Was the US Grand Prix a farce?

bonkey

I'm trying to decide if the media is right in criticising the result of the US Grand Prix and the way it was engineered.

OK, on one hand, the drivers (or at least one of them) engineered a race-changing position at the last moment, and I mostly accept that this isnt the best thing for the sport.

On the other hand, whether Rubens came 1st or 2nd didnt matter. Ferari won the same amount of points. He clinched the second-place drivers position, and would have done so from first or second.

So, ultimately, the result doesnt affect anything.


Also, Schumi may still be simply paying Rubens back for his handing over of victories in the past, and I see nothing wrong with this.

Yet some of the media are having a field-day complaining yet again. Even EJ has gone on record saying that he thinks it was a stupid thing to do, because it damages the sport even more.

Maybe its just that other than the Williams duo touching, this was the only newsworthy incident of the race?

jc

mike65

I was'nt watching the race due to an important date with the Ryder Cup on BBC2, but the way that Ferrari are playing around with F1 is farcical. Short of another team geting thier act together it'll continue until there's no-one watching...

Mike.

yankinlk

sorry to but in, but when was ryder cup on bbc? was that just terrestrial then? damn sky, damn them to hell.

oh, and f1 issue....snoozearama. if it wasnt for the odd drama no one would watch it ever. (notice all the signs in indianapolis were from European sponsors?) literally noone watches it over there. they should pay off schumacher to retire early, maybe then it would get interesting.

mike65

BBC2 had a two hour highlights package every night.

Mike.

Sposs

Grand Prix Races are becoming Boring Due to One Man and That is due to Micheal Schumachar(sp?),there's is nothing that can be done about this.you cannot blame the man for being the best of his generation and for having no one with enough skill to really test him.Schumi's legend and skill will only be appreciated long after he's retired.

GoneShootin

ive given up watching f1. i used to be an avid follower for the past few years but now theres simply no competition in it anymore

Thanx 4 The Fish

The only interest I had in these was the crashes and there are none of them really anymore. Too much technology has really done the most damage to this (non) sport.

mike65

Originally posted by Thanx 4 The Fish
The only interest I had in these was the crashes and there are none of them really anymore. Too much technology has really done the most damage to this (non) sport.

Thats the spirit! You're right of course, for mirror to mirror
racing the BTCC is just about the best.

Mike.

ykt0di9url7bc3

Originally posted by mike65


Thats the spirit! You're right of course, for mirror to mirror
racing the BTCC is just about the best.

Mike.

unfortunatly i stopped watching BTCC when they gave the Audi A4's that weight penalty....

Kalina

With every race that goes by F1 is losing viewers purely because it's turning into a one-man, one-team event. According to statistics there has been a Ferrari driver on the podium every race for the last 51 races. That's a fantastic achievement for Ferrari and they deserve it but in the last 2 years it's becoming a bit tiresome for the F1 fan watching on TV. Eddie Irvine's podium in Monza was like a reath of fresh air, green on the podium for a change!!! We need to see more interesting results like that in the future, how about a Jordan, a BAR or a Renault!?
I've been watching F1 only since '99 and that's been the best season. Bring back Mika Hakkinen because, though Schumacher is known as the best driver of his generation, Hakkinen had more than enough skill and determination to mount a challenge against him and beat him on a regular basis. Since Hakkinen retired nobody has been able to solidly challenge Schumacher for the championship. I had hoped Montoya would be able to do it but it hasn't worked out for him.
The results at Indianapolis last weekend didn't help the sport one bit. Imho, Schu is taking advantage of the great package that is him and Ferrari combined. He even admitted to trying to stage a dead heat finish which is ridiculous. If he wanted to give Barrichello the victory (which I don't think he really did) then he should have remembered the controversy of Austria and done it a bit less obviously maybe on the 2nd last corner.
I don't think Schumacher should or will retire this season, why would he when he is top of his game but something needs to be done to spice up the sport for home viewers. I invested in F1digital for the first time last weekend and it was well worth the money. But though the pit-lane access, interviews, commentary and in-car views were excellent the race was still dull and uninteresting as has unfortunately been the trend for most of the '02 season.

Waylander

I think anyone who had backed Schumacher to win the race may disagree with your assessment that seeing as Ferari got all the points it is harmless enough. Anyway the sport is gone to sh*t, before this season I had not missed a race in about 5 years, I have not bothered watching one this season.

TomTom

:rolleyes:
F1 has been declining for a while now, and people only relised that there was no excitment in it when Murry Walker left. He had the ability to make a snail race riviting.

Shumacher needs to seperate from ferarri and prove his skill on another car.

