nurburgring gp

I did not know until recently the race at Nürburgring for the Grand Prix of Europe. Now Europe will only have one Formula One race per year?

 

every year:
Grand Prix of Europe / Nürburgring, Germany May
Grand Prix of Germany / Hockenheimring, Germany August

 

The Italian GP is held at Monza, Italy. As there's no suitable track within that small country, the San Marino GP is held nearby at Imola, Italy, giving Italy two GPs per year.
The German GP is held at Hockenheim. The "European" GP is held at Nurburgring, giving Germany also two GPs per year.

It's a political thing. (European "Union" -- yah, right.)

 

European GP is a poor excuse for Germany to have two races. I hope Bernie will end this eventually. Same goes for Italy, where hopefully the poor Imola (castrated after 94) track will soon bite the dust.

F1 is a global sport, not a European championship. No need to have two GPs in the same country.

I'd rather see Kyalami or Mexico back.

 

Disagree. Instead, let's add a "North American GP" at Laguna or Road America or Road Atlanta, etc. And then a Mexican GP not too far south of the border... or if there's no suitable track there, put it at a southern California track. Reasonable accessibility to a few more races each year to the American audience would help build interest here... as will a few more races that don't require rising before dawn.

 

Agreed that the US should have two races, but I didn't want to say that in the same post I'm bashing Germany and Italy for being overly chauvinistic. Geographywise the US would deserve 2 GPs. But before that happens I think other continents (Africa, South America) should get a more fair share of pie. North America already has two races.

 

Fair share?
Measured by land space? population?

How about measured by willingness to spend money on motorsports entertainment and sponsor's products? (And thus fund F1's expenses.)

With CART crumbling and IRL just going round in circles, there's a huge opportunity for F1 to pick up some viewership. And the key is NOT an American driver... most of the drivers are "American" enough to gather fans. The keys are:

• Races you can attend within a day's drive (3-5 in US).
• Races on TV during normal viewing hours.

Given Texas, California, New York, and Florida are each comparable in population, GNP, entertainment spending, etc., to most European countries, I say the FIA should allow each US state to apply for races! Of course, they may only approve 3 or 4 in the US... but if they want to make money, they'd approve more. JMHO.

 

All of the above. However F1 ought to be a global show, not European nor American. And as long as we Americans can't come up with a better racetrack than that silly Indy infield, we simply don't deserve another GP.


Name one circuit in the US that would meet the requirements of modern F1 AND is exciting. All that comes to my mind is Long Beach and we can argue how exciting that would be.

 

Perhaps F1 in the US is a victim of its own "supercar" image and rule set.

Imola was a fantastic sportscar track, in the days of the D-type or 250GTO. But the track is too hemmed in to expand for the supercars. (The numerous chicanes have already, in many opinions, messed up an otherwise nice driver's track..) At Nurburgring, the Nordschleife is dangerous enough for sports cars, and absolutely untenable for supercars.

Forget Long Beach. Monaco survives on tradition alone. Street courses and supercars just don't mix. The last time F1 went to Long Beach the supercars were sucking the manhole covers up, despite the bolt-downs.

Like Imola, Watkins Glen was a terrific venue for sports car races. But for F1 cars?

In the US today, "supercar" tracks don't have right turns. The US's premiere "supercar" race happened today at Indy ... again, more due to tradition than to the vision of IRL.

Nobody in the 'States is going to build a track for once a year use ... subject to Bernie's whims. For the US to get more F1 races, we'd need to have more racing venues like F1, such as the F3000 series in Europe. Formula Atlantic or Mazda spec series cars don't require the large tracks the F1 cars demand.

And, frankly, most American fans prefer to see more brand association - even if in name only. NASCAR machines still maintain their (mostly ficticious) association with one or another brand of car, to keep up fan interest. FIA events like F1 and WRC, filled with names unrepresented in the US (Renault, Peugeot, Citroen) or unrepresented on the streets (BAR, Jordan, Sauber, Minardi), do not really grab the attention of US fans -- except for Ferrari owners.

Perhaps, in time, possible successes in these venues by more familiar names like Subaru, Mitsubishi (if they last that long), Toyota or Honda may attract more local attention. But for now, it's like trying to promote the International House of Poffertjes. Greater success of the Japanese companies, however, might cost the series support in Europe, where those marques don't have the market share as in the Americas. (Maybe that's why Bernie is trying to build up F1 events outside of Europe ... or maybe he's just trying to side step the cigarette advertizing bans.)

BTW: In today's pre-race show, I noticed the Dupont logo on the driving suit of Mark Webber. With Dupont already putting money into either Webber or Jaguar, it seems even less likely to see Jeff Gordon in F1 any time soon.

 

For the most part I agree with you and it doesn't look good as you point out.

