Thread: "Formula 1 is getting old." Darren Heath

Originally Posted by fandango

I'd love to see F1 as a more all-encompassing pinnacle of motorsport. I think it would be interesting to see an oval race, an endurance race, some rally stages, to show that it's the driver and the team that's tested, as part of the championship.

You forgot rounds for motorcycle racing, jet powered wheelchair racing, and karts equipped with projectile turtle shells.

Originally Posted by donKey jote

he forgot to say the average fan drives an s-max too

S-Maxmybitchup!

Originally Posted by theugsquirrel

You forgot rounds for motorcycle racing, jet powered wheelchair racing, and karts equipped with projectile turtle shells.

and of course, F1 boats!

Originally Posted by SGWilko

This glut of 45 year old fans, won't their kids follow in their parents love of the sport????

I can say from experience, that's not a guarantee. In past times, it may have been. My son understands racing, understands that I like it and occasionally will go with me to races, but my daughter is actually far more in tune to it and actually knows drivers and who is ahead in the standings etc. He's only 11, so there's still time.

Despite the dandruff shampoo logos on Kimi’s car, when my 7-year old sees the black and gold Lotus she exclaims “Ooh, there’s the Angry Birds car!”
I can’t be bothered to explain that sometimes it’s actually Grosjean’s car .

Originally Posted by ArrowsFA1

My apologies, but this sounds like someone who doesn't use social media themselves but has heard lots about it

Of course there is drivel on social media sites, just as there is in newspapers, on television and (dare I say it) on forums like this. They key to it is finding the content you are interested in, which isn't hard, and filtering out the drivel. Once that's done you have access to information, news, and (for a business) the means to manage your brand and engage with your customers.

At the last count Fernando Alonso has 591,226 followers on Twitter and his team have 277,142. That's a lot of fans, and customers, which Fernando and Ferrari have direct access to and who are interested in their brand.

It is meaningless drivel.

I've done social networking via a different forum but not related to motor sport - that was about 10 years ago when it was considered a bit mental to have a social life conducted and outside the internet. I also used to be on Friendster which was the precursor to Facebook, et al; and then the novelty quickly wore off and never bothered moving across to Myspace.

Now its a case of been there, done that.

With forums you'd get a few narcissists who wanted to be popular but its a lot, lot worse with social media today - or so I've been told.

The 0.1% - its a useful tool to engage with the public if you leave out inanities or a tool to wind up certain celebrities/high profile people! (no, I'm not a troll, honest!)

Originally Posted by fandango

Formula 1 Photographs - Blog - F1 Photos - Darren Heath Photographer

I'm inclined to agree completely with what he says (even though I'm 43 with two kids). Anyone any ideas on what F1 should do to move with the times?

Ticket prices? Online live broadcasting? Demotion and promotion like in football? A thread for some new ideas..

If he thinks F1 is getting old then he should stop going to the races. Stop watching. Just give it up altogether.

Because he is missing one great season.

Originally Posted by N. Jones

If he thinks F1 is getting old then he should stop going to the races. Stop watching. Just give it up altogether.

Because he is missing one great season.

I do tend to agree with you, but I think this Darren Heath fellow has achieved his objective - self promotion.

I read his blog once (stumbled across it, read it and left never to return) and he is a whinger, but he's got people talking about him and that - to my mind - is all these types ever want.


A good photographer, but a waste of electrons IMO.

Originally Posted by theugsquirrel

You forgot rounds for motorcycle racing, jet powered wheelchair racing, and karts equipped with projectile turtle shells.

Ok, fair enough, I left myself open to that particular piss take.

BUT, when you have a situation where once a year they make a little Karting track in a stadium for F1 drivers to show what they can do, AND that there are at least two top F1 drivers who race (or would like to race) in rallies AND ex-champions who race on ice (sudden images of a Prost-Disney spectacular spring to mind) it shows that there is interest in mixing things up a bit. I mean, it could be fun, right? Which is why we like cars going round in circles, right?

I amazed at how dismissive people are of someone expressing an idea that involves change. I don't think anyone's saying that F1 is bad now, but if you're going to be the pinnacle you've got to be ahead of the game sometimes, and in relation to the internet and other things F1 just isn't.

One of the reasons I don't much like Wii racing games, for example, is that they're too far from simulating real racing conditions. I would imagine that for many kids who like those games F1 has the same problem, but in the opposite direction. Years ago I among others thought that night racing was silly and gimmicky, but from the first images of the Singapore GP I thought it looked wonderful - a whole new way for F1 to be interesting and glamorous, qualifying on a Saturday night!

People are afraid of change, but what freaks me out more is the idea of everything staying the same, to loosely quote Nick Cave...

