Will it improve?

[crankedup]

Just reading some other F1 threads. F1 is now boring IMHO as a spectator sport. It seems to me that rally drivers are the real demons behind the competitive wheel, and always have been as far back as I can remember. Always at 10/10's in forever changing conditions. No namby blue flags just genuine racing. No slowing down near the end of the race either. I hope against hope that F1 will get back to what I as spectator would like to see and support once again.

[anonymous-user]

There's a good article in this week's Autocar about Colin McCrae jumping in a Bently Speed 8 and being less than a second off the test driver's times after 20 or so laps around a circuit he'd never before driven! Goes to show the skill level there is (was) in WRC.

[daydreamer]

Maybe, but there are always two sides.

I believe McRea swapped seats with an F1 driver a year or so back, and didn't fair quite so well. Also, I watched some of the Monte rally, with one of the British co-drivers telling his pilot that if he (the co-driver) could see into the distance, why wasn't the driver on it (I think they lost something like 2 minutes).

Thing is, F1 is the most commercial sport there is. If so many people are turning off their tellys, then how is it surviving?

If you want to watch rally, then fine. As for will F1 get better - well it depends on whether you are judging against Australia this year, or last season.

I don't think that it will get better than last season by any measure that can be applied to single seater racing. Again, horses for courses - if you want to see five racers together at the last corner then go for motorbikes (or Ginettas at the GT races this year), if you want sliding around, then go for rallying, or if you want what is still a great spectacle (probably as great as it has ever been), then go for F1.

For a real motorsport fan, you could watch them all.

F1 has to be commercial, and I'm sure that Bernie will get his way on some issues that will help the spectator (although he appears to be much quicker with the criticism than the solutions). I'd personally go for levelling the playing field (somehow) financially, but there are other methods I'm sure that could at least bring more of the cars in with a shout.

We shall see.

[griff2be]

daydreamer said:

if you want to see five racers together at the last corner then go for motorbikes (or Ginettas at the GT races this year), if you want sliding around, then go for rallying

or, if you want to see five racers together sliding round the last corner, watch the Tuscans

[eric mc]

F1 is surviving, just. Ecclestone has banked on the devloping world taking up the slack when the traditional home "markets" collapse - which could very well happen.

No way to run a sport, in my opinion.

[crankedup]

Daydreamer has made some good valid points, problem is I can recall when F1 racing included overtaking, the lead driver having to race past backmarkers, wheel to wheel racing drivers without the techi boys intervering via computers. In short I cannot forsee F1 surviving in its current format I am sad to say. Don't get me wrong, I love motor sport, would'nt be a pistonhead, but I love it so much I want to see the glory days again. I watch all forms of motorsport two and 4 wheels in all classes.