I can't believe they're thinking of doing this, especially when the stands on race day are starting to look more like they do during qualifying. Pretty soon F1 will become as popular as Indy Car racing, and you'll have drivers jumping ship to drive for NASCAR. Bernie's next bright idea will probably be to put all races on pay per view. Yeah that'll mark the end of F1 for sure.
I assume you didn't watch today's race? If you did, and it failed to entertain you, words fail me..... We've actually had some very entertaining racing all season IMO. OTOH, I've never heard of Street Outlaws, so what do I know?..... Cheers, Ian
F1 is as good as it ever has been IMO. The races ae exciting this year despite some of the stupid rules. I am probably the youngest on here and the only worrying thing is none of my peers watch f1. Hell, my gf even said to me "who is Michael schumacher" when I told her about his accident. The younger generation needs to be engaged somehow. Making the cars green and putting weights in them isn't the way to do it. Strips away the regulations and propensity to issue a penalty at every second, stop imposing limits on testing and having engine freezes and all that rubbish, change the engine back to one that sounds nice and find some way to foster aggressive driving. It's drivers like hamilton that make the race interesting to watch. Also more public access to drivers and Bernie needs to go to prison
Timeless debate. The two are inexplicably linked. Boycotting an event can raise awareness and helps certain causes gain traction. Personally I prefer a dichotomy between the two. Whilst boycotting sport can be effective in dealing with politics I think sports primary function is to entertain and that politics shouldn't get in the way of that. The debate surrounding the race itself brings awareness to issues. Whether the race goes ahead or not has no impact on anything Russia does.
OK kid, Seems when you're not ranting about Nico and/or your man Ham, you're actually pretty eloquent. You're off my ignore list! You raise some good points. Mind me asking how old you are? Have you ever been to an F1 race? (Any race, come to that?) You say your peers aren't interested, and that's a shame. Us old farts won't be around forever! However, I don't think removing testing restrictions or engine freezes will engage them either. More access? Possibly. But very few go to a GP to schmooze with the drivers. And while it may be "fashionable" to say it, Bernie's fate is also irrelevant IMO. Damn, if they've never heard of Michael, what are the chances they've heard of Bernie!?...... How do we get 'your generation' excited about it is I guess my question? Cheers, Ian
I did also mean to note, that's a bit of a stretch! How far back do you go? Having said that, if you feel the racing is good, why isn't it engaging more of your peers? I think we're all agreed that "green" & F1 is an oxymoron, and it seems you're of the same opinion. So it's not that. As F1 fans the vast majority will baulk at this crazy ballast nonsense. It certainly won't attract any news fans and will actually drive away many long timers too. Not one of Bernie's better ideas! So, again, what do they need to do?..... (No easy answers, huh!) Cheers, Ian
I am 23, though about to be 24 unfortunately. Just graduated college and now putting every cent I earn into my "ferrari fund" (a vanguard index tracker basically). Came across this site whilst researching all I can about ferraris. How to make f1 interesting for my generation... (Warning: post heavy with my life story) I started watching f1 when I was 7 yrs old. I never had cable tv at home so I would get my grand parents to record the races for me and then i would watch every one. I didn't have a computer and internet was terrible those days anyway so when I watched the race I never knew the result. I picked up what I could for a little kid. I loved schumacher and ferrari and hated villenueve. So at that age the ferrari brand was so important in fostering my interest despite me not knowing exactly what was going on (though I thought I did). Ferrari is much more important to f1 than some people may like to admit. Then came along playstation. I remember playing formula one 1999 when I was 9-10 and memorizing the tracks and racing late into the night when my parents didn't catch me. I lost touch with f1 for a few years (majored in law and history at UNi (or college as you Americans call it) kept me busy) but now I'm back to the sport for the long run I think. Anyway sorry to belabor the point with my life story (don't wanna bore you all to death) but I think things are hard in this day and age where so many sports are fighting for viewers. F1 has terrible internet and media presence in the way it negotiates with new technology. The sport needs to be a lot more accessible to smart phones and all races should be available to watch online. I think once someone becomes a fan for a few years they become a fan for life. If f1 can grab ahold of the youngsters then all the better. The young like fast paced sports and f1 needs to be as exciting as it can be whilst striking a balance between that and artificiality (no restarts under sc...eww). If I think back to what got me interested; the love of ferrari paid a huge part. The excitement of the start as the lights were about to go out. The drama and the aggression of some drivers (why I like lewis so much today). Regulations in the name of safety are numbing the fun a little...too many penalties etc So yeah; increased accessibility for the smart phone generation would be a start. Then all about excitement. Get rid of fuel limits, stop testing restrictions (gonna want to bring back tobacco sponsorship so teams can actually get some money) so that teams on the back foot can fight a little better. Many are better placed in terms of technical knowledge to answer this question than I, but excitement (not artifical excitement we don't want a gimmick) and accessibility. I've never been to an f1 race. Though id love to and plan to soon.
