F1 must cater for fans better – Kaltenborn

F1 Fanatic Round-up

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In the round-up: Sauber team principal Monisha Kaltenborn says it’s “high time” the sport started catering for its fans better.

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F1 lacks direction - Kaltenborn (F1i)

"I think other areas we should first try to find out - and it’s high time we did it - what is it that fans want from us?"

Merhi's Manor future boosted by Lowdon (Autosport)

"At the moment, what is right for the team is the set-up we have. Roberto did a top class job (in Malaysia)."

James Allison explains Ferrari's nose design (ESPN)

"Where our front bulkhead is makes it rather difficult for us to get a nose that is super-duper short and still pass the crash test."

Tweets

Red Bull demo run in Hyderabad

David Coulthard took part in a demo run with a colourful difference for Red Bull in Hyderabad yesterday.

Comment of the day

This weekend I learned it’s not a clever idea to set a Caption Competition involving a sport I don’t understand. So after thumbing through a copy of Cricket For Dummies, the winner is…

“This lad said he could drive…”
@Naz3012

Thanks to everyone who offered captions including Mach1, Bpacman and ColdFly F1 who also made some great suggestions.

From the forum

Happy birthday!

Happy birthday to Lak!

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On this day in F1

Following strong criticism of the state of F1 by Bernie Ecclestone and Luca di Montezemolo, the Bahrain Grand Prix held on this day last year was considered one of the best races of the season, thanks in part to a no-holds-barred scrap between Mercedes team mates Lewis Hamilton and Nico Rosberg.

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Keith Collantine
Lifelong motor sport fan Keith set up RaceFans in 2005 - when it was originally called F1 Fanatic. Having previously worked as a motoring...

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89 comments on “F1 must cater for fans better – Kaltenborn”

  1. Simon (@weeniebeenie)
    6th April 2015, 0:11

    Well we don’t want politics and embarrassing legal cases blighting the sport for a start Monisha…..

  2. Congratulations to the Caption Competition winner, @Naz3012
    As someone who understands cricket it is very witty.

    1. Yep, its a really great one @naz3012.

    2. @ambroserpm That’s a relief!

      1. Thanks guys. Eyes lit up at the prospect of combining my two favourite sports

  3. I love the backwards English of F1.

    “F1 must cater for fans better.”

    Err, how about: “F1 must better cater to fans”? Or just “F1 must cater to fans”

    It’s the same with the drivers. “We push very hard, the car” is a phrase we always hear. No one talks like that, aside from F1.

    1. Well, many of the drivers’ first language isn’t English, so they’re more prone to mistakes like this. They probably don’t have the sentence structure down yet

      1. Mostly true, but it seems to affect almost all of the native speakers as well that are in front of the media often. It’s quite strange to hear a mechanic or Rob Smedley talk in normal English these days, because everybody else has slightly fragmented, grammatically strange english

    2. Err, how about: “F1 must cater better……….

      I read a novel once that had me in paroxisms of mirth when the main character spoke atrocious german, which was written using the English words but the German grammar, much like the French accents of the RAF characters in Allo, Allo.

    3. Michael Brown
      6th April 2015, 3:02

      Because sentence structure in European languages (I don’t know about other continents) is mostly backwards compared to English. For instance, an emergency exit in French is known as “sortie de secours,” or “exit of emergency,” in a word-for-word translation.

      The thing with English is that you can get away with structuring your sentences like foreign drivers do, but it usually doesn’t work the other way around.

      1. Very good points. I just always giggle listening to F1 drivers. But then, I can’t speak multiple languages like they have to.

        1. The syntax is certainly very different in foreign languages.

          For example, if you want to say “Why aren’t drivers more aggressive at the start of a race?” in French, you get “Pourquoi les pilotes ne sont-ils pas plus agressifs au début de la course ?” or literally “Why the drivers are they not more aggressive at the start of a race?”

      2. As someone who speaks both French and Dutch: sentence structure in Dutch and in English is actually pretty similar. I think the ‘sentence structure’ thing is only valid for Roman languages.

