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Should F1 be about drivers or teams?


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Poll: Should F1 be a driver or team sport? (102 member(s) have cast votes)

Should F1 be a driver or team sport?

  1. driver (58 votes [56.86%])

    Percentage of vote: 56.86%

  2. team (44 votes [43.14%])

    Percentage of vote: 43.14%

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#51 demet06

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Posted 31 July 2014 - 18:21

I've voted for team as there was no choice of "both". No teams = no cars for the drivers to drive. So the teams are most important to the sport of F1, not so much at grass roots of course. The drivers are just as important, as a good pedaler can make a difference to winning and losing and is therefore part of the team. It is no coincidence that over the entire history of motorsport that the best drivers find their way into the best cars.



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#52 Timstr11

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Posted 31 July 2014 - 18:28

Ideally, teams should be equal enough in strength to allow the drivers to make a difference.  I really dislike any results list where it's:

 

1 Team A

2 Team A

3 Team B

4 Team B

5 Team C

6 Team C

7 Team D

8 Team D

etc.

 

Suggesting that it matters much more which car you drive, rather than how good of a driver you are. :down:

 

You're watching the wrong motor-sport competition.

 

F1 has always been first and foremost an engineering competition, with mostly the drivers as the focal point of interest.

But you're never going to get a straight comparison of drivers.


Edited by Timstr11, 31 July 2014 - 18:33.


#53 ollebompa

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Posted 31 July 2014 - 18:36

Team, like it has always been. Driver is part of that. If you want a driver series watch any of the other million racing series out there.



#54 Paul084

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Posted 01 August 2014 - 08:36

I didn't vote as there's no option for both. In F1 the drivers get all the attention, quite rightly in many ways, however more goes on behind the scenes and without a huge team effort to produce a title winning car many drivers would not have actually stood out from the competition, as a result I think the teams are equally important. Also another thing to remember is that teams are around for many years whereas drivers come and go more often, just look at Williams, Mclaren and Ferrari who have had many great drivers win championships for them.



#55 spacekid

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Posted 01 August 2014 - 09:42

F1 is a competition where teams build cars and race them. The drivers are part of that team, but are never bigger than the team. Drivers come and go, but the likes of Williams, McLaren and Ferrari are still around.

Making F1 a spec series, which is the only way to make it a driver focused sport, would destroy the very essence of what it is. I find it quite sad that so many people want that, and wonder what some of you think you are watching every Sunday.

#56 DanardiF1

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Posted 01 August 2014 - 10:02

Formula 1 was created as the World Driver's Championship, and as such I always think the focus should be on the drivers. Teams play an important role in F1, but they neither stick around forever or retain the same drivers, so they'll always be the conduit for the fans to see the best drivers at work. 

 

Ferrari is slightly different, but even then ask a tifoso what they'd prefer Ferrari to win, the driver's title or the constructors and they'll tell you the driver's one is the most important.

 

The reason the money is in the Constructors Championship is to reward a team that provides a good car for both drivers... if the money was all in the Driver's title you'd see in the last 3 years for example Red Bull not care one jot about Webber's car, and Vettel wouldn't have been able to make his comeback at the end in 2010 because RBR would've thrown everything behind Webber, and before the Constructors title was created that's what you saw... teams making drivers give up their for Fangio or Ascari, or Mercedes asking Moss to play reargunner for Fangio in 55. They didn't need Moss to finish at all really, just as long as Fangio won.



#57 four1

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Posted 01 August 2014 - 13:28

In my view, a driver in a Formula 1 team is no different than a centre forward in a soccer team. It takes the team to put the driver in a situation where he/she can win a race (just ask the Alonso fanboys)and that makes the team the most important factor in F1. Oh, how I envy Mercedes.

#58 nosecone

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Posted 01 August 2014 - 14:57

Horner makes me smile. First of all i think two years ago it was ok for Christian Horner that the car was the most important factor. Now the team principle (of the team with the biggest budget that was used to win because of their dominant cars) has obviously changed his mind. I wonder why? Further more i wonder why RB has no team in the Indycar series? If you want a competition in which all drivers drive the same cars he'd to watch Indycar.

 

F1 is about the best combination of driver and car. The car is nothing without the driver, the driver is nothing without the car.



#59 RealRacing

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Posted 01 August 2014 - 15:21

I thought I was not going to have to make this clear, but apparently I have. This thread and poll were trying to go farther than the obvious fact that without a team a driver doesn't have a car to drive, and that if it weren't for corporations investing millions of $$$ F1 would not even be possible, etc.

 

As an aside, to those saying that teams are permanent and drivers come and go, I'd like to ask how many movies have been made about the 1988-1993 McLarens and how many about Senna. How many people remember the names of the models of the cars Senna drove to world championships and how many remember a certain race with rain at Donnington. How many people here know who Fangio is? How many know what cars, or, for that matter, for what teams he drove?



