F1 cancelled this year?

F1 cancelled this year?

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Discussion

Derek Smith

45,687 posts

249 months

Saturday 7th March 2020
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LucyP said:
Derek, it's hard to know at the moment whether Oz will be the only GP for the foreseeable future, because the situation is changing hour by hour. At the moment, I think that Bahrain will also go ahead. I suspect that Vietnam won't. China is already postponed, and after that it will be Holland and that is 2 months away, so it is impossible to know today. The rate at which conferences are being cancelled and large employers are sending staff home seems to be increasing day by day and F1 cannot be immune from that.
Thanks for that.

I thought about a Now F1 annual pass but now (sorry) I've decided against it, despite the offer in my in-tray. I will not be on my own (but remain unique).

anonymous-user

55 months

Saturday 7th March 2020
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janesmith1950 said:
I'd love to see a free reign F1 without the need for it to be a manufacturer's marketing tool. The budgets would ultimately be self limiting. Then we would get to see what the fastest track machines in the world really look like.
The clue is in the name, Formula 1.

The cars are built to a formula, a set of rules. They always have been.

There will never be unlimited spec Formula 1 or equivalent high end motorsport series.

Kraken

1,710 posts

201 months

Saturday 7th March 2020
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janesmith1950 said:
I'd love to see a free reign F1 without the need for it to be a manufacturer's marketing tool. The budgets would ultimately be self limiting. Then we would get to see what the fastest track machines in the world really look like.
Only place you'll see that is in a sim. There are many, many practical reasons why you can't have a series without rules at that end of the motorsport spectrum.

Dynion Araf Uchaf

4,461 posts

224 months

Saturday 7th March 2020
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vaud said:
What's your proposal? I think the current cars are pretty epic - they have increased thermal efficiency from 38% to 50%, which is staggering. It's just incredibly badly marketed. Unless you go electric (FE) or hydrogen (not enough energy density) I struggle to see what you would do? Ultra small small turbo engines?
better deployment of hybrid within a race weekend. Out laps, in laps, pit lanes, time behind safety car all done under 100% battery power. There should be a focus on the overall CO2 emission during the event of an F1 car. If this is measured you can then start restricting performance by setting an arbitrary limit, say 99g per KM, then reduce it if required. Allow manufacturers to come up with a variety of ways of achieving the limit, from full electric, to small capacity ICE, to Hydrogen, This will then fit in with that manufacturers preferred route to market.

craigjm

17,960 posts

201 months

Saturday 7th March 2020
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Kraken said:
janesmith1950 said:
I'd love to see a free reign F1 without the need for it to be a manufacturer's marketing tool. The budgets would ultimately be self limiting. Then we would get to see what the fastest track machines in the world really look like.
Only place you'll see that is in a sim. There are many, many practical reasons why you can't have a series without rules at that end of the motorsport spectrum.
Well it would be boring as hell to start with and one team would probably dominate and all that. Oh wait....

Dynion Araf Uchaf

4,461 posts

224 months

Saturday 7th March 2020
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jsf said:
So much nonsense in one post.

Marketing programs and their impact are studied in great detail, they know what works and what doesn't.

More diversity blah blah. Have you never looked at the makeup of the F1 teams? The current best driver is mixed race, there are both sexes throughout the teams and many nationalities present.
so much naivety in one post. If marketing programmes worked why are F1 programmes always the first thing to be binned off? F1 and to a lesser extent marketing are nice to have's. It's always the marketing budget in a car manufacturer that gets cut first. And in these changing times doubly so as resources have to go to the autonomous technology departments and engineering.

As for diversity, where is the wealth distribution? if you do not come from the right background how do you get to F1, in any capacity? When you have a Concorde agreement that already rewards more highly ,those that have achieved more, how will those at the bottom beat the opposition.It's one of the reasons that F1 is so predictable. And then don't get me started on how the sport at the top can take so much out of the sport and give absolutely nothing to those at the bottom. And indeed indirectly competitors like me subsidise the sport through paying increased circuit hire fees. It needs a total rework with some focus on motorsport as a community across all markets and levels.

