I hear a lot that F1 was more exciting in the old days.
I was looking at results from 8-12 years ago. Unless many are thinking af times further back they were not that exciting.
3 drivers would finish on the lead lap. Passing? I guess so, if you count passing a lapped car 3-5 times in a race. I was amazed that 80% of the field was lapped at least once and a lot of them were lapped 2-4 times.
Now its a huge deal if you lap all the way up to position 11.
Example: 1990 Interlagos
The 4th place car finished 1 lap down and 14th place car was 7 laps down.
Maybe that was a freak race how about the next year:
1991 Interlagos
Now you have to look all the way to 7th place to see a lapped car and the 13th place was lapped 8 times.
Maybe a track where passing is more difficult like Monaco:
1990 Monaco
3 cars finished on the lead lap. P4 is 1 lap down and P7 is 6 laps down. Only 7 cars finished making Indy 2005 look like an actual race.
Am I missing something? It seems these last 2 years have been very exciting with McLaren, BMW (2004,2005) Renault and Farrari all getting wins and many more cars on the lead lap sans the usual 4 at the back.
Do I need to look back further for closer races with more passing?