F1 needs greater danger factor – Raikkonen

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In the round-up: Kimi Raikkonen says F1 has lost the risk factor it had when he entered in 2001.

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Raikkonen says F1 must be 'more dangerous' (Motorsport)

"I'm sure something has to be done to make it more exciting to people to watch and also to really see the speed and make it a little bit more dangerous."

Hulkenberg: F1 drivers interested in Le Mans debut (F1i)

"A lot of the drivers are actually quite curious and interested what it feels like, what the car is like etc. So there is definitely awareness of F1 people and an interest as well."

Lewis Hamilton could break Michael Schumacher's title record, says Nigel Mansell (Sky)

"DRS is a false overtaking aid because it doesn’t give the driver to slipstream and to play a chess game to plan where to pass someone"

Fernando Alonso was right to slam McLaren's performance in Canada admits team chief (The Mirror)

"We are not going to dumb down our drivers. Fernando is great. He’s dynamite and if he wants to speak his mind, we’ll let him do it. That’s why we hired him."

Wolff 'open-minded' over engine pleas (Autosport)

"We are open minded about the situation. We understand Renault and Honda are in a difficult position."

Red Bull’s smiles a distant memory after spluttering F1 season so far (The Guardian)

"Spielberg will be even more difficult for us. The circuit is all about accelerating out of tight corners into quite long straights, which in our current engine situation is the worst thing possible."

The GT Life (Red Bulletin)

"The German fans were always very fair to me, even if some years I was up against their great home favourite. I don’t sign fewer autographs in Germany than I do elsewhere. I sign more, if anything."

The pitched battle over the European Games (BBC)

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Snapshot

Porsche secured their one-two-three after the final qualifying session for the Le Mans 24 Hours. Neel Jani’s lap of 3’16.887 from Wednesday remained unbeaten. He will share the pole sitting number 18 car with Marc Lieb and Romain Dumas.

Look out for the race preview on the site later today and of course join us to follow the great race on F1 Fanatic Live starting on Saturday at 2pm BST.

Comment of the day

Does F1 meddle with the game too much?

If the F1 circus was running football, the players wouldn’t be allowed to drink water during the race, would have to wear boots that fall apart over the first 20 minutes, would have a button on their shirt that gives them an extra goal when pressed, would not be allowed to do any training other than on three designated days before the season and would spend each match walking around slowly to conserve the 100 calories they are allowed to eat in the week leading up the game.
@Petebaldwin

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On this day in F1

Kimi Raikkonen won the Canadian Grand Prix ten years ago today and gained valuable ground in the championship after points leader Fernando Alonso hit the wall:

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Keith Collantine
Lifelong motor sport fan Keith set up RaceFans in 2005 - when it was originally called F1 Fanatic. Having previously worked as a motoring...

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72 comments on “F1 needs greater danger factor – Raikkonen”

  1. OmarR-Pepper - Vettel 40 victories!!! (@)
    12th June 2015, 0:33

    I would not feel ok if I knew that every other weekend, an accident like Jules’s may happen. I agree that drivers should be punished for their mistakes, though / I mean that excess of asphalt instead of gravel).

    1. @omarr-pepper
      Catch-22
      We want F1 to be more exciting and for there to be more risk by having some form of punishment for driving off the track, but we don’t want to see anyone getting seriously hurt or killed.
      Add in the safety requirments of other series using the circuits, from trucks weighing several tonnes to motoGP and Superbikes, and we’ve got ourselves a very difficult problem to solve.

      I like the risk and think people should be free to compete in dangerous events, the TT is one of my favourite sporting events, but I understand why organisations such as FIA & Dorna want to do everything they can to minimise those risks and I’m not sure I’d approve of purposely increasing the risk in F1. The TT may be more dangerous than an F1 GP, but it’s as safe as it’s possible to be and the organisers would never purposely add extra risks to the circuit – like the FIA, they’re constantly trying to improve safety and minimise the risks.

      1. I think it is a compromise. Right now it seems to me they could go no small amount faster, and still be quite safe. Regs can be added to ensure no hydro-planing into exposed extraction equipment. Pit lane speeds at those areas of caution. Many tracks in the US use safer barriers vs. straight concrete barriers. F1 already has had for years great shock absorbing barriers. More could be added. So OK, there wouldn’t be that literal sense of imminent risk of physical harm, but I’d sure love to see them taxed with greater speeds and G’s than present, within reason of course, and the chance to race with a greater skewing toward mechanical grip of trust and consistency, driver v driver combat on their limit often, no DRS, within the confines of a pretty cushy track. I don’t need to feel they could die to be enthralled at great skill on display, a true feat unfolding in front of us, if only that were allowed to surface. I believe the drivers are all poised for that and would welcome it.

