Liberty’s American approach is “far below” F1 standards – Ecclestone

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In the round-up: Former Formula One chief Bernie Ecclestone has continued his criticism of the management of the sport by his successors at Liberty Media.

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Comment of the day

Potential new F1 logo submissions
It seems few of you are won over by the proposed new F1 logos:

I like the current F1 logo simply for its clever use of negative space for the ‘1’. To me, it’s the kind of logo that rewards you for studying it.

The first thing that caught my eye is that the trademark applications are all monochrome – this makes it immensely easy to theme and colour based on need, unlike the current logo which is red and black.

Of the three logos that were trademarked, I like the right-most one the least – it looks clunky and inelegant, and I cannot understand why the middle of the ‘1’ is offset to the right (I understand its offset similar to the horizontal stroke of the ‘F’, but why?).

The first one is probably the easiest to recognize, as it contains a clear ‘F1’ lettering. But beyond that, its boring and feels old school.

The second one is an attempt to design a clever logo – a track layout, with a 1 in it. However, the execution falls flat, since a ‘1’ does not lend itself to such a design. That said, if they ever redo the Formula 2 logo, then a ‘2’ could inspire a neat chicane (but don’t do it, the current F2 logo is a very tidy one).

I’d just ask Liberty to go back to the drawing board, or better still, fan-source the logo.
@Phylyp

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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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103 comments on “Liberty’s American approach is “far below” F1 standards – Ecclestone”

  1. “When I spoke to him later, I was like ‘that’s a sign of disrespect, so don’t ever disrespect me like that again otherwise then we will have problems’,” said Hamilton.

    LOL whats he going to do, fight him? drive into him? Im sure Vet will be scared, Ham would be too scared to even get a scratch on his face, cant go posing for photos in GQ like that

    1. As much as I admire LH’s driving career & achievements, sometimes he talks crap – or maybe it’s the loaded questions putting words into his mouth. I don’t think he should propagate the “gangsta respek, innit” crap that leads to so many stabbings & shootings, when gangsters feel “disrespected”. As you say, what’s LH going to do – get a contract out on SV? He shouldn’t talk like that.

      1. Exactly! Lewis is a brilliant talent and a great F1 driver, but he has a tendency to talk too much crap; often brought about by his desire to sound/look cool and/or position his personality as being different from the traditional European F1 driver.

        I’ve thought about it for sometime now, and just like there are populists in politics there are also “populists” in sports. Lewis is one of them, as is Conor McGregor.

        Their tendency to break the mould and act unpredictable/say outrageous things are polarizing and can make their “moderate” fans nervous/double take (I was team LH back in 2014-2015, and I cringed when he claimed Nico was more Monegasque than German after Germany won the world cup in 2014. Also when he said “maybe it’s because I’m black” as an attempt to rationalize the stewards decision to penalizie him in Monaco 2011). Ultimately, they end up attracting a wave of “fanboys” who are more drawn to their “larger than life” personalities more so than being geniuinely interested in the respective sport they compete in.

        1. @rafael-o, I thought that the jibe that Hamilton made was that Nico was only half German – which, though clumsily expressed, could be considered technically correct given that Nico is officially a Finnish-German dual national.

      2. Where in his comments was he trying to portray this “gangsta respek. Innit” crap you speak of?

        1. Kgn11 – Clearly, gangsters (gangstas?) are well known for quietly defusing situations and clarifying a position without taking the more physical approach of, say, Michael Schumaker chasing and thumping David Coulthard in the pit lane (/s).
          Or are we just hearing the usual badly informed, unthinking animosity of anti-fans here?

          1. * Schumacher… auto spell mangled.

      3. I don’t think he should propagate the “gangsta respek, innit” crap that leads to so many stabbings & shootings, when gangsters feel “disrespected”. As you say, what’s LH going to do – get a contract out on SV? He shouldn’t talk like that.

        That was all entirely in your own head, you realize that? Hamilton just says he said “we’ll have problems.” You really need to go off and have a good study of ‘racial profiling.’

      4. Ugh. You’re hiding around words but basically you’re insinuating this based on Hamilton’s mixed-race background. Or at least you’re treading around very fine lines.

