What made motor racing more spectacular in the 60s and before compared to now, was that the cars were difficult to handle before aero, and the drivers had a hard time exploiting difficult cars. Now, you can hardly see where the skill is; the cars drive like on rails through corners, and you don't see change of attitude under braking or during acceleration.
What real interest does Ross Brawn have with the commercial side of F1? He'd be much better dealing with the technical side of the sport as it is that which is his passion - And that means working for the FIA and not Liberty.
All this ICE engine talk is great and all (...), but who says F1 has to do anything with road legal cars? 2030 onwards ICE cars (NEW) MAY be banned, but other cars are still allowed to roam free more or less. F1 is a sport. Sport is there to entertain us. Have them run on biofuel, transport via electric trucks and whatnot, appear as green as possible. 24 cars running around for a few hours will harm the ozone the precise amount of **** all. A field full of farting cows does more damage on a daily basis. I don't think Liberty bought F1 without thinking it through properly, thus also thinking of the long term implications of the ICE engine. Liberty know full well that an all electric series will NOT be watched, even if they do 600mph and drive upside down. I said it earlier in this thread, but I'll say it again: If F1 does it right, it can afford to lose manufacturers Renault and Mercedes, as long as the new engines are simplified and exciting, and able to be build competitively by companies such as cosworth, Judd, Zytec etc. Ferrari will likely be the only team with their own engine, but Mclaren, Red Bull, Williams all come back in to play still. If F1 is a spectacle, sponsors are to be gained again, and with (much) cheaper to operate cars, teams can actually be in it to make money rather than try to survive for another year.
Well he was previously a team owner ,so he probably has a pretty good idea about whats right and wrong on the commercial side,but yes of course he came in to motor sport as an engineer and worked his way up. 'Doing a little bit of consulting for Liberty' could mean lots of things.
F1 has more or less to be relevant to ordinary cars to survive. At the moment, it's the ICE which is the common denominator, plus the fact that household names were/are in F1: Ford, Renault, Mercedes, Peugeot, Alfa, Ferrari, BMW, etc... When ordinary street cars will be electric, that link will go, and, apart for a small bunch of enthusiasts, people of future generations will not be interested in ICE vehicles, and see them as some sort of curiosity, like windmills are. Do you see a huge attraction in penny-farthing these days? Do lots of people watch air races with biplanes? Who watches real tennis? Of course F1 will still exist in the distant future, in historic racing and museums. The organisers will have to obtain permission to organise historic F1 races with a noise limit. You don't want to accept that ICE is on the way out. Therefore the public will be interested in something else than historic ICE cars. ICE vehicles will be seen like the steam engines are considered now: museum pieces, exhibited from time to time for nostalgia; just like Goodwood Revival. Sports come and go. People will find other entertainments. Contrary to your statement, I think electric series will attract a new audience (like people put off by the ICE noise), and that Formula E has to be better formatted to improve the show. Let's face it, manufacturers don't have much to learn from F1, whilst Formula E is a test bench for a technology they MUST adopt in future. I cannot see major manufacturers invest in research on ICE and funding racing power units, if the technology is out of touch with what they sell in their showroom. Of course small engine builders can step in for a while, but in the end, it's the ICE itself that will disappear because the public will be behind a cleaner, and more relevant source of energy. Maybe Liberty itself will switch to Formula E to protect its interests! Never though about that ?
Maybe ICE engines will disappear someday. It has been predicted for years and still around. Over 100 years old and still the most used engine. Do you really think electric will take over? I know the young have green ideas, but that could change if major conditions change. If the s**t hits the fan I could see a simple ICE engine with magneto, if some kind of fuel was available.
Yes, I do. Because electricity can be produced by renewable energy, practically for free, and without any pollution.
We've had this argument so many times now, we quite simply won't agree, hence in my first post I stated I tried not to enter this pointless debate again as neither will agree. Horse racing is still about. My personal feeling is that F1 will go the way of horse racing, and formula E or whatever will be where manufacturers go. Lots of money in horse racing. It'll still be televised (well, on the internet but so will everything).
The argument that horse racing still exists, so F1 will follow the same path and survive after the ICE has left out is fraud. Although horse racing has followers, there is not a worldwide championship to determine who's the best jockey, etc...as someone pointed out on this forum, horse racing still exists thanks for betting. Horse racing is a sport that has become a platform for gambling, no more, no less. P We are no there yet. Also, horse racing isn't an industrial competition. Finally, the horse isn't threatened with extinction, or about to be legislated out of existence like ICE. I bet you that horse racing would disappear very quickly if betting was banned. It's its life support.
In the end all we can say is ''we'll see''. With time you'll doubt be right, traditional F1 WILL die someday. I just hope they go out in a blaze of glory, many years from now.
Also, the next generations will live in a highly technical society, where electrify will serve everything. I don't think people in 100 years time will want to spend their leisure time watching smelly cars going round. They will wonder what's the point! Most of the vehicles and machinery will be robotised and operated at no risk. I don't think they will share your enthusiasm for something they will consider rather primitive. Motor racing as we know it will be looked down as a weird pastime, like ploughing competitions are now.
I think F-1 rules like Brian suggested are good, I'd like larger tires but that is splitting hairs. I agree 1500 BHP... min. and open up the type of engines - just have a mini dyno that caps available power in the cars to 1500bhp.... the other issue is money as in lack of it. F-1 has to go after sponsors together with teams - big Pharma is the ideal target... F-1 also needs to do market research on who Millenials are using what do they buy etc... and then get those sponsors in F1.... TV - is going by the way side, ... digital platforms and virtual reality etc... all need to be developed by F-1. If you think about it Eccelstonne is living in the F-1 world of the 80's in terms of money... he built the TV empire, but time has / is leaving him behind. that is why the sponsors are not there.
