Facts: - F1 is a business. - Viewership is declining rapidly. - Viewership numbers sky rocket after races with big accidents. Making F1 as safe as possible actually hurts its bottom line. For PC reasons now the talk about canopies is back but chances are it will go away again.
So, do you suggest that FIA bans flameproof overalls, helmets, safety belts, guardrails, chassis structural tests, run-off areas, just to have a few casualties and boost its audience? It's not PC, it's PROGRESS that advances safety. Like Jackie Stewart once said when challenged about his safety campaign: "I like motor racing, but I don't think I should have to die for it!".
Those are all great advances in safety which saved countless lives. All good. Canopies might have saved a couple of lives in F1's entire history. Not worth destroying the tradition.
The point is there is no tradition in F1 ! It's just a myth. Do you think F1 now is the same as 50 years ago? Look at a 1955 F1 and compare it with a 2015 F1, and tell me what's in common. There has been a constant evolution in the design since 1950. BTW, any effort just to save ONE life is worth it, in my book.
Single seater Open wheels Open cockpits Fuel/Benzin engines 4 sacred corner stones People who like two seaters, closed cockpits, enclosed wheels and Diesel engines can follow Le Mans racing. I wont.
No, no and thrice no!...... Sticky out wheels changes *everything* about how they drive when close together. Take that away and allow them to play "bumper cars" with impunity, and we've got little, if anything, left. God forbid! Cheers, Ian
F1 of 1955 and 2015 has open wheel and open cockpit cars in common and may long that tradition be protected from the loons that want F1 to be LMP.
F1 won't stand still for people who want to live in the past. Its core audience is renewed every 30 years by a new one that knows very little of its history anyway. All the signs are that the future of F1 will be single-seaters with Closed cockpits Enclosed wheels Hydrid or electric power That's called progress and moving up with the time. Progress doesn't care about tradition, and tradition should get in the way of progress. I like aircraft with radial engines, propellers and biplanes, but as museum pieces. I look at them as reference to the jet age of today, to measure the progress in aviation. Todays F1 will look like a relic of a bygone era in 50 years time.
I wasn't aware that tightrope walkers made F1 driver money..... I can't name ONE tightrope walker. Jimmy
If we are so willing to part with tradition and please modern tastes we should abandon Monza, Monaco, Spa and Silverstone and move all GPs to places like Singapore, Shanghai and Baku...
You might want to look up Philippe Petit and the Walendas. Not that they make F1 money but they use deliberately no safety harnesses for the thrill. The Walendas had recent special live TV shows with millions of watchers
Of course. The point is that even in a niche market like tight rope walking risk sells. The Walendas wouldnt have had that viewership if he had used a safety cable. Similar argument goes for the Cirque du soleil high wire acts. PS: A cirque artist fell to her death about a year ago and grandfather Walenda's life ended the same way.
I am sure we will one day, because these tracks will become too small, too dangerous or irrelevant. Monza, Silverstone, Spa and else would become museums of a bygone age, and visited like old battlefields by future generations that will question what the fuss was all about! I am sure F1 will die one day, replaced by the thrill of simulators available to anyone at home. What will be left will be historic racing, but future technologies will make motor racing as we know it completement outdated. I come from a family that spent 2 generations around air racing, which was very popular between the wars and attracted a huge audience. The jet age, the electronics and other modern technologies have completely killed that sport. What is left now is historic air racing, or competition with very restricted aircraft. Could you imagine fighter jets engaged in a race at Mach 2+ ? There would be nothing to see and the spectators would be unable to follow a race. Beside the fact that the technical competition would have reduced the field to less than 10 heavily state sponsored entries. The same will happen to F1.
Could someone just explain the point of F1 if the cars follow the same formula as LeMans GT prototypes? Electric power is coming. Probably. They just need to figure out how to make it work. Closed cockpits might be the future. But if F1 is to live on in the future it must be significantly different from other top series. Race-by-wire(less) would be interesting both for safety and engineering. 1/2-scale RC cars controlled by drivers sitting in simulators. I don't know if virtual racing is a big thing (on a professional level) yet? Problem with pure virtual racing would be the lack of engineering, remove that drawback and you have an interesting formula...
my bottomline for F1 is simple: Make the bloody cars faster and bring back the sound. I like all the technological pursuits with hybrid/energy recovery and turbo, but that tech needs to translate into more speed and sound...not degrade things to gp2 levels or less...
First, F1 are designed for GPs which are relatively short races lasting 90 minutes. They are driven individually, usually in day time. LMP are designed for endurance races (between 1000km to 24 hours) and driven by a team of several drivers, usually 3, round the clock in some races. Because of these 2 different purposes, the 2 types of cars will not be built alike, although they may share some components. A LMP car will be built for durability more than a F1. Easy cockpit entry and exit will be necessary for relays, and body panels have to be easily changed in case of body damage.
