When I see Lauda and Co. pleading with the public to not complain about F1, it is frankly laughable.
As a sport they have been driving in the wrong direction for around 8 years, against the wishes of a vocal fan base and ironically moving in a direction not in the interest of their source of revenue. And now suddenly when they make a few major changes too far apparently we should all just sit back and pretend to enjoy it.
Clearly thats not the way the world works and the sport had better act fast because if you look at how fast Group C and CART disappeared, it isn't inconceivable that F1 might not exist within 2 years.
I think the new engine regulations and points system in F1 will be very relevant to the road car industry, in that they are about to learn that if the public don't like the product, then they don't buy, and you need to rethink your ingredients.
No business model in todays world can ignore their core customers to the extent that F1 has done since 2006.
We have had rule changes forced upon our sport that are fundamentally opposed to the sports pure core ethos, of a man and machine driving to the limit, including:
- Grooved Tyres
- Qualifying shoot outs
- Qualifying with race fuel
- Qualifying with race tyres (i.e. the ones you start the race with)
- No changes to car set between qualifying and race
- Rev limits
- Double points
- Ridiculous penalties awarded for "racing incidents"
- DRS (the worst idea I have seen implemented in the past 20 years)
- KERS Boost
- Fuel Efficiency Formula
- Endurance engines and parts (i.e. to last many races ELSE changes result in influenced race results via penalty)
- Smaller and smaller engines
- Standard configurations of engines
- 1 Tyre for whole race (2005)
- No testing for rookies
- Pirelli plasticine tyres
- Huge Tarmac run off areas
So my point is that the complaints are not just about this years rules as there has been a fundamental movement in the sport for 8 years and I think this years regulations which affect the emotional attachment and excitement of the sport (i.e. volume of noise and sense of power) is possibly the final straws for a lot of people who have been dedicated followers of the sport for decades.
A final thought - has there been in history any examples of sports changing regulations, so often and so widely, and has a sport so and then retracted the changes before it has died?
Edited by EvilPhil II, 12 April 2014 - 10:05.