French and Canadian GP's dropped...
The FISA trying to push an Engine Rule that has the manufactures threatening to leave (and this time i actually believe them)...
Many very very questionable Steward Decisions...

Bad Times.....

I think the steward decisions are the least, but yeah, there are definetely problems, and the economy crisis could not have come at a worse time...

With MotoGP grids shrinking almost daily, and the WRC going from weakness to weakness, it will be interesting to see what form European motor racing will take in five years time. Now might be a good time to start learning the names of the NASCAR and Indy drivers.

I have to say every time the FISA tries to help it makes things much much worse!!!

Maybe the yearly rise of the fees at 10% should be reduced to ensure at least 16 races per year.

On the other hand with European races being dropped more races in Asia can be integrated. India, Korea, Russia, ...

In the current economy the last thing anyone from the FIA should be doing is giving the car manufacturers a reason to leave - i.e. telling them that their raison d'etre for competing (showcasing their technology) is going out the window. This will make it FAR easier for the car companies to justify pulling out and I can easily envisage that by the end of next season we could see the departure of Toyota/Honda and Renault for this reason.

I doubt that Force India will last until the end of next season due to the amount of money Mallya has had to pump into the team. Likewise, Mateschitz could decide that the marketing reward of having two teams doesn't meet the financial risk given the tough financial times. This could spell the end of Toro Rosso unless a buyer comes to its rescue. Finally, there's Williams which could even hit the wall before the start of next season if its latest financial results are anything to go by.

So, to bring this all together, I would not be at all surprised if by the end of next year F1 has lost:

Toyota
Renault
Williams
Force India

Under the current circumstances anyone would have to be mad to buy an F1 team (they lose money like crazy) and if one or two teams were to go under not even Bernie would have the money to keep them all going for a few years.

This is just maxxx`s way to get back at BMW and Mclaren for their comments of his whore escapedes.

Also with Lemans presenting an ever more exciting technical challange, and Moto GP ever gaining popularity....

It just seems the FIA are tearing F1 apart...

Rules like introduction of V8's.
Engine Homogulation that only lasts 1 year!!!
Huge technical changes every year...

I personally think F1 needs a bit of stability,....

Max Destroying the sport to settle Personell vendettas?

Very Bad the elite sport is now a farce. I'll still follow it till the last death rattle but I am very concerned that the rattle isn't that far away....

Oh, I wouldn't say F1 is "falling apart"... HOWEVER, I do think F1 is in for a Major Correction - which wouldn't be a bad thing at all...

It couldn't be more simple.
They should not have pressed on with so many changes since the end of 2002. It has been like a rollercoaster ride with change after change.

i'm the same i have watch F1 for many many years... I will still watch it forever. But it has gotten more and more ridiculous in the last 10ish years!!!

Luckily i can watch Moto GP if i want to see some good wheel to wheel racing :>

I agree. To a large extent they do deserve what they have coming to them. The manufacturers could have got out and set up their own series. The teams could have been more forceful and set up FOTA years ago. And I'm not going to lose any sleep over Bernie's investment going to pot if teams leave en masse. It will just make Max look even more stupid.

+1000 top that.

EVERY season since 2003 we've had BIG changes.

2003: one lap qualifying, race fuel, no warm up anymore
2004: one-race engine, qualifying tweak, wing elements down from three to two
2005: two-race engine, no tyre changes, qualifying tweak, new wings regulations
2006: tyre changes back, V8 engines, new qualifying format
2007: frozen engines, new SC rules
2008: no tc & other aids, standard ECU, four-race gearbox
2009: KERS, new wings regulations

And I'm forgetting a few: that's because there have been SOOOO many. And remember what the reasons were to start with? "To save small teams" and "to improve spectacle". Neither has been achieved. Ok, races have been good this year but that has been down to drivers making mistakes, teams making mistakes, rain and the SC rules, which are unfair.

This is not a rant but a post I want to write from time to time and never am able to...

And strangely, at the same time we're having one of the most entertaining seasons ever.

Would you be suprised? I believe maxxx only cares about maxxx and that whores are available.

