#which is why redbull lets alex leave to another team

[lsunstreakerl]

the fact that max gets along well with alex as a teammate in real life, but not well enough for redbull to keep him in the seat. i feel compelled to ask you, how does this happen in the darkbull universe?

alex tries, he does. he actually lasts a bit longer than some of the others that RB has attempted. ultimately it becomes the same problem though- he just can't bring the car where it needs to be. and max likes him, he does, but the ideal world for max is having teammates he likes who can also drive at his level.

once it starts to show that alex can't do that-

he's done.

[myimaginarywonderland]

While it is easy to just chalk up this boring season to the Verstappen dominance, I think to truly understand why everyone is not enjoying it we need to dive deeper.

I definitely think the fact that RedBull has such a fast car is the first step to just less enjoyment. Especially when you have other series where there isn't a dominant team let alone driver, you kind of sometimes which F1 would be like that again which just seems impossible with the modern regulations. It already adds the "well this team will win anyway unless something bad happens to them."

Which immediately brings me to the other issue that's reliability. I honest to god feel like this is the season were cars are the most reliable. Almost all DNFs that happened this season were caused by drives error in one way or another and there's rarely any technical DNFs in comparison to say for example 2017/2018.

Now we come to the problem that is just DNFs in general. There's also rarely DNFs this season because drivers don't make errors that result in race finishing scenarios anymore.

To build onto this, there's definitely less chaos because of DNFs. It feels like almost all the teams agree with the same strategy unless it's a back maker team making a gamble and therefore there's no unpredictability anymore in any scenario that might happen after something like a car stopping next to the track.

Now we move onto a previous point. While there was a winning team you would at least have unpredictability. 2020, which honestly was a massive dominant season for Mercedes where there was mostly Lewis winning races still saw 3 other people winning that weren't equiped with the Mercedes and 4 if we count Val. Why? Because Mercedes messed up or something went wrong in Qualy. With RedBull (kudos to them) there's basically no one who even believes they have any room for error. Like they are such a well oiled machine that you can't even see them with Max making a mistake.

Another huge problem is also undoubtedly the calendar. We have had so many tracks where qualifying basically determines the finishing order because there's such a low possibility for overtaking that you don't expect really much changes. It adds another layer of finality before the race has even started.

To add onto that we have to talk about the giant gaps between the teams. While yeah RedBull is definitely dominant, there are also just such big gaps between all the other teams. Alex said it before that basically there's just no way to get points for anyone that isn't in Aston, RedBull, Ferrari or Mercedes because those teams are guaranteed the top 8 if everything goes right. And yet between them there is also right now rarely a fight because the tracks just suit some cars better which means it's always another layer of "Right, this will be a RedBull + Nando podium" or "Right, this is a RedBull+ Lewis podium." The gap between the top 4 is already turning out bigger and then from there on it's just another huge gaps. There's barely any fight between midfield teams and the backmakers are most likely also just obvious and nowhere close to any fight. The field is so spread out often that even if the tracks allowed overtaking it's basically impossible due to the large team gaps.

Another thing that has become quiet prominent is the DRS train which often times just means even if a car does have more pace, there's just no way for it to overtake because it is a hindrance basically impossible to pass. I truly do think this is more prominent this season and it's so interesting think about why but that's not the point. The point is it poses another problem that makes enjoyment dimed.

And lastly a huge problem I have found myself having is also the coverage of the race. Sometimes it truly does feel like there is nothing that we are shown or the lack of communication from comms leaves you an entire race wondering why a driver is in his position because it's not something deemed replay worthy and the commentators are more focused to make a race seem interesting than actually keeping you update on everything. It makes it hard to follow and I can't imagine coming in as a new fan sometimes because it truly can seem like there's a lack of communications.