Thanks for the discussion thread. Sorry for the downvotes.
From what I've heard, there seem to be two main reasons for the removal of images:
To remove low-effort, "karmawhore" posts from the subreddit
To prompt posting more discussion-oriented threads, or to encourage users to discuss more
For many subreddits, this is a good idea and usually turns out well. Many subreddits have had plenty of success with this.
For /r/formula1, it's not.
Sport and game-based subreddits are great in my opinion, because I think they garner a lot of variety in the types of submissions, /r/formula1 included.
Before the rule was imposed, we got to see plenty of articles for discussion, we saw plenty of off-topic posts to invite a broader userbase, we saw gifs that could educate or interest users (such as heat-temperature shots, cool camera angles, accident/collision analysis), and we saw pictures, would brought a bit of light-hearted humour to the subreddit.
All this variety is why there are currently 90,000+ subscribers right now, and why that number has grown after every Grand Prix weekend.
However, you've removed two core parts of the subreddit without any warning or any discussion from the community. As far as the resopnses from moderators have indicated, all that prompted the rule change was a small number of users who complained about memes.
That's really all we can see.
How the moderators have approached this "trial run" is appalling. A rule with little reason or community support has been enforced, and some moderators have acted as if this change is of the utmost importance, as if we (the 90,000 people who have clicked "subscribe" at some point) are stupid, we're wrong, and we've been told that we don't know what's best for ourselves.
It's not about the fact that karmawhores can't shit-post, it's about the fact that we don't feel like we have a say. That, when we all subscribed, we did so because we wanted to learn and share nothing more than information and banter with strangers who love the sport just as much as each other.
We did not subscribe because we wanted to visit a palace of rulers and kings who tell us what is in our own best interest, and who seem to be moderating simply for the fact that they want their names written in green.
This trial-run is over, and has clearly failed. The community has shown that we're not interested in the change. What we are interested in is a reversion to the subreddit that we subscribed to in the first place.