        1. The problem is when you increase the G’s and cornering speeds, run off needs to be bigger and bigger. And I think everyone can agree we’re sick of the parking lots. Cornering speeds are most certainly not the answer.

          1. @joey-poey I don’t see why bigger and bigger runoffs would be needed. My point was that the tracks and cars are very safe now, so it is a perfect time to put more ‘beast’ in the drivers’ hands. And in certain areas where there is still a chance of hitting a concrete wall at high speed, go with safer barriers, as just one example of protecting the drivers without dumbing down the tracks further.

        2. @robbie
          I’m all for getting rid of DRS & driver aids and replacing aero with mechanical grip, and I’d be happy to see the cars made more challenging to drive – I just don’t see any reason to bring back the danger that people (many of them drivers) have spent decades eliminating.
          I’d much rather see drivers having to replace wings because they’ve hit kerbs, or some sort of electric limiter activated when they leave the track than see them being smashed up in the wall/barrier because the run-off area has been removed to improve the show.

          1. @beneboy I just don’t see it as ‘bringing back the danger’ when the cars are so strong and the tracks so forgiving as they both have now evolved. I suggest there is so much protection for the drivers now, that 5 seconds a lap faster racing would still be extremely safe. I also think that nobody within F1, and rightly so, would even consider erasing that which it took decades to eliminate. Decades ago, drivers were dying frequently. No matter what they do, F1 will never ever go back to that lack of safety.

          2. @robbie
            I wouldn’t complain if they made the cars faster, in fact I’d be very happy to see the cars able to break the old lap records. I just think some people (not necessarily you) are being naive to think we could bring back gravel traps, grass verges etc to run-off areas that have been removed in recent years without causing some serious accidents. F1 cars are amazingly safe and could probably survive most types of high speed crash, even if they were faster than they currently are, but unfortunately few other racing vehicles can survive crashes as well as an F1 car and gravel in particular can be fatal for motorcycle racers.

      2. I think something that everyone is missing is this – the cars were 10 seconds per lap faster over a decade ago and no one was killed then!

        In the last 10 years both track/barrier safety and car safety has improved out of sight. Apart from utterly stupid decisions like having removal equipment on track while cars are circulating, I don’t believe anyone has been seriously injured either.

        Today’s cars could be 15 seconds per lap quicker with absolutely no safety problems. After all, like I said, decade old cars were going 10 seconds per lap faster than todays cars WITH gravel traps AND grass run offs.

    2. I actually think it’s pretty crass of Keith to include a pic of last year’s Japanese Grand Prix. The implication is clear, but it’s actually nothing to do with the linked article or the round-up headline.

      Kimi (and anyone else who feels F1 has become to sanitised, me included) is NOT calling for every race to be run in dismal light conditions, with JCBs parked at random corners to spice things up. Jules’s tragic accident was very much a freak accident – and I absolutely hope we don’t see circumstances like that every again in F1 (or any other motorsport series).

      What we do want to see is cars that are actually challenging to drive, circuits that punish mistakes and drivers absolutely pushing the limits of what is possible – and sometimes going beyond them.

      1. Well @Graham228221, I think that Keith is doing exactly the right thing to remind us of the possible pitfalls of “bringing more danger” into the sport there.

        Sure, they can do race starts earlier to prevent it getting dark mid race. And yes, I am confident that a race is now more likely to be postponed, done earlier, stopped earlier, or whatever in the future if a condition like that happens.

        But the JCBs will always be there, there is no failsafe way to replace them. Sure, many things could be done better, but the accident risk is always there. And if we increase cornering speeds, the potential impacts are only going to be larger, which would actually mean we would need even bigger car parks of tarmac around the track.

        Just look at LeMans, did you register that they are going to slow cars down for next year after the huge speeds seen for this years edition? Otherwise they would possibly find that Le Mans would be unsafe to run without completely changing the track.

        1. Perhaps a picture of Kimi crashing at Silverstone would be more appropriate. I’m sure when Kimi mentions having more danger, he’s not referring to having JCBs you can slide under (still not protected by the way with some sort of crash structure), but rather increasing speed or removing the run off areas that don’t give a sense of risk or thrill for a driver.