        How is Max’ english? Is it any good?

    4. For sure, this is true.

    5. Yes (@come-on-kubica)
      6th April 2015, 12:57

      You always have to give the maximum push.

      1. We pushed today the maximum 110%

    6. We push the car very hard (meaning that the mechanics is running behind pushing..)

  4. Regarding Bobby Rahal’s tweet, I still think people expected Formula E to be big crazy roaring cars and that’s not the spirit. Most people I know who don’t like the series always say to me when I ask them for a reason: “They’re slow” “They sound like an RC car” “They’re ugly” “The tracks are bad”. I always retort with the same, what do you expect? They have awesome speed an acceleration for the type of cars they are. Of course they sound like RC cars, they’re electric, you can’t expect a howling sound. F1 cars have been ugly these years, yet people learn to live with it. The tracks are bad yes, with some exceptions, but look at the Buenos Aires race, it was totally awesome despite the track being a rectangle with a hairpin in the middle.
    To me, Formula E has a lot of potential, lots of manufacturers are slowly moving towards E-cars, or at least Hybrid versions and this might as well be a cheaper platform for testing than WEC. The problem starts when people expect them to reach 300km/h from the word go and sound like a LMP1 car.
    I am already a Formula E fan, though it has a lot to improve yet, but it’s only the first season. There is time, a lot of it. Whether there is long-term interest, remains to be seen.

    1. @carlitox I think the problem recides on the huge “hype” built around the series everytime it lands on a new city. And then you realize, and it’s difficult to argue otherwise, that a) cars are too slow, b) the idea of green cars needing a spare car to complete the race is ridiculous, c) the field is mostly composed of F1 rejects. All of which is true.

      But I hope the “hype” continues next season once they start developing the cars individually. Us motorsport geeks know it takes a lot of time for certain cars to improve, but I don’t think we are Formula E’s target. I’m sure Formula E will pick up speed next season, cars will be much more interesting to watch and the racing will remain just as good.

      And then we’ll have fewer arguments to reject the series.

    2. Bobby Rahal is a dinosaur.

      1. Ian Laidler (@)
        7th April 2015, 6:09

        Don’t be cruel to dinosaur’s, Rahal should stick to oval racing …. you know what I mean, where they only have left hand corners lol

    3. Chris (@tophercheese21)
      6th April 2015, 1:41

      I’m not a fan of the whole fan-boost thing, or those chicane-riddled tracks, but the racing in Formula E is actually much better than I expected it to be. There’s been some ‘edge-of-the-seat’ racing.

    4. Having watched a couple of races of Formula E, I’ll say what my problem is:

      The racing is crap.

      And that’s it. It’s the same problem F1 has run NOW because more than half the field is made up of paydrivers that don’t deserve to be there on driving etiquette alone, let alone talent. Formula E is miles worse, as would be expected, of course. It’s the same reason Indycar is bad. That and the fact that they can’t defend an overtake.

      1. It’s the same reason Indycar is bad. That and the fact that they can’t defend an overtake.

        Indycar did away with the ‘No blocking’ rules a couple years ago & they now use the same rules on defending as F1 does, That been your allowed 1 move to defend.

        The no blocking rule was a hangover from Champcar which implemented it because on several of the street circuits they raced on overtaking was impossible if the car infront held the inside line.
        Indycar adopted it after the merger because the old Dallara didn’t race well on road/street circuits (Been originally designed as an oval only car), With the new car producing good racing & plenty of overtaking it was decided that the no blocking rule was no longer necessary (That & it was generally unpopular with fans).

    5. I actually enjoy the racing (I have watched 3 of 6 races) and I like that as an F1 fan, I know most of the drivers.

      However the cars needs some extra years of development. They are just so slow, indoor action looks like a kid could drive that. And switching the whole car in the pit stop looks bad as well. Also, they could have added a few real circuits and get rid of the horrible sound effects. (bbbzzzzzzzz Fanboost, I mean, really?).

      Still, for the very first season, it is quite entertaining to watch, I am sure looking up for Monaco, where we can compare them with F1!

