R.I.P. Formula One (1950-2014)

[Malbec]

It's all very well to embellish BE influence. But the major advantage he had was that he was looking after the leading motorsport series anyway. Had all the motorsport classes had equal TV time, more people would still gravitate towards F1 because it's the designated leading motorsport class.

I'm not sure where you are from or how old you are but this certainly wasn't the case in Europe which for decades along with the US was the main motorsport market. You should read a little more about the history of F1 and other motorsports and Bernie's manipulation of the sport because what you say has no basis in fact.

Back in the 70s and before F1 wasn't routinely televised at all. This idea you have that F1 was always the most popular form of motorsport is incorrect. Globally rallying was, largely due to the liberal TV rights where any manufacturer involved in the sport was allowed to use race footage however they wanted wherever they wanted for free. Given the low cost of the footage car advertising worldwide featured a lot of rallying promoting the sport further. Anyone walking into a car showroom of a competing manufacturer would have seen rally footage on the TV and rallying memorabilia everywhere because it was free for the company to use. In addition Group B was absolutely stunning to watch and caught the public imagination.

F1 didn't overtake rallying in popularity because its inherently superior as you claim, its because Bernie bought up the TV rights to rallying and pretty much suppressed its access to its traditional TV audience by jacking up the licencing fees and prohibiting anyone from using footage for free. F1 became the most popular motorsport simply because it soon became the only form of motorsport promoted globally, its rivals were ruthlessly suppressed to the extent the EU took an interest in anticompetitive business practices.

I'm sure you will dismiss all this, all I can suggest to you is that you read and study the subject a little more.

There's a key misunderstanding of your pov right here. "There is nothing inherently superior about F1" Well, in actual fact, there is. The fact they're 15 secs a lap quicker than anything else (about 3min a lap quicker than a Nascar) is what makes them inherently superior to everything else. That's how it goes in sport. The higher levels are higher because they're quicker, speed is the key factor. Add that it's the World Championship, the only genuine one. Then there's it's history, but speed is the defining factor.

I'm not talking about technology or the quality of the driving or racing. I'm talking about F1 as an overall package to sell to audiences and TV channels, most of whom do not care about the technical aspect or overall lap times. Again this shows we are simply not talking about the same issues.

Regards Indycar racing. You are confusing the interest in the series, the cars, the drivers, and all the peripheral stuff, as the be all, end all of American motorsport. You ignored what's relevant. What was relevant was the Indy 500. All of American motorsport revolved around Indy. The other stuff was just a development of Indy. Tony George ******* the relevance of Indy, is the single biggest factor of the supposed popularity of Nascar.

I didn't ignore anything I'm afraid. I am fully aware of the political problems around the sport which was in fact what I was referring to. Whether it be the Indy 500 or Indycar, as you yourself said it was the most popular class of motorsport in the US. Its fall from grace has been spectacular no?

Alternatively look at Germany. You might think that a country where a German manufacturer just got the WCC and for four years before that a German won the WDC on the trot F1 would be firmly established as the most popular motorsport class right? Wrong. Its popularity has dropped below that of DTM which still manages to pack out the circuits and the Nurburgring and Hockenheim are struggling to find a compromise whereby the country can afford to keep an F1 race at all. Nothing is certain in this business.

This assumption of yours that F1 is guaranteed its place therefore might be right in terms of kudos but not for popularity, and you just might find that the kudos attached to the sport will drop if it becomes less popular. Certainly its income will drop and the sport will stand to lose even more teams than it has already.

The other thing to note is that F1 is not just competing with other forms of motorsport for audiences, its competing with other sports like football which are still expanding in terms of global viewership. F1 cannot afford to be complacent and carry on with its current business model which is purely set up for short term profit.

[airshifter]

There are a whole lot of factors leading to the diminishing return of F1, and among them are the feelings that F1 will be by nature, always on the "top" in terms of performance.

If you look at the Canada races in the years both F1 and CART raced, F1 fastest laps were only 6-7 seconds faster. When you consider that regs made the CART cars a minimum of 350+ lbs heavier, that's not much. And then when you consider budgets, F1 look like the chumps. The big F1 teams are running budgets 10 times those that CART teams used, and even the back of the pack F1 guys (that struggle to beat the CART car times) are spending 5 times as much.

Fastest times vs bang for the buck, take your pick. And I bring this up for another reason, the cost of attending races. F1 ticket costs are through the roof due to the budgets involved. This is an area where they are really hurting themselves. When ticket prices go up so much, you limit your live viewers, and people will simply not go to as many races. They do the same with TV viewing, and for most it's a pay package. Compare that to NASCAR or Indycar where you can get tickets for a reasonable price, and the teams (and drivers) supplement their income through cheaper sponsorships, much cheaper licensing for merchandise, and being accessible to a much larger audience.

On top of that, half the time you don't see much real racing as compared to the "lesser" motorsports. For the cost of a (much cheaper) ticket you can go to Indycar, NASCAR, SBK, or even drag racing and see side by side racing at almost every single event. By putting more sensible limits on the "formula" involved, they have all kept costs down and created more side by side racing. As F1 fans we love if cars are just running close and battling, and are thrilled if it actually creates a side by side duel for a few corners. But you can go to just about any NASCAR race and see guys run three or four wide for laps on end.

And at the end of the day, if F1 wants to retain the technology edge, we're running out of overhead to allow that without jacking up costs even more, which trickles down to the consumer. Let's face it, this last round of altering the Formula brings us back to turbo engines banned some 25 or so years ago in the sport, and new versions of hybrid tech that are cutting edge..... oh wait mainstream hybrid street cars and SUVs have been selling for over a decade now! If we are advancing the sport to compete with readily available consumer vehicles, the tech race is now gone as well. And to top it off the teams are killing themselves to fix minor stuff due to the packaging of the new powerplants, when we had a reliable V8 that had been ironed out and had the teams closer in levels of performance.


I really enjoy open wheel road racing, and also really enjoy the tech side of F1 even when they come up with a stupid formula change. But IMO if Indycar or something similar went global and raced on the good tracks, they would quickly eat Formula 1 alive due to the quality of racing. And I wouldn't be surprised if a stock car series could do the same, even though I'm no big fan of heavy cars on road courses.


I could probably spend a weekend at a NASCAR race, and throw in a fine dining restaurant for my dose of snobbery, and get more bang for the buck than going to see a Formula 1 race. It seems to be the racing series that forgot about the primary draw..... racing.