The one man who needs to leave F1

That is assuming that all youngsters follow the hobby their parents pursue and that all adults is victim of marketing; that's far from being true.

In my youth, I was literally dragged all over the country and abroad by a football mad father, who even took the family on holidays according to the features calendar, yet, I never followed the sport in my adult life. I cannot stand soccer !!!

Also, I saw decades of alcohol and tobacco advertising in F1, and yet I am a teetotaller and never smoked!

I took my children to the occasional motor race (I used to work in that field), and yet none of them has shown any interest in it, or in cars in general, when they became adult.

Bernie is wrong to put it so bluntly, but the majority of the F1 audience isn't necessarily young .

 

... it's not so much a dieing sport as it is, a failed social institution.

F1's 18 to 34 demographic didn't evanesce. The march of time advanced it to an older demographic. For silents and boomers, the automobile which represented consequence of the industrial revolution, newfound freedom, passage to adulthood, did not bear the same significance to Gen-X or millennial cohorts. To wit, an ever weaker, sparser 18-34 demographic replaces FiA's formally robust one.

A dichotomy, F1's new 18-34 demographic can't relate, to the previous one.

Never having known life without a computer terminal, as children, this new 18-34 demographic pushed buttons. No erector sets, no model cars, no model airplanes, automation a more intimate part of their lives than car culture, cell phone racing, or texting competition is more relevant to these youngsters, than retrograde automobile racing.

Road relevance disconnect, organized motor sport's "this-is-what-we-think-you'll-like" mentality, slopping 20" SUV wheels on sports cars and muscle cars, trying to make them look like Mattel Hot Wheels, failed to such extent it's left advanced, high technology economy cars truer to their ethos than contemporary sports cars and muscles cars are, to theirs.

The most butt-ugly Corvette in GM history; the new Ford Mustang an abomination; no one can remember the last time Lamborghini or Ferrari built a beautiful car; things are so bad in sports car culture, Porsche builds a better luxury SUV than it does, sports cars; novelty already wearing thin, Grand Prix of Elroy, in Texas, already we're beginning to see television cameras shying away from empty pockets appearing in its grandstands.

Trickle up, tail wagging the dog, sanctioning bodies tarting up their cars, groping to pin road relevance to WEC, WRC, NASCAR, F1 and Indycar, having backfired, has ultimately proven more farcical to silents and boomers than 13ers and millennials, who really don't know better. Organized motor sport, no longer a proving ground for automotive evolution, more indicative of WWF than culmination of the industrial revolution, the only thing trickling down from organized motor sport these days is malevolence, deviant behavior, poor sportsmanship.

A slow, ugly, gruesome death, the weakest of the lot is, Indycar. Under 24/7-365 resuscitation, its EKG straight-lining, face down on the gurney, bleeding out, so goes Indycar... F1 is not far behind - asj.

 

He is getting old....and he has lost his mind!!

 

I get the sport. have got the sport since 1975 when Lauda won the World Championship....Ecclestone has a bit of a point however the question is what is rolex and other sponsors doing on social media that F1 could be a part of?

So yea- kids under 20 probabbly dont really make up a huge percentage of the major target audience of F-1 sponsors - but the aspirational part is huge. AKA think of how many more hats Ferrari could sell with more F-1 social media coverage.

 

The better question for me is what's going to happen with F1 when the old fart hits the sack. Will his daughter(s) <and son(s) in-law> take over? Hope there's a clause somewhere of that not being the case.

 

Some say that Death came a calling for Bernie one day and came away without his scythe, muttering: "How the hell did that happen?"

And some say that the Devil came for Bernie's soul, and ended up walking away having given Bernie the deeds to Hell!

All we know is - The Stig is scared of Bernie!

 

A lot of truth in the above quote:
Today's young people have so many hi-tech toys, racing is not in most of there interest.
Take notice of every young girl and boy you see today, has there head buried in there phone. And I agree Indy car is going down. How I used to love the old days of F1: Simpler screaming multi cylinder racing cars.


Ago

 

Was that one a Top Gear episode ?

If not, very good

 

can anyone get rid of Bernie?

 

Cheaper than jail, anyway!

 

Start with a wooden stake and a lot of garlic.

 

I think he's lost the plot already..

 

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Dude. The war has ended 70 years ago.

 

A Bernie aside; according to the Sunday NYT he flipped his new Gulfstream for a 72 Mil profit.