Magnussen linked to IndyCar move

F1 Fanatic Round-up

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In the round-up: Kevin Magnussen has been tipped for a switch to IndyCar with the Honda-powered Andretti team.

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Thoughts on how F1 could improve its game offering:

I wonder how much money could be made from an official F1 Esports game?

Racing games are very popular, and the graphics have got to the point that the viewing experience isn’t that different from real world racing, so it’d be relatively easy to cross sell the sport with the Esport. Get the established fans into Esport, and the gamer kids into F1.

I’m surprised they’re not offering freemium games for phones and tablets. How many hundreds of thousands of people would be willing to pay for an official team livery for their car ? Or a copy of their favourite driver’s helmet, or the dozens of other little add-ons you find on freemium games?

An official F1 manager game that runs along side the championship should be a no-brainer too.
@Beneboy

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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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44 comments on “Magnussen linked to IndyCar move”

  1. Yes (@come-on-kubica)
    18th October 2016, 0:09

    Gutierrez and Stroll and the Sauber boys… The driver line ups are getting weaker and weaker.

    1. @come-on-kubica What makes you believe that Stroll is a weak driver? Young, yes. Inexperienced, yes. But weak? Why?

  2. @come-on-kubica Your opinion is not based on facts. Apart from a short period in 2005-09 when most teams were manufacturer teams, this is one of the strongest fields in F1 history. in the 80’s and 90’s there were many more pay drivers on the grid and of much worse quality. in the early 2010’s as well if you remember the days of Caterham, HRT and Marussia

    To strengthen the above point these 4 drivers are all champions in their junior career at the F3/GP3 level. And 2 of them were frontrunners in GP2 as well. Lance Stroll has now won Euro F3 being what, 17 years old? Winning 14 out 30 races at that. So he clearly has talent. And he replaces Massa who is clearly past it

    There’s also the addition of Vandoorne, one of the most exciting talents of this generation. Couple this with Palmer probably leaving(and Gutierrez not certain to stay either) and the situation is not bad at all so cheer up! Though, seeing your nickname and speaking of lineups made me quite sad. I wonder what RK would have achieved by now…

    1. +1

      These are the ‘pay drivers at the moment’

      Gutierrez – winner of the GP3 series and title challenger in two years of GP2 with best finish of third
      Palmer – GP2 series winner
      Stroll – 17 year dominator of European F3 smashing everyone else in the series
      Nasr – British F3 champion and race winner in GP2
      Ericsson – Race winner in GP2, Japanese Formula 3 champion

      Everyone is decent these days, remember back in the days where guys like Deletraz, Inoue and Ide ran

      1. All I wanna know which pay driver of these will join force India

        1. Wherlein, Mercedes pay driver…. Only DTM champ.

          1. @jureo Nah he’s not gonna join Force India, they don’t want him for some reason. Either Ocon, Palmer or Kvyat they said themselves

      2. @lolzerbob Deletraz, Inoue and so very many others. Belmondo, Barilla, Foitek, Apicella, Schiatarella etc. etc. Some of the pay-drivers of the 90’s were unreal. Shouldn’t have been let anywhere near F1 cars

        As an aside though, Yuji Ide wasn’t a pay driver. He was a mistake by Honda. Honda wanted to reward their long standing stalwart and very successful driver in Super GT and Formula Nippon by giving him an F1 ride. Problem was that he was too old and has never competed outside of Japan, so he was ill equipped for such a challenge. But in no way someone who has finished P2 in Japanese F3, Super GT and Formula Nippon can be considered a useless pay driver

        1. Putting Apicella in there with those guys is tough! He had some real talent and only was given one start (with no laps completed at that)

  3. I would like to offer a rebuttal @beneboy about the manager game aspect. Though that genre has made a resurgence lately, very much thanks to smartphones and the general air of nostalgia that the kickstarter projects of 2010-2012 carried, manager games are still a very big niche, and given modern development costs, especially for a decent game, with good AI, deep gameplay and good graphics, the market is simply not big enough to justify the costs. F1 games, in particular, require a lot of licensing, in order to get official teams and logos and drivers down. For manager games, you’d also have to license specific people, such as designers and test drivers and team principals, along with all potential brands that are associated with the sport, which brings the costs to a very big level that only companies like EA can afford as they did back in the day with F1 Manager 2000.