    2. Why you must think physical actions like what teenagers would do? They both adults, they know there’re lot of things you can do to made someone you hate suffer. Hamilton could always hold up Vettel while letting his main rivals go through easily for example. It is petty, but when people taking action because they feel disrespected, being petty is kinda expected.

    3. Lewis is also a karate black belt. So he has learned more control than most. What’s this comment about scratches on faces again? 2/10 – Must try harder.

    4. Vettel plays badminton while Hamilton’s busy boxing. He can literally bury him if he wants to.

    5. Good for him. Vettel was acting like a fool.

    6. iirc Lewis is a Black belt in Karate

    7. While I doubt Hamilton has kept up with his training, to my knowledge, he’s the only black-belt in the paddock right now.

      Personally, I still think Vettel should have been black flagged for his actions– Engaging in such stupidity under the safety car shouldn’t be tolerated.

      1. Well….it’s good to see we have resorted to the who can beat up who level of debate on this!

  2. Does anyone even care what Bernie Ecclestone thinks any more?

    1. I have a choice of two responses: no, and Bernie who. I just can’t decide which one fully encapsulates my feelings.

      1. I don’t care enough to try…

      2. nice one @thecollaroyboys you made me laugh at the little evil gnome’s pain, thank you

    2. If he thinks that way, why did he sell up to Liberty again? ;)

    3. I guess some might. And it looks like Bernie is one of those! But yeah, didn’t even bother opening the article to read it.

      It’s good to see it’s out there in the roundup, but I am not interested much more than I would in reading Flav’s opinion.

    4. Bernie does!

    5. It’s nice to see Bernie is still willing to race to the bottom in insults. Bernie, being English, needs to be careful lobbing culinary aspersions.

      He really does seem to be getting more spiteful with age.

  3. I for one don’t but it is a shame to see the man that did a great deal for F1 before he lost the plot so bitter and twisted these days.

  4. Roth Man (@rdotquestionmark)
    19th November 2017, 0:35

    Well if Liberty Media are treating F1 like a fast-food restaurant, then Bernie was treating it like a food-bank!

    1. @rdotquestionmark he said he was treating F1 like a 3 Michelin star restaurant. I’m surprised he didn’t say 3 Pirelli star restaurant

      1. Roth Man (@rdotquestionmark)
        19th November 2017, 1:05

        @strontium The restaurant he was treating F1 like had about as many Michelin stars as the 2005 US GP had Michelin starters.

        1. @rdotquestionmark ahahaha that’s brilliant!!

        2. Comment of the day!

  5. I also have my concerns about where F1 is going. Obviously the new owners are “a breath of fresh air”, but time will tell what will actually happen in the long-term – I have some scepticism about it. It seems a lot of people are seeing something that isn’t Bernie Ecclestone running F1, and immediately getting excited about how much better it will become.

    I wish more drivers would enter F1 in a way similar to Hartley. F1 is supposed to be for the best, most refined (and some would argue, most experienced) drivers in the world. I’d like to see more proven drivers who have already raced at a high level, starting a bit older but already ready to rise to the challenge. Having drivers with only a couple of years of experience in junior categories often means they aren’t ready, they don’t deliver, and their F1 career is over before they have reached their mid-20s. It also means that drivers who miss the chance at 19 are effectively locked out of F1. Hartley was very lucky Red Bull didn’t have anybody else they wanted.

    Also, in response to comment of the day, it’s perfectly possible for them to just make the existing logo whatever colour they want, if that is their objective. It often features in all black or all white currently.

    1. Good point about how they can make the current logo itself monochrome, @strontium

    2. Michael Brown (@)
      19th November 2017, 2:58

      It would help if the FIA got rid of the superlicence points, because they used that to kill FR 3.5.

      1. @mbr-9, what seems to be forgotten is the way that the fan base were reacting when they saw a number of young drivers seemingly waltzing into the sport after skipping over most of the junior categories. It was that outcry for a tougher licencing system, and demands that the licencing system made younger drivers refine their racecraft in junior series, that resulted in the FIA bringing in the current points system – so the fans got what they wanted in that sense.

        As for the Formula Renault 3.5 Series, I’d argue that Renault’s decision to stop underwriting the cost of the series probably did more to kill off the series. I wouldn’t be surprised if it was effectively dropped because, with Renault deciding to move back into F1 with a works team at around the same time, they lost interest in the FR 3.5 series (I might be mistake, but I think that they’ve also cut back their involvement in other motorsport series in order to focus more resources on F1).

