FORUMula1.com - F1 Forum

[CookinFlat6]

F1 as we know will clearly not last more than a season or 2, like I predicted previously. The telling bit recently was the interview with Fernandez. When asked if he felt let down and by whom, he replied that he and the other new teams, that are all not finished, were attracted in by the lure of a cost cap etc.
This was a bait and switch as costs were ramped up soon after. Did he blame Bernie or the FIA? nope - he blamed the teams who backstabbed the rest to be bvribed by Bernie to kill Fota - Ferrari and RBR. Ofcourse after that treacherous bit of business Merc has completely killed the 2 teams at their own game. No new sponsors in F1 - i.e no interest or relevance to any leading businesses

Apparently there was a narrow avoidance of a boycott of the COTA race by F1, Sauber Lotus over costs. Going forward F1 WILL formally become a 2 tier race, either with 3 cars or customer cars or B teams or Spec chassis, parts and engines

And like I predicted earlier in a post that attracted the usual responses, with the exponential growth of electric cars and technology, Formula E in the same next couple of years, could completely out flank F1 as the premier series of interest to race promoters, car companies and the smarter racing fans

When I posted the same thoughts a few months ago we had the usual derision from those who need to see things in the main media, here they are, when the mainstream non F1 media are starting to make these observations its just a matter of time as it is the mainstream that any racing series needs to attract to in turn confirm attention of the sponsors

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/sport/motorsport/formulaone/11202231/Formula-E-poses-a-serious-threat-to-Bernie-Ecclestone-with-Formula-One-in-dangerous-decline.html

After a week of bankruptcies and crisis meetings, Formula One is beginning to feel like one of the big Westminster parties: increasingly out of touch with the modern world, and especially irrelevant among the young.
Yes, F1 has a long and glorious history. As well as attracting the best talent, it still hoovers up vastly more airtime and column inches than the rest of the world’s motorsport put together. Even so, a sort of voter apathy is seeping in.
Like many a political party, F1 has a sleazy and discredited leader in Bernie Ecclestone, who stepped beyond parody when he paid £60 million this summer to German prosecutors to make a bribery case go away.
As for the various tweaks to the format, they feel like they have been drummed up over a coffee. Take the “double points” rule for Abu Dhabi, which will backfire horribly if it steals the title away from Lewis Hamilton – the quickest and most charismatic driver of the season.
In the political world, the alternatives being offered to Britain’s electorate hardly inspire confidence. (Did someone say Russell Brand?) Yet motor racing fans are a little more fortunate. If they are looking for a protest vote, Formula E has arrived just at the right time.

FE’s electric motors took to the track in Beijing seven weeks ago, in an inaugural race that finished with a spectacular shunt. The peculiar whining sound took some getting used to, yet the whole event brought to mind Victor Hugo’s maxim: “Nothing is more powerful than an idea whose time has come.”
This is a format compiled by a bunch of F1 exiles and refuseniks, and it has homed in on the old dear’s weaknesses – most notably, her love of conspicuous expenditure – with an insider’s eye for detail.
By contrast with Ecclestone’s bonfire of the banknotes, FE offers cost-capped racing for the age of austerity. Every car has the same shell and each team are limited to 13 operational track passes per race. ABT Audi’s annual budget, for example, is around £5 million, whereas Hamilton and the rest of the Mercedes crew chomp through an eye-watering £325 million, not including the £7 million bonus they paid out to staff for winning the constructors’ championship.
And then there is the technology. F1’s new hybrid engines, introduced this season, have alienated hardliners without engaging the green lobby. Whereas FE has done away with fossil fuels altogether and is moving towards induction grids in the pit lane. (Those are the futuristic devices that, in some neon-lit city of tomorrow, will recharge your battery as you sit at the traffic lights.)
Early data from the Beijing race proved encouraging: 713,000 watched on ITV4, which is already a third of the 2.28 million who tuned into the Chinese Grand Prix on the BBC. A worldwide audience of 25 million rose to 10 times that when you include the news broadcasts, boosted as they were by the sight of Nick Heidfeld’s Venturi heading into orbit.
Most revealing of all has been the enthusiastic response from sponsors. “If you look at any company’s annual report these days, the first page is all about sustainability and environmentalism,” says Jim Wright, Venturi’s commercial director. “People like the fact that we’re trying to kick-start a greener technology.”
At a conference this year, FE’s chief executive held up one of those brick-sized mobile phones from the 1980s. “This is what electric motors are like now,” he said, before holding up an iPhone and saying: “This is where we want to be.”
It is still early days for FE, which found itself lumbered with an unfortunate two-month hiatus when the Malaysian government postponed the Putrajaya race (now scheduled for Nov 22) because of elections.
But this smart young concept is well placed to take advantage of F1’s dysfunctionality. If a couple of top drivers should happen to defect – as politicians often do when their party’s ship is sinking – Ecclestone really will have a fight on his hands.

