceral and convincing facsimile of a high performance car.

The first time I tried racing in VR (in Dirt Rally), I had the brilliant idea
of using a Group B car. On a flat screen, it just feels really fast and
requires intense focus. In VR, you really feel like you're sitting on a rocket
and the car is trying to kill you.

~~~
petercooper
_When it comes to racing, the new push into e-sports is really exciting to me
because it adds a huge element of accessibility._

It could also break down gender barriers where either rules or physical
intensity of a sport results in segregation (e.g. soccer) or a lack of female
participation (e.g. F1).

~~~
dynamoa
Why do you have to bring gender into this. If you really want to talk about
females, I'll tell you where it really matters - there are many female
engineers and mechanics in every team already contributing to the sport.

~~~
DC-3
F1 is about the most meritocratic environment in the world because of the
single-minded focus on winning.

[https://www.theguardian.com/sport/2017/may/16/f1-formula-
one...](https://www.theguardian.com/sport/2017/may/16/f1-formula-one-women-
ruth-buscombe-sauber)

------
jerkstate
Yeah, Vettel and Ferrari threw away the championship starting in Singapore,
but really cemented their downfall with a last minute mechanical failure on
the grid.. stuff that doesn't (and probably shouldn't) happen in sim racing,
that represent the culmination of decades of engineering philosophy, hundreds
of millions of dollars spent, hundreds of thousands of man-hours.. what were
we comparing F1 to again? video games?

~~~
daemin
Video games that are a culmination of decades of engineering, artistic, and
design philosophy. Millions of dollars spent, and many thousands of man hours
put into each version delivered. Not quite as much as F1 but do not
underestimate the technical effort and coordination to get a game shipped.

~~~
jerkstate
Don't get me wrong, I love sim racing and there is definitely a place for sim
racing competition, but it's really no comparison to the real thing in my mind
because of the high stakes contribution to the competition by hundreds of
engineers, not just 1 driver.. the outcome is different teams really have
different personalities and those personalities show through in the
performance of their car, team, etc. through randomness of mechanical
performance/failures, pit stop strategy/execution, team strategy/execution,
and so many more dimensions than you will get in a sim competition. As the
great Murray Walker said, "anything can happen in F1, and it usually does"

~~~
daemin
My comparison was running a Formula 1 team to making Video Games. Not playing
them as an e-sport. Of course competing in a sport in real life is far
different to doing so in a video game.

------
alistproducer2
I actually watched the video in the article and thought it was really
exciting. I prefer it to the real thing because the drivers can take more
risks, leading to more exciting passes.

------
cyberferret
I agree with other commenters here - while some of the races turned into a
procession, in almost all races, there were elements of interest among the
smaller teams lower down the ranks.

I think the biggest problem here is the depth of the pockets of each team.
Those with bigger engineering budgets are dominating the podiums, while the
smaller team struggle with 'hand me down' parts that are outdated when they
get to them.

F1 has had to ride the hard line between actually showing progress in
automotive R&D and still being somewhat a gladiatorial sport.

The progress made with hybrid engines, energy recovery, construction materials
etc. have been monumental, especially in the past decade. However, that has
also lead to less noisy cars, and a reduced element of danger. Good things
when it comes to road car operation, but can work against the sport in the
heat of battle on the track.

We can applaud the safety standard that get better each year, especially after
the death's of Senna, and more recently, Jules Bianchi, but that sense of
safety is also turning people away. No one wants to see a driver die (A
driver's chance of dying in an F1 season in the 60's/70's was something like
20%), but again - the sport has become somewhat sterile and staid because of
it. (Not to mention - Ugly, with the introduction of the 2018 halos).

Perhaps the fascination with eSports is that you CAN actually bang another car
off the track, and you will get to see the spectacle of a crash without having
to live with the fact that you might end someones life in the resulting
conflagration?

~~~
Already__Taken
F1 has a massive cultural problem about who wins. Every broadcast ends with
cutting away from some incredible mid-pack dicing to watch 1 car on its own do
a final clear lap and cross the line, then people celebrating.

Even when cutting to overtakes when cars pass. That move was set up 5 corners
ago that's the interesting part.

------
bitL
Give me a low-latency link to a remotely controlled F1, and I can forget about
all the drivers... Besides, F1 with the introduction of halo is already
alienating its long-time fans, making cars slowly matching the ugliness of
current IndyCar chassis, so many fans will seek to escape watching those
monstrosities off to e-sports, where they can drive pleasant cars. For me this
was the last season I was watching F1 unless they come back with open cockpit.
I will watch Roborace once they go live, as those cars simply look stunning
and at some point will be much faster than any human-driven cars.

------
Avshalom
So I mean first order "excitment" is over takes and how often first changes.
Which this article doesn't mention at all.