  5. Cater to even us non Rolex folk?

    Hows abouts a racing season with 20 races, and that being what we talk about? At present the transparency, governance and financial distribution of the sport is that diabolical each season feels like a 40 week drama with an intermission every 2nd weekend or so from a different country.

    For a sport that is supposed to be made up of intellects I’m really struggling to take it seriously at times.

    For those that aren’t aware of the financial nonsense of the sport – Williams finished 9th in 2013. Given Williams gets a “historic teams payment” from Bernie, for Sauber to receive the same amount of prize money as the team that finished 9th they would have had to have finished 3rd in the constructors championship.

  6. A good way to cater for the fans more is to make the sport more accessible, something which definitely is not being done at all. Formula One is, in the eyes of Ecclestone and nearly all of the people running it, a luxury product. Quite frankly F1 is as far away from deserving to be called a status such as this as it ever has been, and I say this because a lot of other motorsport categories do fundamental things so much better and are in much better shape health wise.

    It’s about time those in charge said – “You know what, we need to give back to the fans. Let’s lower the ticket prices dramatically, interact with social media more, start making a change towards holding races in countries with a real passion for motorsport and reduce the TV rights globally so that Formula One can go back to being free-to-air and accessible to people no matter where they come from or how rich or poor they are. We owe it to the millions and millions of fans who care so passionately about this sport, who cherish Formula One and reserve it in a special place in their hearts and who don’t care if they have to get up at 4 A.M to watch a race because they enjoy it so much.”

    The idea and hope that those in charge of Formula One stop being so greedy and obsessed over money and instead profoundly give back to the fans seems, quite sadly, light years away.

    1. Too right, every time Bernie says the teams need to spend less money he says it so he and his investors can continue to strip more money out of the sport than even the most profligate team spends.

      1. By my calculations they take roughly $2,000,000 profit out of the sport per day, every day.

        1. Which by my calculations equals about $36.5 million per race.

        2. Which will very likely be compensated by a larger fan base, buying more tickets and more mechandise..

          1. Its at the point where people, companies and governments refuse to part ways with cash knowing whose pocket it ends up in.

    2. That whole luxury/exclusivity angle worked 20 years ago, but times have changed.

      1.5 billion people now have smart phones in their pockets. Consumers now have the ability to access what they want, when they want. There is an unlimited access to information on any and all topics, free to go wherever the mind may take you.

      F1s lack of engagement online may be viewed as protecting its product, but from a consumers perspective it screams of narcissism. Given other sports have embraced social media, fans cut their loses and move on. Its a competitive market out there and realistically most sports do a better job at addressing how the fans feel.

      At the end of the day when it comes to customer satisfaction its not what you did for them, or how you did it, but more how you made them feel. While I did enjoy the Malaysian GP I don’t get a good feeling about anything else about the sport.

    3. It is quite amazing how impersonal F1 is. I’ve been to a number of V8 Supercars races in Australia and I’ve stood directly next to the pit bays during sessions, I could even read the data traces, if I knew how. In the F1 the paddock and pit is a quiet and secluded place for only the rich and famous, who couldn’t give a rats behind about the sport unlike us deserving fans whereas in the V8’s we could stand inside the paddock after paying a small ticket price.

      Fan interaction is the key and I hope these once cornered off places can be accessable to fans, I bet that Bernie could make some money off a rather affordable paddock pass- we’d all be scrambling for one!

  7. F1 has become a reality TV program and I am expecting they will soon have drivers being voted off. Just kidding about the last bit but that’s what it feels like.

    1. But Ferrari would have a veto.

  8. 2 things I want from F1:
    1. I want to be able to watch it on Free To Air TV unless it is within an hours drive of where I live.
    2. I want real car on car racing for lap after lap without the tyres deciding the outcome.
    3. I want to see understandable technical development, eg. MB-AMGs separation of the turbine from the compressor and motor-gen, and I miss the days when less identical engine formats provided more even performance.