Flamma

27 posts

77 months

Saturday 7th March 2020
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[quote

better deployment of hybrid within a race weekend. Out laps, in laps, pit lanes, time behind safety car all done under 100% battery power. There should be a focus on the overall CO2 emission during the event of an F1 car. If this is measured you can then start restricting performance by setting an arbitrary limit, say 99g per KM, then reduce it if required. Allow manufacturers to come up with a variety of ways of achieving the limit, from full electric, to small capacity ICE, to Hydrogen, This will then fit in with that manufacturers preferred route to market.
[/quote]

See WEC.. not working out too well there sadly..

anonymous-user

55 months

Saturday 7th March 2020
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Dynion Araf Uchaf said:
so much naivety in one post. If marketing programmes worked why are F1 programmes always the first thing to be binned off? F1 and to a lesser extent marketing are nice to have's. It's always the marketing budget in a car manufacturer that gets cut first. And in these changing times doubly so as resources have to go to the autonomous technology departments and engineering.

As for diversity, where is the wealth distribution? if you do not come from the right background how do you get to F1, in any capacity? When you have a Concorde agreement that already rewards more highly ,those that have achieved more, how will those at the bottom beat the opposition.It's one of the reasons that F1 is so predictable. And then don't get me started on how the sport at the top can take so much out of the sport and give absolutely nothing to those at the bottom. And indeed indirectly competitors like me subsidise the sport through paying increased circuit hire fees. It needs a total rework with some focus on motorsport as a community across all markets and levels.
The companies that invest and market heavily in a downturn are the ones that come out on top long term.

I've personally helped get 3 young engineers from working class backgrounds into current F1 teams, I've also worked with one recent working class driver who made it to F1 and is a two times WEC and Le Mans winning world champion.

StevieBee

12,927 posts

256 months

Saturday 7th March 2020
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Dynion Araf Uchaf said:
if you do not come from the right background how do you get to F1, in any capacity?
Have a chat with Lewis. he might have a few pointers.

Plenty of others from humble backgrounds that have managed it.

Dynion Araf Uchaf

4,461 posts

224 months

Saturday 7th March 2020
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StevieBee said:
Have a chat with Lewis. he might have a few pointers.

Plenty of others from humble backgrounds that have managed it.
yes well done, we all know about Lewis. But what about Norris, Russell, Sainz, Kvyat, LeClerc, Stroll, Perez, Verstappen, Magnuessen and the rest. Except of course Albon, his mum was a criminal, so had the worst of upbringings. hehe

Fewer and fewer drivers from the wrong tracks make it to F1. It's son's of ex drivers, or son's of wealthy business(wo)men
Unless you are sponsored by a manufacturer or drinks company, you need to bring £10m. And in order to get sponsored you need to get notice which means you have to race at Karting or a junior level, and that's £50k min per year and very quickly escalates to multiples of 50k. Do you have that money lying around for your offspring?



thegreenhell

15,403 posts

220 months

Saturday 7th March 2020
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It's always been a rich man's sport. Look at any year in F1 history and count the numbers from rich versus poor (or 'normal') backgrounds. The only anomalous periods were when such things as the Elf-sponsored French driver programmes were in effect, and that was just corporate rather than private money.

Exige77

6,518 posts

192 months

Saturday 7th March 2020
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Dynion Araf Uchaf said:
StevieBee said:
Have a chat with Lewis. he might have a few pointers.

Plenty of others from humble backgrounds that have managed it.
yes well done, we all know about Lewis. But what about Norris, Russell, Sainz, Kvyat, LeClerc, Stroll, Perez, Verstappen, Magnuessen and the rest. Except of course Albon, his mum was a criminal, so had the worst of upbringings. hehe

Fewer and fewer drivers from the wrong tracks make it to F1. It's son's of ex drivers, or son's of wealthy business(wo)men
Unless you are sponsored by a manufacturer or drinks company, you need to bring £10m. And in order to get sponsored you need to get notice which means you have to race at Karting or a junior level, and that's £50k min per year and very quickly escalates to multiples of 50k. Do you have that money lying around for your offspring?
Sounds like you have a bit of a chip for whatever reason.

anonymous-user

55 months

Saturday 7th March 2020
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jsf said:
janesmith1950 said:
I'd love to see a free reign F1 without the need for it to be a manufacturer's marketing tool. The budgets would ultimately be self limiting. Then we would get to see what the fastest track machines in the world really look like.
The clue is in the name, Formula 1.

The cars are built to a formula, a set of rules. They always have been.

There will never be unlimited spec Formula 1 or equivalent high end motorsport series.
I should been tighter in my language. Of course there would be a set of rules (basic dimensions and fundamentals like number of wheels), but otherwise the teams given opportunity to innovate without needing to be 'relevant' to whatever corporate goals are in place at the time.

