133 replies to this topic

[PayasYouRace]

SpongeBob Squarepants 400

 

Are you going to answer the question?

All I'm seeing is title sponsorship from an incredibly successful and popular franchise. Something F1 is seriously lacking.

[ANF]

Omg, the race was actually called the SpongeBob SquarePants 400.

[chipmcdonald]

Now where did you get that idea?

 

 

I thought I heard someone say those words in between "road car relevance" and "road car relevance".

[chipmcdonald]

You know what, during grooved tyres, slicks were a dream.

 

 

 I remember the daze of when I loved everything about Formula One, and my "big gripe" was "I wish they would bring back slick tires".

 

That was all.  "I wish they'd use slick tires". 

 

Now... about the only thing I think they've got right is qualifying, minus parc ferme rules.

 

Ahrghh.

[chipmcdonald]

 

"You have to control everything in the best and most efficient way, that's your challenge," said Alonso, when asked by AUTOSPORT how he judged the level of F1 driving challenge.

"It is probably like an aeroplane pilot - they just have to control that everything is working fine.

"It's now difficult to push the limit because if you push at the limit something will go into a less efficient mode and that will affect the total laptime.

"You just need to make sure everything is at 100 per cent, but not yourself."

 

"A lot of communication going on with the team and a lot of steering wheel changes to make sure everything is running efficiently.

"Even the laptime, if you lose half a second for five laps because you're not pushing, maybe it's not even a bad idea because your tyres will be perfect condition for the coming laps and you'll gain one second per lap afterwards.

"This kind of driving is a little bit strange."

When asked if that had made driving frustrating, Alonso added: "A lot, yes."

 

Hey wait, let me save some people some typing,

 

"Pshaw, this Fred Alonso guy, what an idiot!  What does he know?  They have ALWAYS driven to a delta and had to manage their tires!  As EVERY poster here knows, it has ALWAYS been this way in Formula 1!  ALWAYS!  What a maroon!  Racing has never been better!"

 

 

[chipmcdonald]

Omg, the race was actually called the SpongeBob SquarePants 400.

 

Wait, for real?

 

Holy frak, I just looked that up! 

 

I hate the 21st century. 

[sopa]

Omg, the race was actually called the SpongeBob SquarePants 400.

 

It certainly is one heck of a funny sounding name. Not to mention uniting the character behind the name with NASCAR is also funny.

 

Lighthearted jokes... but guess it once again proves it catches attention for NASCAR. Marketing!

[ViMaMo]

 I remember the daze of when I loved everything about Formula One, and my "big gripe" was "I wish they would bring back slick tires".

 

That was all.  "I wish they'd use slick tires". 

 

Now... about the only thing I think they've got right is qualifying, minus parc ferme rules.

 

Ahrghh.

 

Yeah and as we get more rings (years  ) under our belt, we start to not feel that vibe. Has F1 changed or have we changed? 

 

I think all I'm missing in F1 today is a good, intense championship battle at least once in 2 years. People whined when Schumacher was wrapping up titles.

 

If only Vettel or Alonso was alonside Hamilton on that Mercedes. 

[SlickMick]

Doesn't matter how shitty you might think the rules, cars or track get, at the end of the day it's all about racing.
It will only take one season of Hamilton, Alonso and Vettel in a similarly performing car for people to appreciate the sport again.

ps. it peaked in '76 :-)

[sopa]

ps. it peaked in '76 :-)

 

Oh. And I thought Grand Prix racing (though not F1!) peaked in 1938.

[ch103]

All of this talk about "has F1 peaked" and "F1 is not the same as it was..."  its really become a tiresome debate.  The fact is, F1 is being manipulated so that it has mass appeal as the owners want as many people as possible to be interested.  They are not solely concerned with "racers" priorities which is why they are actually asking the fans what they want the sport to be, i.e. greener, more road relevant, equal playing field etc.  

