23/06/2015
FEATURE BY MIKE LAWRENCE
I wasted part of my life watching the Austrian GP (pictured) and the Canadian race before it. Previously I had been bored out of my skull with the Spanish GP, and then for most of the Monaco GP.
After the strategy snafu with Lewis's pit stop, the result was never in doubt so we had excitement for, ooh, several seconds. We now have a Virtual Safety Car, how long before we have virtual crashes just to enliven a race? I am not altogether joking because it has happened.
Bill France Snr, creator of NASCAR, was known to throw a wrist watch on the track and signal the race stewards that there was debris which meant yellow flags and the field closing. France was a great fan of 'Monsewer Dey-brie' and he created one of the great threads in motor sport. He put on a show and people came.
Carl Fischer built the Indianapolis Speedway in 1909 and then, for 1911, he had it paved and announced that he would stage just one race a year, the 500, with a fabulous prize fund. It was an inspired piece of showmanship. Long before television shows offered big prizes, Fischer realised that spectators would pay to see someone win the long dollar, he bought into the American Dream.
Fischer made money because he gave the public what they wanted. I can remember when 'purists' in Europe (all self-appointed) criticised Indianapolis and all American racing because of features like safety cars and yellow flag/light spells.
Forgive me if I have missed the point, but I thought that F1 was about attracting an audience, aka putting on a show. TV rights are sold on the back of an expected audience. Sponsorship is sold on the back of television exposure. Carl Fischer and Bill France Snr understood the Show Biz element and F1 has lost it.
Even before qualifying began we had drivers out of contention because they had to use new mechanical elements (the internal combustion unit, what most of us know as the 'engine', is only one of six elements.) We are not even halfway through the season.
Putting the quickest drivers at the front was originally a safety measure. The safety aspect has gone out of the window, now grid position is a way of penalising drivers and teams.
If the new power units are so unreliable that drivers have used up their allocation before halfway through the season, there may be something wrong with the basic concept. The 2.4-litre V8s were reliable and there is much to be said for the adage: 'If it ain't broke, don't fix it.'
We have mandatory pit stops for tyres to spice the show. It has been proposed that fuel stops be reintroduced to add interest though they were abandoned on safety grounds, or so we were told. How has refuelling suddenly become safe?
Motor racing pioneered sport sponsorship, but there is now a host of sports competing for the money. We have come to accept that some F1 teams are struggling financially, but the FIA has been less willing to see why: they are not attracting sufficient sponsorship to pay the bills. The FIA may regret the rise of the pay driver, but that is the economic reality.
It does not help that the new generation of power units are much more expensive than the outgoing engines.
In Montreal we saw drivers having to feather-foot because of fuel. This is nothing new, fuel has always been a part of motor sport. It's a part of everyday driving. A heavy right foot affects economy. Run a Bugatti Veyron at full chat and you need to find a petrol station after 24 minutes.
What the FIA Strategy Group has introduced is fuel-flow, as though we in the grandstands, or in front of the telly, can grasp that. Fuel-flow is what cost Danny Ricciardo a podium finish in his native Australia last year leaving a lot of fans not gruntled.
In this season's early races, it is possible that Ferrari found a legal advantage by increasing the diameter of some of the pipes in the engine's plumbing. If this happened, it was a case of storing a reserve in the wider-diameter pipes until it could be utilised whereupon an extra 25 bhp could, in theory, be obtained.
The rules were 'clarified' before Barcelona.
What are you and I supposed to make of that? Is it possible that Ferrari won a Grand Prix, not because of the consummate skill of Sebastian Vettel, but because of the diameter of some fuel pipes? How Show Biz is that?
The headline to a piece in 'The Daily Telegraph' ran: '80,000 Brits descend on Le Mans to sample glorious antidote to troubled F1.' More major manufacturers are in endurance racing than are in F1. Sports car racing uses hybrid power without fuss and manufacturers support it even though it does not have much TV coverage.
If the Telegraph is correct, more Brits went to Le Mans, with the English Channel in the way, than fans in the whole of Europe went to Austria for the Grand Prix. The crowd was down to 55,000 from 95,000 in 2014.
In most branches of show biz, and professional sport it has always been about putting on a show, such a drop in an audience would be catastrophic. Serious answers would be sought.
The time maybe right to ask whether F1 has run its course? Sports do wax and wane in popularity. Just after WWII there was a time when motorcycle speedway was second only to football in popularity and major events were televised. Now it is a niche sport.
In America, Major League football (I refuse to call it 'soccer') now draws larger crowds than the equivalent level of basketball or ice hockey. Three million American youngsters are signed to a football programme. The term 'soccer mom' has entered the language.
Formula One is in crisis and the FIA has provided sticking plaster when surgery is required. Do we need the FIA? A major championship run without FIA sanction would be called 'outlaw' but two outstanding examples of outlaws were Jack Kramer in tennis and Kerry Packer in cricket. Both started rival series, both were successful and in each case the mainstream sport first resisted, then learned, adapted and absorbed. Tennis and cricket both prospered as a result.
Thirty five years ago, the then President of the FIA, Jean-Marie Balestre, applied the word 'outlaws' to Bernie and the FOCA teams. Formula One went to new heights.
FOCA was formed at the beginning of a world-wide expansion in television channels. The epic Hunt and Lauda season of 1976 made F1 a sudden 'must have' for television. Bernie and his package were right for the time and continued to be right for many years. I recall that he was vehemently opposed to the current formula.
What Kramer and Packer both offered was money, backed by a show. Kramer offered tennis stars, previously amateur, a guaranteed minimum plus the chance to win big prize money, which was advertised in the tournament programmes. Tennis fans flocked to see the world's best players and the prize money was part of the show.
How much did Nico earn for winning in Austria? We are not allowed to know.
To hold a motor race you need cars, drivers and a circuit. In recent years the circuits which have come under threat are the ones most beloved of enthusiasts: Montreal, Monza, Silverstone and Spa among them.
Under current arrangements, circuits which depend on gate revenue, and not on the ambition of politicians using public money, are being squeezed dry. The people who pay are those who watch trackside. A chunk of your admission ticket goes to a hedge fund which takes much from the sport and puts nothing back.
The World Championship is notional. It exists because the FIA says it does and the FIA exists because it is not challenged. For 1979 Roger Penske created CART for American open-wheel racing. USAC continued to run its championship that year and then threw in the towel.
Penske had put together an outlaw package which benefited everyone, especially the teams, drivers and sponsors. For more than 20 years CART had international TV coverage.
For a major racing series you need cars and there are a lot of 2.4-litre V8s doing not a lot. Things like cars and drivers are actually incidental if the right package can be put in place, a package which benefits everyone: circuits, drivers, sponsors, teams.
Like you, I have an ideal formula in mind, but that is for the pub discussion. The thing is that once someone cries, 'Jean Todt has no clothes', everything is up for grabs.
An outlaw series would need big money, but there are big profits to be had. as Jack Kramer and Kerry Packer proved and as investors like CVC Capital Partners know today as they earn millions from F1, week in, week out without putting a penny into the sport.
We want to see a show because we want to see the performers be they on television, the silver screen, stage or rocking in a stadium. The support team of technicians are essential, but they should be invisible. You do not become a lighting tech or sound engineer to tell the stars how or what to perform, but this is what the FIA has done with the Strategy Group.
Formula One has never been a trail blazer for new technology and there really is no business like show business.
Learn more about Mike and check out his previous features, here