Originally Posted by henners88

Wedge I don't know how you can just shrug off social media and compare the present day to something you must have used back in 2002/03! It's very different now. My Twitter is almost entirely built up with following f1 and most of the stories related to the sport are either broken through Twitter or extracted from first account experiences shared through such a medium. My Facebook is built up of purely my family and friends from over the years. I've made contact and satisfied my curiousity about people I havent seen for years but wanted to. It allows me to stay in touch with friends from uni and family I don't see very often. Family events, parties, friends gatherings are often organized through Facebook and myself and many others use it to be sociable without hiding behind an anonymous identity on the internet. Social media doesnt have to be a load of drivel if you know what you are doing and aren't quick to write it off by listening to others who don't use it themselves, but read all the horror stories in the media and base their opinions on all the negatives.

Only time I seriously looked at F1 associated Twitter is during pre-season testing. The only feed worth following for the rest of the year is Scarb's.

Originally Posted by wedge

It is meaningless drivel.

If you dismiss an entire category of communication I'm afraid you're simply demonstrating that you haven't grasped the significance of the new medium, just like nay-sayers at the start of the century dismissing cinema as lacking the cultural depth of theatre and literature and therefore being irrelevant.

Social media reflects the user, you can do whatever you want with it. More importantly, regardless of whether you think its rubbish for a growing number of younger people it IS the primary source of information and F1 as a sport (the drivers and teams seem to have started understanding and using it) needs to grasp this.

But no matter, F1 was slow even under Bernie's control to understand the strength of live televising of races, games/movie tie-ups, product placement and internet promotion so why should social media be any different?

I mean, the amount of money Disney brings in through 'Cars' merchandising is utterly obscene yet F1 has not bothered to do anything remotely similar, and thats with cinema, a medium thats been around for over 100 years...

I dont get this guy, if F1 is getting old, then why does it still maintain and even grow an already huge worldwide fanbase, why do sponsors keep coming and coming to back the teams and the sport, why do TV companies pay millions for he privilege to show it on their channels. Tey would'nt do it if they thought it was old fashioned.

Its an argument you could say about English Football having 4 leagues and 92 full time professional clubs since the mid 1920's but everyone including me doesnt consider that structure old, the argument is just pointless

Originally Posted by DazzlaF1

I dont get this guy, if F1 is getting old, then why does it still maintain and even grow an already huge worldwide fanbase, why do sponsors keep coming and coming to back the teams and the sport, why do TV companies pay millions for he privilege to show it on their channels. Tey would'nt do it if they thought it was old fashioned.

And why does he keep getting paid for his F1 photographs? He must feel really bad as he takes his checks to the bank...

Originally Posted by wedge

It is meaningless drivel.

You present this view as though it is fact. It is not.

Originally Posted by wmcot

And why does he keep getting paid for his F1 photographs? He must feel really bad as he takes his checks to the bank...

Why does that disqualify him from having an opinion?

Originally Posted by BDunnell

You present this view as though it is fact. It is not.

It is an opinion.

Originally Posted by Malbec

If you dismiss an entire category of communication I'm afraid you're simply demonstrating that you haven't grasped the significance of the new medium, just like nay-sayers at the start of the century dismissing cinema as lacking the cultural depth of theatre and literature and therefore being irrelevant.

I don't entirely dismiss it. I, personally, haven't felt the need to rely on Twitter nor would I want to "follow".

There are blogs, columns and diaries which I, personally, find sufficient and more importantly more expansive. That's not to say that Twitter is wholly inferior.

Originally Posted by wedge

I don't entirely dismiss it. I, personally, haven't felt the need to rely on Twitter nor would I want to "follow".

There are blogs, columns and diaries which I, personally, find sufficient and more importantly more expansive. That's not to say that Twitter is wholly inferior.

Your initial comment was highly dismissive of the entire medium which is why I wrote what I wrote. I do agree that blogs etc are far far more informative, but Twitter has its uses as well especially in a rapidly changing environment where information through official channels is either slow, inaccurate or both. You just have to learn when its an appropriate channel to use. You can see from the way newspapers and news agencies actually directly put tweets on their websites in crises or situations like Syria where information is scarce that Twitter definitely has a very serious role to play. For F1 of course that could mean teams informing fans why a driver retired minutes after the event and so on.

On a separate note as a new father I'm looking for F1 toys to get my son interested in the sport. There is nothing whatsoever out there beyond generic open wheeler based toys. In fact there is very very little out there to encourage young kids to engage in the sport, and I'm speaking as someone actively looking forward to getting their child hooked as a fan. This is a serious problem that F1 needs to address, especially compared with the efforts football teams go to.

Originally Posted by Malbec

Your initial comment was highly dismissive of the entire medium which is why I wrote what I wrote. I do agree that blogs etc are far far more informative, but Twitter has its uses as well especially in a rapidly changing environment where information through official channels is either slow, inaccurate or both. You just have to learn when its an appropriate channel to use. You can see from the way newspapers and news agencies actually directly put tweets on their websites in crises or situations like Syria where information is scarce that Twitter definitely has a very serious role to play. For F1 of course that could mean teams informing fans why a driver retired minutes after the event and so on.

I agree with all of that.

Originally Posted by wedge

It is an opinion.

I'm afraid that, when I see someone write 'It is meaningless drivel', that use of italics tends to suggest to me that the statement is being presented as indisputable.