 

Race fans just want to see drivers, cars and teams pushing as fast as possible to be the first to finish a race distance.  And race fans will still find that element in any race series. 

 

But as the owners of F1 wish to maximize the value of F1 (for themselves) they are constantly fiddling with the rules so that the race is more a product of entertainment than it is a sprint to finish first.  Its not the way it used to be.  In fact the original Grand Prix races in France and Belgium were from town to town.  It was a challenge to see who could complete the race distance the fastest.  Those days are long gone as the owners are more concerned about the entertainment value of the product than the actual substance.   

[superden]

LONG past, but then so are most series.

[Fastcake]

Are you going to answer the question?

All I'm seeing is title sponsorship from an incredibly successful and popular franchise. Something F1 is seriously lacking.

 

If you cannot see why calling one of your events the "SpongeBob Squarepants 400" is embarrassing without having it explained to you, there's not much more to say.

 

F1 sells title sponsorships to individual Grands Prix, which everyone safely ignores, but even Bernie has drawn the line at selling naming rights off to any bidder. Thankfully, F1 still retains a bit of dignity. Most of the American sports world sold it off decades ago.

[JoyDiv]

Since Bernie entered into the sport, everything changed and it transformed into a business game, since then, F1 should have been named as Formula Bernie or Formula B

 

*** Is it better now than it was five or ten years ago, or is it worse?

Every year is worse than the previous

 

***  If it has gone downhill, what can be done to bring it back up?

 

New young faces in FIA and FOM with fresh ideas and Bernie retired in an asylum

[PayasYouRace]

If you cannot see why calling one of your events the "SpongeBob Squarepants 400" is embarrassing without having it explained to you, there's not much more to say.

 

F1 sells title sponsorships to individual Grands Prix, which everyone safely ignores, but even Bernie has drawn the line at selling naming rights off to any bidder. Thankfully, F1 still retains a bit of dignity. Most of the American sports world sold it off decades ago.

 

So it's as I suspected, snobbery. 

[Fastcake]

So it's as I suspected, snobbery. 

 

If opposition to rank commercialism is snobbery, I'll happily be a snob.

 

Formula One is bad enough as it is, do you really want a "Santander Grand Prix powered by Shell V-Sport" or the "Rolex World Drivers Champion"? And that's just the palatable sponsors, there's plenty like Spongebob that scream of a sport that's sold its soul.

Edited by Fastcake, 06 June 2015 - 16:50.

[PayasYouRace]

If opposition to rank commercialism is snobbery, I'll happily be a snob.

 

Formula One is bad enough as it is, do you really want a "Santander Grand Prix powered by Shell V-Sport" or the "Rolex World Drivers Champion"? And that's just the palatable sponsors, there's plenty like Spongebob that scream of a sport that's sold its soul.

 

Where I see the snobbery is where an overpriced watch is acceptable but a children's TV programme isn't.

Edited by PayasYouRace, 06 June 2015 - 17:09.

[Fastcake]

Where I see the snobbery is where an overpriced watch is acceptable but a children's TV programme isn't.

 

It's not, but it at least doesn't sound nearly half as ridiculous. If F1 starts selling off naming rights like Nascar I'll sure I'll give you my opinion on the sponsors.

[LeClerc]

1968 the poison was taken, now the effects are showing. F1 in it's current form cannot be cured without amputation I'm afraid.

[KingTiger]

Motorsport is past its peak. Every series is full with very ugly cars and some type of pointless gimmick. 

[phoenix101]

Both motorsport as a whole and television are past their peaks in my opinion. Cars are irreversibly becoming rolling multimedia devices that drive themselves and hardly anyone below a certain age will even own a television, never mind pay for content that isn't on demand. Perhaps we need another world war to drive industrial production.

 

People don't ride horses for transportation anymore, but horse racing is still big business.