F1 is a spectacle, a show. The needs of a spectacle to thrive can sometimes be in conflict with the needs of manufacturers (who are looking for their own ROI benefit more or less irrespective of the quality of the show).

The audience wants to see the best races with the best cars and the best drivers. The Manufacturer owned teams want to dominate and take the marketing dollar, with as little drama as possible without killing the spectacle altogether.

By allowing those aims to dominate, we now have boring sounding cars with the most ridiculously complex and expensive and irrelevant powertrains battling each other to see who can do 200 miles using the least tyres and fuel. We can pretend 2021 will be different, but it won't.

Forgive me for thinking we'd all prefer to see race teams racing to see who can drive 200 miles flat out in a battle of who's just plain fastest, with as little in the regulation and spec to encourage or require tactical 'slowness' as possible.

If the manufacturers were discouraged (other than as powertrain suppliers), the budgets would self limit downwards as there wouldn't be the need for the billions of development on stupid engine configurations and the corporate manufacturers who are then the only people who can fund them.

When the engine formula is so expensive to design and produce only top level manufacturers can afford to make them, you have a broken formula.

In any case, I digress. I'd love to see the season go ahead as planned, however my feeling is there's a degree of irresponsibility in moving so many people around the world, country to country, to events attended by hundreds of thousands of local people. I think there's perhaps a lack of self awareness within F1 that it chooses to continue.



Derek Smith

45,687 posts

249 months

Saturday 7th March 2020
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Dangerously back on topic: the Bahrain GP organisers have stopped selling tickets for the event.

TheDeuce

21,714 posts

67 months

Saturday 7th March 2020
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Derek Smith said:
Dangerously back on topic: the Bahrain GP organisers have stopped selling tickets for the event.
Yet confusingly have also apparently said they won't impose travel bans that would affect F1.

anonymous-user

55 months

Saturday 7th March 2020
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It doesn't matter what the rules are jane, the cream always rises to the top as does the money.

We had a virtually unlimited series in the mid 60's to early 70's in Can Am, cars i know intimately as an engineer and occasional driver.

Like all these type of series, it eventually priced itself to death, in this instance Porsche killed it with the 917/30, the most powerful circuit racecar built.

slipstream 1985

12,230 posts

180 months

Saturday 7th March 2020
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Dynion Araf Uchaf said:
StevieBee said:
Have a chat with Lewis. he might have a few pointers.

Plenty of others from humble backgrounds that have managed it.
yes well done, we all know about Lewis. But what about Norris, Russell, Sainz, Kvyat, LeClerc, Stroll, Perez, Verstappen, Magnuessen and the rest. Except of course Albon, his mum was a criminal, so had the worst of upbringings. hehe

Fewer and fewer drivers from the wrong tracks make it to F1. It's son's of ex drivers, or son's of wealthy business(wo)men
Unless you are sponsored by a manufacturer or drinks company, you need to bring £10m. And in order to get sponsored you need to get notice which means you have to race at Karting or a junior level, and that's £50k min per year and very quickly escalates to multiples of 50k. Do you have that money lying around for your offspring?
You are literally trying to turn f1 into socialism where everyone has an equal chance.

If it makes you feel any better apart from the drivers f1 is very good at redistributing wealth.
"If you want to make money in motorsport start with alot of money"
Most well off people who have paaid for the varies formulas and track time would have been much better off not getting involved and are substancially poorer than they would have been not getting involved in the first place.

anonymous-user

55 months

Saturday 7th March 2020
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slipstream 1985 said:
You are literally trying to turn f1 into socialism where everyone has an equal chance.

If it makes you feel any better apart from the drivers f1 is very good at redistributing wealth.
"If you want to make money in motorsport start with alot of money"
Most well off people who have paaid for the varies formulas and track time would have been much better off not getting involved and are substancially poorer than they would have been not getting involved in the first place.
Only if you put money ahead of life experiences.

You cant take it with you, there are plenty of people who cant spend the money as fast as it comes in, even at F1 levels of spend.

OlonMusky

708 posts

55 months

Saturday 7th March 2020
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jsf said:
It doesn't matter what the rules are jane, the cream always rises to the top
OH YEAH

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MLBeNPKoM8s

anonymous-user

55 months

Saturday 7th March 2020
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