They have a hard enough time trying to get decent drivers that don't consistently pull boneheaded moves as it is and you want more cars ? Yikes! Expansion killed the NHL. More is not always better. F1 biggest problem is Max and the FIA IMO.
I disagree. I remember happily the days when there was prequalifying to qualifying. When 30+ cars fought hard to make the grid of 26. There are enough talented or at least promising drivers around to fill a grid. But there aren't enough seats available. F1's biggest problem are processional races where the guy on pole position leads from the start. But there are solutions. The 2007 rear wing is a good first step. One tire supplier is another good step. Reversed grid would be the ultimate solution. PS: I'm no fan of Mad Max and I hold him responsible for the USGP FIAsco. But he does try to fix a lot of the problems and once in a while he gets it right. In the land of the blind the one eyed is king.
Exactly and well said. Case closed IMO, and definitely the best cost saving measure for F1 that is not contrived and bad for F1. I've been arguing for this to happen for years now ... Pete
It's a different F1 world now just as the world is different now than then. If you have 6 or 8 cars that realistically have a chance of winning on any given weekend then what is the sense of having 20-24 or more cars on the grid with some drivers that perhaps aren't quite ready for F1 just to fill seats ? I think the field is fine as it is. F1 should be extremely difficult to get a seat in and only the top drivers should be there. Unless you don't mind inexperienced backmarkers learning the ropes while they make mistakes and occasionally take out front runners. And I agree the reversed grid is one of the best solutions as we saw this past year. But that is something that will probably never fly with the teams. The NHL suffered because too many AHL caliber players were needed on increasing numbers of expansion teams to fill positions. They had no business being in the NHL. I'd hate to see lower formula drivers on the grid just to fill seats.
Tifosi is right. Kenny the best time in F1 was the mid 80's and here is some of what killed it. Back then most courses were much faster; fewer chicanes and long straights. F1 has since left the fast courses or hacked them into shadows of their former selves. The longer straights were good because that was where lower budget teams could actually catch and pass the big boys. Straighline top speed is a lot easier to accomplish than fast cornering speed. Teams with judd engines and other low budget ones could make up for their weaknesses elsewhere to at least not go down by 2 laps after 15. Some of my favorites were circuit paul ricard with the mile long mistral straight and hockenheim with the straight thru the forest before all the chicanes. Very few great tracks are left. Found this while doing a search; "Following De Angelis's death, the circuit was cut down from 5.808 Km to 3.812 Km. The new owners of Paul Ricard are a company with links to FOCA chief, Bernie Ecclestone. Since Ecclestone works hand-in-glove with FIA President Max Moseley, it is certain that the new owners will follow the FIA safety rules to the letter. Like Brands Hatch, this circuit will need a Grade 1 Circuit Licence to hold a Formula One event. In 1994 the FIA used computer analysis to identify "very high risk" corners. Paul Ricard will be subject to the same analysis and changes will be made to "very high risk" corners to reduce their risk values. Since Paul Ricard has been used for recent Formula One testing, some data from their onboard data records may be available to help in these tests. Since Ecclestone owned Brabham when De Angelis was killed, it is very likely that he will insist that the kink following the start be classified as "very high risk" and changed accordingly. We can only hope that the FIA has learned from its mistakes in the 80's and 90's when they created safe but generic circuits that hosted dull races. " More cars makes exciting racing and sometimes you have exciting racing among the back markers so if you watch at the track you have constant interest. With attrition some races in recent years were nothing but parades of a few.
Tom, that's EXACTLY my point. That WAS the 80's. This is NOW. The world has changed, life has changed, F1 has changed and those old times are gone. Get over it. You and Andreas are longing for the good ole 80's and 90's days that are just gone. Like it or not there's a new F1 world order. What worked then will not work now. Plain and simple as it's a different world.
Now I know why I stopped reading and posting in this section ... Racing is racing, having competing tyre teams means $'s in testing and you have to be on the best tyre. Having a tyre advantage is huge and thus competitive racing suffers. Good racing means the race starts with more cars/teams having a chance of winning ... nothing has changed about this since the first car was raced! Pete
Goodyear had a supply monopoly most of the time they were involved in F1. I think this is good news. I hope they will stick to just one tyre supplier. I don't really care who it is. It is wrong that a team can spend time and money on building the best car and engine possible, employ the best drivers they can afford and then lose out because their tyre supplier is not as good on a particular track under certain conditions. I don't see this as a move towards spec-racing, I see it as a completely positive move. It will also give the teams less excuses for failure and it will give their rivals less excuses. We won't be able to say that Michelin won a race rather than the team. The responsibility will lie solely with the teams and their drivers. That's what F1 should be!