Are we though??? I dont want to get into a penalty stewards Hamilton vs rest of the world discussion. But the only reason the season is close is because of direct FIA involvement...

And again if it's so close why change the rules at all!!! lets just leave them how they are!!!

Except slick tires

Well being a little more polite about it I agree that Max defiantly puts his personnel interest above the FIA's (Thats just human nature though.)... Lets face it agree with the privacy thing or not the the FIA would have been better served if he'd of resigned IMHO....

i am not going to disagree there (i never understood with control tyres why they could just bring back slicks but make them harder/less grippy)

The sport is certainly not in the best of health that is for sure.

Max is on a power trip, Bernie is moving the circus east, the stewards are following a logic clear only to them, and general bad vibes all round really.

I only now watch because it is something I have done for nearly two decades. A habit I suppose. I am also finding it intriguing to see if I can second guess what decisions will be made post race.

F1 is sinking in its own complacency and greed. Sad.

I don't mean the championship battle itself, but the quality and uncertainty of the races. We've only had 1 or 2 truly bad races the whole season, and many entertaining ones. Also many surprise winners! It's been fun to watch.

But some of the entertainment has come from an artificial kind of race scripting (the safety car lottery), and from pure luck with weather, as it has rained a lot. Also from a lot of mistakes by the leaders - I think some of it is related to the ban on traction control, but that can't explain everything. The final reason why it's been fun is how close the field is (less than 2 seconds cover everyone except the Force Indias), which the FIA does have some credit for. But most of the epic-ness of this season is just by pure chance.

I'm just saying that in between all these problems, we could stop bitching for a second or two and enjoy the races.

I have to agree - it is habit. I find myself being less and less interested in F1 as it descends further into farce. Used to buy Autosport habitually every week, now I just buy it after races, and I can see me not bothering with those soon. Not bothering with a GP+ subscription for next year either, and I've left almost all my normal F1 forums, can't find myself bothered to post anything meaningful or constructive ( as you can clearly see). Don't get up for the 'out-of-hours' races anymore. Used to make F1 videos but can't be bothered anymore as every time I post a Hamilton video it gets deluged with 'feck off Hamilton' messages from bigots and Spaniards. Notice that I said 'AND' not 'ED' as there's an even split of abusive comments from both those demographics. And now I get warning letters from FOM. I used to be proud to follow this sport, as on Mondays I'd have colleagues asking me what happened - now I have to explain why what happened happened and I'm increasingly stumped.

I've always followed the drivers that court controversy since I started watching ( Villeneuve, Montoya, Hamilton but never Schumacher) and I'm just finding myself jaded by everything that's going on in F1. The on track action has been good this year, mostly because of LH, but Mosley's Gestapo's involvement has just spoiled things to the point where I get more frustration than pleasure from F1. I'm tired of it all. I'm tired of the constant bickering in forums that seems to have spread to the drivers, the double-standards and the hypocrisy are all getting me down. All the BS spoils the 90 minutes on Sundays.

The sport is in meltdown. Nothing in F1 works anymore. You can't even trust the results that get posted at the end of the race anymore, it's gotten that bad. The controlling authority is destroying F1 as a sport and turning it into a sit-com that isn't particularly funny and stretches credibility to breaking point.

I'll still watch it, purely out of habit, but the more I see the more I find myself sawing at the umbilical cord that connects me to it.

The sport has been taking a downward spiral since 2001.

In 2001 you did have Ferrari domination yes, but with the regulation stability you WOULD have seen things get to a similar level to what we have today yet would have kept the core parts of the sport intact; free(ish) regulations, engineering excellence and many other things. Also, this was the time before driver aids came back into the sport.

The FIA had allready started doing stupid things then like banning beryllium in the merc engine...

I work with some beryllium speaker components and they are not dangerous at all....

I want to end to all this #@$%^&* nonsense, so perhaps the racing can be enjoyed...
Watching F1 lately, it feels as if a dagger is dangling over one's head...

Great post.

lol.. Just wanted to say this is exactly what is often happening to me as well... technology aspect aside, F1 racing should be simple and noble.