          After all, don’t forget like any thrill sport the danger is part of the thrill, you can’t have one without the other.

      2. I agree with every word there @Graham228221, spot on

      3. @graham228221 I don’t agree with the distinction you’re making. Danger is danger: Formula One drivers are already exposed to a degree of risk, as illustrated in the image, and Raikkonen is talking about increasing that. Whether race control chooses not to send the Safety Car out when there’s a crane on the circuit in low light conditions in pouring rain, or whether we’re talking about having more non-Tarmac run-offs of the type Raikkonen lost control on and crashed at Silverstone last year, the end result is the same: people are potentially going to get hurt.

        I also think you’re responding to the choice of image solely on a literal level. I also chose it because bright red warning lights illustrates ‘danger’ pretty well.

        I see others making the assumption that some other image could easily have been used. I know image theft is rife on the internet, and consequently some think that just because you can find a picture on Google Images or similar that means I can use it on F1 Fanatic. That isn’t the case, and as a result I can’t always lay my hands on the exact picture which might seem ideal for a particular story.

        1. Don’t agree with that Keith. Danger is essentially the odds of accomplishing a particular risk. For instance the danger of crashing because of a structural failure is different then the danger of crashing doing not being able to handle the increased speed at a particular moment.

          It’s perhaps dangerous to say danger is simply danger :P. It simplifies the issue too much. If danger is simply danger, the only answer would be to stop F1.

          1. He said danger, but what he and the other drivers are getting at is that the cars have been dumbed down to F2 speeds.

    3. We shouldn’t forget how the accident of Jules happened. It was not a normal race incident, but a coming together of several events that led to his very unfortunate crash.

      F1 now has procedures in place. And one single car crashing taking into isolation is very, very safe infact. Just look at Verstappen. He had a very nasty crash at high speed, but came out fine. Perez had a bigger crash, suffered a minor concussion and went on.

      It gets dangerous when several crashes become entangled in one way or another with eachother. That has nothing to do with the speed of the cars, but with procedures. If you use VSC everytime a car crashes for instance, you’d be reducing this specific risk by a big chunk already.

      1. I agree, the difference between a crash which occurs at 140mph vs 160mph is not going to have a major impact to the resulting crash severity.

        1. @nivek252

          a crash which occurs at 140mph vs 160mph is not going to have a major impact to the resulting crash severity

          First, it might well have a major impact – this will depend on the particular crash so some will be no worse and some significantly worse. For example the additional energy could cause a further failure (e.g. wheel tether) which would not have happened at a lower speed causing the outcome to be quite different and much more severe. Crash structures are going to absorb a lower part of the energy of the accident.

          However, not only is the crash severity increased (whether slight or significantly) but the probability of a crash will also increase (there will be many reasons, not only is the driver more likely to lose control or misjudge a movement, he is also less likely to be able to regain control after a mistake, has reduced time to take avoiding action, greater stress on components leads to increased likelihood of high speed failure etc). So it’s not just the severity of a particular crash which is the issue but the frequency of crashes. The more high speed crashes we have, the more likely we will see serious or fatal injuries.

          1. We’ve seen back in 2007 with Robert Kubica that cars can keep the driver’s integrity safe even during high speed impacts. Back in that day the cars were both cornering faster and didn’t have the more specified crash structures (which absorb even more of the impact).

            We are well below what these structures can handle at most. Each time a crash structure got involved, the driver was able to return to the wheel in a relative short time. The serious accidents that happened the last 5 years ironically did not involve any crash structure! Filipe Massa, Maria di villota and Jules Bianchi all had severe crashes because the head is unfortunaly not protected.

            However, do you think these type of accidents would be safe if we reduce the speed by as much as 50mph? No they will not. Increasing or decreasing speed will not change the fact this type of injury is lethal or crippling.

            Sure, cars will more often crash if we let them go faster. Does not mean the crash itself will have a higher chance to deal a serious injury. Your run of the mill crash into somebody else and skate off the track right into the barriers will just result in a very broken car with little to no injury to the driver.

    4. Those words from Raikkonen was from last week in an interview between him and Jean Alesi – broadcasted before the Canadian GP on Canal+.

      At the beginning of the interview Alesi shows Raikkonen pictures, as they have in common the last GP of Alesi – when Raikkonen spun because of a rear suspension failure in Suzuka 2001 and Alesi hit him few meters later…

      (Transcript)
      Alesi: “When you started F1 and when you see the cars now, what is the difference?
      Raikkonen: “When I came in Formula 1 it was more exciting for everybody and it was like really…the top.
      It’s along time ago, so you’d expect the cars would be more fast, more exciting – but with the rules changes they try to make them slower.
      I’m sure something has to be done to make it more exciting, for people to watch also, and to really make them see the speed and to make it a bit more dangerous.
      It’s just part of the game. Of course you don’t want anybody to get hurt but it also make it more exciting.”