The part I differ is the thing about the car manufacturers. Yes, fans (me included) want identification with the street vehicles and I think that is exactly what F1 offers and should concentrate even more so: Being a battle ground for car manufacturers and we have it in BMW, Merc, Mc Laren, Ferrari, Jaguar, Honda, Toyota and Renault. Renault being the only one non existant in the USA.

I hope more car manufacturers eventually participate in F1 and the big ones just take over the British garage teams. Part of the recent BAR success is caused by the stronger involvement of Honda. Good thing.

 

First step to correcting Formula 1
NO more JPM
Montoya: "I am like Senna. I am the next Senna. I am better than Senna. I can drive like the wind. Look at me look at me look at me. Ooops my ego makes me forget there are other cars n the road. Oh but I am the next Senna."

 

You can't be serious. Think what you like about Montoya, but he at least provides something to talk about.

F1 employs plenty of also runs and has enough problems keeping a fan base. Removing JPM wouldn't help. Bringing back some characters like Hakkinen and Villeneuve would.

 

While I agree absolutely, I'd never thought I'd hear Mika described as a 'character'...

The pot does need some stirring...

 

Replace JPM with Villeneuve and that would be the perfect picture. McLaren have completely ruled out Hakkinen's comeback so too bad. But there are so many better characters like JV and MH that deserve to drive in F1 over jpm.

 

For my $.02, I would say that the issue of safety is the thing that is going to kill all types of racing. Let's make racing safe for both the participants and the fans. Racing was never safe and never will be but making all these required moves makes the sport not as appealling or exciting as the old days.
It makes the follow the leader a common not an exception.

The teams and drivers should have to drive what ever track that is provided. It is their responsabilty to be safe. It should be the teams to develop better safety items for their equipment and have it available to be used on the daily driver after it has been proven.

This is where the manufacture's interest is. What can be developed to go into porduction cars for the betterment of all. This was the views in the order days but not today.

As I said before, just my $.02

 

Did you know. The Williams team have built a special pocket for their driver? Yeah so they can pick up their front wings and take them back to the pits. Mclaren also has a special feature, it's a vacume, so they can collect all of their engine bits, to re assemble the engines for the next race. Cool huh?

 

Good point and yes and no.

Safet has and is ruining some of the excitement of F1. A few years back we had some stunning accidents at the start of the season (Ralf flying over Rubens, another one with Rubens in Interlagos etc). The FIA intervened quietly and told the drivers to stop that or they will be banned for a couple of races. After that, no more start incidents. So safety improved, but the drama got lost.

Safe cars with strong monocoques are a good thing as seen in the Interlagos thriller last year. That would have been some real blood flowing otherwise. And it didn't affect the drama.

The pace car that started Spa a few years back (after they had some carnage the previous year) was IMHO one of F1's saddest moments: F1 drivers do it in the rain and with a standing start. A PARAMOUNT character point of F1 in my book (compared to the safe rolling start in the dry of US racing). In that rain, they sold out to safety and the drama was lost.

Bottom line: Safety in general is a good thing, but there are instances where it does cut the entertainment factor off. However F1 could be wonderfully thrilling without any safety compromises: Ban aerodynamics, one tire manufacturer only with a hard slick compound and reverse grid are some of the things.

PS: While watching Indy 500 I was stunned by the rotating in car camera shots. Why can't F1 have that technology?!

 

Andreas,

You actually watched the Indy 500??????? I tuned in a couple of times durring the day for about 10 mins max. The IRL is to much of a bore IMHO I wont even go out to the races that they have here in Phx. IRL or NECKCAR and i live less than 10 mins from the track.

Beast

 

Aak! I've seen the improvements in street tires over the years when Michelin and Bridgestone have been fighting it out in F1 and Michelin and Pirelli have been at the rally cars. Back when GY provided F1 tires, they had some decent tires. They're now finally back to building tires that can compete with the S03s and other modern stuff.

The tire wars might increase F1's costs, and might make it harder to slow the cars. But it seems to be a pretty good thing for the rest of us. The quickest performance improvement you can make to a classic car is to put a modern set of tires on it.

For F1 to remain associated with brands, we have to let the manufacturers put technology on F1 cars that will translate to the street machines. Carbon fiber brakes don't really help street cars, but paddle shifters and tire compounds have improved the breed on the streets. The last thing we need is just another "spec" racing series.

Heck, maybe we ought to go back to a fuel limit. But then, Ferraris already get better gas milage than most SUVs.

Reversing the grid just means running fewer cars ... after turn one, when most of them crash out.

 

Ok, I didn't really watch it. Had it running in the background and checked from time to time (until they got scared of the rain and stopped the race). But I did like those remotely controlled cameras, very nifty.

Compare that to that silly front wing/front tire shot Speed TV picked up in Monaco (also seen in der Eiffel) and the Speed baffoons loved it so much. I'm familiar with Monaco so the buzzing by background meant something to me, but I don't see how a regular viewer would find that interesting.