As someone who enjoyed F1 ever since I began watching it in 1998, I could not agree with such assessment. Yes, F1 does have less overtakes, which it certainly compensates with quality of overtakes. There are other issues too.
However, there are a lot of things that F1 does that other series do not. Here I will explain what make F1 pinnacle of auto sport.
Engineering
F1 one is not just competition of racers, it's also a competition of engineers or in more recent times, engineering teams and R&D departments. Just as racers try to outrace each other, engineers try to out engineer each other and build a car that will be head and shoulders fasters that what other have.
F1 is a race of concept cars. Other series, who race on tried and tested at best, and downright outdated at worst, equipment. The kind of cool over the top cars that you occasionally see on exhibitions. What if all carmakers will bring their concept cars to a race so we can see which one is the fastest. That is what F1 is about.
Pre-season testing is where we get to see fruits of these efforts. That is why everyone who understands the game, paying great attention to cars in these events in an effort to notice a future GP winner.
Nowadays teams go conservative with designs as certain design solutions just work best and best not to alter them. However, even in modern times we occasionally see original and bold solutions, like Mercedes without sidepods.
F1 is famous for many of the engineering innovations. Some of these later made into road cars as well. Others stay in F1 because they are either too expensive or impractical.
Some innovations later get banned, but not before team that came up with them, gets to win a championship or two, becoming a legend of the sport in the process.
In F1 its not only racers, who get famous, chief engineers and sometimes team principles become legends as well. Nick Fry, Adrian Newey, Patrick Head, Harvey Postlethwaite, John Barnard and of course Colin Chapman are all famous for their engineering innovations.
Money
F1 is famous for being extremely expensive. Nepotism, paid drivers and dubious sponsorships deals are regulars of F1 life and often make a lot of F1 news and rumors, fuelling accusations of corruption.
What rumor mongers do overlook however is what all this money is spend on. Running a full-on R&D department with dozens of people with engineering experience is not cheap. Equipment they use to build and test cars is not cheap either.
Unlike other series, F1 uses expensive materials, such as carbon fibre, titanium and so on. When it comes to what it builds of, F1 is closer to Space Shuttles and other rocket equipment than to cars from similar series such as IndyCar. At one time teams even experiment with fuelling cars with literal rocket fuel until FIA outlawed it because it's too flammable. Rocket science behind these cars is real.
Overtaking
Now to the elephant in the room: overtaking. Yes, there are a lot less overtaking in F1 compared to many other series such as NASCAR or IndyCar. However, when it comes to quality of these overtakes then F1 is clearly ahead.
Number of overtakes is not everything. Take soccer and basketball for example. In soccer there are at average only 1 or 2 goals per game. In basketball players hit the basket so often, score often goes into third digit. Does that make basketball better or more popular? Statistics says that soccer fans outnumber basketball fans by large numbers.
The reason for that is when a soccer player does score, the entire stadium goes mad. After every goal it takes several minutes for players to calm down and continue playing. You will never see something like that in basketball. Easiness to score makes each scoring repetitive and ordinary. Michael Jordan hitting the ring in 100's time is nothing to write home about. A Ronaldo finally getting through tenacious goalkeeper and scoring after 20 or 30 previous futile attempts to do so, drives the stadium to celebrate with him as he running wild all over the field.
F1 is like soccer in that regard. Less so nowadays compared to the past, however. Overtaking is hard, but when it does happen, everyone gets agitated. F1 overtake is a dish that is served slowly cooked and well prepared. You get to see it being cooked over many, many laps. Near entire race sometimes.
Overtakes are typically precede by a lengthy fight over position, where the chasing racer tries to put pressure on the one in front of him by staying within striking distance and occasionally fainting overtakes. Every so often they will attempt to take on the car in front of them, forcing them to defend and try to block the chaser to prevent them from overtaking. That goes on and on for many laps straight, making viewers speculate who will blink first and make mistake.
A good commentator is needed to narrate the whole process to the audience.
Long Term Plans and Plots
F1 is a long-term sport. To begin winning in 2030, you need to start in 2020, ten years ahead. Take for example Audi. In early 2020 they negotiated with F1 authority's engine regulations. After getting what they wanted they started investing money in R&D to build the engine, as well as started their takeover bid for one of the existing teams on the grid. As of 2025 Audi is not yet on grid, but on track with their plans to get winning by 2030.
Other now famous teams did not become so overnight. Both Mercedes and Red Bull spent several seasons to get things right. Some might call Brawn GP an exception, but if you understand how F1 works, it really wasn't. Brawn GP was a former Honda factory team with all the same personnel. Due to head office decision to terminate their F1 involvement, Honda name was withdrawn in 2009. However, the F1 team already knew in 2008 that they will have a winning car in 2009 because one of their engineers figured out a clever workaround against the F1 rules. Thus, engineering team offered Honda to buy the team and entered 2009 season as Brawn GP and won.