      Then they talk about Ferrari.

    5. The question i have is how are we going to blame if some one should die if we make the racing more dangers. The FIA, the Drivers for asking for it to be more dangers or the fans for wanting a more dangers in F1. I will tel you how the fans are going to blame. They are going to blame the FIA the people how try and keep he sport save.It will not be the drivers or the fans fault for wanting a more dangers F1.

    6. Chris (@tophercheese21)
      12th June 2015, 14:05

      Jules’s accident wasn’t so much because the cars were unsafe (which they weren’t), it was because of a lack of following safety procedures.

      I know it’s utterly horrible what has happened to Jules, but it seems as if he played a large role in the reason for his crash in the first place by not slowing sufficiently on a wet track in a yellow sector.

      There’s no reason that bringing back the “danger factor” should mean that more drivers are injured. If the proper safety procedures are followed on track by drivers, marshals and stewards, then there’s no reason to sustain injuries or fatalities from a formula one race.

      1. I don’t know that he wouldn’t have been hurt if he’d hit the JCB at a much slower speed. I don’t think Raikkonen is referring to procedures for recovering crashed cars anyhow.

  2. Raikkonen is spot on. The tracks and the cars are now a lot less dangerous and though no one wants to see injuries or fatalities, the sanitisation of F1 has clearly gone too far. The margin of error has increased because of the increasing track width and the tarmac run offs and considering how much time the drivers are spending saving fuel and tyres they rarely ever make mistakes as they are never pushing themselves to the limit. F1 has to keep its element of risk and danger or potentially lose its a large portion of its fan base, and a lot of the more skilled drivers may look into other forms of motorsport, e.g WEC.

  3. Upping the speed by 5-6 seconds a lap will naturally make it more dangerous but i don’t see the lack of danger as an issue that needs to be addressed. What i do see as a problem is the lack of gravel traps. I want to see drivers get punished for their mistakes, potentially putting them out of the race. Montreal, for instance, would be far more interesting if there was a gravel trap at the hairpin and another one at the last chicane.

    1. @racectrl – I agree with you on the gravel traps, despite calls that they are unsafe because of cars digging in. One of the moments of the season was Ferrari’s Malaysia win. What caused it? A safety car that came out because of Ericcsen’s error being adequately punished by a rare gravel trap.

    2. There’s the tyre-shredding paint option like they have at Paul Ricard as well.

  4. Nigel is no dummy, and offers good insight without fear or favour.

    1. It just sounded like the usual off-the-rails Mansell ego to me I gotta say. “In my day…”

  5. Global Fan Survey Record

    Now, let’s wait and see if they actually do something with this! But first, I’m more interested to see the general response to it. If we have crazy variety or a common path for F1 by most of the fans that took the survey.

    1. If anything this means that fans certainly have a lot to say about F1, so hopefully someone will take notice.

      Fans shut up when they’re happy. If you here from them it means they’re not.

  6. Recently I’ve not been a huge fan of McLaren, but they have earned a lot of respect from me now, having read that. Really fantastic.

    1. I agree this

      “We are not going to dumb down our drivers. Fernando is great. He’s dynamite and if he wants to speak his mind, we’ll let him do it. That’s why we hired him.
      “We’ve had too much of the super-controlled, super-smooth stuff. Just tell it as it is. You can see it on the circuit. We’ve just got to get on with it.

      is very good. We indeed need drivers telling it how they see it far more in F1 @strontium

    2. I agree with that too. Its good to hear the drivers say things as they feel they are.

    3. I think they’re just trying to avoid the media building a story about the tension in the Mclaren garage right now.

      Fernando must be hopping mad with his team, and rightly so. Starting a public war with it’s drivers and then it’s engine supplier will end up in an absolute Mclaren meltdown. So why not say it’s ok for drivers to get ticked off, and media pat them on the back to end the matter

      1. I think Fernando was just mad at his own situation at Canada and vented his frustration on radio. Then they put a spin to it, and it became something like his frustration with Formula 1 in general. If he were the one driving that Ferrari he wouldn’t be saying we look like amateurs, since Vettel was racing flat out. Formula 1 is slow in general, OK, but they always do fuel management in Canada especially without a SC. Especially Honda PU is already known to be fuel hungry.

