The passing is NOT in the pits... we need better F1 TV coverage!

If you like Vincent

In the end nothing we discuss on this site will change the money/TV is the focus view of F1.

But you are right we should leave Brian's thread alone ... not confuse it.

Pete

 

We probably can't change F1 from here. But, heck, it's fun to talk about it.

 

Ahem, I got two words for you Pete:

Reversed grid

 

I agree

 

Canada is as close as we've come to a reversed grid and guess who won.

 

There were better examples yet: Indy 03 and Silverstone 03 after the mad man run onto the tarmac.

Weren't those some of the best races of the whole season?

I always think F1 is at its best when a race is unpredictable. When something strange happens that changes the regular processional races. It's also those races where MS and Ferrari have their most shining moments by struggling through it and coming out as the winners at the end (ok, that didn't happen in Monaco this year, but you get the idea).

 

Okay. "circuit" shares its roots with the word "circle", hence the confusion. ("two nations devided by a common language")

Okay, that's one opinion. But I feel there are plenty of "spec" racing series: IRL, CART, F3000, Formula Saab, etc., to provide showcases for drivers fighting it out on-track.

F1 is unique, in that it's a manufacturers' series: and so, IMO, should be about the limits of the technology, and pushing the cars to their limits. And, oh by the way, the world's "best" cars also get the "best" drivers. But pushing the technology isn't about passing on the track -- it's about getting to the end, preferably without anyone else getting anywhere near you ... something that Ferrari has been doing.

I was half serious about emissions testing for F1 cars. These guys are supposed to (IMO) take the lessons from F1 and put them on my car.

Because the more capable my street car is, the more I've got "in the tool box" when some dweeb pulls straight across my nose. (There's a Ford Explorer driver (to use the term loosely) who is alive today because of the DMS coil-overs I put in my Celica ST165 (Carlos Sainz era). Without the handling improvement, the rally car would'a punched straight through that tissue box SUV. The newer EVO, by comparison, stops much shorter than the older ST165.)

While I don't really enjoy NASCAR, it does have the shoulder to shoulder racing you demand of F1. And, with fenders, those cars can rub shoulders without breaking important parts.

The obvious correllary to the "one line" comment is that the way to pass is for the car in front to not be on the best line. Michael has often filled a driver's mirrors with red car until he makes a mistake: Kimi in France '02, both JPM and Trulli in Aus the same year, etc. Your comments about hairpins relates to forcing the leading car off the ideal line. Ferrari hasn't had to do a lot of that in the last couple of years, because the other cars can't get that close. I don't mind, because this, too, shall pass. Somebody is going to build a faster F1 car, and spank the Ferraris. It will happen, even without rule changes.

That's one opinion. Mine is that there are plenty of spec racing series for the "racing on the track" stuff. F1 is about the hardware.

Yes, this isn't the universal opinion, but it's what *I* like about F1.

But improvements in the racing coverage could make it easier to understand tactics other than nose-to-nose racing.

Besides, a split screen with a lot of extra data on it would help sell big-screen televisions.

 

I'd like to see the makes championship go back to covering both open wheel and sports car races. It wouldn't cut costs, but it might produce closer competition, as you'd need to dominate both with and without fenders to keep the competition away.

Besides, some of the best street cars ever built were homologations of racing machines.

The really classic Ferraris came from racing, not street cars separate from the racing.