The sport is in some trouble, it's not at the level it has been in the past.

The fans are falling apart that's for sure

Formula 1 needs to get back to the 1985 rules... That will sure be a great solution.... Glory days with Turbos, Huge Slicks, etc.

Partly because the entire fan base was spoiled by Michael Schumacher on the level he drove during this past decade...

Then again, he's Michael Schumacher; so we have to lower our expectations with the current grid.

Would it be a bad thing if the teams broke away? I'd imagine Ferrari would go this time as well. Let them form their own series away from Bernie and Max. We would see the likes of Imola, Montreal, a usgp and Silverstone likely back on the calender. And likely less rules and restrictions.

Well, maybe the components as such aren't that dangerous but read 12.9:1's posts in http://forums.autosport.com/showthread.php...threadid=104593

Apart from that, to me exactly this was one of few examples of cost saving (though not intended as such I guess) that really (would have) made some sense.

not at all, it could be a great thing....in all honesty i'd rather see McLaren, Renault, BMW et al go endurance racing than stay in the sad, sad world that is F1 under Mosley....another stupid idea from a ridiculous man, its pathetic he's killing our sport, and the only reason i can see is because he can, there's no 'cost-cutting' in another bloody major rule change....unfair to say Ferrari's lack of KERS development could be behind this sudden proposal?....nah course not

I supose personaly its all these dubious decisions from officals (max to stewards in terms of levels) that just leave me wonder what the utter ?

like the engine rule changes, penalising guys for racing, not valuing heritage

f1 is boring for decades now. about since the late 80's.

there's nothing new this last years.

actually indeed some of this years races are quite fun.

My view exactly. I've said this several times on occasion. Constant changes began in 1994 but went uncontrolled and unpredictable after 2002. Only teams with large budgets (and not always all of them) manage to react, adapt and develop a car to the rules which are being changed on yearly basis.
No stability = no competitiveness with a more even field.

I've been following F1 long enough to know from pure empirical observations that while everything was declared as aimed at cost reduction the actual outcome always is another turn in the spendings spiral and not a single team budget decreased.

all of these rule changes are costing teams money!

MotoGP doesn't need huge numbers of bikes to put on a good show. WRC is a mess because it dared to threaten F1 for manufacturer attention in the mid-1990s.

Le Mans Prototypes are on the up, with rules that the manufacturers wanted (because the ACO asked the manufacturers what they wanted).

NASCAR is feeling the pinch at the minute; I like Nascar but it has too many races which last too long (we don't need 2x500 miles races per year at Pocono). The Detroit three recently confronted Nascar and told the to up the technology and cut the races and not to expect them to always be there.

Indycar is a right mess; and I'm unsure as to how competent Tony George is in rebuilding it given his culpability in knocking it down.

Silly thread......

Yes, F1 will have an economic problem, without doubt........ but the racing has been better than ever. [even with ridiculous stewards rulings]

The manufacturers have been given the tools to lower the costs of the sport but have been unable to agree. Do I want spec. engines? Hell no, but don't blame the FIA for the teams personal agenda's.

In general, the last few years have given us better racing, better parity than we have seen in decades although it isn't popular to say it. Just look at the mainstream press and how rarely the ''F1 is boring'' mantra is tossed in these days. Jeez, you read it all the time during the Schumi era and even during the Prost -Senna days. Just pick up an old copy of Road and Track and see what I mean.

Agree with this post. F1 is due another seachange in its formula which will make the whole thing cheaper and bring it back down to affordable level. This isn't the place for speculation about what that change might be, but I think there could be room for truly radical ideas.

