Catch me up... Please...

A) Ferrari leader Luca deMontezumulo uses Ferrari F1 withdrawal in order to get concessions from the FIA, it happens so regularly you can almost set your watch by it.

B) After a spate with 8 cylinder naturally aspirated engines, the sport <cough> decided to go green with small turbo engines and big electronics. At the same time they lowered the noses and reduced the aerodynamic downforce.

C) In the mean time they switched tires manufactures and ask for tires that degrade rapidly for some unfathomable reason.

D) Ferrari is behind because of Luca, Dominacali, and the design team can't build a car like Adrian Newwy, plus this year they built a crap engine.

 

True!

OP: I wouldn't get too concerned about Ferrari leaving F1 any time soon! - It's highly unlikely to happen!

Renault threatened to leave F1 unless there were changes to the engine specs to make them more in line with the latest thinking for road cars - small capacity turbo engines. The FIA decided it could be a golden opportunity to break Red Bull's strangle hold on the Championships and so changed the engine regs for 2014.

We should be grateful to Ferrari - The original 2014 engine regs were for in-line 4 cylinder turbo engines!

Ferrari argued for V6 turbo engines and thankfully got their way!

The idea for higher degradation tyres was because it made them more unpredictable and so it added a bit of uncertainty to the races.

The teams found that the tyres had a nasty habit of exploding if they were left on the car for too long and so called for changes to be made to make the tyres harder.

For 2014 Pirelli have made harder tyres and now the teams and drivers are complaining that they're too hard!

Ferrari is behind because others have done a better job!

Red Bull had the genius of Newey designing their cars and pushed the regulations to the limit [and beyond at times], in order to get an advantage whilst Ferrari were far too conservative with their designs in recent years.

For this season, it's not really fair to say Ferrari have built a crap engine as it's at least as good as Renault's effort, however, Mercedes have simply done a better job than either of them.


Let's be brutally, honest here: Ferrari do not have an automatic birth-right to rule the roost in F1, and if you take out the 2000~2004 Schumacher period, they have rarely ruled for more than 2 or 3 years at a time!

They always race - But they rarely dominate.

 

And, while all of this is going on, F-1 is facing declining TV viewership across the board
which of course gets Bernie's attention (since his take is tied to advertising revenues) when
he's not having to travel to Germany to appear in court trying to save his skin on serious
bribery charges.

So, their reaction is to spice up the "show" (because that has worked out so well for
NASCAR et.al.), fixing something that isn't broken and creating what is becoming a farce.

Then come the two new rules set to be enacted for 2015 including putting the cars in parc
ferme after FP3 and standing restarts after safety car situations.

All this when sports and entertainment across the board are seeing dwindling TV viewership
numbers as people have so many choices and the playing field is so vast, the pie becomes
smaller and smaller with viewers spending their time (and money) in vastly different directions.

They're weaving their own tangled web.

BHW

 

The camel's in hip deep and folks are beginning to notice.

 

Mores fans will stop following F1. I'm on the brink...

 

One great irony here is that Renault's threat to leave F1, which precipitated these changes, may yet come true. Not because they are going to quit making engines, but because their engines are such crap that Red Bull and even Lotus are talking of a change.

 

Unfortunately, there is no magic bullet.

As we saw in CART, once things start going off the rails, it's a slippery slope.

They need to stop with spit balling the quick gimmicks and let Formula One do
what Formula One does best and put the sport back into the competition on the
track and the spectacle will sort itself out.

BHW

 

Nice post.

 

and the same happens around the world !

german viewership already declined by up to 20%, on some races even 25% !

this negative developement is observed very closely by RTL and Sky since both their contracts with F1 are running out at the end of 2015 -
sure enough they will happily re-negotiate depending on the reduced viewership

worse thing that can happen is that F1 moves/(has to move) to pay-tv only -
that would be the final nail in the coffin


what do people want ? we want pure racing, we want sound !
just racing as it used to be !

let the teams choose their tire producer, let them choose how many times they want to change tires during a race,
let them do as many pit stops as they want, do not limit the fuel consumption (wtf ?), let them use as much as is needed

no longer driving in a row from start to finish like a regularity race

otherwise it´ll be over very soon !