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Originally posted by ian senior
Let's pretend. Imagine you have never seen a motor race before, you know nothing about the sport, and in an idle moment you sit down in front of the box to watch a grand prix - any grand prix. Just what is it about F1 that would grab your attention, and make you want to watch again and find out more.
Believe me, I've just tried this, although it wasn't a fair experiment for one who has some historical baggage. And I couldn't think of a thing, except possibly the sound of the engines.
Anyway, imagine watching this race, and break it down into the component parts of what you see. The cars - OK, which one is which? They do look a bit samey, don't they? And it's not as if there are many truly distinctive colour schemes to distinguish them - most are over-designed. Aren't you supposed to be able to tell the cars by the numbers - can't see one. Drivers? Presumably there is one in there, can't see much of him though. Someone said that drivers all had distinctive helmet colours - did Jackson Pollock do all these mish-mash helmet designs? Why do they keep stopping every 20 minutes or so? God, wish those blokes at Kwik Fit could change my tyres so quickly. Bit tedious with that red car p*****g off into the distance - isn't anyone going to make a race of it? And do they just drive round like that all afternoon - doesn't anyone pass another car?
OK, a bit extreme I know - or is it?
Think I'll join back in with the mutal respect club - I adree with Ian, Dan, etc!
My girlfriend couldn't even drive when I met her, and she had no interest whatsoever in racing.
Through me she has become rather immersed in historic racing (when watching Grand prix recently she noticed that the Lotus 16 was rather narrower than the ones we race against!), but she does ask some surprising questions.
For example part way through a Grand prix she asks what is so interesting about this?
Well the best you can come up with is they are going very quickly round the corners - our lap times are half theirs e.g. they are going twice as quick round that corner.
She does want to go to a GP to experience all the gloss and show and the noise but not to watch any racing.
Other questions ( as well as Ian's observations) include:
if it is so exciting why do you always fall asleep during a GP?
how come the cars are so spread out?
what do you mean the car that is 3rd on the track is really in the lead (e.g. the other 2 haven't stopped)?
why is he happy to sit behind that car rather than overtake it?
Last time we did a GP support race (pre-girlfriend days, with pre-66 F1) the public came and told us how much more exciting our race was (cars close together, overtaking etc) than the GP.
In fact a friend who has been involved in racing since before the 1st GP at Silverstone (e.g. he was working there) fell asleep at the beginning of the GP (they were kind enough to give us grandstand seats) and woke up at the end - and when asked if he'd missed anything was told no!
A lot of casual viewers tend to look at a bunch of cars driving round in circles and wonder what the fuss is about.
I don't think many people ask how many revs is that engine doing, is it using an electronic torque biasing differential, are they using dimpled surfaces on their wings.........
The only people I've met who seem to think current F1 is interesting are the younger generation, e.g. those who haven't known any better.
This was really bought home when I mentioned the Donington GP, which has to be one of the most amazing races I've seen - at the time I thought that was a recent race (it was about 15 years after my 1st GP) and the person I was talking to hadn't even been watching F1 at that time.
All of which just proves I'm getting old, which is something I really don't want to be reminded of!
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