        1. anon,
          That is what I was thinking. It seems like a racing series cannot exist without the strong support of a motorsport authority of a (car) brand. The same thing happened with the F3000 and A1GP cars. They were acquired by a private party, lived on for a while with ever shrinking fields until the private party threw in the towel. That was before licence points.
          Maybe, just maybe, the licence points situation sped up the process. On the other hand there will many second-hand ex-GP2 cars available next year, so I wouldn’t be surprised if some V8-series popped up, using the Dallara-Mecachrome.

  6. Duncan Snowden
    19th November 2017, 1:14

    Yes, we get it, Bernie: you’re angry you don’t run things any more. Honestly, the slight mis-step of the USGP opening thing aside (which more or less worked in context), I haven’t seen Liberty put a foot wrong so far.

    Looking at those new logos again in the COTD, I’ve remembered what the middle one reminds me of. It’s Paul Rand’s unused 1966 Ford logo. Although seeing it again, it’s really not all that similar at all. But note the reason Henry II rejected it: “After some deliberation, Mr. Ford finally decided that, when it came to the family name, what was good enough for his grandfather was good enough for him.” Continuity’s important. The current one may not be perfect, but people know it. Heck, Coca-Cola’s had the same logo for over a century. If it ain’t broke…

  7. Thank you for the COTD, Keith!

    @Dundan – nice reference to the Ford logo.

    1. Well done on your COTD, @phylyp

      Personally, I cannot get used to the 2 logos on the left. The first one looks too much like FI (though should be resolved next year) and the second is too clever and reads like OFI.

      I’m happy with all the change Liberty is ‘serving’ us. Though the logo is one bit we can keep from the Ecclestone era.

    2. I think the third one is supposed to have two cars racing, that’s why the 1 also has that effect.

      1. @flig – mmm, that makes sense. Thank you.

  8. Well tbo Mr B fair they haven’t really done anything yet and can’t. OK the US intro. Hmmmm.

    Also, you do know the arms of your glasses go top of your ears right?

  9. Reading Joe Saward’s article about F1 payments, and then seeing this Q&A from Bernie’s interview just makes me shake my head:

    Q: At one point you said that you had helped Ferrari win. What did you mean when you said that?
    Bernie: If there was anything I could do to help Ferrari, then I’d do it. Mr. [Enzo] Ferrari helped me a lot.

    Q: What kind of help?
    Bernie: Nothing that would have been detrimental to others. And if it had been, I wouldn’t tell you. The other teams know that they depend on Ferrari.

    That interview does reveal a part of the psyche of the man, such as his (separate) references to an assassin and Putin! :-)

    1. Yes @phylyp I was surprised more wasn’t made of those quotes. At first I thought it was surprisingly blatant, but then hey, it’s nothing we didn’t know, so I guess he figures he might as well be open about it. All this scaremongering and trash talking must be to persuade Liberty to keep up their payments to Ferrari

  10. Im surprised they didn’t do something in Comic Sans for the F1 logo. Bernie being the comic and now we are Sans him.

  11. Aww come on Bernie. Shut up already. Go live on your coffee farm and enjoy your retirement.

    I guess power is addictive.

    1. petebaldwin (@)
      20th November 2017, 14:33

      @jaymenon10 – He always hid behind the argument that his job was to make money for the shareholders – not to make the sport better for fans.

      That’s fine but why won’t he let it go now? They are trying to improve the sport – his advice is solely about making a few more pennies for the suits.

  12. Michael Brown (@)
    19th November 2017, 2:55

    Re: COTD: “A 1 does not lend itself well to track design.”

    Hockenheim’s hairpin

    1. Maybe Spa as the ‘F” and Austin or Montreal as the “1”

      1. Michael Brown (@)
        19th November 2017, 17:06

        That’s really ever, especially using Spa as an F

  13. Idiot ! He can eat snails, I’ll go for a barbecue joint in Austin anytime.

  14. I care, the last thing I want for f1 is a zero version.
    Vettel was silly about that Baku incident, that said I don’t think there’s any lack of respect, it’s Hamilton who needs to look to himself in order to understand why would Vettel think Lewis was playing games that Lewis braked checked, it’s absolutely true that Ham was playing games, but it’s also true that Hamilton didn’t brake check.