    1. And coloured exhaust smoke.

      1. Paul Sainsbury
        6th April 2015, 4:43

        Four things then…….:)

        1. Yep, I wanted to be brief and incisive but the list just kept growing and I forgot to amend my opening line.

          1. Reminds me of Monty Python’s Spanish Inquisition.

      2. And yout fifth element of surprise?

    2. @hohum

      1. I want to be able to watch it on Free To Air TV unless it is within an hours drive of where I live.

      They need to make money for the sport to exist. I don’t think a fan would hesitate to pay for proper coverage. It’s the price that we have to pay that is over the limit for most of us.

      2. I want real car on car racing for lap after lap without the tyres deciding the outcome.

      Never happend before and will never happen so let’s stop pretending it was like this in the 80s-90s. We get good battles on occasion like Verstappen and Bottas in Malaysia. Just take a look at all those Senna, Prost or Schumacher videos on Youtube. They consist of almost always the same material although there are a few hundred videos on Youtube and more than 300 race footage to choose from.

      1. Tom (@11mcgratht)
        6th April 2015, 10:20

        You say it would be fine for F1 to be behind a pay wall because a ‘fan’ would not hesitate for ‘proper’ coverage. But this is precisely the point, it is ONLY people who are already fans who will want to pay. How can you expect any new non-fans to get interested in the sport if they first have to start paying before they have developed their interest. I only started watching because there happened to be a race on, and my brother told me that Michael Schumacher, a name I recognized as Top Gear had mentioned, had made a comeback. Under a pay-TV system this wouldn’t be possible. Also, I feel it just reinforces F1’s image as a posh-boy’s sport, and, in reality not many, myself included, can afford to pay to watch the sport I love. I think saving for university probably takes priority, don’t you?

      2. @xtwl,

        They need to make money

        Free to air does not mean free to the broadcaster that is why we have to watch commercials or pay licence fees/taxes to watch FTA TV, yes it means less money goes into the pot of FOM but more people (even poor people) watching increases the value of car/team sponsorship, and sponsorship is the only source of income that the teams don’t have to share with CVC.

        Never happened before

        Been watching since 1950 have we ? No wonder you’ve forgotten those great battles. I’ll grant you it has never happened since Bernie introduced re-fueling to give the commentators more to talk about, be more tactical and generally more American (= profitable to Bernie), before those days tyres were expected to last a full race distance no matter how hard the drivers drove, exceptions were on poorly surfaced tracks that rarely held a GP only.

        1. @hohum What I meant was when somebody wants to watch F1 and has to pay an extra let’s say 5 euro a month that would be no problem compared to the ridiculous prices we have to pay now for several broadcasters like Sky. Those subscriptions go up to 500 euro for a year. Which is ridiculous and then indeed as @11mcgratht said it is more important to save for example for univeristy. But we just have to accept it will never be standard in our TV subscription anymore.

          Ah the 1950s where cars won by over a minute? Do you mean those lap after lap after lap wheel to wheel battles? There has never been a race where every single lap there were litterally two cars next to each other for several corners. Tyres always played a role, fuel always played a role and strategy only played a bigger role since proper refueling and tyre changes. It is plain nonsense to act like ‘in the golden days’ cars were side by side every second of the race. Sure there were great battles but we’ve had them too. In the last five years we’ve had three championships being decided in the last round, a season with 8 different winners, we’ve seen a four time champ being born, Lewis finally getting a second title. I’m not kidding when I say that in ten years you’ll look back to these and say hose were the golden days.

          1. @xtwl, I accept that not every race in the distant past was tightly bunched, that is (was?) the beauty of F1; different cars, different strengths and weaknesses but when 2 cars were close together they battled it out for position until 1 or the other made a mistake (or suffered car failure) without fear of their tyres turning to mush. I am not criticising this engine formula which for me is a huge improvement over the “equalised” engines years, and for those whingeing about MB being “locked” into an advantage just look at how much Ferrari have managed to improve their engine since last season, they never made such a spectacular performance improvement in the 2.4 era.

          2. @hohum Well they did almost use 22/32 tokens.

