http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport2/hi/formula_one/13168359.stm
Lots of races in risk of being canned. Bahrain this year. I doubt it will come back next year given the situation Turkey. Not on the calendar in 2012 From what I saw of the stands, China is selling only half its tickets. Whole stands were converted in advertising. Expansion plans are not working exactly as expected!
F1 can forget about turning a profit if Ferrari is not winning races. The F in F1 does not stand for Formula... F1 stands for Ferrari 1. If the Ferrari fans across the globe don't turn up to races and if Ferrari fans don't start having a good time in F1.... Good luck putting on a show... let alone a V4 electric hybrid engine farce!
No DRS in Monaco because of "safety concerns"? Someone please explain why its more of a safety concern on the slowest track.
I'm sure the world recession has something to do with that, but I agree it should have been better. The biggest problem now IMO is political unrest in many of the venues. We'll have to wait and see what happens.
You can laugh all you want, but F1's revenue's are highly dependent on Ferrari's performance. No other team commands such a fan base and no other fan base has the spending capacity to that of Ferrari. The empty grandstands in the past few years are indicative of a Ferrari that is not winning a majority of the races.
What's not in that article is the strong possibility that Jos Verstappen will be replacing Domenicali at the beginning of July.
The reason why F1 is so enjoyable is because of the insane competition. The fact that Ferrari isn't winning a majority of races means that they have to improve, instead of having the rules of the race change to suit their needs. And besides, Ferrari has something far more at stake: its racing allure. The reason why a lot of people buy Ferrari road cars is because they feel a connection, technical or emotional, with Scuderia Ferrari, the most successful team in F1. If Ferrari were to pull out of F1, their racing reputation would suffer greatly.
Limited space to pass. I guess the potential to carry way too much speed in a couple places with no where to really go if you dont get it right. Then again thats racing. Risk.
Majority of fans at the track Ferrari. You do not need proof... look at the red t-shirts in the stands. All hoping for a miracle turn around. If Sepang was late on in the year with Ferrari pace suffering... lesser and lesser attendance. No one is asking for the rules to be bent! What is needed is for the rules to be stable and consistent. KERS DRS V4 engines... electric cars.... This is not the pinnacle of motor sports. You are right... Ferrari does have a tremendous amount at stake. But there are teams that are entirely F1 based... Williams, Mclaren, Sauber.... At least Ferrari can continue in a reduced form building luxury cars... Williams, Mclaren, Sauber all vanish overnight if F1 tanks! Keep changing the rules, keep playing with the format of the sport, keep making up more tchnical mumbo jumbo that fans cannot comprehend... F1 will tank!
Ferrari is a big part of F1's allure, I agree with that. But there is too much of "a good thing" too: when Ferrari dominated F1 with MS winning race after race and WDC after WDC the viewership went down because it was no longer unpredictable FIA and CVC learned their lesson and cooked up so many rules changes (and manipulated some of the results) that we have now different WDCs all the time. Rest assured that if Ferrari would fall off the deep end with their cars the rules would suddenly change in their favor.
This is the deep end. V4 engines... Ferrari has never designed a V4 engine... Keep changing the rules. At this rate Ferrari will be mixing it up with Group Malaysia Lotus and Virgin Mojito Russia soon.
No, the deep end is not winning the WDC for 21 years. We're a very long way from that. As for Ferrari and 4 cylinders, you might want to brush up a bit: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ferrari_Monza Ferrari has built several race cars with 4 cylinders. One of Ferrari's strength is building engines. Any change in the rules re: engines should be playing right into Ferrari's hands.
I accept my ignorance about Ferrari's 4 cylinder engines. But those were inline engines and a very long time ago. F1 will not survive if Ferrari has another 21 year drought!
Will the teams be constrained to either a V4 config. or inline 4 config? Or will they have the option?
I have to disagree with you on that one buddy but I will agree that F1 would most likely never be the same without Ferrari, only time will tell.
