It has come full circle, lol. F1 was always hit or miss in the past. Then Tamiya releases the F104 in 2009, breathing a bit new life, and then everything exploded when Pit Shimizu comes out with rubber tires that actually work ~2011 or 2012. F1 takes off! Everyone makes an F1 chassis and it has been popular for 10+ years.

Now it is slowly dying, but F1 class has always been a fad. Honestly I think most people moved onto GT12. It is easier and....gasp....still rubber tire! 1/12 picks up again....just in different form...

I began racing HPI Super F1 cars with foam tires at Sheldons Hobbies parking lot in the 90's. It was a blast! With rubber, I can ease my kiddos into the category and we have fun painti g helmets, learning to drive the church parking lot near us without hitting each other <3
This book is great by the way!
https://cimg3.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.rct...67d069413e.jpg

I'll have to pick up the hardcopy of that book. The e version is horribly overpriced.

I agree with you.
Is this what they call 'F1' now at ETS? They have become too 'professional', just like TC class.
The cars look horrible, especially those bodies. Didn't that body come out 20 years ago for the F103?
https://cimg1.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.rct...bc0c53c3aa.png

And does ETS really have higher turnout for F1 now than when they ran rubber? I am curious to know.

Keep in mind the reason they switched to foam was not due to declining popularity, but they had availability issues from the supplier to get the spec tire in the needed quantities. (during pandemic)

The 21/22 season had 46 unique drivers
The 22/23 season had 53 unique drivers
The 23/24 season had 67 unique drivers

I'm actually looking at getting a cpl new f1 body's. Gonna get the protoform F26 and the montech f23. Doing a f104 body now by tamiya. I opted not to use the optional side pods. I dunno about those new rear wings. Maybe I'll try one. The newer style.
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What about prior years pre-pandemic.

Found it: (rubber tires)

13/14 - 117 drivers
14/15 - 226 drivers
15/16 - 273 drivers
16/17 - 207 drivers
17/18- 178 drivers
18/19 - 134 drivers and 53 for the 40+ drivers

Are those numbers unique drivers and not just total entries? If they are unique thats crazy how much rc as a whole has died off if they really did have 273 different guys run F1 in 15/16!

I pulled it from here since I was curious. Unique drivers it seems.

https://ets.redrc.net/standings/

I do recall from a number of sources in 2021 that many were not happy with the change to foam due to rubber tire raw material shortages. The pandemic definitely impacted RC turnout for sure in 2020-2022 so it will always skew data. Honestly, I think F1 is just slowly fading out and chassis updates even from Xray are less frequent over the past few years. It is even reflected at the big indoor races in the US, coinciding with the explosion of GT12. (slower and closer racing)

Very unlikely making foam mainstream will bring the class back, it might accelerate the death. One of my local tracks does race foam F1 and I do run it, but there is a noticeable speed difference when the foam tires get thinner. Just like 1/12 scale, we'll see guys truing them down to get faster.

With that said, do what works for your club, foam or rubber.

Okay, that body just looks weird. It just looks like it's got a growth on the airbox.

Oh wow yeah thats crazy numbers those events were pulling!

Good lord what the heck is that thing? I could live with the foam tires if I had to, until I had to true them.

Great reading material on F1. We started with Tamiya-HPI and then Kyosho all with foam tires. Only HPI ran on 1/10th tires while the others were very large 1/12th. Wen they were to small you could if you unmounted them it would be perfect of 1/12th. The class died and made several attempts to come back. During that time we saw Tc go from rubber and then foam and going back to rubber. The rubber tires don't have to trued like foams! Then you have to contantly change the ride height. Our F1 and GT12 classes are doing fine here in Florida (the only two classes I care to run). As for the Rubber tires from what we have tried (and we have tried alot) some work and last and others don't. You have to find out what works where you race. We found Team Powers (Yellow and Reds) along with Exotech (yellow and reds) work well on Asphalt. Like I said we tried many other tires to see what works for us down here.
Something we have tried and have been using in our F1 classes: We run 2 - 4 minute races and the A main is 10 minutes. We did do a 40 lap race but changed it to 10 minutes as it was about the same. Also we have been trying to get a stop and go system to use for the main. It is still a work in progress. But the main thing is to have fun if you aren't find another class or hobby ,