    Add in modern audiences which do not really crave a very in-depth strategy game (because we could make the argument that manager games are strategy games), and you’re already left with a niche demographic for a niche demographic. What is worse is that F1 has big enough an audience that it can afford those manager games – other motorsports have it worse, like WEC or WRC and MotoGP, and that is mostly why most manager games that come out either use F1-like cars to replicate the feeling of the Grand Prix, or… well, had the F1 (partial or full) license from way back in the day when games were much much cheaper.

    However, there is some light shining at the far end of the tunnel, and that is Motorsport Manager, that iOS game that now goes for a full proper release, which, imo, re-invigorated the motorsport manager (hehe) genre itself, first by being really accessible through the smartphone demographic, and now by being a high-profile full release, backed by SEGA no less! I hope that if this game sells well, the doors to an F1 licensed game will open, and hopefully Codemasters and SEGA will share it, Codemasters going for the straight up racing games, whilst SEGA uses its talented developer teams such as the Total War team and Relic or even the MM guys, to create great F1-themed manager games.

    Because gosh darn it, we’ve missed them indeed!

    1. I think the problem with using license for F1 management game is that you’d basically have ONE season of the game to simulate real life, and then start shuffling around drivers, personnel, engines, sponsors, etc. If it’s an unlicensed workshop mod – fine, but real companies and teams might not feel comfortable with such mixing. Hence, license for F1 management game is not as needed as for a racing one, where teams stay intact for seasons. But the ability for community mods is a must, that much is true!

  4. How’d ya get up there Mr Hamilton? C’mon down, we’d like to talk about some safety laws in this country.

    1. “C’mon down” but don’t jump, not onto that dodgy ankle!

  5. re: Lance Stroll… just FYI @keithcollantine, as a rule I would take anything written in Journal de Montréal with a great big heaping spoonful of salt – they’re very sensesational-y tabloid-y… doesn’t mean it’s not true, but just sayin.

    ++love the contrast between what Hamilton and Verstappen choose to show for public consumption…

    1. i hope that was intentional on keith’s part….

  6. I have this immediate dislike of Lance Stroll already. I have never liked the fact that in F1 the more money you have to bring to a team the better chance you have of getting a drive- but Stroll’s family is so wealthy that his father apparently bought half the Williams team, so now Stroll Sr gets to decide who else is in the team for the first time in WilliamsF1 history! There have been some mega-rich pay drivers who were competitive in history (Pedro Diniz), but none of them have had the nerve to actually have a family member buy shares in the team (at least to my knowledge)… I have already been disillusioned with F1 for some time, and this might be the straw that breaks the camel’s back…

    1. Mika Salo’s claim that Lawrence Stroll has bought half of the Williams team is complete nonsense. It was rumoured earlier this year that Lawrence Stroll would buy into the team, but he hasn’t and according to Williams they never even talked about it.
      Mike O’Driscoll (CEO of Williams) about the rumours in April:
      “I think we’ve got a really strong shareholder structure today and we haven’t had conversations with either Lawrence or anyone else about investing in the team.”

      At the moment Frank Williams owns 52%, Brad Hollinger 15% (he took over Toto Wolff’s shares), Patrick Head 9%, and 3% are held by an employee trust. Just 21% are traded at the Frankfurt Stock Exchange. Where would Stroll get 50% of the company from? Also if he had bought a significant amount of shares in the team they would have been required to announce it, since Williams are listed at the Frankfurt Stock Exchange.

  7. Can’t understand magnussen. Lot of hype among fans. But the same enthusiasm is not being shared by teams. Kind of like Hulkenburg.

    1. I don’t think there’s been a lot of hype around Magnussen after the mid point ofthis season. He’s failed to impress in his second season in F1. I still think he’s marginally better than the likes of Palmer, Nasr and Ericcson, but hardly regarded by the fans as a driver who deserves a better seat.

        1. Which is interesting as I thought he was talking to Indycar teams for a 2015 seat before McLaren needed him to fill in for Alonso in Australia after the testing shunt. I won’t be surprised if he makes the move (I assume the denial is because he either wants to play down his options to the media or he wants to make the statement that he wants to stay with Renault next year).

          It would be nice to see him make the move but the rumours indicate a seat at Andretti which would mean Carlos Munoz losing his seat – he’s a decent racer and a young talent that has nailed the 500 so would be sad to see him lose the seat (especially as the top Andretti car in the championship).