  7. Kimi should say that to Jules Bianchi’s parents.

    1. @melthom I find it ridiculous that people are trying to compare Kimi’s comments to Bianchi’s crash. It’s very sad what happened, and that was obviously a freak accident caused by an unfortunate set of circumstances (and Kimi is not encouraging that set of circumstances at all). Ultimately though, it is racing, this stuff happens.

      A quote from the 2013 film Rush

      I accept every time I get in my car there’s 20% chance I could die.

      Obviously that is extreme, and not suitable for today’s standards, but I do think that people are far too soft now, and when there is an accident like Bianchi’s, people go on and on about it, bringing it up at every opportunity to show how sorry they are about it.

        1. agreed @strontium, Sadly there have been deaths recently in, cricket, rugby, horse racing, water skiing and other sports not normally considered life threatening, we should recognise the huge advances F1 has made in safety and be thankful that serious injury in F1 is so rare, but also we have to recognise that life itself is full of danger.

      1. You don’t seem to understand what a bs comment that was from Mr Vodka. Danger factor means that accidents do happen were cars explode and people get hurt. Or do you want a “fake danger factor” were it looks dangerous, but in reality is just a stunt trick? What is danger, real danger or fake danger? Fake danger would be like DRS, fake overtaking, real danger would mean that there is always a risk for human sacrifice. Real motorsport fans don’t need that, they want wheel to wheel racing.

        1. Who the hell is Mr Vodka? Are you drinking buddies with him?

      2. @strontium I don’t know whether the quote is just from the film or if Lauda every actually said something like this, but of course the statistics are nonsense. There has never been a time in F1 where there was even a 1% chance of dying each time you got in the car. Assuming three practise sessions, two qualifying sessions and a race each weekend this would mean only a quarter of the field would be expected to survive each race weekend! I guess it may have felt like that at the time though!

    2. @melthom “It’s sad your son didn’t slow down in double yellow flags zone in wet conditions, while incompetent Charlie Whiting sees no problem with not policing core rules in motorsport.”?

      1. Because Whiting has come under increasing pressure not to use safety cars in wet weather conditions after repeated complaints from the fans that they were being used too frequently in heavy rainfall?

        1. Instead we got a dozen laps under the SC while everybody was on new full wets; and no SC when it was dark, a car had aquaplaned off and most of the field were on worn inters.

      2. It’s sad your son didn’t slow down in double yellow flags zone in wet conditions

        There is something about how this is worded that makes me feel really uneasy.

        1. It’s the lack of opportunity to put the counter argument, I think. I think most would agree the right to mount a defence, mitigation or at least an acknowledgement about an incident in which fault was found was a basic right.

  8. Keith: Kudos for the way with a couple of clicks F1F images can usually blown up to desktop size, which is where that Porsche is right now. Tis much appreciated…

    1. @budchekov You’re welcome. Lots more Le Mans pics coming up shortly. Suspect your desktop background may be about to change…

    2. That Porsche is indeed unbelievable.

  9. Surely there is a way for the cars to take in dirty air? They need to be able to draft one another to nullify DRS.

    1. It’s not easy, but increasing mechanical grip at the expense of the aero is the way to go – tyres provide ‘free grip’ so they are less affected by the wake of the car in front.

      I recently catched the early part of a video of the 1985 South African GP in the old Kyalami and boy I was amazed at how easily the cars could slipstream past each other on that famous main straight with the Kink in it towards Crowthorne – they seems like they had DRS, but, of course, they hadn’t and it was just the track layout and the higher mechanical/aero ratio. One can say Rosberg (the Sr.) sailed past everybody because of his better car, but then he was able to took his team-mate Mansell as well – we don’t see that too often nowadays that two largely identical cars can race for position that effectively.

      So that was hugely entertaining and so the other factor besides mechanical/aero ratio, I think, is track layout. They are horrible nowadays with regards to overtaking.

  10. The COTD had me in tears…

    It is like F1 wants to be dumb and slow so they are desperately looking for ways to achieve that.

    1. I disagree. After every ‘boring’ GP, everyone freaks out.

      Not every race can be a classic. Relax guys …

  11. here we go …. The right way to jinx to suggest that someone else is going to beat Schumi’s record. Couple of years back, it was Sebastian Vettel.

    1. Oh IF ONLY!!!

  12. they could start by enforcing the 107% rule.