The following reasons why F1 is in trouble

1. Constant messing about with the rules by the FIA, which never really needed to be changed in the first place, prob brought on by Austria 2002.
2. The lack of familiar faces amongst the drivers. No stand out character even compared to only ten years ago.
3. Less privateer teams, with them being replaced by car companies. Prob drove budgets through the roof.
4. Owners such as Tom Walkinshaw and Eddie Jordan who either didn't sell fast enough or buried their own team through complete mismanagement.
5. The moving of the circus east. F1 is primarily a European and to a lesser extent a NA series. I doubt many of the drivers like to drive through the desert with empty grandstands all around.
6. No real vision by the FIA to actually tackle increased costs. Bullshit such as engine freezes and 2 race engines don't work. They simply confuse the spectator and warp races in ways they shouldn't be. A simple budget cap would work perfectly as well as balancing team peformance.

Jeez. You might as well be reading from my head....

Couldn't agree more.

Solution: Get rid of Mad Max

Mosley is a pathetic joke and his reckless politicking was ridiculous even before he had his lovely Deutsch lesson in Chelsea. The whole Formula 1 had to pay because of one man who was so desperate to become Niccolò Machiavelli in his own political sandbox that even the common sense could not stop him. Why autosport has to bear the man that would not survive the vetting of media in a real political world?

It was apparent to everyone that freeze rule was fatally flawed from the very beginning - that there would be some reliability issues that should be solved by the teams - but FIA insisted and had to retreat in disgrace. I wonder where teams will get additional money for 'unfreeze' when we have got credit crunch and (almost) recession?

Another example of utter stupidity - client cars. FIA literally invited teams like Super Aguri and Prodrive, because it was decided that F1 needs client teams. Then unexpectedly FIA made a U-turn, never trying to save Super Aguri, preventing Prodrive from entering F1. Only 6 months later it is apparent that Mallya will get the whole McLaren client car with the engines and FIA is happy with that. In other words, we had to see the collapse of Super Aguri - the team that tried - only to understand that client cars are good. I very well understand that this is the way how politics work, but FIA should be above politics.

Now we have this ridiculous proposal to curb costs. Nobody is willing to point to the fact that credit crunch and recession has nothing to do with FOM/CVC's revenues that are either increasing or, at least, are on the same level. Of course CVC had to finance reckless loan that was used to buy F1, but basically this is not teams' problem.

Very sad.

Absolutely spot on, mate. MM is a senile old man who should never have been the President of FIA. Every single move of his has got to do with politics and back room shenanigans than for the interest of F1. SA and ProDrive - two outfits that should have been there on the grid but were shafted by Maxxx. Disgusting.

...is a paradox.

Formula 1 was found as the ultimate drivers' championship. No wonder Formula 1 didn't have a constructors' championship until 1958. The endurance racing was the place for manufactures. Of course, Formula 1 had its manufactures, like Ferrari, Alfa Romeo, Honda and Renault. But most of the manufactures entered and left within a couple of years and only succeed as an engine supplier.

This border line more or less continued to exist until Bernie Ecclestone decided he wanted to make even more money by having the big manufacturers in Formula 1. On his command the Group C was destroyed by the introduction of new, unpopular Formula 1-like engine rules. After the Group C had disappeared the big manufacturers could choose between leaving the motorsports and entering Formula 1. This lead to an explosion of costs and now Formula 1 is facing a financial crisis.

Does that justify the introduction of any spec component? Not in my opinion. The current standardization process is against the spirit of Formula 1. It won't reduce costs either: teams will use the money they saved on other less restricted areas. It should also be noted that the lack of spec components didn't make the costs to rise.

The costs will decline automatically if a couple of manufactures will leave the sport. Hopefully small privately-owned, specialized teams will be able to reconstruct Formula 1.

I'll still watch it, purely out of habit, but the more I see the more I find myself sawing at the umbilical cord that connects me to it.[QUOTE]


Just remember...

Always look on the bright side of life....

Seriously though, F1 has always been like this ever since I can remember. Schumacher taking Damon Hill out to win championship, Drivers ganging up against Patrese, Senna being disqualified after re joining track in Japan then taking out Prost the following year to win Championship.

You couldn't make this stuff up! It's brilliant as long as you don't actually believe it's a sport!

I just hate where F1 is heading to. I mean the new proposals of equalizing engine performance, car performances is a joke. To put cars and teams artificially on the same level would kill everything that F1 has stood for in the past decades. It will be just a glorified GP2.