But by now, F1 are incredible resilent, top temas never abandon, so if someone made a nice gap, he certainly win the race (as in many of these season bored races)…

I think that FIA would focused in promote development, so confiability will decrease: for example, regulated size of gasoline chamber, then each team would imporve their motors,a nd then some experimentation would be made… And in the futre might this tech could be used in low-gas consume cars!

This on its own would not produce the effect that rookies often beat their more experienced team-mates. However, many of the older drivers (certainly those who began in 2001 or earlier) come from a generation who did not have to change their technique so often, because major rule changes were less frequent. Previous examples of rule changes which changed the face of the grid include grooved tyres, which played well to the likes of Mika Hakkinen, but caused major problems for drivers like Damon Hill, who struggled to adapt to them.

Several of the drivers also appear to have got to the stage where they are stuck in a rut created by refusing to let go of driving behaviours that worked for them in the past but don’t work now. Ralf Schumacher has been in that mode for several years, but he’s no longer the only one.

Then there’s the paddock’s short memory. It has long been the case that a driver who didn’t get good results for 2-3 years in a row could pretty much assume that their career was sunk. With the paddock being less patient (largely due to manufacturer and sponsor pressures) results are now generally demanded within a year.

The quality of rookies has also improved, as many of you have said. A lot of these drivers have a decade or more of pre-F1 experience. When Rubens Barrichello and David Coulthard started their careers, only very talented kartists or people struggling for funding would consider staying in karting long enough to get that kind of experience. Even Michael Schumacher had only 7 1/2 years of experience before reaching F1! As a result, drivers are coming in with much more racing experience. Increased manufacturer funding for a handful of drivers also gives those drivers more time to work on racing elements rather than sponsor-chasing elements.

There are two things that are too easy about F1 as a whole, though – defending position and recovering from minor mistakes. The advantage in overtaking situations is heavily with the defenders, and push-to-pass will make that even more so. So people like Lewis Hamilton are impossible to pass because the aero situation is silly, not necessarily because Lewis is any better at making his car wide than anyone else. In the cars of a decade ago, we’d get a fairer assessment of what Lewis’ defense capability is.

Minor mistakes only lose tenths of seconds now, whereas before, they often lost whole seconds because awkward bits of the car would break and/or fall off. Retirements were more likely, either because the car was beached or because a damaged component may break later on. It seems like that everything is combining to reduce the apparent differential between top and bottom drivers, youth and experience, in F1 these days.

Although I’ve learned a lot (from reading here!) I have to admit I haven’t been watching real Formula 1 to comment about the ‘today versus yesterday’ debates, but I can say that the average age of pursued athletes has lowered in -all- professional sport, so why should F1 be an exception?

What I find bothersome is the -reason- for youth movements in most professional sports: salary control. Why overpay an aging, underperforming athlete that is expected to decline when you can slightly overpay (for his age) a younger, underperforming athlete that is expected to grow into the next big thing and is therefore exciting?

Canada footage lent a little credence to “the tracks are too easy” argument, though, and frankly, I’m all for putting the softest gravel possible in the runoffs to nearly ensure anybody that has an off gets stuck. The reason is that we shouldn’t want to see injuries like Kubica’s or wish for multimillion dollar project cars to be destroyed by a single mistake, but if you compare to, say, Moto GP, when they have an off, they usually fall and have to leave the bike down. Circuit Villenueve was actually destroying the cars of drivers that were making mistakes, and even destroying cars of drivers that didn’t make mistakes. There aren’t a lot of venues where you can say that right now.

It’s a bit of both, actually. F1 is a bit too soft, if only because of safety and lessening the chance of error. There is much more grip and speed available on the cars now, so it is easier for a rookie to learn now than it was, say, 10 years ago.

However, it does not explain how Alonso is getting manhandled by Hamilton at the moment. It does not explain how Kubica managed to have a storming drive in Hungary. The fact that these guys manage to beat the more experienced ones – regularly – means that these guys are also VERY good. Perhaps the only sad part about it is these guys got good more because of scientific methods (like the one I read on firstpost.co.uk on Lewis) than because of natural talent and experience (e.g. Schumacher and everyone before him).

The two types of tires rule has to be one of the dumbest ever thought up by Mosely’s fascist mind.

After all, Vettel only managed 8th, in a car that Heidfeld might have got up to 8th. Not bad, but hardly in the same league as Hamilton.

And not all of the newcomers have had it so easy – look at Kovalainen. And count the number of times Sutil has been off the road.

But still, the difference between a good and a great driver is perhaps only 0.3s a lap, where once it might have been nearer 1s a lap. Driver aids haven’t eliminated the advantages the best drivers have, but it has massively reduced it.