Formula One's Engine Crisis

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Andres125sx
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Re: Formula One's Engine Crisis

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alexx_88 wrote:If the only way to attract people to your product is making it free, then the problem is the product
Exactly =D> =D>

PPV is not the problem, lack of interest is. And lack of interest comes from predictability.

Only hardcore fans will pay to watch a race everybody know the winner beforehand. Racing goes about unpredictability, rivality, battles.... Lately F1 is providing none of this.

It is predictable, there´re too big differences between top teams so no rivality either, and battles are a weird incident we only see from time to time with some special circumstances. No sport can survive with such a poor charm

Add to that Bernie´s fees offering an average product at snoobish prices, and you get this

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Phil
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Re: Formula One's Engine Crisis

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sgth0mas wrote:Lets remind you again that the formula are the rules. You cannot say its the fault of the rules, not the v6t formula. They are the same thing.

If you dont see a problem with forcing teams to pay a several times increase for engines when half the grid is going bankrupt...then theres no sense in going further. Drop the fanboy approach to hybrid tech and look at the facts. Making what was 5% of a small teams budget into 20-25% of their budget is a big problem. If you cant see that...theres no sense in discussing it further.

Inferior in the aspect of racing. I dont care about mpgs in F1, i care about racing. Endurance racing is where all this green activity belongs...not F1. Reliability is down, competition is even worse, and no one can afford to run. The grid penalties have made it comical to see who is at the back...pick a reason. The v6t formula is a failure from a spectators standpoint.
I mostly agree with your points. Not going to argue about "inferior" as I think speed, power or laptimes are not an issue to the overall state of the sport.

I think one of the major problems is that F1 is no longer a healthy environment. And it hasn't been healthy even before these V6T came into play. Looking at how the sport has progressed makes me seem that the people in charge have been having a very short sighted view, only tackling problems as they arise without any sense of perspective into the future and how certain steps would be necessary to make it a stronger place for all and years to come.

As far as I see it, the sport was already struggling and facing declining numbers. So what does Bernie do? He sells the broadcasting rights to pay-tv so that more profits can be generated off fewer people watching. At the same time, because more and more teams are struggling, they change to more "road and future relevant engines" (e.g. ERS and smaller capacity engines) in an attempt to lure car/engine manufacturers with big wallets into the sport. In theory, a good idea. They bring fuel flow limits and ERS harvesting/deployment limits into play which in theory should have restricted the engine makers into producing engines in roughly the same performance ballpark. Then, in order to control costs for the already struggling sport (the smaller teams), they also come up with a token system and a 4/5 engine limit per season to control the rate of development.

Also a good idea in theory. You can't have an engine being changed around completely, as teams need to build their car around the engine. So you can't start with a "size-zero concept engine", build and design your aero around it and then have that engine manufacturer go "large-bigger-better" mid season forcing the customer teams to throw their aero philosophy all over board. So a form of control when and how certain changes are made are needed. So in theory, a good idea too. But it hinges on the necessity that all engines are more or less within the same ballpark.

The problem? They are not.

So we have a large disparity between engines. One is dominating, the other is still quite a bit off, and two are in hell. So we've got the situation that the limit on development has made it even more difficult to catch up and the teams relying on this progress are already struggling enough as it is with paying for these expensive engines and being limited by them at the same time. And the biggest problem? The whole point of these engines, to lure more manufacturers with lots of money into the sport - isn't working. Most are probably following the progress of Honda closely, but with how they are fairing, most will stay clear away from it.

At the same time, clearly, Mercedes who is enjoying its dominance doesn't want to give it up as easily, so as always, the "haves" are trying to keep it that way while the rest is trying to hang on and ride it out...
Last edited by Phil on 08 Oct 2015, 14:46, edited 1 time in total.
Not for nothing, Rosberg's Championship is the only thing that lends credibility to Hamilton's recent success. Otherwise, he'd just be the guy who's had the best car. — bhall II
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toraabe
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Re: Formula One's Engine Crisis

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Who complained when Schumacher and Vettel won ?

If Ferrari were so dominand as Merc is, would Eccelstone be so negative ?
Or if Red Bull were ?

Or is it the Brand
Andres125sx wrote:
alexx_88 wrote:If the only way to attract people to your product is making it free, then the problem is the product
Exactly =D> =D>

PPV is not the problem, lack of interest is. And lack of interest comes from predictability.

Only hardcore fans will pay to watch a race everybody know the winner beforehand. Racing goes about unpredictability, rivality, battles.... Lately F1 is providing none of this.

