What is happening to Formula 1? (My Take On)

As most of you already know, the 2016 Formula 1 season has started. We've had 2 races, but only 2 are enough to tell you two things: 1. This season (or at least the first two races) is more exciting than last season and 2. The new Qualifying format needs to be ditched.

It's the latter everyone's been talking about. Quite a lot. What was once a bashing of the 1.6l Turbo engines has now been forgotten (or seems to be) in the wake of this new Elimination Qualifying system, made for more exciting racing.

I'm not completely in favor of the 1.6l Hybrid motors, or Internal Combustion Engine (ICE) as they're known. I would prefer to see twin-turbos fitted to V6 engines like they have in Indycar. The reason I prefer an Indycar style setup is because even though the engines have a lot of torque (twin-turbos), they seem to be easier to manage than the Hybrid F1 cars, which just slide their rear ends like pro-drift cars at every corner.

But getting back to that Qualy mess, one thing has to be made clear: Mercedes and Ferrari are still the fastest, no matter what Qualifying format. It's the other teams that are suffering the most. You see, this year, the competition behind the front two is intense. From Red Bull all the way to Sauber and Manor, everyone seems to be very closely matched. And this is where Formula 1 is doing the wrong thing at the wrong time, again.

This is not the time to make any changes to the format. This is the time when, if you leave Qualy to it's older format, we'll see some fierce competition between the teams. The days when we knew Manor would be last are gone. Manor have shown they have the pace to really take the fight to the likes of Sauber, who seem to be struggling with pace. And add Renault to the mix too, since their comeback as an individual team hasn't been strong.

Every other team is so close, that getting into Q2 and Q3 will be really exciting to watch, if we had the old format. Red Bull, Williams, Force India, Toro Rosso, Haas, and to some extent, McLaren, are very closely matched when it comes to Qualifying and Race pace.

So far this season, Red Bull are impressive in their performance, despite having a very weak engine. Williams are going further downwards year after year, and need to turn things around very quickly. Force India are good, but need a better package and better luck. Haas are the most impressive newcomers in F1 history it seems. McLaren have improved their performance, but are still slower than the aforementioned teams. Toro Rosso have to improve slightly, and they'll be great. Manor are very promising. Sauber and Renault have to start work on 2017 cars early to really get in the game next season, because their seasons' do not seem to be going well.

As for drivers', Rosberg seems really motivated since Hamilton won the championship in Austin. So motivated in fact that Hamilton hasn't won a race since he was declared champion back in October. The only driver to actually challenge the Mercs is Vettel, who was hit by bad luck in Bahrain. He could've made the race more interesting. Raikkonen is not the great racer he used to be, Hamilton seems to have backed off in terms of performance. Of all the rookies, I find Wehrlein the most promising. He has come to a back-marker team who now have a good engine, and has performed strongly in the first two races. Haryanto is not that bad, but is overshadowed by Pascal. Jolyon Palmer is not as impressive either, but he's at least better than Magnussen, who seems to have lost his style a bit. Gutierrez is just unlucky, otherwise he might have the talent to make it into the top 12 like his team-mate Grosjean, who has shown his experience in this new team.

If this Qualifying format goes on, we might have the worst ever Monaco GP. And that is not something the fans would want to see. They say F1 viewership has been declining over the last couple of years, but if this format stays, I fear more and more people will stop watching this. If you want to bring the excitement back, the viewers back, bring back the good-old Qualy.