It might be a daft question to put into the universe but is it the case that the "Pinnacle of Motorsport" is losing that title to other categories such as IndyCar and Formula E? So what are the racing categories that are potentially going to take that title away from Formula 1?
IndyCar
There is a lot that Formula 1 can learn from IndyCar rules, from red flags during qualifying to the closing of the pitlane under caution (safety car for F1). Now what makes IndyCar better than F1 is that even though it is a spec series, it allows different drivers to win races and teams to win. IndyCar 2023 has seen 5 different winners in 5 races on 3 different race layouts (Oval, Road, and Street), this is something that F1 could do with given the last time we saw something very similar to that was in the 2012 season when there were 7 different winners in the first 7 races but there has never been a season since when that has even looked likely given the dominance of the Mercedes in the turbo-hybrid era and now Red Bull in the ground-affect era of F1.
When comparing the advertising of F1 and IndyCar on Sky Sports then there is a vast difference. So far in 2023, there have been 2 races (PPG 375 and Barber Motorsports Park) where at the end of an F1 race, Sky Sports mentioned an IndyCar race later in the day. In the UK IndyCar doesn't get advertised as much as it should with Sky Sports but when F1 was in Azerbaijan and IndyCar was in Barber Motorsports Park, there were more viewers for the IndyCar race than there were for the Formula 1 race (972,000 for IndyCar compared to 958,000 for F1).
After the Miami Grand Prix, everyone wasn't happy with the race whether it was the driver introductions for the pre-race to the on-track battle for the lead but it was former F1 and current IndyCar driver Marcus Ericsson who tweeted.
"I know every race can't be a classic. But imagine if all the people watching @F1 would
give @IndyCar a chance. We always have min 2-3 stops with different strategies,
refuelling, P2P instead of DRS, plenty of teams+drivers that can win each weekend. It's
fun I promise! #F1"
The biggest problem F1 has compared to IndyCar is the lack of quality race tracks, each year we get rumours of a race being held in South Africa, another one in America, or in Europe but instead, we end up with races such as Miami, Imola, and Qatar which really don't offer much to F1 other than money.
Formula E
Formula E is relatively new compared to F1 and IndyCar but when you compare it to F1, it is everything that F1 doesn't have. Having smaller cars compared to F1 (Formula E 5,016.2mm (Length) x 1,700mm (Width) vs Formula 1 5,500 (Length) x 2,000 (Width) has contributed to some great racing at Berlin Tempelhof Airport and on the streets of Monaco. The biggest problem with F1 in Monaco is that there is no overtaking and the race is usually a snoozefest but with Formula E in 2023 there were 116 overtakes throughout the E-Prix.
F1 needs to go back to the 2009 season and earlier when the cars were smaller and thinner than current-day cars. Another thing that Formula E does well that Formula 1 doesn't is down to the tyres. With F1 as soon as any of the drivers start pushing on their tyres, they just overheat, leading to the drivers having to drive slower whereas with Formula E, the tyres can hold up, allowing the drivers to push each lap.
The racing has always been good in the series but in this current new generation of car, the problem that you can say that Formula E have is that when the series goes to a hot climate the racing tends to be limited due to the temperature of the battery when regening, which was the case in last weekends Jakarta E-Prix, which is the opposite to F1 where it's mainly the tires and power output that gets affected with the high temperatures.
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