It is predictable, there´re too big differences between top teams so no rivality either, and battles are a weird incident we only see from time to time with some special circumstances. No sport can survive with such a poor charm

Add to that Bernie´s fees offering an average product at snoobish prices, and you get this

Just_a_fan
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Re: Formula One's Engine Crisis

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Exactly. F1 has regular periods of dominance. At the moment it's Mercedes (in only their second dominant year). Before that it was Red Bull (4 straight years), Ferrari (5 straight years). McLaren, Williams, Lotus etc all had periods of total dominance in their day too.

The dominance thing is a red herring because it's nothing new; it might be a surprise to new fans and it might be distasteful to Red Bull or Ferrari fans who got used to winning.

The issue isn't the engines either; that's just used by those who think you can't have racing without ear damage.

The problem is how the product is being marketed. We see classic, great tracks dropped in favour of countries with no heritage but with deep pockets. Azerbaijan, FFS! Does anyone really think that the circuit will be full of spectators? Bernie doesn't care because he is milking the short term dollar.

He also absolutely fails to grasp the modern media ecology. People don't want to be tied to a TV at a specific time; the new media audience wants to watch where they are on a device of their choosing. Bernie doesn't understand the web so he ignores it to a great extent. He sells rights to TV companies who then charge the audience. The problem is that the audience, rightly or wrongly, is used to accessing stuff for free or for a small fee. The result is that audience is going elsewhere. For example, as part of my broadband package with BT I get access to a load of BT Sport. They have a lot of motor sport coverage and I often watch it. They have other sport too and I've started watching that too. I can also access stuff through "catch up" TV. Result? Less F1 interest. Wow, Bernie, who'd have thought that?

I'm hoping that BT Sport gets rights to F1 but I'm not holding my breath on that.
If you are more fortunate than others, build a larger table not a taller fence.

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Phil
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Re: Formula One's Engine Crisis

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Just_a_fan wrote:Exactly. F1 has regular periods of dominance. At the moment it's Mercedes (in only their second dominant year). Before that it was Red Bull (4 straight years), Ferrari (5 straight years). McLaren, Williams, Lotus etc all had periods of total dominance in their day too.
The more I'm seeing the word "dominance" being thrown around, the more it's getting me to question what dominance actually is. I agree what Mercedes is showing at the moment is utter dominance. When the car is a second quicker in clear air, it definately is dominating and such a difference can't be made up within a few weeks or races.

The RedBull was also very dominant too during certain times and on paper - 4 WDC and 4 WCC - sounds like clear dominance, but in reality, 2 of those 4 seasons were rather close. I don't really have a problem with close fought championships, even if the same team wins it multiple times (and it was a pain for me to watch RB walk them personally as I'm not a fan of them) - it's more real dominance that is an issue; Then when the performance gap is so large that it's rather unlikely that a competitor can step up. By the 2nd race in 2014 (for those that were still in denial first after Melbourne), it was very clear that the performance gap of that Mercedes was so large, that it would be a 2-horse race to the WDC. It's a pretty similar story this year too, despite the occasional very convincing Ferrari win. This kind of dominance is bad, the kind when the story is told before it really started. Season 2010 and 2012 wasn't, even if RedBull walked them both.
Not for nothing, Rosberg's Championship is the only thing that lends credibility to Hamilton's recent success. Otherwise, he'd just be the guy who's had the best car. — bhall II
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ChrisF1
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Re: Formula One's Engine Crisis

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Phil has just made the exact point that I was going to.

Had Alonso passed Petrov at Abu Dhabi then he would have been champion. Had Alonso not moved over on Kimi at Suzuka he would have been champion in 2012. Had Grosjean not intervened then Alonso would have probably picked up the required points at Spa.

They were hardly dominant years for Red Bull because other teams weren't far off in race pace.

Same with Ferrari in 2003 where Kimi could have taken the title, maybe even Montoya with a bit more luck. 2000 was pretty tight as well, with the Indy retirement of Hakkinen giving Schumi a boost.

Before that was Mclaren, but how close did Schumi and Irvine come in 1998 and 1999 respectively?

The only seasons that came close to Merc dominance in recent history were 2013, 2004, 2002, 1996, 1993 and 1992.

That's 6 seasons at of more than 20.

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dans79
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Re: Formula One's Engine Crisis

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ChrisF1 wrote: The only seasons that came close to Merc dominance in recent history were 2013, 2004, 2002, 1996, 1993 and 1992.

That's 6 seasons at of more than 20.
i think you need to add several seasons, as dominance is dominance.