~~~
ramy_d
Didn't sound like the real race had any except 13th/14th? but I watched a bit
of the video and there was tons of excitement and I can't say I've ever cared
for F1

------
aleksandrm
They also needed to save fuel, I know Raikonnen did and probably Verstappen
too so that was pretty boring when drivers cant push to the max. Add refueling
back, make it more exciting. Instead they keep making the rules worse, like
changing the number of allowed engines in 2018 from 4 to 3 before penalties
kick in

~~~
exDM69
> They also needed to save fuel,

Fuel saving is not really a thing any more. It was when the new turbo-hybrids
were introduced but with the new injection systems and higher efficiency
engines as well as increased fuel limits, there hasn't been really a need for
running economy for the sake of making it to the end on fuel.

Mercedes engines give more than 50% thermal efficiency now. That is
phenomenal.

> Add refueling back, make it more exciting.

Not only is refueling terribly dangerous but I can't really agree that it
would be more exciting to see teams play with strategy rather than try to
overtake on track or by undercut/overcut on the pit lane (I liked seeing
Ferrari play their good old fake pitstop overcut with Räikkönen vs. Perez a
few races back, just like in the Schumacher-Todt days).

A lot of people are agreeing that the major inhibitor to the competition are
the current front wings. They develop a lot of the cars' downforce and are the
reason the cars are so fast at the moment, but completely lose their
efficiency when following another car. Compare a last year F1 front wing [0]
with one from about 15-20 years ago [1].

All those bits and pieces are there for a reason. They're the product of days
and months of CFD work in supercomputer clusters (F1 regulations actually
limit the amount of FLOPS in the aero clusters!). Additionally, when there's a
minor collision in the first lap, a few of those bits might go missing but not
enough to warrant a front wing change. That means that the driver is impaired
for the rest of the race, and none if it is conveyed to the viewer (unless
Martin Brundle spots it and tells it to the viewers).

A few years back there was the "overtaking working group" (OVG) that looked
into this and their verdict was that the rear wings need to be higher and
front wings simpler and make the underbody create more downforce (ground
effect, without skirts though). Unfortunately that's the opposite of what
they've been doing for the past few years and it shows.

[0]
[https://cdn-8.motorsport.com/static/img/mgl/3600000/3610000/...](https://cdn-8.motorsport.com/static/img/mgl/3600000/3610000/3612000/3612400/3612438/s8/f1-australian-
gp-2015-nico-rosberg-mercedes-amg-f1-w06-front-wing.jpg) [1]
[http://www.racecar-engineering.com/wp-
content/uploads/2012/1...](http://www.racecar-engineering.com/wp-
content/uploads/2012/12/upmp418.jpg)

------
LoSboccacc
well of course, chassis and engines are heavily regulated, it's closer in
excitement to those mono-maker racing and as distant as f1 as one of those.
heck, first season was mono maker and last just had custom powertrains.

f1 used to be about the best maker, not the best driver. quite a philosophical
difference there.

~~~
justin66
> f1 used to be about the best maker, not the best driver. quite a
> philosophical difference there.

In terms of prize money, F1 still cares a lot about the constructor contest.
It's not something fans are conscious of, necessarily. For example, sixth
place in the constructor contest was decided on the last race, and there were
three teams that could have taken it. It doesn't sound like much but it's
worth twelve million dollars...

------
klank
> the real problem ...<snip>... cars that cannot follow each other closely in
> the turns