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#60 redreni

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Posted 01 August 2014 - 16:25

I thought I was not going to have to make this clear, but apparently I have. This thread and poll were trying to go farther than the obvious fact that without a team a driver doesn't have a car to drive, and that if it weren't for corporations investing millions of $$$ F1 would not even be possible, etc.

 

As an aside, to those saying that teams are permanent and drivers come and go, I'd like to ask how many movies have been made about the 1988-1993 McLarens and how many about Senna. How many people remember the names of the models of the cars Senna drove to world championships and how many remember a certain race with rain at Donnington. How many people here know who Fangio is? How many know what cars, or, for that matter, for what teams he drove?

 

In Fangio's era, drivers really were heroes, if only because of the sheer level of risk involved. It's still a risky job, but fortunately, not to anything like the degree it was. But if you look at newsreel footage from the 50s and 60s, my impression from what I've seen is there was relatively little focus on driver personality and a very heavy focus, usually in narrow, nationalistic terms, on the performances of the cars. In British Pathe's newsreel on the 1955 24 hours of Le Mans, for example, despite the horrific accident and the subsequent withdrawal of the dominant Mercedes cars, the narrator seems just as concerned to point out to the viewer how reliable the British-manufactured cars were. In retrospect, you're right, it's the drivers that are remembered most.

 

It doesn't bother me at all why people follow the sport or what aspects of it they enjoy more than others, but I really hope we won't go back to using regulation to change the nature of the sport to make it more about drivers, and I do wish constructors wouldn't court popularity by over-hyping their drivers and bragging about letting their drivers race, particularly when they don't always let their drivers race.



#61 RealRacing

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Posted 01 August 2014 - 17:03

 

It doesn't bother me at all why people follow the sport or what aspects of it they enjoy more than others, but I really hope we won't go back to using regulation to change the nature of the sport to make it more about drivers, and I do wish constructors wouldn't court popularity by over-hyping their drivers and bragging about letting their drivers race, particularly when they don't always let their drivers race.

I think in some parts of this thread people are confusing "making the drivers' role more important" with "making the persona of the driver more important". I could not care less about the second one and, if you ask me, it's a part of the strategy of ultimately making the team or brand look better: all PR and marketing finally.

 

Why is it important to pretend that you are letting your drivers race? Because they hope the public relate that with their "ethics" and translate it to people's perception of the brand or corporation. "Hmm Mercedes are letting their drivers race, they are ethical, their corporate culture is ethical, they must provide a good product because they care about the customer, I think I'll buy one..."

However, IMO, that's a simple facade, as they care only about the team, more like,  "we only care about winning as a team and, by extension, as a corporation, so the most important thing to us is the WCC and the bottom line; F1 is mostly an opportunity to market our product and brand; we treat the drivers and the public as we treat customers."



#62 garagetinkerer

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Posted 01 August 2014 - 19:01

I thought I was not going to have to make this clear, but apparently I have. This thread and poll were trying to go farther than the obvious fact that without a team a driver doesn't have a car to drive, and that if it weren't for corporations investing millions of $$$ F1 would not even be possible, etc.

 

As an aside, to those saying that teams are permanent and drivers come and go, I'd like to ask how many movies have been made about the 1988-1993 McLarens and how many about Senna. How many people remember the names of the models of the cars Senna drove to world championships and how many remember a certain race with rain at Donnington. How many people here know who Fangio is? How many know what cars, or, for that matter, for what teams he drove?

You say you want to go deeper/ farther, and at the same time, you want it to be more about the drivers, hardly a neutral position to begin with. However, that is your preference, and i can understand and respect that. May be you should have titled the thread "how important are drivers?" Or, something along those lines...

 

F1 has always been about a package, car + driver, if it helps some here untwist their knickers, driver + car. There are races, some win, some lose. Legends are usually about heroes, and heroes are usually people, and heroes and villains are what makes the legends... and corporations which are actually the teams, somehow are never the heroes, and nor are always the villains. Unless we are speaking of Ferrari and RBR, who for some reason are hated quite a fair bit here and other forums. You also have to understand what makes a legend, a hero. A legend is of a hero who's usually fighting for right/ justice/ peace and whatever bullshit have you... essentially fighting odds. It makes for a great story, from the perspectives of both a narrator/ writer and a willing listener/ reader. We do like some heroes better than others (Prost, Schumacher, Senna), but why? So there's more than a driver doing something on the track. I think it is something innate in us, something which makes us want it to be more than about the cars. What else can it be? Do you sincerely believe that Senna won all 3 titles without a good to great McLaren? He won them all at McLaren. Most of his poles were won in a McLaren (and some with help from Honda as we know now), and so were most of his race wins. Of his total 43 wins, a staggering 29 were from pole position. Do you think it was all Senna and no car? Just because not many know that he won in a good to great car, doesn't mean no one knows, or cares.

 

I do like my legends, and i do understand that the legends are full of heroes. However, those heroes, they need help to fight the odds, and can't otherwise.


Edited by garagetinkerer, 01 August 2014 - 19:02.