2011 - Vettel over 100 points clear of button
2001 - Shumi nearly doubled the points total of the second place driver (coultard).
1995 - Shumi well clear of Hill 102 -69 and over twice as many wins
1990 - Senna & Prost both well clear of Piquet

so that's 10 seasons in the last 25 (40%) where one driver or one team completely dominated the rest. The main differences between now and then, our:

1) Bernie has jacked up the price
2) the press has lost all credibility in the pursuit of ratings and clicks
3) the internet has made the average person inpatient, ill-informed, more pompous, and even more manipulable than they used to be
4) The cars are a lot more reliable than they used to be.
Last edited by dans79 on 08 Oct 2015, 17:14, edited 1 time in total.
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kptaylor
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Re: Formula One's Engine Crisis

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The problem has been brought up before, but past dominant eras were due to trick aero, DD, EBD or other areas that competitors could copy with minimal restrictions other than time and resources. In the current Merc dominance, competitors can't do enough to their PUs to catch up based on regs/tokens.

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dans79
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kptaylor wrote:The problem has been brought up before, but past dominant eras were due to trick aero, DD, EBD or other areas that competitors could copy with minimal restrictions other than time and resources. In the current Merc dominance, competitors can't do enough to their PUs to catch up based on regs/tokens.
This is not even close to correct, Senna & Prost for example was because of the Honda motor sitting in the back.
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Andres125sx
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Re: Formula One's Engine Crisis

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toraabe wrote:Who complained when Schumacher and Vettel won ?
The audience

Image
Please note this is only italian audience, so if italians interest decreased when his beloved team was so successful, imagine the rest of the world #-o

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dans79
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Re: Formula One's Engine Crisis

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this is a nice little piece.

http://beta.autosport.com/premium/featu ... t-mercedes

lol, as my niece would say "haters gonna hate".
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Andres125sx
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Re: Formula One's Engine Crisis

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Phil, agree with everything you said
Phil wrote:The RedBull was also very dominant too during certain times and on paper - 4 WDC and 4 WCC - sounds like clear dominance, but in reality, 2 of those 4 seasons were rather close.

[...]

This kind of dominance is bad, the kind when the story is told before it really started. Season 2010 and 2012 wasn't, even if RedBull walked them both.
That´s exactly the problem, and the graph I´ve just posted show a direct relationship between that sort of dominance and audience decreses. But, curiously, 2010 and 2012 show an audience increase. Not a coincidence obviously, people enjoy competed championships, and get bored when there´s no competition because someone is dominating

To me it´s crystal clear that´s main problem of F1.

How to solve it is a different matter, FIA, MrE and everyone involved are trying for more than a decade but they´re failing because it´s not easy to solve while keeping the spirit of free competition even on engineering side. They´re trying to achieve a balance between allowing development (so it does not become a spec series) and limiting some areas (to avoid dominance) but some people (RBR and Merc mainly) are doing an awesome job that ruins all those attempts

As a fan I hate dominance, but kudos for them

To say it an easy way, Red Bull and Mercedes are doing/have done a much better job than FIA and MrE

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bdr529
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Re: Formula One's Engine Crisis

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I would think that the drop in viewing numbers for 2009 was amplified do to the economic down turn felt around the globe at that time. And without that, the line on the graph would just extend from 2008 to 2010, still being on a downward trajectory

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dans79
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I know the anti dominance group pull out that graph like its some kind of ace in the hole that supports their argument, but some other points need to be considered.

1. The rise of PPV (sky) in Italy. I know Sky became a thing in Italy in the early 00's and that they now broadcast over half the races, so i'll bet my next paycheck that effects the ratings in Italy.

2. The rise of internet, I have seen several studies that showed people rely less and less on television for entertainment. I personally only watch 4 to 6 hours of television a week.
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Andres125sx
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dans79 wrote:I know the anti dominance group pull out that graph like its some kind of ace in the hole that supports their argument
No, it´s a fact, objective data
dans79 wrote:1. The rise of PPV (sky) in Italy. I know Sky became a thing in Italy in the early 00's and that they now broadcast over half the races, so i'll bet my next paycheck that effects the ratings in Italy.
And you lose, I´ll send you a PM with my bank account number :mrgreen:

That´s reflected in the graph, see the leyend, but it was in 2013 so the 00-04 era was free in italy and that didn´t stop the drop in audience.
It also means that three of Europe’s largest markets for F1 coverage are now under the control of Pay TV, following the UK which switched to Sky in 2012 and Italy which is following suit this year (2013).
http://www.jamesallenonf1.com/2013/02/f ... -coverage/

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