Can anybody speak to what the issue is preventing cars from following each
other closely in the turns? Loosing "clean air" and aerodynamic downforce is
my completely uneducated in F1 guess.

~~~
exDM69
A lot of very knowledgeable people agree that it's the dominant role of the
front wing in the modern cars. Compare a 2016 car [0] with a 1999 car [1].

The front wing is responsible for a lot of the downforce but loses too much of
its efficiency when in turbulent air. The remedy would be moving the rear
wings higher (more slipstream with the turbulent layer of air higher above the
cars), simplifying the front wings (which increases drag in clean air) and
making the car underbody provide more downforce. Unfortunately, that's not the
direction the F1 regulations have been moving to.

[0]
[https://cdn-8.motorsport.com/static/img/mgl/3600000/3610000/...](https://cdn-8.motorsport.com/static/img/mgl/3600000/3610000/3612000/3612400/3612438/s8/f1-australian-
gp-2015-nico-rosberg-mercedes-amg-f1-w06-front-wing.jpg) [1]
[http://www.racecar-engineering.com/wp-
content/uploads/2012/1...](http://www.racecar-engineering.com/wp-
content/uploads/2012/12/upmp418.jpg)

------
bamboozled
The following message is exactly why I finally gave up on F1:

"This video contains content from Formula One Management, who has blocked
it..."

That is the message I got trying to watch the video embedded in the article.

The exclusivity and false sense of importance portrayed by F1 is just really
lame, I feel like they go out of their way to make it hard to watch.

This coupled with the fact the actual racing has been boring and over
regulated makes me glad I don't waste my time with F1 any more.

~~~
yaegers
I feel you on the boring parts of F1. This, coupled with the idiotic halo they
just have to put on the cars next year will mean that I spend my weekends a
bit differently.

But, to the matter at hand, the vid only seems to be blocked when it is
embedded on websites. I had a "watch this on youtube" link in the message and
when I clicked there it took me to youtube.com and the vid started playing.
Whatever the reasoning is to block embedded vids but not the vid altogether is
beyond me. But then again, so is uglyfying the car with apendages that make it
look like a flipflop...

------
trophycase
Reminds me of Sinulacra and Simulation

------
Siecje
Why do they drive off the track?

------
thinkMOAR
yaaay for something that covers the winter stop :)

------
crashdown
MotoGP > F1

------
yummy
I've been watching F1 for about 13 years and it's always the same after a
boring race. No matter how exciting a couple of preceding races could have
been, there's gonna be a shit storm. Too bad it's the last race of the season.
Back in 2009 it was clear the track is rubbish.

E-sports? That's nice, but we've had sim racing for a long time. And F1 2017
is not even a simulator. It's made for the broad audience, who would play it
on a PS4 with its controller, but not for hardcore sim racers.

Vandoorne competed in a serious rFactor F1 league and it's not like he was the
fastest guy.

~~~
exDM69
> Vandoorne competed in a serious rFactor F1 league and it's not like he was
> the fastest guy.

Having had a royal ass-kicking delivered to me by Stoffel Vandoorne and Rubens
Barichello in iRacing, I have to say that they might not be the fastest
simracers out there but boy are they fast! I'm not a top-tier simracer by any
means but these guys were at a whole different level.

Verstappen also used to do tons of simracing at top levels in the past. I
wonder why they never mention that in the broadcast, because I think it's a
major influence to him. Before he ever sat in a single seater car, he had had
thousands of hours in a virtual one. His epic save in the rain at Interlagos
2016 was a classic simracer move. Anyone else would have braced for impact but
he sat there as calmly as one can because he'd been there before in a sim,
just waiting for the front wheels to bite and then let go of the brake at the
right moment. You can't practice that in a real car because you don't end up
in that kind of situations often enough and walk away from them.

------
frik
F1 2017 is not a simulator. It is a okay game, that lacks some love
(presentation and menu is boring and lackluster). I fondly remember Grand Prix
1-4 games, that at least realistically represented everything going on in
Formula 1 and had quite realistic physics, etc for their time. Unfortunately
the last Codemasters game that were awesome and really polished were GRID 1
and DiRT 2. Now Codemasters owns the DriveClub devs, I hope we see a new
polished game from them again.

~~~
exDM69
Ironically, watching iRacing (arguably a very realistic simulator) Pro series
with F1 cars has all the same problems as real F1 racing has. Not a lot of
overtaking (a bit more than the real thing, though) and lots of subtle things
that aren't visible to the casual observer.