            Ferrari: 22 of 32 tokens
            Mercedes: 25 of 32 tokens
            Renault: 20 of 32 tokens

            whingeing about MB being “locked”

            Nobody is whingeing. It’s fact as simple as that. Ferrari was so far back it was only a matter of finding small improvements to make such a difference. Their biggest change this year happend on their chassis and not engine if you ask me, compared to last year. Together with some engine updates they build a good complete car. Renault just messed up and that makes Ferrari look even better. Mercedes still has the better engine by far.

    3. I want to be able to watch it on Free To Air TV

      Not going to happen as many of the FTA TV broadcasters can no longer afford the amount it cost’s to produce the broadcast.

      In the UK that was the problem ITV had & what the BBC found, Sending out a crew to the races & Producing all the coverage cost’s a fortune & FTA broadcasters with limited budgets simply cannot afford that anymore.
      Thats why the vast majority of live sports has now moved towards PayTV, There the only one’s that have the budgets required to send the crew out to the events & produce the broadcast.

      Look at the BBC with Wimbledon, There looking to offload it because the cost of producing the coverage with cameras on all courts where its now expected that you will have a choice of matches so you can always follow your favorite players is getting to a point where its unaffordable for them.

      1. Peter G, leave your trusty valve radiogram for a second and get up to date, FOM produce all the TV footage and sell to the highest bidder, with the exception of the optional grid/pitlane reporter, no-one needs to leave the studio.

  9. ColdFly F1 (@)
    6th April 2015, 1:03

    Monisha makes a good point

    Let’s find out from the group we are targeting, and why are we doing all this?’ We are here as a sporting platform and a marketing platform to reach out to fans and customers, so maybe that’s the most important aspect about it and we should find out what they want done differently.

    But:
    Most sporting leagues are owned by the member clubs (even in the Premier League clubs act as shareholders) and their interest is to make both the league as big as possible and the clubs very profitable and valuable (they are still businesses in the end).
    F1 is the total opposite as it is owned by an individual and Private Equity club. Their interest is only to make as much money as possible for themselves out of the ‘league’. Private Equity has a very simple business model: 1) generate as much cash out of the investment (to pay off acquisition debts); 2) sell/list at the highest price. Thus there is no direct link to financial success of clubs, big appeal to fans, or sustainability of the sporting basics.
    If you want it is much more like a Ponzi scheme: offer the same product at a constant inflating price (hosting fees), and sell it to the final ‘sucker’ at top price just before it falls over. Sad but true.

    1. The thing that bugs me is CVCs stake in the sport – that % of the sport is lost forever. When they are done with it, as you say sell to the highest bidder. That % of the sport will never fall into the hands of someone who is passionate about the sport. If the owner by chance is passionate about the sport it will be secondary to his/her financial gain, like Bernie…..

      No one is going to forgo their own personal wealth to get the sport off CVC. Do we just accept the sport moving forwards is always going to be in the hands of some investment fund?

      As a person who has worked in professional sports it all turns pear shaped in the hands of private ownership.

      1. Unfortunately the only way this side of 2093 that F1 can rid itself of this giant parasite is to die and be reborn under another name, and only the car manufacturers have the funds to survive a lost season or two and start again, in the unlikely event they wanted to. A total rebellion lead by the big teams and a new name for the series is the only workable answer.

        1. 2111 to be precise.

          Yea and I agree 100%, that’s why it is so upsetting.

          I really do wish people would consider a rival series to take on F1 in light of the above, as opposed to conceding defeat. It simply cannot go on like this.

          It does not take rocket science to fix these problems, just a complete and utter lack of greed.

      2. @bamboo So, if we take your premise at face value, then NASCAR and the Tour de France are both pear shaped?

        1. Plus 90% of all competitive racing series are owned/administrated by private companies. Who else would run them?

        2. Not at all. The ownership structure of these sports is there to facilitate and administer the sport. They are also governed well and have a great degree of transparency, hence the lack of animosity.

          Perhaps I should be more specific – privatization in sport with the intent of profit maximization is wrong. The sport becomes secondary.