Kalina

I haven't missed a race in ages either, I'm still watching this year on the off-chance that there something interesting might happen. Like maybe Jordan on the podium!!

Sposs

Shumacher needs to seperate from ferarri and prove his skill on another car.

Didnt he win two world championships with Benenton (sp)?

chernobyl

Originally posted by Kalina
With every race that goes by F1 is losing viewers

With highs on 500 Million (last race, championship still undecided) and lows of 200 Million F1 has nothing to worry about.

5-10% of those are paying customers which is serious money.

But Eccelstone is worried about the long term future which is why he gave Terrestrial viewers a small break and gave you better coverage, but its still produced by the local cowboys and lacks much of what F1+ gives you.

Id say: IMO for better racing.

Limit the surface area of both front and rear wings and have a starting point of 20% less downforce overall.

Remove paddle shifting/auto gears and re-introduce the gear stick (seqential).

Remove traction control, launch control and have standard EMS (engine management systems) for all teams, to severly limit engine breaking.

Introduce an onboard starter.

Remove the wooden plank.

Bring back the mighty slick.

Most overtaking occurs @ low speed, and when grooved tyres were brought in the 20% decrease in surface area resulted in 50% less stability @ low speed, this has marginally improved.

Give the drivers control in slow speed corners as unfortunately, F1 is plagued by them.



I leave you with two images of F1 then and now.

One is Mansel doing 170mph at the bottom of Eau Rouge, the cart bottoms out and the photographer gets his money shot.

Racing Then


The other is Kimmi doing over 200 as his climbs Eau Rouge..its dull and boring.

Dont click!

Driving Now.

bonkey

Originally posted by Kalina
With every race that goes by F1 is losing viewers purely because it's turning into a one-man, one-team event.

Care to name the last time that F1 wasnt a "one-team event", other than the occasional single year like 99 when there was a changing of the guard (so to speak)? You'll have to go back a long way.

Sure, Ferrari are completely dominating at the moment, and that (in turn) means that Schumi is dominating, but the performance advantage they have at present is not actually that much more significant than what other teams have had in the past. Where the major difference is comes in reliability. Consider the year Schumi broke his leg. Irv was in with a shot of winning the championship. It went to the last race. Now, go back and look at how many times Irv finished in front of Hakkinen. I think it was once. He was able to stay close in the championship because of the comparative lack of reliability of hte McLaren, not because he was really on an equal footing.

Ferrari have great reliability at present. They have this coupled with a great car. You cant exactly fault them for either....its not their job to try and make the championship more interesting by making their car slower or less reliable.

The other major problem is the constant duchotomy between drivers and teams. F1 is definitively a team sport. When BAR entered the fray, they asked permission to have their two cars in seperate liveries, to highlight their stance that the drivers would race each other as much as anyone else on the field. The FIA flat-out refused. Each team was allowed one livery and that was it. Otherwise, they said, viewers would get confused as to who was with whom.

So, its a team event. Ferrari make use of this. They appoint a first and second driver. This is again maximising their chances, and while the FIA insists on it being a team sport, they are perfectly correct.

This, however, is offset by the fact that most people are more interested in who lifts the drivers championship....which is where the problems start. Imagine if being the "highest scorer in the World Cup" carried more prestige than the winning team. This would be an identical situation, and it is equally farcical. And yet we accept this F1 structure blindly and complain about unsporting behaviour!

F1 needs to change. Sure, it needs to modify the cars (maybe shrink the engines, decrease aerodynamic grip and increase mechanical grip). Perhaps look at limiting the on-board computerisation, but thats *really* tough to enforce.

However, it also needs to modify its structure. Points for maybe the top 50% of cars (more like Indy does) perhaps, and definitely sort something out about this team vs individual crap.

jc

Mossy Monk

great Mansel picture. it's set as wallpaper on my desktop right now

pickarooney

Do away with the qualifying and have the winner from the previous race start from last position, the second placer in second-last etc. It was good enough for Lotus Esprit Turbo Challenge...

Kalina

This is a little off the point of this thread but anyway... I read in the Sun today that handicaps are being proposed for any driver who gains a huge lead in the championship. Weight will be placed in the car which will slow it by 0.3s per lap to help close the gap between the strongest driver (Michael Schumacher) and the rest of the field.
Ron Dennis and Patrick Head seem opposed as they say that both McLaren and Williams have under-performed this season and they are sure that they can catch Ferrari next season. Eddie Jordan seems to think it's a good idea but then with the way Jordan have been performing this season it's unlikely that his cars will ever have to carry the handicap weight.
I think it's a bad idea because it will negate, to a degree, the skill and talent of drivers like Michael Schumacher and give other teams an unfair advantage.