    1. ColdFly F1 (@)
      12th June 2015, 7:15

      @pcxmerc – where?
      In WEC, and 30% of LMP1 cars wouldn’t make the start!

      1. The WEC does actually state that teams either have to be within 110% of the category’s pole sitting time, or within 120% of the average of the top three times. Even thought the ACO offers a relatively generous margin, at one point it did actually look as if at least some of Nissan’s cars could have been disqualified for being too slow (their slowest car only just made it within 110% of the pole time).

        1. Actually, I stand corrected – the ACO is penalising Nissan for failing to get within the 110% limit by sending their cars to the back of the prototype field (it looks like the ACO did not have the courage to actually suspend Nissan from competing, which should actually be what happens). http://www.autosport.com/news/report.php/id/119441

  13. Of course there have to be rules in F1, but if it is supposed to be the pinnacle of World Motor Sport (the clues in the name ‘Grand Prix’ for goodness sake) then it should pit the absolute best against the absolute best whether it be designers, drivers, management, engineers, crews or whatever. Then the winner would be the best team combination and fastest person on the track – and give the sport it’s edge back. F1 seems to be constantly ‘tweeking’ the rules – often unnecessarily – and I’m afraid it’s now all about money. What does BTCC do that F1 doesn’t to make it edge of your seat racing a lot of the time?

    1. With regards to what the BTCC does, the answer is widespread standardisation of components – the engines are so heavily regulated as to be effectively standardised (the organisers even offer a standard engine to all participants, and a number of them are using that standard engine), the drivetrain is a standard Xtrac unit, standardised brakes from AP Racing, standard electrical systems from Cosworth and most of the aerodynamic components are standardised too.

      You also have a handicap system, whereby the regulators can decide to adjust factors such as the minimum weight or the maximum rev limit on each car up to five times a season, to level the field out again. In other words, the organisers of the BTCC do exactly what you are complaining about in F1 – widespread standardisation of parts and regular tweaking of the regulations to make teams more or less competitive.

  14. I miss Webber – but I’m happy knowing there is not a single thing in F1 he has to miss.

    Onto Le Mans!

  15. I don’t think Kimi means the sport should be more dangerous. I think its his way of saying that the actual driving of the cars should be more demanding and therefore requiring a lot more physical effort. Basically i think the feeling is that he wants to feel more challenged by driving an F1 car and driving closer to the limit of what the car can do rather than driving to prescribed lap times for fuel saving.

  16. Adding to the quote by Marko on their expected difficulties at the Red Bull Ring: Red Bull set for the back of the grid next week.

  17. About Kimi’s danger comment. What he seems to be saying is that racing drivers have to die for a living !?

  18. The signal to noise ratio on how horrible F1 is compared to any enjoyment that might accidentally be derived from it has reached epic proportions. As a fan and observer of F1 since the mid 1960s it has become apparent that the sole focus at this moment in time of nearly anyone associated with F1 from the emperor Ecclestone to the teams, drivers, media and fans is how absolutely awful F1 is now. At least that is how it must appear to those outside the circle of F1 when reading or hearing anything about F1 these days.

    This is not necessarily unhealthy, out of self criticism improvement can happen. This truly is the information age, but that is a double edged sword. We have more information on every level and we can give more input on nearly every level on anything and everything in the world until it becomes an utter cacophony without logic or direction. That is the quagmire F1 finds itself in right now. No matter what direction is taken it will be harshly criticized, loved/hated, bashed/lauded praised and used as an excuse to cease and desist watching, participating or buying into F1 at any level.

    As previously mentioned, criticism is not in and of itself a bad thing. But right now it seems like it is the only thing. Lest we forget that most of us visiting this site and others are still watching F1 even if we each have our own set of ideas on how F1 should or shouldn’t be run or improved upon. We may have the best ideas but our individual voices are being drowned out by millions of others and further stymied by the multi-headed beast of F1 management, CVA, FIA, Strategy Group, Teams, Suppliers, Sponsors and anyone else who has a hand in stirring the mysterious cauldron of F1 decision making and finance.

    What does all this mean? Personally I am conflicted. While I still enjoy F1 in its present form I also agree it could be better. I have a few small mostly ignored ideas and suggestions that I will continue to voice form time to time. In the meantime I hope F1 does not implode from its mostly self inflicted poison pill of mismanagement and greed at the highest levels. Anyways, for now I’ll sit back with my cup of coffee and watch the drama continue to unfold. Formula 1 is dead! Long live Formula1!

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