A new slant on the greatest F1 era debate

Trying to judge when Formula 1 was at its best is almost impossible and depends very much on who you are asking.

What do you care about more: close racing, great characters or spectacular cars? What about technical innovation versus a pack of snarling Cosworth DFV 'kit cars'?

We've previously looked at raw statistics and conducted Autosport reader votes to try to come up with an answer. There's almost certainly no such thing as a definitive 'greatest era', but the debate can provide insights into what fans want and how to make that happen, particularly pertinent given the upcoming rules change for 2021.

Previous analysis has shown that F1's closest eras in terms of the pace of the leading teams came during the DFV's life (falling mainly in the 1974-82 period we identified) and the manufacturer-heavy 2000s, particularly after the engine development freeze at the end of the decade.

In other words, reducing the variables by equalising engines unsurprisingly closed the field. Most would agree that having lots of competitive teams is good, but do we really want most of the powerplants to be the same to achieve that?

When it came to our reader vote, 1974-82 (magazine readers) and 1994-2005 (online) won out, but a new book uses another approach.

Roger Smith's previous editions of Formula 1: All the Races have long been useful reference books in the Autosport office, particularly as they include brief coverage of every world championship race. But The First 1000 version, published following the landmark 2019 Chinese Grand Prix, includes a bold attempt to grade all the GPs.

Smith gives each race one of five ratings: gold, silver, bronze, black/tragedy (think 1994 San Marino GP) and white/travesty (2002 Austrian GP, 2005 US GP). There are always going to be disagreements over rating races - it's strange to us, for example, that the 1990 Japanese GP is a 'black' whereas the 1989 event, which also included an unseemly clash between title rivals Ayrton Senna and Alain Prost, is a gold, and surely the 1995 Belgian or European GPs deserve a gold - but Smith's assessments are largely sound.

He does seem reluctant to describe any races as bad and half of the 1000 are rated bronze. Essentially a 6/10 race gets the same bronze rating as a 1/10 (remember the 1998 Spanish GP? No? Probably just as well). A grading with more options - perhaps marks out of five or 10 - would be more sophisticated and allow greater analysis, but it would also take a lot longer. We applaud Smith for his effort and consider it something of a challenge for the future...

Every 'era' has its strengths, as you might expect from a championship that's been the pinnacle of motorsport for seven decades. What you feel is best depends on your criteria and, quite likely, your age

Taking a look at the golds does allow us to see which eras produced the highest number of great races. Smith describes them as "sensational, thrilling, spellbinding" and "extraordinary races or events so exceptional they occur once, maybe twice within a Formula 1 season".

Looking at the races selected, he has - quite rightly - also included virtuoso drives, such as Juan Manuel Fangio's 1957 German GP victory and Senna's 1993 European GP wet-weather masterclass.

Downloading the book's free 2019 season section brings the total number of races to 1018, 126 of which are rated as gold. That's 12.4%, so across the history of the world championship there has been one great race in every eight. But that has not been consistent over time.

Using Autosport's eras provides some interesting results:

The best is 1961-73, with almost one in five GPs being a great race. That's worth remembering the next time people criticise a boring race and extoll the virtues of a previous era: there have always been dull races.

Perhaps surprisingly, given the much larger gaps (the biggest average winning and pole position margins were in this decade), 1950-60 is next up, though it should be noted that this is from a much smaller sample size.

Only three seasons - 1984, 1990 and 2018 - score more than three golds, indicating that the past two years have been among the best, with the caveat that there were more races than in previous seasons

Worst of all is 1994-2005, affected by Michael Schumacher's domination and the sprint-stop-sprint nature of the refuelling era that tended to discourage wheel-to-wheel racing.

So, the reader voting threw up 1974-82 and 1994-2005 as winners, while the 'gold' analysis from Smith's book puts 1961-73 on top.

For technical innovation, you could also make a case for the 1983-93 period that included turbos, semi-automatic gearboxes and active suspension, not to mention the Prost-Senna rivalry.

What does this tell us? Probably that every 'era' has its strengths, as you might expect from a championship that has been the pinnacle of motorsport for seven decades. What you feel is the best depends on your criteria and, quite likely, your age.

But it's clear that close racing - and at least the possibility of overtaking - is important to many, hence the constant calls to curb downforce levels and 'dirty' air.

One final thought. Smith rates three of last year's races as gold (the German, Hungarian and Brazilian GPs, which we reckon is rather harsh on the Austrian GP), giving a conservative 14.3%.

Only three seasons - 1984, 1990 and 2018 - score more than three golds, indicating that the past two years have been among the best, with the caveat that there were more races than in previous seasons.

Even taking this into account, 2018 comes out well against the other campaigns with three or more golds:

*Excluding the Indianapolis 500, which Smith elects not to categorise

F1 has now emerged from the 'dark' days of the Mercedes domination of the early turbo-hybrid era, even if the Silver Arrows have yet to be beaten to a title. Along with 1952 (Ferrari domination), 1995 (a mistake, surely!) and 2002 (Ferrari domination and controversial team orders), 2015 is one of only four seasons not to have a single gold race.

If Ferrari or Red Bull can finally take the last small step to battle Mercedes for a whole season this year, that could provide a few more 'golds' to join the list.

And that's before the new rules, designed to create closer racing and allow more teams to fight at the front. Here's hoping we'll have another strong candidate for F1's elusive greatest era in a few years' time.

For your copy of Formula 1 All the Races: The First 1000, priced £65, visit veloce.co.uk or f1-1000.veloce.co.uk