Future of F1 at Indy (or the US) - are 9 cars running enough?

YES. I'm not *nearly* the diehard F1 fan that many who may reply are, but I've long believed that Indy is the "racing capital" of one form of motor racing, and one form only - and we all know what that is... I started watching F1 a couple years after it came to Indy, so that's all I've ever known. To me, however, I think there's MUCH more to be had in the U.S. Whenever I've tried to have a casual conversation about the future of USGPs with my fellow tifosi, be it online or locally here in San Jose, my opinions have typically been shot down. I've not had much ammo for a counterpoint due to my short-lived F1 watching life, but I think I'm not alone in my way of thinking.

: Vegas. It sucks. I know, I know...high rollers and all just *love* Las Vegas. Bellagio....Wynn....Ferrari-dealer-in-a-hotel....Gambling....Right. I get it. I suppose if Bahrain can have a GP, so can Vegas, but if that's the ONLY place we can come up with in *all* of the U.S., that's pretty sorry IMO. There are lots of flights in and out every day to McCarran, and the city never sleeps, but so what? It's junk, IMO, and it should NOT be the way we represent the United States to the rest of the F1-watching world.

: The Glen. I think the USGP should return to Watkins Glen, whether it be the USGP-East or just the sole US race on the schedule. The only arguement I've ever heard is, "Watkins Glen is a great track, but there's nothing else there!" I know...I used to live in Syracuse, an hour and a half (or so) east of Watkins Glen. Your other choices are Rochester and Buffalo....or if you *really* wanna drive from the airport, Erie (PA) or Cleveland, OH. Central NY is not a summer destination hotspot, true, but the histroy at Watkins Glen is undeniable, and should not be overlooked.

: USGP-West. If we could somehow swing *2* GPs in the good ole USofA, with WG being the "East" stop, I think a stop on the west coast at California Speedway, Laguna Seca, or even Portland International would be a TERRIFIC selection for the west.


.....I think that's all I've got to say for now.....

 

Indy is a track, it has the required facilities and infrastructure.

Sorry about the locals....LOL! I have met some babes, did you try the strip bars??? How about the Yellow Hat volunteers?



It doesn't look good for next year but Bernie had better recall the collective "yawn" that met the program in Phoenix for two of a five year deal....after seeing him on SPEED I am more and more convinced he has a deteriorating mental condition of some sort..............

I'll agree there are better tracks for it, but not the crowd potential......

Here, have a turkey leg........

 

It's not the number of cars on the track, it's the number of fans in the stands.

Those stands looked pretty empty for a USGP. Okay, so the numbers may have been large by the standards of a Maylaysian GP (smaller population, higher ticket prices, etc). But that wasn't much of a crowd for a nation of 400M people. Half empty stands don't look good on TV, and don't pay the bills.

So will Tony George feel it's worth the hassle of converting from Indy to USGP in a month for half full stands? Enough to pay what Bernie asks?


And while the Glen is one of the world's great sportscar tracks, I don't think it's a suitable locale for modern F1.

Imola used to be one of the world's great sportscar tracks, and they mangled it bad trying to fit the supercars on it. I'd rather see the Glen remain a great sportscar track than see them ruin it to try to become another bad F1 venue.

 

299.xxx million. The US population will hit 300 million before the end of this year.

 

It was a stultifyingly boring race. A baseball game (the ultimate sleep-show) would have been more exciting. Our seats were between the start/finish line and turn one. Indy sucks as an F1 venue, the best track in America (Road America) will never host an F1 race, and until Bernie is gone, I'm done going to F1 races. When they start passing each other again, call me.

BTW, that was my 20th or so USGP and the worst, by far.

 

Watkins Glen would be my choice as well, but it would need several million dollars to bring it up to modern F1 specs, and the result would probably be so sanitary that it would lose its appeal for any other series. I know some of the viewing points I've frequented in the past would almost certainly disappear.

If Salt Lake City is big enough for F1, I hear the new Miller Motorsports Park out there is absolutely first-rate, and the full circuit is long, like Road America. I'm looking forward to watching the upcoming ALMS race on TV.

 

Having been to quite a few European F1 races at different locations, Indy just can't compare. I'd rather spend my money on F1 going to races in Europe than enriching the greedy price gouging pockets in Indy. This is hardly fan friendly.