Well I can't really go back too far. When I started watching senna was already dead. My knowledge of past f1 is simply informed but what I've read and watched on youtube etc. The cars certainly shouldn't be slower today than the cars of yesteryear. Go back to the tyre war as well maybe. As an aside; I actually don't mine some gimmicks. Drs is fine with me. Balance is difficult to strike
Good for you! You've certainly found a good source of info for all things Ferrari right here. Good luck in your quest. Interesting. Given the timeframe, I can see how you jumped on the Ferrari bandwagon as a kid. And that's fine, we all love winners, at least when we're young. I wonder what made you ask your grandparents to record F1 rather than the more 'accepted' football for example? My kids are somewhat older, but for them it's been football since they could walk. OK, we encouraged that, but for sure their peers were all soccer fans/players from the youngest age. I got them into F1, but if it hadn't been for me I doubt they would have heard of Michael either..... (I too am a Brit BTW. Lived in the States for about 20 years now) Was the love for Ferrari a result of them being so good? Or did it start 'elsewhere'? Totally agree that there's lots of competition for "eyeballs" among many more sports these days. Many that would barely get a mention in the highlight shows years back now have their own tv channel! As for internet & online media presence, that's a tough one..... A GP 'unfolds' over the course of a few days & culminates in a 2 hour race. Fine with me, but a long way from the 15-30 minute attention span of so many these days. (And not just youngsters either!). Certainly agree on increased accessibility. Not sure how to achieve that, but it needs to happen. Not so sure on fuel & testing - the newbie fan isn't going to be very aware of those kinds of restrictions I feel. Seems they're about to give us "multiple starts" soon, and they're definitely a highlight..... But, As I've said before, we've been blessed with some darn good, exciting racing this year, but apparently interest is falling. Sure, one team dominating probably doesn't help attract new fans, but you've got to be following it in the first place to even know that...... It's a shame about the noise right now, but until you've seen them up close & personal, you don't really understand...... Cheers, Ian
Exactly my view, so why deprive ourselves of sampling a new country, a new atmosphere and a new track. Politicians are such bad examples as human beings, that I will never follow them.
What is it like going to an f1 race? I imagine it's harder to decipher what's going on but seeing the cars rush by at 200mph must surely be something. I loved ferrari road cars and had many car magazines and books that adorned my book case. Not sure how I started watching f1...I watched a bit of v8 super cars but that's no way near as exciting. Then as soon as I saw f1 I was like wow I'm gonna watch that. But I had a love of road cars for sure. The mclaren f1, ferrari f40/50 but the lamborghini diablo was actually my favourite car. Though when the ferrari 360 came out I was amazed and have set that as my goal for my first ferrari...being all too aware that the younger you buy the more severe the financial penalty. E.g ferrari 360 is about 130k here. If you leave that compounding in shares with average annual return of 10% that works out to be nearly 7 million in 40 years (or around 1.8-2million adjusted for inflation). Can't put a price on fulfilling your dreams though. Removing fuel restrictions would be a mechanism to create excitement. More strategy, potentially faster lap times. Who knows, it's all so hard to decide. But yes increasing access to the smart phone generation is hard to reconcile with the sheer length of f1 race and how everything plays out over the entire weekend as you've said. Yes William I agree. Politicians are sanctimonious ****s. Ultimately you cannot save the world by boycotting sport yet they act like it actually has some impact. There is no tangible impact; "tacitly supporting the regime by allowing it to go ahead " = just vague buzzwords to try and guilt us when in actuality it holds no substance.