  10. Will be interesting to see whether RB use turbo era cars for future demo runs.

  11. OmarR-Pepper - Vettel 40 victories!!! (@)
    6th April 2015, 2:50

    Lotterer!!!

  12. This is extremely disappointing from a hero of mine since my childhood. But Rahal goes on to tweet that he is old fashioned and thinks racing is about the smell and the noise. That goes a long way to explain why racing is having such a problem with picking up younger fans. An older generation seems to expect it to be one way and is unwilling to let it grow and change with the times. Then there’s the insular nature of it, too. Graham got in the conversation saying how much he and his dad do for racing and saying people outside don’t understand because they’re not involved like they are. I’m sorry, but from what it looks like to me, they’re the ones having trouble seeing beyond their own perspectives.

    1. Ahh yes, the sweet smell of Castrol R and the sound of individual megaphone exhausts, bring back the 125 cc two-strokes.

  13. Monisha should concentrate on running her team properly. the way she treated her drivers and took their sponsorship dollars is criminal. she should have at least lost her job or even be convicted for that fiasco.

  14. Dear Monisha, Teams should also not bring the sport into disrepute and sign more drivers than they have seats. The fans don’t like for 2 cars to be in the garage and not running in the practice session while the team is sorting out a legal mess. The Fans.

  15. ‘Sauber must cater for drivers better ‘ – Kaltenborn

    FTFY

    1. TAAFETDIT?

      (Theres an abbreviation for everything these days isn’t there)

  16. I dunno, sounds like shes calling for F1 to be more like a state run theater.

    … More hand outs and better marketing. How about F1 stops trying to be like Hollywood, encourage some better more informed commentary, and lets actually see some better competition, not over regulated political nonsense that runs teams out of business.

    Monisha want’s to pay her employees, and I get that, but going along to get along never really works out for the guys on the bottom. Less of the same.

  17. The F1 fan problem is 2 fold. No 1. keeping hold of the ones who are in to it. No 2. Attracting new fans. I would argue that No 2. is more of a serious problem. And as much as I respect Bernie for what he’s been able to create with F1, I am not going to hold my breath for any radical initiatives to attract new fans. The equation is simple. Decreasing fanbase = decreasing turnover. For those that haven’t seen this documentary https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nQZkZlGQysU I recommend it if only just for the insightful ‘fan’ statistics that ‘global gaming championships’ are getting. This is what F1 is competing against. And if it doesn’t wake up to it soon and start thinking of radical ideas to integrate with this movement then it will be a sport that will become increasingly difficult to sustain.

  18. Monisha wishes to increase the spectator experience?
    Just tell her to ask me of my lurid Detroit GP tales.

    Standing on line for a lavvy with mechanics, whilst
    smoking a free Marlie or Rothman’s and clutching
    condoms and a jazz mag was the height of customer
    accessibility.

  19. People want X Factor, ketchup, phones that bend, break and have bad signal because metal frames are ‘premium’, the Fast and the Furious franchise and Geordie Shore.

    People are morons and nothing amazing was ever conceived by committee.

    I watch F1 because it’s minds and talents greater than mine doing things I can’t do, please don’t listen to my ideas to make it better, if they actually had any merit I’d be the one working in it not watching it.

    1. Lol @philipgb great post

      They should just listen to Bernie : “It’s crucial to the commercial model of Formula One that TV coverage should remain free-to-air, and therefore universally accessible, and therefore widely consumed and enjoyed by large numbers of viewers”

      1. Oh I think what BE meant was that he should remain free to air F1 through the most expensive pay-per-view media available so it is universally accessible and widely consumed and enjoyed by large numbers of Rolex owners.

    2. Yep, it’s the deadly combination of vague market research and committee that brought us delights such as DRS (“More overtaking! All the time”). Maybe another fan survey will help counter the effects of the previous one.

      Meanwhile, thanks to Ms Kaltenborn for introducing some courtroom drama. Maybe not the start to the season we needed, but nice try.

  20. I always found it funny that you often hear people from within the teams talking about making F1 more accessible & not keeping itself closed off etc.. considering thats the teams are amongst those that try to keep things closed off.