Dirt Rally is a recent Codemasters game that is excellent, if you're into
rallying. It's almost as good as Richard Burns Rally, and miles ahead of any
other rally game/sim.

~~~
frik
Formula 1 is okay. I am not sure if Liberty Media knows what treasure they
bought, at the moment all their minor adjustments were only confusing. Sure, I
wouldn't mind if they go back to V12 engines like in 1999. But the current
season, and the last few years were fine. A lot better than the Schumacher and
Vettel era, that was a boring time. Nowadays 3 teams have competitive cars,
and three more teams (or so) drive for the podium and get there occasionally.

Dirt Rally is not for me, it's like Project Cars unrealistic hard while not be
very realistic, in contrary to Grandprix Legends and Assetto Corsa. Dirt 3+4
with this Ken Block shit or random generated boring generic tracks - no
thanks. DiRT 2 is still the best in presentation (it looks better in 4K on PC
than DiRT Rally, see YouTube videos), DiRT 2 has a nice single campaign, a
nice menu, great tracks in 8 different regions, a great physics engine and car
deformation and so much more - I don't get why their newer games all are a lot
less fun to drive and in general build together so lackluster. Maybe they
should take a break for a year, not releasing yearly updates to F1, DiRT (and
DiRT). A new DiRT 2 and a new GRID 1 and a new DriveClub would be awesome - do
it.

~~~
exDM69
> Dirt Rally is not for me ... unrealistic hard while not be very realistic

Dirt Rally is probably the most realistic _rally_ simulator out there, or at
least second after Richard Burns Rally. There's nothing that's comparable to
those two out there.

And it feels alright to me compared to my experience driving in low grip
conditions on dirt, snow and ice (on traffic and doing drifting on empty
lots). Also when watching replays it looks like real rally driving (most car
games don't look at all like the real thing when watching replays).

But rallying is really friggin' difficult. Richard Burns Rally is probably
even more difficult than Dirt Rally. It takes a while to get a hang of the
loose surface and the lateral dampening from packing snow and dirt in front of
the tyres.

But once you catch the drift (pun intended), it becomes nice and fluent. You
need to flick the car in nice and early, get going sideways and then modulate
the drift with throttle and brake. I really like the FWD and RWD cars in Dirt
Rally, the 4WD's are not as intuitive as in RBR (but that might be because
they don't model the 2000's era computer controlled center differentials).

The big difference to driving sims on tarmac is that you don't really spend a
lot of time full throttle. Instead you accelerate to a decent speed and then
modulate the throttle to compensate for changes in the track surface. Braking
is also similar, to slow down you give very little brake pedal with lots of
modulation and only go full brakes when doing left foot braking (right foot on
throttle).

I can't speak about Dirt or F1 or WRC games because I haven't put much time
into them. I'm more into simulation than racing games.

------
QAPereo
To be fair, a caratoid drip of pure Xanax is more exciting than watching
flashes of advertising blast past you at carefully limited speeds.

~~~
EpicEng
Yah, totally, what are these idiots thinking? Let's just get rid of all forms
of entertainment and hook everyone up to a line of Xanax.

~~~
QAPereo
I can’t believe you actually took my comment to mean _that_ , which leaves
your response as a truly bizarre one.

------
Bud
The truth is, even in its real-world incarnation, this always was a pretty
lame sport, and now in a climate-change context, it's even more lame. So it's
actually great if the esport version takes over. Entirely. Auto racing is
pathetic.

~~~
TallGuyShort
You're talking about F1, the sport that is showing you can smash lap records
after downsizing from large V-10's to smaller V-6 hybrids? That F1?

~~~
YSFEJ4SWJUVU6
The way you write it, it almost reads as if it comes as a revelation that
smaller, turbocharged engines can compete with larger, naturally aspirated
ones in terms of power output. How can that be: F1 cars already boasted much
more powerful small turbo engines 30 years ago than what has since been fitted
into them.

In any case, that lap records were beaten this year tells an altogether
different story: the engines used don't matter that much for the lap times
after a point. After all, they were running almost the same engines last year,
a little development notwithstanding, and were much slower: what has changed,
and what dominates the gains in lap times, is aerodynamics – which are
severely restricted by the rules. That was also the case a dozen years ago
when we had the similarly powerful, larger but lighter N/A V10 engines (no
hybrid part to lug around back then), accompanied with a narrower track and
grooved tyres to reduce the cornering speeds. Thus the comparison is moot:
everything around the engine dominates the equation anyway, but that is hardly
news.

~~~
TallGuyShort
No I think gains this year are dominated by tyres, but that's neither here nor
there - my point is that painting F1 as this anti-climate-change group is odd.
As others have pointed out F1 car emissions are ridiculously low on the list
of causes of climate change, but my point is more that F1 has pushed
efficiency and alternate technology at the expense of a lot of pushback from
fans. Of the criticisms one can make of F1 in particular, it's a pretty silly
one.