First of all, I'd like to point out that I still see many of you that said F1 was dead before the season even started. Obviously you're still watching and posting on here, so F1 is far from dead. As for ballasts, I'm not sure if it's such a bad thing. I know SuperGT in Japan uses ballasts on their cars and the racing looks pretty exciting to me. Not sure if the ballast is only applied for the race or qualifying is included. Where the ballast is placed would be very important as well.
It is very difficult to decipher as all you have are the numbers on the tower and maybe a view of a jumbotron. But you can't hear any announcements because everything is so loud. But I never cared: to me a live GP is about taking in the atmosphere, seeing and hearing the cars, seeing the track, being surrounded by fans etc Races are best followed on TV, GPs are best experienced on site My fav sounds are the up shifts.
I must say that this will probably end f.1 for me too, i somethimes think i watch more from tradition than from pleasure....Stupidity must have a limit and bernie as been murdering the sport for a long time. I'm with all the artificial racing and penalties crap....since 2008 i haven't sen a decent championship...a couple of good races like this one in Hungary but that's all...and i miss a piloto i can really cheer.....where the hell are the new Berger's and Alesi's!!?
Yep! Pretty much the same crew that call it all "boring", like that's some kind of "badge of honor" or something! As does the BTCC, DTM, sports cars, Aussie V8's and I'm sure others. As I've said before, fun, sometimes exciting racing. Total anathema to F1 though. It simply goes against *everything* that F1 is all about IMO. Cheers, Ian
F1 ceased to be F1 some time ago, but we didn't notice. In my case, several rule changes over the years have made me more disenchanted by the whole ethos of GP, which for me is a race between drivers from start to finish, without outside help. GPs were run more or less along the same rules since the 30s, up to the late 60s, when the rot started to set in. - allowing refuelling was the first breach of the rules. - making tyre change mandatory was next. - telemetry to the pits followed. The driver is receiving outside help in all 3 cases. OK, refuelling is now banned, but we had that for close to 20 years: a refuelling championship piggy-backing on the WCC! Now we have just a wheel-changing competition to spoil the race. What would be wrong in having tyres able to last the distance of a GP, without introducing unnecessary shuffling of the cars? We used to do alright in the past without tyre changes, didn't we? Now, a driver receives help and information from the pits; his engine is monitored, he receives instructions, etc... Vettel, Hamilton or Alonso have just become clever monkeys told what to do by a race manager, advised by an army of tacticians analysing the race and devising strategies on their laptops. Is that racing? The FIA has tampered with testing time, to the point of almost banning it. Qualifying is just another case of unnecessary gimmick rule. To spice up the show, DRS was introduced, but the FIA has been unable to refrain teams from engaging in aerodynamics "warfare", to the point that spying or poaching technicians is second nature to top teams. Double points. What next, eh? So, I don't think introducing ballast will be worse, although it may be the last straw for some Is this Grand Prix? I don't think so. Not in my book anyway... I feel cheated. I watch GP on the box sometimes, but there is no way I would travel to attend a GP anymore. But I still watch MotoGP and go to the British MotoGP when I can. Now, that's racing !!!
+1 you can also purchase a small ear piece FM receiver to listen to live commentary. And I'am sure there must be tons of apps for phones ect to keep you updated.