  8. Big budget racing games are actually very hard to justify spending money on.
    Smaller racing genres have been left on the way-side, with developers turning to crowd funding, because they know their games are niche, so they have to appeal directly to their audience to help get their games developed.

    Forza and Gran Turismo are the kings when it comes to mainstream audience. But they’re backed by their respective console companies. So they get as much PR as possible (because it’s not just advertising the game; its advertising the console).
    Plus the games offer paid-for extras. Which can be seen as either taking advantage of their popularity, or a show of how much they still need to pay for development.

    Even other racing developers backed by Sony, Studio Liverpool [WipEout] and Evolution Studios [DriveClub, MotorStorm] have been closed down.

    And Project CARS (a game more based on multiple track racing series) was community funded. With the second game following the same model.

    As for eSports. The big ones tend to be set around games with large devoted communities; like Street Fighter, Call of Duty, or League of Legends. But they also have to be good to watch. Most of the games are combat based, so there’s rarely nothing happening, there’s always a build-up or an engagement; and that’s what gets the views.
    Essentially, it develops organically.
    Its not as easy as just saying “We’re making an eSports game! Everyone jump on board. You don’t want to miss out”. First thing’s first. You need money to create the game, develop the game, hope that you haven’t missed the opportunity (while the game is being made for however many years it takes), release the game, hope people like it enough to have a community invest into it. Only then can you consider if it’s worth pushing as an eSport.
    That’s why the FIA have partnered with the likes of Gran Turismo. It’s a game with a large audience, and its known for events like the GT academy.

    Also I don’t know how a F1 based eSport would be structured. Given how F1 is steeped in the development of the cars. Surely it would make more sense in a power-balanced series?

    (Disclaimer: I know of eSports based on racing games such as iRacing, rFactor, RaceRoomRacing; but I wouldn’t be able to say how their communities compare to other eSports. I can’t imagine they’re packing stadiums)

    1. Well said. I tried writing a couple comments on the topic since that absolutely abhorrent article yesterday, but they all either blow up in to multi-page things or are too short to be any worth.

      Just to touch on your disclaimer; the thing with sim racing is it lends itself so much better to being kept at home.
      Do you go with standardised hardware? Actually having a travelling “sim race” setup, especially if we start getting to the level of F1 sim could be more expensive than transporting the cars even.

      Half the actual hook of eSports is you can watch, pay a nominal fee and instantly start playing what you were just watching, but even that’s diminished for sim racing.

      I definitely think racing esports are going to take off at some point in a big way, but I think it might be waiting until after this stadium esport bubble and further down the VR timeline. Or honestly for a better convergence of motorsport and esport I’m imagining remotely piloted vehicles around physical tracks. There could be really spectacular racing by not having to worry about the drivers safety.

      Anyway I definitely agree with what you’re saying, it’s no simple matter at all of just “making an esport” as that article implied. FE in Vegas this year will be interesting, really looking forward to seeing what can be learnt from that.

      1. If you’re planning to have sponsors for events/teams, they’ll want their teams to be using and representing their hardware.
        And chances are teams will migrate from game to game, and will want to keep set-ups they’re comfortable with.
        As for logistics, I’d have to defer to someone with knowledge.

        You bring up a good point with the “hook”. And it makes me wonder:
        By making an eSport based on F1, are you building the fan-base for F1 or the game?
        Are kids buying it because they want to be like the F1 drivers or the eSport racers?
        I’m sure it would be an overlapping Venn diagram, but the skew would be interesting.

    2. Everyone is forgetting that we have a game called ‘F1 2016’ which is the best game of the codemasters series. Instead of E-Sports we havea leagues like AOR which are more fun and chilled out. I’m not a huge gaming expert so I’m not sure the difference is

      1. The whole “esports” thing is still relatively young, like there’d be nothing stopping someone from calling an online sim racing event an esport. But colloquially the difference is pretty much that “esports” are played locally rather online, with coverage in a professional sense with camera crews, a panel, production value, knowledgeable personalities/hosts and very importantly a sizeable prize pool.

        Basically if you can play it competitively for a living, it’s an “esport” I don’t think any sim racing games/leagues can claim they have players(? drivers? racers?) at that level yet.