    1. @peartree I failed to see why Hamilton need to reflect on himself with Baku incident. He done absolutely nothing wrong, and the telemetry confirmed he didn’t brake earlier than usual. Even if he is playing mind games (which I don’t see any for Baku), you can’t blame someone doing what is “normal”.

  15. Michael Brown (@)
    19th November 2017, 3:00

    I don’t think F1 was at a “higher standard” when it had no YouTube channel and took down F1 videos.

    1. Commoners now have access like we use fast food restaurants where Beanie thinks access to F1 should be for the rich only. If u do not get a new Rolex every month Bernie thinks ur worthless trash and should not be near F1. F1 has already improved…great day soon when Bernie is 6 foot under.

  16. CCB does not take into account the actual number of wins, but rather the position in the hierarchy.

    So it does not make any sense for Joe Saward to divide total amount to how many times teams wins. Any best three team deserved the prize money even they never win once.

    1. @ruliemaulana, it doesn’t make sense in that respect, but it does give Joe the opportunity to create the sort of tagline that Keith has picked out of the article in order to generate attention for his blog and his publications.

      Joe does come across as being a bit spiteful and rather thin skinned, and given the way that he has complained about Ferrari not speaking to the press, and in particular not speaking to him, I think that there is an element of a personal grudge going on in articles that involve Ferrari.

      1. Finbarr Saunders
        19th November 2017, 9:07

        Then you don’t know anything about Mr Saward.

        1. Finbarr Saunders, I do, and recall how he acted rather angrily when, having written a series of rather hostile articles about Force India in 2012, some posters on his site asked whether he had a conflict of interest in besmirching the reputation of Force India.

          At the time he was writing those articles, he had recently been given a job on the board of Caterham Cars by Tony Fernandes. At the same time, the Caterham F1 team was being sued by Force India over stealing the designs of certain components – Caterham eventually lost the lawsuit and were forced to pay compensation to Force India.

          Joe had initially declined to publicly admit to that potential conflict of interest, and only admitted to the appointment when people provided evidence from Companies House that Joe had been appointed to the board of directors (though he still tried to deny that there was any conflict in interest, despite being directly appointed by Fernandes to his position and corresponding with Fernandes on a regular basis as part of his role at the company).

          Many felt at the time that the real reason why Joe was writing a series of articles at the time that were attacking Force India, which seemed aimed at scaring people off from dealing with the team, was because Caterham were trying to pressurise Force India into dropping their lawsuit and that Joe was writing them as a favour to Fernandes. At the very least, when you are working directly with the person defending that lawsuit, you have to question whether you can truly report on the events in a neutral manner.

          There was also a lot of complaints that, during the 2012 Bahrain GP, he had accepted offers of hospitality from the Bahraini government and, having been guided around by government appointees, spent his time writing pro-government propaganda pieces and attacking the reporting of other journalists there, accusing them of exaggerating the problems and playing down the claims of sectarian violence.

          He has abandoned his neutrality and allowed his reporting to become biased in the past, and indeed this year a number of his articles have had a pro-Red Bull spin to them, especially when reporting about Verstappen (whom he seems rather enamoured with). Given his past record of partiality and poor responses to criticism, I would not hold Joe up as a bastion of neutrality and have to question the political slant of some of his articles as a result.

          1. Anon, that’s a good post and quite shocking if true. I worked in trade & technical journals for years (in Ent Tech, not motor racing) and the scope for this kind of skullduggery is huge and bordering on corrupt. Misleading the readership for the benefit of a particular advertiser from a ‘trusted’ position (in return for certain, ahem, benefits) undermines the whole process. Unfortunately I’ll bet you find this going on everywhere in the media. Which is why there should be a question mark against any form of media that is solely funded by paid advertising, at least in the printed world. I have no experience with digital media.

          2. You seem to completely forget that articles in his blog are opinions not independent journalism and further, he is providing said insider information for absolutely free.

            Given some of the truly ridiculous comments he gets from people who apparently are more skilled, knowledgable and able to get inside access from their armchairs, I do not blame his terse attitude.

            If you do not like it – do not read it.

            It is not as though you paid for it.

            Further at least he has provided a break down for F1 payments in the past, no one else has and whichever way you look at it the balance of payment towards Ferrari is crazy.