If you want exciting races, look beyond F1. The ALMS at Lime Rock this weekend was anything BUT boring! Talk about passing, some of Allan's passing manuvers were absolutely incredible on such a narrow track. Too bad the 430 hit the same stuff on the track at the prototype. Also extremely fan friendly in comparison to F1. Did I mention cheaper???

Carol

 

That's true. There's so much GOOD racing around, it really puzzles me how F1 keeps any following at all anymore. I literally saw 3 passes all through the race and they were lap passes, not position passes. I cannot believe what a boring show F1 has become.

 

Could it have been better? sure. BUT...I thought the whole weekend was a blast and can't wait to go next year.

Good weather, great track, great cars, great friends, good times. What more do you want?

signed,

half full glass

 

You would have to have 300,000+ people in attendance to fill all the stands at Indianapolis. So to make comments about filling empty stands I think is a bit ambitious. Not to mention the speedway as a whole could take over 400,000 spectators to make capacity. Empty stands will always be a reality for a F1 event at Indianapolis. I don't think filling Indianapolis to capacity is in any of the considerations for F1 to continue in Indianapolis.

 

I am a huge Formula One fan and would like to see it stay in the US. However, I am concerned that there is just not enough interest in the US in a form of racing that allows for such dominance by one or more teams and without a lot of passing. Too many people are used to Indycars, Champcars, NASCAR, etc. where the technical regulations significantly limit the ability for one team to dominate and where the pace car comes out every few laps and resets the competitive landscape. I don't believe that Formula One needs the US and vice versa; a similar thing can be said of the World Cup.

 

This is really the point of racing... ALMS has the right mix... high technology access to the fans, good drivers, a wide range of marques... its interesting - F-1 now a days is all about dumbing down the experience and packaging it so the average guy who could care less can understand it... that was NEVER what F-1 was about ... in the USA it attracted folks who wanted to see the best drivers, cars etc racing it out... not a go kart race on steroids. - I like Schumacher, but if you put him in an F-1 car of the mid 70's with drivers of the age I doubt he would be a 7 time World Champion.... its changed that much!

 

I agree- went the first year and never went back. No offense, but there's no "there" there- it looked like a bunch of boarded-up strip malls and fast food joints. Suffice it to say, Monaco it ain't. Okay, I plead guilty to being an effete, East Coast, big city, Europe-frequenting snob.
Having said all that (and apparently I'm in the distinct minority on this point), I thought yesterday's race was interesting. The number of cars that finish isn't too important to me- frankly, one of the most interesting races I've attended was back in, I want to say '97 but could be off a bit, when Olivier Panis won in the rain in Monaco and only 3 cars finished!
As for Indy attendance, the 130,000 figure I heard doesn't sound too bad- you'll never sell all 400,000 seats, and my understanding has always been that they're not all available for F1 anyway as many are oriented towards Indy 500 sight-lines.
As for the Glen, forget it- even if the track were up to snuff, there's no infrastructure in the area to support the huge influx of people in the F1 circus. Those days are long gone.

 

there becomes a problem in some sort..

think of it this way... the greatest drivers' tracks usually arent the best spectator tracks.

Indy has quite a few locations where you can see 7-8 turns before the cars go out of sight...

you will never reach a 400,000 attendance to Indy's track as that attendance is based on the massive oval's infrastructure, and much of it you wouldn't even be able to see the infield track.

as far as the race is concerned...

it was def. clear that Alonso doesn't have the reliability when he is forced to push it hard in race 1 of the engine. I find that interesting. Fisi far outpaced his teammate on the new engine.

the crash.. well, turn one is killer, i have it all on camera/video, and its really unfortunate... then the restart crash didn't help any either.

I couldn't believe the lap times! the race pace is even faster then in 2004! good god. that in itself is interesting.

Id like Indy to stay... but there needs to be another GP in the USA... i keep hearing rumours of a Las Vegas GP.