      2. You’re right. I did fail to mention F1 2016.
        While I enjoy the game, I think there may be an inherent problem with pushing an eSport for a game series that pushes out a new game each year.
        At what point does the previous game get dropped for the new version? What if the new game isn’t well received? What if the online infrastructure of the game isn’t fit for purpose? What if there’s compatibility problems? How long will it take for all the glitches to be cleaned up? How much more time and resources will the developer need?

        Sure, series like Call of Duty, FIFA, and Madden are come out annually, and are having their eSports pushed to get more involved. But those are games that sell in their sleep.
        You kinda know what you’re getting with those games in terms of gameplay. But F1? New cars, new regulations, new handling models, increased/reduced features.
        Maybe, once the 2017 regulations are in place, F1 will calm down a bit with its changes (at least for a while) enough for game developers to put more time/resources towards implementing new features that will help support a potential eSport.

        The current trend with racing eSports (iRacing, rFactor, RaceRoomRacing), is to have a base game that’s used as a platform to have content added over time.
        Then again, WRC are attempting to push the eSport potential of their annual game. So I guess we’ll see.
        But (according to Steam Charts) WRC 6’s peak player count over the last 24hrs [on Steam] is 147 people; compared to F1 2016’s last 24hr peak of 2,031.

    3. I think that if F1 would do something along the lines of what formule E has beeing doing – getting sim racers to race against the real racers (or even the development, test, simulator etc drivers or maybe the army of ex racers running around in the paddock ) in the build-up to a race that might really be a winner!

    4. The state of the Racing Genre does disappoint me sometimes. While I do enjoy Forza and Forza Horizon (though never been a huge fan of Gran Turismo, probably because it tries too hard) I miss GRiD, Project Gotham Racing, Motorstorm and more outlandish games like F-Zero where absolute realism wasn’t the focus or cast in the bin entirely. As much as I enjoyed the DiRT series I’m not overly fond of DiRT Rally because it’s so punishing over minor mistakes, making learning the game more of a chore. As of yet I’ve not tried F1 2016, but plan on renting it at some point.

      1. I’m probably in the same boat. As much as I like the idea of a realistic racing game, more often than not I just want something I can pick-up-n-play.
        I’m hoping the independent scene keeps filling the void left behind by the big publishers. And I’d be interested to hear what the former Evolution Studio devs are working on since being taken on by Codemasters.

        Although I’m much the opposite when it comes to Dirt Rally.
        I enjoyed the previous game, but over time everything started to feel the same.
        Meanwhile I find the challenge in Dirt Rally keeps it from becoming stale.

    5. @ninjabadger @wildfire15 @bascb @lolzerbob & anyone else I’ve missed.
      My comment was more of a question than a statement, and I was thinking more along the lines of F1 establishing a series with an already established game than developing something new, so maybe something like an iracing F1 championship for sim racers, and an F1 2016 championship for console gamers.
      Effectively run qualifying competitions on-line, with the winners flown to GP’s for a televised event, with practice sessions on a Friday, Qualy on Saturday, and a race on Sunday.
      Maybe even having the winners of each competition getting to take part in a race against some F1, GP2 & GP3 drivers for the grand final.
      Then, if it took off, setting up a proper esport championship, with each F1 team having their own racers that would take part in an esport championship that ran alongside the F1 championship.

      I was also thinking about the success of GT Acadamy of getting gamers into top level motorsport, unlike most esports, there’s a potential crossover for gamers to be good at real world racing, and I’m sure they’d be able to produce a reality TV show where we could watch gamers who have won an esport championship getting trained up by teams, with those with the ability given a chance to race for a GP3 seat, or some other feeder series.

      1. I for one think that something like that could work for F1 too yes, @beneboy. I guess so long as Codemasters has the licence, it would make sense to do it on their game (and it is available for all platforms, can they play mixed games?), it would be pretty good promotion for that too IMO.

        If they could set it up in a way that winners of a certain round would be invited to join in for a racing session with real drivers at a few races – maybe based of of some “qualifying-tournament” for that in the run-up to each race that might be a thing.

        1. Cross-play would make sense in theory. Combining the fan-base of multiple platforms to create a larger community (rather and multiple small ones) which helps increase the lifespan of a game online.
          And games can be allowed to match XBox and Playstation players.
          But only in rare circumstances, where both companies agree to allow cross-play.
          In the end they are competing companies trying to prove they have the best network to entice customers, and allowing cross-play on games negates that selling point if everyone’s just lobbed onto the same server.

