Today In Sport

Tag: racing

Formula 1 - Does Anyone Really Care Anymore?

by The Stinger on Mar.25, 2009, under Motorsport

The 2009 Formula 1 season starts in Melbourne, Australia on Thursday the 26th of March.  But seriously, is anyone really that excited by it anymore?  I mean if you asked the average joe on the street to name three F1 drivers they would probably struggle.

Lewis Hamilton is slowly becoming a household name but that is probably more to do with his story than the actual racing itself.  He is probably the most talented young driver to come along for ten years and last year he became the youngest Champion and the first black driver to win the F1 Drivers Championship.  In just his second full year in the top echelon of motorsport he was able to outlast nearest rival Felipe Massa by 1 point.

Now you may be saying if last years championship went down to the last race and there is a new star on the rise, why wouldn’t it still be popular?  Well I think there are a number of factors that are conspiring to make this one of the most inconspicuous seasons ever.

For starters, apart from Hamilton where are the interesting characters and stories going to come from?  All through the 80’s and 90’s there were great drivers and big rivalries.  Ayrton Senna and Alain Prost were definitely not on each others christmas card list, in fact Senna was probably didn’t receive many cards from his rivals.  Michael Schumacher for all his success and probably because of it had his career littered with bitter rivals.

From the early years when he was chasing Senna through to his championship years and feuds with Damon Hill, Jacques Villeneuve and Mika Hakkinen among others.  As a wise man once noted, controversy creates cash.  It would seem as though the only big stories are coming from off the track.

With teams being fined and having points stripped from them for various scandals and the powers that be changing rules left, right and center it begins to look like events are being constructed to put F1 back in the spotlight.  People have begun to lose interest in the F1 circus and have moved on to other series around the world.  For years F1 have been trying to force themselves upon the American public who for the most part seem quite satisfied with their own open wheel and stock car racing leagues.

Don’t get me wrong, the series still has its place in the world and in Europe especially is still hugely popular among the die hard fans but I think the average fan has grown tired of it.  I know I have.

Formula 1 has always been at the forefront of automotive technical advances but early on it was still a car versus car and driver versus driver battle.  The cars now resemble moving computers with every inch of the car manufactured and controlled down to the minutest detail.  Drivers still require skill to drive them but it would seem F1 has bcome a battle between engineers and computer programmers.

The average fan has always liked to see racing between vehicles that on at least some level they could identify with.  This is why Touring cars and Stock car racing is so popular.  They look like the cars that you and I drive everyday, not like a rocket with human ballast.

So what can they do?  Strip the cars back to circa 1990?  That would be impractical and counter productive to what these machines are designed for, the advancement of automotive technology.  Do they need to discover better drivers or at least some with a personality?  Perhaps and there are many out there already who fit the bill.

I may be wrong but this season, no matter how tight the race may become, will be one of the most forgettable in history.  We shall see how it goes starting this weekend.

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