I watched Ross Brawn doing an interview on TV the other day and he basically stated that he had no interest in running F1 for liberty as that wasn't really what interested him with the sport. He also stated that people were probably reading a little too much into what he was doing for Liberty, adding that Lberty are not the only ones he does F1 consultancy work for. I'm not saying that he doesn't know about the commercial side of the sport, I suspect he knows it very well, but based on the interviews I've seen and read from him lately, the commercial side is not his speciality, and it's not something he's showing any real interest in getting involved with.
NOVEMBER 9, 2016 Liberty looking at F1 internet streaming F1 looks set to finally enter the world of live streaming. Internet broadcasting has always been ruled out by Bernie Ecclestone, on the basis that the success of the sport's commercial rights was built on the sale of traditional television rights. But F1 is being taken over by Liberty Media, whose president and CEO Greg Maffei said this week is looking to expand the sport into 'OTT' - or 'over the top' internet broadcasting. "Given the global nature and the dedicated fan base we have, it would seem like an OTT product is something that makes a lot of sense for them (F1) and us," he said during an analyst call, according to Hollywood Reporter. However, he admitted that F1's current setup of traditional television rights means that there are obstacles. "I don't think they're impenetrable, but there's things to be worked through," said Maffei.
Indeed. And it looks absolutely fantastic and is very much the way forward. If we can select commentary (i.e. Channel 4, Sky, your local commentary, or none for those who want that...) it would be beyond fantastic. Preview: Image Unavailable, Please Login
Maybe, but many expect to watch F1 for free. Without commercials that won't happen. It's a choice between commercials or pay-as-you-view.
In the UK it's not going to be a choice though is it? From 2019 it's going to be: Pay £42 (@$50) per month (For the first 12 months, then it goes up to £47.50[@$60] per month) to SKY TV for a sports package that includes F1 (you cannot get F1 on it's own), or tough s:censored:t, you can't watch F1 any more! So if you want to continue watching any live F1 in 2019, it's going to go from costing you £145.50 (@$183) per year (the cost of the UK licence fee) in previous seasons on the BBC or Channel 4, to costing you £650 (@$815) for the first year, and £715 (@$900) per year from 2020! (That's the SKY subscription plus the licence fee combined). And don't think for one minute that if you pay for the SKY coverage there are no adverts either! Whilst it's true that there are no adverts during the race itself, there are adverts every 10 seconds pre and post race! As I have already posted, the terms of the SKY deal are that they must make a highlights package available to a "Free to air" basis, but it appears that they are going to get round this by putting the coverage on their "SKY Sports Mix" channel that will be free - To SKY TV customers, so if you don't have a SKY TV system in your house: Tough S:censored:t! yet again! The fact of the matter is, the Liberty group are not in F1 because they are F1 fans. They are not in F1 to make sure the sport continues to exist. They are in F1 to make money, anyhow they can, and so long as the TV companies such as SKY TV keep paying them the money for exclusive rights, they don't give a rats rectum how many people are watching the sport! Don't believe Me? - Try this little test!: The rights to F1 become available, and Channel 4 say to Liberty: "We can only afford to pay $100 Million Dollars, but we can guarantee you that we'll have 10 Million viewers watching the sport every race!" SKY TV come along and say: "We'll pay you $250 Million for the coverage, even though we only have 3 people who will be watching the sport!" Now which deal would Liberty go with? Are they going to say: "Hey! - What we really want is loads of viewers every season!" - Are they b:censored:ks! They'll take the extra $150 Million from SKY TV without a single consideration for the fans who would no longer get to see their favourite sport! Again I ask: If the people in charge of F1 are so concerned by dwindling viewing figures on TV, why are they doing more and more deals to show the sport exclusively on pay per view channels, on networks that only a small percentage of the population have? How does that thinking work?: "Hmmmm........How can I get our sport out there to more viewers?.........I know, I'll give to a TV company that has a smaller number of viewers!" The only people who are concerned about the lose of fans, are the FIA, because they run the F1 as a sport, not a business, and they can see their sport slowly becoming less popular. The only concern Liberty have is the lose of revenue, because they run F1 as a business, not a sport, so as long as they get their money, they don't give a s:censored:t! Again, don't believe Me?: If F1 starts to lose masses of money, will the FIA abandon it? - No, they will try to keep their sport going by adapting and evolving the sport to stem the loss of revenue. If F1 starts to lose masses of money, will Liberty abandon it? - In a heartbeat! They're not interested in the sport, they're only interested in the money that they can make out of the sport!
I have been following F1 since the mid 60s. There was a 3month delay to read about it in Road & Track, Reported excellent by Rob Walker, who was a privateer in F1. Then subscribe to Autoweek for only week delay. Then live TV coverage. There was only nine races in the 60s.
And there's me back in about 2000, didn't have cell coverage as we visited niagra falls and buffalo on the Sunday of the GP at Spa that year, and had to follow the race via text messages from my cousin which turned up sporadically as the signal went in and out as we travelled around
I watched a 1979 race in its entirety a couple of days ago. It was refreshing to see cars run around without chicanes everywhere, without pit stops, on long flowing circuits with ardent fans within a few feet of the armco. Simple wings, short small low slung cars with lots of driver input. Why can't we get rid of the "modernization" of F1?