[phoenix101]

1. F1 is past a peak, hopefully not its absolute peak

2. The sport is generally much worse than 10 years ago

3. Fixing F1 is painfully simple. Eliminate downforce. Make the tires bigger and stickier. Increase the engine power. Unfortunatley, we have a bunch of fans who cling to aerodynamic downforce, though it is the bane of motorsport. As long as they cling to massive amounts of aero downforce, we'll be stuck with DRS and a superpowered aerodynamics lobby who will continue to steer the sport into oblivion.

[chipmcdonald]

How 'bout that new onscreen graphic showing how many engines the driver has left?  EXCITING!

 

And hey, GRID PENALTY GRID PENALTY GRID PENALTY GRID PENALTY...

 

EXCITING!!!

[SenorSjon]

I'm also in the "past peak" crowd. I started watching like most of you guys in the mid 90s.. I used to watch every session that was aired on TV live and would plan my weekends around watching every race, and then DVR came around and I started watching some on a delay and fast forwarding through the slow bits in the middle, then at the dawn of the Vettel era I started skipping races entirely and reading the results online. I'd go back and watch if it seemed like an interesting result. Now, I still watch the races, but I'll generally watch them on my laptop in bits and pieces while doing other things, and it just doesn't draw me in the way it once did. In fact, on this day each year for the last 15 years I'd be headed to the airport to fly to Montreal, but this year I just couldn't justify it and will not be attending.

 

I think part of it is me growing up a little and having new priorities. I was a kid when I started watching, so I was ravenous for knowledge and literally had a little scorecard on my wall with drawings of each car and I'd mark down who had pole/FL/the win each weekend. I collected every book I could get my hands on, I still have a tiny grid full of diecast cars from every era, dozens of hats and shirts and whatnot. Big fan. Now, I'm married, I have a full time job, I have a lot of other interests, I've become a fan of professional cycling as I've developed my own amateur racing, so I just can't commit the same time/interest to F1. God help me whenever I have kids.

 

It's hard to separate how much of my decline in interest is down to my life and circumstances changing, and how much is down to the sport's "progression". I've always been a huge fan of the sound of a racing engine, and I won't get into details but suffice to say I hate the new engines after hearing them in person, so that's a big loss for me. I don't feel like any of the current drivers (other than Danny Ric) are worthy of "idol" status like MSC was to me. That may be because I'm older than most of them now, whereas when I was a kid they were men doing something I dreamed about. The cost savings thing/green focus is lost on me too. I miss qualifying engines and tire wars and special fuel blends. I miss unreliability and entire 2nd teams devoted to testing almost year round. I understand why those things are impractical, but that really drew me in. I miss having the cars slowed down with new rules, only to have the engineers work around them and set new lap records each time they visited a track. I know the racing wasn't wheel to wheel, but I didn't care, I loved the speed and the sound and the sense that the cars were on the very edge of the envelope. Waiting for a V10 to crack 20,000 rpm was thrilling, the aero appendage wars in '07-'08 was thrilling, watching a 2nd place driver complain because his teammate is driving too slowly and hurting his tire life is not.

 

I don't really know where it goes from here for me as a fan. I hope people are still drawn to the sport and I'll probably still watch most of the races at some point, but my greatest joy is re-watching older events and flipping through my photos and books of a bygone era. Probably just another part of getting older- the inevitable onset of nostalgia for all things youthful.

 

Wow, you've read my mind, only I started watching end '80s.

[Gyno]

They need to change the engine formula.

Open it up and let the teams race what ever they want.

Engine only needs to last 1 race weekend, no stupid limits on fuel or rev limiter and free engine development.

Only reason why Alonso couldn't get past Petrov at Abu Dhabi was because of the stupid rev limiter.

If someone wants to race with Hybrid power or KERS then go ahead do so. but dont force all teams to do so.

 

But there should be a Ban on engine maps.

The drivers right foot is all that is needed for that, NOT SOME ****ing COMPUTER.

 

Also the cars should look aggresive like they did before 2009.

But with less downforce and more mechanical grip.