    I don’t know if its still done but some years ago the pit lane was opened up on the Thursday for fans at some circuits, Yet the teams started putting screens up so that nobody could see into the garages. They do the same at the Pre-season test’s. Its the teams that prevent fans been able to get access to there team radio broadcast’s, Its the teams that prevent some things been shown/used on the TV broadcast’s & restrict stuff like in-car camera angles they feel will give away secrets & hurt there aero (Hence why the helmet camera vanished & why you hardly see that movable unit anymore, they don’t like the aero affect they have on the cars).

    When I left FOM at the end of 2007 I went & worked a few events with many fellow Ex-FOM people on the A1GP broadcasts & it was amazing how open teams were & how willing they were to let us experiment with new in-car shots & other stuff like streaming all there telemetry data online (Something F1 teams won’t allow).

    1. @gt-racer, perfect opportunity for me to repeat myself without being accused of senility;
      F1 lost a lot of interest when they started puting covers over the engine, even more when what was under the cover was secret, and more again when it was not only secret but all the same.

  21. While I get that if you ask 12 people what they want from F1 you will get 12 answers, and therefore never come to a conclusion, surely it can’t be that difficult to figure out.

    We want to see close racing, preferably with at least two teams vying for the title, or at least two drivers from the same team seen as gladiators. F1 has been dumbed down such that that is not possible. The drivers are out there monitoring systems. Sure they are racing too, but not like they should be. And to be asked to pay more and more for less and less? Not a formula that is sustainable.

    We want to see a bunch of teams out there for the love of it, run by people who do it because they ‘have to’ such is there love for it. Teams voting for DRS does not represent to me teams that are there for the love of racing.

    If they want to listen to fans, knowing everyone has a different opinion, at least listen to the basic resonance. Most people dislike DRS. Virtually all people disliked double points. Ie. the gadgets just aren’t working. Simplify. Show us you’re there for the love of racing. Show us gladiators on the track not passengers only ‘racing’ when told they can. Stop trying to manipulate the show, because that has shown to not be working. Zero the scales. Get back to the reasons you wanted to go racing to begin with. I’m sure it wasn’t so you could put a few cars out there and have tires that barely work, a wing that assists in passing, and conservation of everything overwhelming the whole activity which hasn’t worked when audience continues to fall off.

    1. @robbie, 3 cheers mate, must be COTD, COTW, COTM, and COTY.

  22. Kaltenborn is right in the sense that F1 should be at least somewhat more accessible to fans on race weekends if they how to attract any significant numbers of new fans, especially in the States.

    On the other hand, it’s absolutely backwards thinking in terms of rulemaking. What F1 needs (in an ideal world) is to be effectively regulated by the FIA and for the FIA to be actually administered by people who care about the state of motorsport as something resembling fair competition, not just a cash machine. Ari Vatanen may have been that, but we will likely never know.

  23. GB (@bgp001ruled)
    6th April 2015, 17:41

    monisha should be in jail! that would be something I as a fan would appreciate! scum bags like her shouldnt be managers! and managers like her should be punished for their terrible horrible decisions!

    1. William Jones
      6th April 2015, 17:45

      Think you’re getting civil and criminal law a bit mixed up there!

      1. Contempt of Court is a criminal offence. The handcuffs beckoned…

      2. Contempt of Court is a criminal offence. Jail really did beckon.

  24. Why not just “give ’em snacks and beer”

  25. Is it just me or doesn’t Andre Loterrers post make @keithcollatines earlier article on grid girls null and void?? Simply, the girls like being on the grid and the drivers love having them there. Simples.

  26. Ian Laidler (@)
    7th April 2015, 6:01

    So Monisha Kaltenborn wants F1 to look after it’s fans better ….. she needs look after her own team a little better before making statements like that ……. the driver line up issue before the Australian Grand Prix was a total farce, does she now expect people to take her seriously.

  27. Hey Monisha, how about running a team without trying to steal someone’s money? Bet the fans would appreciate that, might even avoid bad publicity for F1!

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