      2. It is very much possible. It just depends on who’s in charge and how much they’re willing to invest.
        With F1’s new owners we could see them try out some new ideas in terms of gaining publicity.
        It can be an excuse to have more public events in cities.

        As BasCB said, it would have to be with Codemasters. Not involving the company that has the license to produce your official game might not look good.
        Also I don’t think F1 wants to see itself as just an additional feature of a game, it wants to be THE feature.

        Also I think they tried to mix the GT Academy with reality TV, to show the competitors training and being tested as they narrowed down to the finalists. It didn’t go well.
        Reality TV and the gaming audience don’t seem to mix well. Many play games as an alternative to watching TV because of this.

  9. Surely it’s too early for Lance Stroll. With the change in rules, the cars being more physically taxing it’s going to be hard for him. A year in GP2 could have been beneficial but he’s either really good or Williams need the money

  10. Magnussen himself has taken to twitter in the mean time to state that he is very much commited to doing another year with Renault (but he does say he highly respects IndyCar etc) and being confident that he will be in F1 next year. So I guess he is still negotiating with teams, but possibly the option of IndyCars is there as a plan B.

  11. On the Perez thing – didn’t we all know that Perez was hanging on at FI for the chance that he might go to Ferrari to replace Kimi after next season?

    1. @bascb As a Perez fan I really don’t get his decision. If Ferrari were crazy about him wouldn’t they have taken him for 2017? He should have taken the gamble and gone to Renault because I think this move will destroy his F1 career and he will be stuck at Force India.

      1. I guess the idea is that Ferrari wanted to keep Kimi there to keep a stable driver line-up with everything else changing (the rules externally and internally all the mess inside the team) @lolzerbob.

        The real issue I see is the expectation that Ferrari will be more on course to win in a year or 2 than Renault will, because I really only can see Ferrari staying in the top 4 of teams (McLaren or Renault equalling them and maybe getting into the title fights in the next few years), not making a step up to being the top team.

  12. Can someone explain to me what Vasseur was referring to when he hinted that Perez had reasons not related to the organisational structure for not moving to Renault?

  13. Hopefully Magnussen stays in F1, with Renault. Him and Hulkenburg make a tasty line up for the coming years, especially at a works team like Renault. Ocon should stay another season at Renault for me.

    About Stroll, he’s completely dominating F3, especially in recent races, he’s won the last 5, and hasn’t been below 2nd in the last 9. Verstappen came 3rd in F3 the season before he came into F1, so I see no reason why Stroll can’t be a success. Yes, he may have paid to get a seat, but that’s completely irrelevant if he’s as good as it seems he is.

    Wehrlein to Force India would be a good move for all 3 parties: Himself, Mercedes, and Force India. We’ll get to see him pitted up against Perez, one of the most highly rated drivers on the grid, in a car capable of delivering points, rather than the Manor at the back of the grid, and he still gets the Mercedes link with the engine.

    Honestly, I think Gutierrez has had enough chances in F1. He’s done poorly with Sauber (got annihilated by Hulkenberg and then Sutil to a lesser extent), and now Haas. He’s only kept his seat for this long because of the Mexican sponsors.
    Personally, I’d like to see Giovinazzi take his place. Ferrari may try and draft him into the team as part of an engine deal for next season, especially if he beats Gasly to the GP2 title. Him and Grosjean would be a good line up, a mixture of youth and experience.

    Next season is shaping up to be very interesting, especially towards the lower ends of the points, I think we could be seeing McLaren, Force India, Williams, Renault, Haas and Toro Rosso all fighting for those last 4 points giving positions behind the obvious teams.

    1. Stroll/Verstappen comparison is moot, Stroll is in his second F3 season, at the top team, team orders getting him victories, third motorsport season over all and a relatively weak field. Verstappen was third with a midfield team in his first ever motorsport season and with an insanely strong field (Ocon, Blomqvist, Rosenquist, Giovinazzi, Fuoco, Auer).

  14. Do we think Magnussen could potentially go to Force India?

  15. I’ve been critical of Stroll in the past and will remain so, but regardless of that, the bigger issue may well be that he is a rookie, and only 18 years old, in cars that will be 5 seconds faster and much more physical to drive. I am seriously skeptical of how well this will go, regardless of talent or attitude.

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