 

Keep the stupid no re fueling rule and DRS, but give us proper racing tires.

DRS could be changed to X amount of uses during a race, where ever and when ever the drivers want to use it.

Like 50 times during a race.

 

This alone would spice things up a lot and make fans return.

 

 

Today the cars look like ****.

The engine rules sucks big time.

**** tires.

The drivers concentrate more on adjusting settings then on racing.

No wonder there is almost no real overtakings anymore, they all fiddle around with their knobs.

[Sardukar]

Introduce a stock steering wheel and only allow the drivers a pit limiter, team radio button and a rear diff setting. **** everything else off. Then accept that F1 has NEVER been about road relevancy and has always been about tricking car manufacturers into pumping money into the sport. Get back v10s, make them sound loud as **** and have everything based off mechanic grip. F1 cars these days are way to docile, they used to be so god damn mean!

[sjakie]

Wow, you've read my mind, only I started watching end '80s.

+1

Started watching in the early eighties and enjoyed it until getting a degree and started working. After that I still enjoyed it but I didn't have the time anymore to watch every race and session (besides all other motorsports I was following).

In 2004 I had the oppertunity to watch the entire Imola Grand Prix and so I did, only to find out it was a big waste of time. From then on it went downhill.

 

Nowadays I only watch Le Mans and Indy with a lot of interest, really trying to reserve some time for it. The rest: highlights at best.

 

But if I had stayed young forever...who knows?

[SealTheDiffuser]

as western society is past its peak probably F1 is also past it.

 

Glory days 1987-2006

[sjakie]

I don't know. I think I'm way past my peak as an F1 fan but that doesn't mean F1 is past its peak in  general. A lot of people, in the west and elsewhere, still enjoy it thoroughly and value it above any other motorsport discipline.

[sopa]

as western society is past its peak probably F1 is also past it.

 

Glory days 1987-2006

 

Maybe the whole world is past it.  What was the peak of planet Earth?

[SealTheDiffuser]

Maybe the whole world is past it.  What was the peak of planet Earth?

 

probably 1998 (edit: or 1997)

Edited by SealTheDiffuser, 11 June 2015 - 09:11.

[chipmcdonald]

They need to change the engine formula.

Open it up and let the teams race what ever they want.

Engine only needs to last 1 race weekend, no stupid limits on fuel or rev limiter and free engine development.

Only reason why Alonso couldn't get past Petrov at Abu Dhabi was because of the stupid rev limiter.

If someone wants to race with Hybrid power or KERS then go ahead do so. but dont force all teams to do so.

 

But there should be a Ban on engine maps.

The drivers right foot is all that is needed for that, NOT SOME ****ing COMPUTER.

 

Also the cars should look aggresive like they did before 2009.

But with less downforce and more mechanical grip.

 

Keep the stupid no re fueling rule and DRS, but give us proper racing tires.

DRS could be changed to X amount of uses during a race, where ever and when ever the drivers want to use it.

Like 50 times during a race.

 

This alone would spice things up a lot and make fans return.

 

 

Today the cars look like ****.

The engine rules sucks big time.

**** tires.

The drivers concentrate more on adjusting settings then on racing.

No wonder there is almost no real overtakings anymore, they all fiddle around with their knobs.

 

 

I agree with most of that.

 

The thing is, the bottom line is I want to know that the human in the car is in as direct control of the machine as possible, and the machine is not being artificially prevented from working at it's mechanical limit.

 

 Everything to the limit.

 

Nothing is to the limit now, except the engineers doing the math.

[DILLIGAF]

Dunno about past it's peak but it's definitely lost its way. Over regulated, slower cars, fuel conservation, boring Tilke tracks, too much runoff on what should be difficult chicanes and corners, lack of sound, pilots instead of drivers, etc etc.

[Rasputin]

"Is F1 past its peak"?

 

Edited by Rasputin, 12 June 2015 - 19:07.