Anyone else think Bernie might be losing his grip?

I would have no problem with him and his cronie Max being slowly lowered into a wood chipper...

 

Did you also hear Peter Windsor's response -- that the "suggestions" by Michelin were an excuse to blame FIA for Michelin's failure?

While FIA is the wrong hands for F1 to sit in, the current crop of manufacturers aren't the right hands, either.

At the moment, we're suffering from the F1 rules organization being the same group that's trying to make money in the "entertainment" business.

This is similar to the flack the US FAA gets for having the simultaneous charter to both regulate and promote aviation: there's a potential for internal conflict.

Having seen the evolution of SCCA over the past few decades, the involvement of tv coverage and big money sponsors tends to obfuscate the function of maintaining fair rules. With the cameras lined up, the pressure is on to produce the cars, and the rules suffer. That's what Michelin was counting on when they demanded that the rules be changed to suit their tires. Credit FIA for standing up to the pressure (for a change).

WRC has devolved because the FIA has folded to pressure from manufacturers, to make the rallyes easier to build a car to handle, rather than challenging the makers to handle a variety of surfaces in the same rally with a production car.

Auto racing -- across the board -- has devolved into billyuns and billyuns of "spec" series -- enough that any wheeled appliance has somewhere it can win. It's entertainment -- it's advertising -- it's letting buyers root for their obscuremobile against the even-more-obscuremobiles. But it's no fun, anymore.

I don't have all the answers. I hate what FIA has done to WRC and F1. But I don't see the current proposals for the break-away series being a lot better.

Besides; many of things I hate about FIA rules are supported by a lot of other people. I think there are enough spec races, but others prefer to see a good wheel-to-wheel race, regardless of any manufacturer's innovation.

Maybe because I'm an engineer, I don't mind seeing a team innovate and dominate. I liked the era when some guy named Chapman could show up out of the blue with a goofy looking wing on the car and whoop the field.

You know: back when whether you would race was determined by "qualifying", rather than fiscal politics.