 

The Glen won't happen. I really believe that if they considered re-configuring the Indy circuit they could come up with a much more interesting race track. Right now it's halfway round the oval, then dink dink dink dink...around the infield. I would say that, after Bernie, the next guy connected to F1 who should go is this guy (I think he's a German?) that they always use to design the tracks. Interesting that the best tracks in the world are laid out around the terrain. Now, Indy has no terrain, but they could surely come up with a way to make a more interesting layout. How about asking some of the drivers? In that case they could possible incorporate more of the grand stands and possibly sell more seats. Or do like they do in Malaysia and give away 50,000 seats so it looks full and nobody talks about empty seats.

Also, I've been shuffling through my pictures recently and it reminded me of how much the sport has changed and pushed the fans farther away. I know how it's grown, and there's bigger money involved, more VIPs, more secrets, etc. But check this out--pictures from the 80s and the kind of access you could have:
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Well said. It was clear from talking with a number of the fans yesterday that they have no clue about what is truly going on. They come to get drunk (which lots were, and it has always been so, remember the Bog at Watkins), wave the Ferrari/Spanish/Finnish flag (a beautiful Finnish girl asked me on the way down the stairs after the race "who won?"). Nothing is as it used to be, but F1 is clearly an "entertainment package" these days. It's changed incredibly since the inaugural Indy F1 race in 2000, let alone since the 70s.

Certainly better in many ways (safety, car performance, etc.) but also for the worse in many other important ways (no passing). Why does everyone talk about Hakkinen's move on Schumacher at Spa years ago? That used to be a multiple kind of occurrence in F1. Don't know what the answer is except to change the aero packages so that the cars can run together. Leave everything else open.

 

I would love to see the USGP come to Laguna Seca or Sears Point (Infineon) but that's probably unlikely as both tracks have access issues. Relocating to Long Beach would not be a bad idea, it was always a well-run event, and the track is more interesting than most street circuits. I would attend, which is not true for Indy.

Gary

 

NO NASCRAPING'ing of F1 please.


I do think they need to make it more "fan involved" though...everything is..."you can go there" or "no access, step away" type stuff.

Even Gasoline Alley had blue covering over the fences and gates seperating you from the fence so you couldn't really see the Porsche cup cars in the garages. BOO!!


I did like the Ferrari Challenge pits of years ago...walk around and get up close. Now thats cool.

The BMW and Indy Pro car pits were cool though this year.

 

Yeah, racing without passing is just fantastic viewing.

 

THis was the first Grand Prix I've attended. I anticipated this event more than anything in a long time. But that "race" left me feeling completely unsatisfied.

Don't get me wrong, I had a pretty good time. But not a great time. The IMS facility is amazing, I'd never been there. I got to meet alot of people and the international atmosphere is way cool. The cars are like nothing I've ever seen or heard, it was worth the trip to see them run on the track. Qualifying was much more exciting than the race.

 

Nascar may look like a box of Skittles being flushed down a toilet, but it's interesting and the racing is close.

The problem, in my mind, is that Bernie and others worry about "cost" at the expense of interesting racing. The only reason that the cars do not run closer is the aero package. Eliminate only the portion that keeps cars from passing one another: the dirty air behind the front running car. Let Ferrari run V-12s, Mercedes flat 24s, who cares? Let them be the technical front runners of racing minus the aerodynamics that render the sport a bore.

 

Montreal suffices as a North American substitute for the real racing on the circuits in Europe. I will gladly save my dollars to attend one of those races rather than being price gouged by the US in Indianapolis not only for hotel rooms but for airfare. (I stated this in an earlier post in this topic.) If you attend some of the other race venues, you will soon find out just how boring F1 really can be now days and how much more you get for your money. My annual given treks are Imola and the 24 Heures du Mans. Surprisingly enough the costs involved are relatively low for these.

Carol

 

I went to Montreal some 13 times from 1982 to 2001, but refuse to go back because the hotel prices have gotten ridiculous. (In fact in 2001 I didn't even stay there, since I couldn't get a reasonable airfare into Dorval either; I flew into Ottawa and stayed midway between them in Hawkesbury. The very inexpensive lodging more than compensated for the gas I used.)

Also, access to good viewing points (aside from my grandstand seat) has all but disappeared due to TV, VIP, security, etc. It was all much more fun in the '80s.

And Indy? I've never been a fan of road courses fit inside ovals (including Daytona), although Indy's layout is better than many of that type. I'd rather go to a real road circuit or at least a park-type circuit like Montreal.