This long-term planning is also part of the game or F1 process, much like playing chess or contract bridge. Pit-stop strategies. Complex deals even paid drivers are part of smart solutions to get ahead in the long run. Sure, you will have to take a deadweight driver on board, but money their will bring will let you build a better and faster car several seasons into future, so it's worth it. When Haas and Sauber were saying they will have a poor season this year, that is what they meant. Poor season now, for a good one several years on.
High Stakes
Another reason that brings a lot of interest to F1 is the fact that stakes are much higher here compared to other series. In a casino no one will care if a slot machine doubles your $1 bid or not. However, if someone bids a million that will get heads turning.
It's the same with F1. Big money is part of it but there is also a competitive racing spirit. Many famous F1 drivers are fiercely competitive. Take Prost and Senna, who infamously caused a crash each to win a championship. While Prost used to deny it was deliberate, Senna did not. Michael Schumacher was also famously competitive, ending two battles for championship in a crash in a final race. For one of these he was even disqualified. Even when he did not crash into anyone, he would do anything possible and impossible to win.
There were also many incidents of fistfights and hurling insults due to perceived undue interference. As for mutual accusations between teams and occasional complains to FIA, then these happen after nearly every race.
Big money brings big stakes; big stakes make everyone nervous. Add to that ambition and stubbornness and you get tension that will explode if something falls on the wrong side of the track.
Compare that to an overly relaxed attitude of some IndyCar racers, where even not getting to start at all is no big deal for some.
Meritocracy
One of the important aspects of F1 is meritocracy. In F1 the best driver and best car wins. In NASCAR people accept that sheer luck can make you a winner. Not so in F1. F1 champion is someone who races better and faster than the rest. F1 constructor champion is one that builds fastest cars.
That is a double-edged sword. On one hand F1 fans can accept that one team dominates a season or two if they indeed managed to build a better and faster car than anyone else. On the other hand, fans do not like when someone gets victory handed down to them for free or wins through no talent of their own, by pure chance and luck.
For example, Senna is so popular because he had Alan Prost to fight for championship with. Fans liked seeing them fighting for victory. Michael Schumacher in his early career too had to fight Damon Hill, Jacques Villeneuve and Mika Hakkinen for leadership. Later however he became uncontested, and fans grew to dislike him, calling him red baron.
Mercedes had much more goodwill of the public when Lewis Hamilton had to fight Nico Rosberg for title. When Rosberg left, citing unwillingness to just let Hamilton win all the time, that goodwill dissipated. Rosberg was replaced with uncompetitive support driver, Bottas, who was just there to pave way for Hamilton to win. Hamilton became silver baron.
Some might question equality in sport. Considering that some teams have better cars and engines than others, giving them clear advantage. That may be true in F1 but to get there, a racer typically has to go through the equal machinery F2 and F3. However, a truly equal and accessible for nearly everyone is the very first step, carting.
By carting I do not mean go-carts where you rent a cart for a time to race with friends. In (semi) professional carting you have to buy your own cart, engine and other equipment from a specialised store. All together it costs less than a typical road car.
Once you have your cart, you can enlist in regional carting league and start racing right away. Races are typically in the same country and not too far away from each other, meaning you can just drive there with a caravan and a cart in a trunk.
Carting is more accessible because you do not need to somehow convince a team boss to give you a chance; in carting you are your own boss and your own team.
On the flip side it means that you also have to manage everything yourself and be your own engineer and mechanic. However, that experience is what makes good races that later became F1 champions. Sure, there are engineers and mechanics in F1 who can set your car up for you. However, if you are not knowledgeable enough to understand what does what, then your car will be average at best, and you will never be the first.
A truly good drivers have peculiar driving style they developed in carting. To match this driving style, they also have a peculiar setting preference that somehow work for them. Max Verstappen is a good example of that. All of his teammates struggle to drive a car tuned and build to his driving style, yet he alone can win championships with it. Something like that can only be achieved through thorough understanding of technical aspects of the car and its settings. Without caring background it will be hard to have such understanding.
Legacy
in other sports racers come and go and forgotten almost immediately they have left. Not so in F1. If you achieved in F1 something of will be remembered forever. People talk forever about legendary cars, engineers, racers. Great innovations are remembered and analysed decades after the fact. So are famous overtakes and battles for championships.
F1 is immortalised as it goes with meticulousness of a museum collection of royal jewels and then showcased with no less reverence. If you want to become part of history and not forgotten the season you stopped racing, F1 is the way to go.
Why legends of F1 are remembered and those from other series are often forgotten. Some might say its only because F1 is more prestigious, however there is more to it than just that. To win in NASCAR or Indy you mostly need luck. A lucky break can make even a very average driver a champion. In F1 that does not work, to win you actually have to be better than others. That is why legends of F1 are remembered.
It is the same in other spheres in life. People who won a million in Nobel Prize money will be remembered, while those who won as much in lottery will soon be forgotten. Because to win a Nobel Prize one has to be good at science and to win in lotto just luck will suffice.
Conclusion
F1 is a sport like no other, it has it all, fast speed, glamour, money, iconic locations such as Monaco, cutting age space level technology and chess level strategy. What other sport has just as much. not even posh upper-class golf can compare. So, tune in and take your time to understand how it all works, it will be worth your time.
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