Does Formula 1 need to be faster?

The recent Canadian Grand Prix will have done little to alleviate the sense that Formula 1 is failing to hit the right note with many fans of motor racing.

Given last year's edition was so exciting, featuring the fastest cars in the field hitting mechanical trouble, a multi-car fight for victory, a round-the-outside pass on the grass to settle the matter, and a massive crash on the penultimate lap, it's no surprise the BBC chose Canada as one of its precious few races to broadcast live in the UK for 2015.

But this year's race featured no such drama for a prime time European audience. There were no safety car periods and far less tyre degradation than normal, while reliability gremlins only affected the back of the grid, so had no bearing on the battle at the front.

Cue a rather sedate spectacle and then more moaning that F1's current technical regulations have neutered one of the most exciting venues on the calendar.

This is when one gets the feeling F1 cars need to be faster in race trim. Not all grands prix can be classic thrillers - if that were the case there would be nothing to distinguish the good races from the bad, which would be predictable in itself - but when bad weather, variable strategies, high tyre degradation, and lots of daredevil overtaking aren't present to distract fans, F1 becomes exposed and starts to feel, well, a bit pedestrian.

Last year's Canadian GP was full of excitement © XPB

Suddenly the talk is of fuel saving, 'lift-and-coast' and managing brakes. Such things were necessary long before V6 hybrid turbo engines replaced normally aspirated V8s, but therein lies the problem: just because F1's technological direction is focused on efficiency doesn't mean people want to see drivers on economy runs.

Perhaps here there is a strong argument for not broadcasting radio communications between the pitwall and the drivers, or banning them entirely, so fans don't feel drivers are being mollycoddled, or know for a fact when drivers are not pushing as hard as they can.

Unfortunately, when the racing isn't spectacular F1 starts to feel like a go-slow sport rather than a pioneering exercise to push the boundaries of how quickly it is possible to travel around a given circuit.

It doesn't help when the drivers themselves seem to be growing restless with the state of play. OK, so Jenson Button and Fernando Alonso would both be a lot happier if McLaren-Honda was a more competitive proposition than it is currently, but it's interesting to hear the most experienced driver pairing on the grid talk about what it means to drive the current breed of F1 car.

"You have to control everything in the best and most efficient way, that's your challenge," says Alonso, who compares driving in F1 now to the job of flying a modern (autopilot-assisted) aeroplane.

"It's now difficult to push the limit, because if you push at the limit something will go into a less efficient mode and that will affect the total laptime.

"You just need to make sure everything is at 100 per cent. But not yourself. This kind of driving is a little bit strange."

You get the sense the more experienced drivers (and thus the ones most people pay attention to) are growing frustrated and, dare I say it, a little bored with things. F1 should be motorsport's ultimate driving challenge, as well as its ultimate technological challenge. Perhaps, at the moment, it is not.

Button pines for the characteristics of the 2011 breed of cars © LAT

"It's very different," says Button, who recently drove a 2011 McLaren at Silverstone for a sponsor event and said he "loved" rediscovering the feeling of exhaust-blown downforce smothering the car in grip.

"I could not get that car to wheelspin at certain gears. I came out every corner, floored it, could not get it to wheelspin.

"Now, every time you touch the throttle, if you have the slightest bump and your foot moves on the throttle, because there's so much torque, you get the snap oversteer and you just end up wallowing all the way through the corner.

"I mean, it's still F1, we're still racing against the best drivers in the world, so it's a real buzz, but it's a very different feeling of driving than back then - and that was only four years ago.

"It's less 'balls' now and more 'caressing'."

The reduced need for 'balls' is perhaps why the likes of Kimi Raikkonen feel moved to declare that F1 needs to be more dangerous - causing FIA bigwigs to put heads in hands no doubt.

It's a risky statement to make, as anyone who recalls the events of last year's Japanese GP will surely tell you, but Raikkonen also alludes to that zeitgeist sense that F1 is not all that it could or should be right now.

The rookie perspective is interesting too, for even drivers like Carlos Sainz Jr, with no frame of reference within the category, think F1 cars should be quicker than they are now.

Even rookies such as Sainz feel something is missing © XPB

"I would like to be able to focus a bit more on who is the fastest," the Spaniard tells AUTOSPORT. "But I think every guy in the paddock will tell you the same.

"I like to handle the battery, because it's about being clever, but I would just like to be a bit quicker through a race - doing the lap we are doing in qualifying during the race.

"It would make it a bit more demanding and I think it would make it a bit more exciting also.

"I watch the races afterwards on TV and you see the cars are like boats. This is my only complaint about Formula 1 - it needs to be a bit quicker."

The bizarre thing is even the current generation of fuel-limited, heavyset, (sometimes) hard-tyred, aerodynamically-restricted F1 cars can still break new ground.

The data from most circuits supports the theory F1 cars have been getting steadily slower for the past decade, but as recently as last November Nico Rosberg lowered the track record on a resurfaced Interlagos in qualifying.

There is a big push to overhaul the technical regulations to make cars five or six seconds faster in 2017, but F1 needs to be careful. Stickier tyres, more downforce and increased horsepower will obviously make cars quicker, but won't necessarily make the races more exciting.

There will always be boring races, no matter what you do. The important thing is not to over-react. Let's hope for better in Austria this weekend.