If the politicians join the car makers and investors who are throwing the kitchen sink at electricity as the replacement for fossil fuels, along with the benefits of races in city centers close to the public and a family day out at these races costing a fraction of F1 racing, things could change very quickly especially if the most marketable and quickest drivers backed by car makers take the same type of plungs as Lewis did by going backward to a mid grid team from McLaren.

[LewEngBridewell]

When it comes to F1 and FE, it's certainly an interesting one when looking at the future.

Say Formula E was to actually take off properly and become really popular. It wouldn't be easy without big star names in both driving and manufacturing terms. But with events held in high profile places such as Central London, sponsors already interested, and with ticket prices presumably cheaper, it's not out of the realms of possibility.

Would you say FE would kill F1 off completely? Or would the two series simply merge into one? F1 keeps evolving anyway.

[CookinFlat6]

The only thing that has kept F1 being subjected to serious competition and breakaway rebel series is Bernies sheer drive and understanding of the rule and dived doctrines. This has been his forte all along. Compared to the form for sports such as boxing and even the American top racing series like Indy etc, F1 stands out as an exception in surviving this long without mutiny from teams or circuit owners. Bernie has always bribed and exploited the teams competitiveness to keep it together and most importantly approach the broadcasters as a package.

The problem now is that sponsors have vanished. The alcohol and tobacco giants who fueled the rise of F1 have been chased away by politicians and the 'more acceptable' businesses have better sports to sponsor. Lets face iit F1 was always the place for those sponsors (and now hosts) who were not the cleanest of the clean and needed the boost of F1.

the world keeps chaniginbg, just like people now accept that its not fair to advertise cigarrettes because they kill etc etc, its going the same way for environmentally unfriendly stuff. The only venues that need F1 have a reason - just like the tobacco and alcohol bunch years ago to try and legitimise via exposure. Any responsible City will not want fossil fuel loud racing advertising deadly products etc - things are simply evolving.

What FE can do is to be the acceptable face of racing to those that matter, the hosts and advertisers and sponsors, it offers a whitewashing, it has a unique window of opportunity and too many things going for it beyond its quality of racing etc compared to F1 not to offer an alternative to every single host or sponsor who has thought about racing but declined for the simple fact of its past associations and raison d'etre.

So to cut my monotonous dribble before i attract calls for a return to short jokey easy stuff - its not about FEs quality of racing etc, its about the fact that it offers everything F1 isnt, and at a time when F1 has alienanted hosts and politicians and municipal decision makers - FE is a no brainer alternative that ticks all the boxes that caused whatever interest they had in hosting a race, and differentiating from the 'dirty' businesses etc who have to replace the killer tobacco etc culture because no one else will have them.

So brave new world, we see it with electric cars and solar etc, all it will take is a Lewis to flip over and I do not see how F1 can weather it

To your question, I dont see a literal merger. I think FE will strip F1 of whats good, Or FE will be taken over by a big group and funded to replace F1. If F1 starts to evolve towards FE, then someone will jump the gun and present a better option than a legacy saddled F1.

Also lets not forget that ferrari is no longer likely to be the trump card allowing F1 to remain the place to be. Ferrari IMHO are F1 history - exactly the same as all the other who left as the road car business was more imoportant, there is no longer any Enzo type entity to keep ferrari racing in the face of complete inappropriateness