X5 X3 ... nuff said? Granted, BMW is still a "playa" in the motorsports world -- one of the few remaining, and buying Sauber means that we actually have manufactuers in F1 again. --- For many years, it was just Ferrari and a bunch of "manufacturers" who didn't build anything except F1 cars. Now we have Ferrari, Toyota, Renault, BMW, ... but no longer Alfa ... or Jag. And Merc is only building motors (or firecrackers, from Kimi's perspective). But F1 is a "brag" sport now, not associated with "real" cars. "Win on Sunday, ..." and on Monday, the POS boxes in the showroom aren't any better. BMW still plays in F1 for bragging rights. How many NASCAR fans buy an Olds because of the results of the "Spare Parts 500"? FIA followed the same path in WRC. In the past, "homologation" requirements gave us machines like the Lancia Stratos, the EVO, and the 288GTO. Today, the WRC machines don't even look like the cars they started from. FIA wants manufacturers to play. They've bent over backwards trying to get Renault back into WRC, with Citroen and Peugeot leaving. FIA has gotten more mfrs back into F1. From the evidence, the more "spec" rules seem to appeal to the builders looking for bragging rights without having to build more than a couple of good cars a year. (Selling is one thing -- but how many Scooby dealers can actually adjust an STi properly? Do you trust an alignment from the BMW dealer?) Of course, BMW also kept getting spanked by a FWD Alfa in touring cars, so they might want to get more into F1 for that reason.
Well I don't know anyone who likes the 1 set of tires rule. All that needs to be done is a change of management at the top. I must admit i have not followed all the political F1 stuff lately but a shake-up might be good. At least the china GP has a good fast design for a new track. The trouble started with shytty tracks like the hungaroring. Sticky qualifiers would be a good 1st step. Bad decisions that led to a decade of dullness can be undone!
A little off topic, but what the heck: You're right, Ecclestone owns Ricard and it was great in its full length. Even in its shortened version it is better by miles than the Mickey Mouse Nevers (fitting name: NEVER!). Not sure on this, since it is from leaking memory, but I thought De Angelis was killed on a straight, not because he missed a turn. I thought he lost a rear wing or something. Regardless it is ironic to say De Angelis was killed because Ricard is too dangerous. Nonsense. He was killed because the paramedics got too him too late. That's because before his accident testing was unregulated and no helicopter service etc was mandatory. Luckily that changed. But giving the blame to Ricard is wrong. And quite frankly I still don't understand why Bernie hasn't moved the GP back to Ricard. Prova: You can call me a nostalgic fool and I accept that to some degree. The eighties were the golden years of F1 in my book. And times change, you're right about that. F1 has become a more polished, global and professional sport. But that doesn't mean we have to restrict the game to the castrated Tilke tracks (to be fair, Turkey is damn good, hopefully he is learning from his POS Hockenheim and NEVER). It also doesn't mean we can not have 24 or 26 cars on the grid. We got enough teams and players (see Friday morning), just run more cars. And if one of the backmarkers gets in the way of a front runner. Well big friggin deal. Chance is part of motorsport. Otherwise they might as well move F1 indoors to eliminate the chance of rain. Heck, some frontrunners are dumb enough to get in the way of backmarkers (Turkey with the McLaren turkey JPM). To wrap up my rambling: Not everything in the eighties was great (e.g. medical support in testing), but we don't have to deny ourselves some of the fun of it. One tire supplier will bring back some of the level playing field on which real racing is founded.
Last thought- every track can be made both safe and fast. It is called RUNOFF. Push the walls back and insert sand traps and energy absorbing barriers. Get rid of the wimpy chicanes and let power and speed climb. Race driving is dangerous, so be it, no one is forced to drive. A mix of ultra fast permanent courses and monte carlo like city venues would be ideal. tifosi- the reason for moving the french gp was political, mitterand came from the current tracks region. i read an interesting story about it.
I know that. But Mitterand is long gone and the expected economic impulse to the region failed to materialize. Everybody agrees that the track is boring and for spectators, teams and journalists nearly impossible to reach situated in the middle of nowhere. Paul Ricard is exciting, has history and infrastructure around it. And Bernie owns it. That's the part I don't understand: Why not calling it quits with NEVER now and go back to what worked so brilliantly in the past. The only "good" thing in NEVER is that the aerodynamicists like it because the surface is so perfect that they actually get to see their progress undisturbed by other factors. So keep it for testing, but please abandon for racing.
Be interesting if F1 does go back to slicks instead of the STUPID groved rubber, that was the reason why Goodyear left so maybe ... Also, for "FIA" above replace with "Max Mosley" - hopefully he will die soon (in my opinion).
i agree. hungaroring is perhaps the most boring and dull racetrack. the most boring race of the year happens here too.
I believe Paul Ricard is purely a testing facility these days. Bernie has built a hotel there and the track has been resurfaced. There are sprinklers so you can test in the wet and the track can be configured in many different ways. A friend of mine was there last year working as a photographer. She was very impressed with the facilities. It is also used for testing road cars and bikes I think. I don't think the circuit will be used for racing again. Just found this http://www.circuitpaulricard.com