            I will not even bother arguing or debating your director comments. You have not provided an accurate summary regarding the number of companies, it’s structure, type of directorship, shareholding etc but I rather think you know that.

            As for Force India, his only issue is with the behaviour of the owner and he last in a long line there.

            It looks to me as though you are someone Joe chose to not debate the content of his blog with?

          3. Drg, so what you are saying is that, just because it is an opinion piece, it is OK to push a clear political line fed to you by a government that wants to distract and obfuscate over a particular issue? Or to hide potential conflicts of interest when discussing a legal dispute that involves a man who has appointed you to a particular position?

            As for claim that, because he provides insider information, it is therefore OK for him to say what he wants does not mean that he is above reproach when he has been wide of the mark with some of the comments he has made – for example, suggesting that the BRDC were not going to activate their break clause for the British GP, only for the BRDC to promptly do so a few months later.

            As for his directorship, as I stated, it is a matter of public record and can be requested from Companies House in the UK (for example, here is the confirmation of his appointment and time as an active director https://beta.companieshouse.gov.uk/officers/kkipoeREzXQqzhcaWm-n7ii4y9g/appointments ).

      2. A sensitive pundit. He better stay away from article that contain number then. Stick to F1 travel experience, the one he’s good at.

  17. Stroll: My season a ‘strong 8.5 out of 10’ (F1 Planet)
    “Eine 9 wäre zu gut. Ich muss mir noch Luft nach oben lassen.”
    The quote is from the original AMuS article.

  18. He made a sport that millions watch and we all love. He even made himself amazingly rich at the same time.

    Why so many people are so ready to throw this man onto the fire I just don’t know. Perhaps they need to remember that F1 is a business first, not a sport.

    1. F1 is a business first

      That’s exactly where BE has made his biggest mistake, @joshgeake.
      He did extremely well initially by growing revenue and the value of the business. But he missed out that he was treating a growing high-margin business as a “Cash Cow” rather than a “Star”. That stifled spectator growth, slowed down revenue growth and actually reduced the value of the overall business (EV of $10B in 2012 to $8B when Liberty bought it).
      Whilst other Sports Businesses continued to grow in value, F1 topped out and was on the way back.

      Liberty seems to have its priorities right: get spectator growth first, revenue growth next, and EV will follow.

      1. I’d argue Bernie didn’t make a mistake. He looked at an opportunity back then when no one cares about commercial side of F1 and made it his business. Fast forward to now, F1 commercial side has tremendous success and arguably eclipsing the sport side, and basically it’s all because Bernie. You may see it as F1 is declining, but if we looked from Bernie perspective, he got the maximum out of it. Why care about the future when you’re already as old as him?

        1. @sonicslv

          Why care about the future when you’re already as old as him?

          That applies only if he cares about himself and nothing else, not even F1 as a sport, and I’m not sure that’s an acceptable attitude for a F1 supremo to have…

          1. That applies only if he cares about himself and nothing else

            @neutronstar It’s very clear that that’s the case.

    2. A lot of the criticism of Bernie is put out by some of the bloggers, chiefly Joe Saward, and as is pointed out above, he can at times be anything but a reliable and unbiased source of information. Bernie created the sport I love, F1. Hoping against hope that F1 can indeed outlast Bernie.
      Do I have total confidence in the new boys? I have seen nothing so far to bolster any such confidence!

      1. My sentiments exactly!

    3. You haven’t been paying attention for the last 20 years.

  19. I’d always treated F-1 as if it were a 3-star Michelin restaurant [three stars is the highest rating offered to restaurants by the French guide-book]

    I think it would be so much nicer for Mr Ecclestone to not remind us to recall history, we might remember things like he was the one that had the TV cameras pointing only at certain cars, and definitely not those other ones, or the fact some teams were paid $10M for a whole year of racing. I now think F1 was being run into the ground and, if Liberty Media weren’t here, would have had to merge with some lesser series like Indy cars. I could go on, but I don’t want to waste any more of my time on this fiction. Liberty Media own the business and have plans to improve it and make it better.

    1. @drycrust. Merge with Indycars? You’re having a laugh. Be careful what you wish for..Remember that Bernie’s business model hadn’t changed in years. If it’s so wrong now, why wasn’t it so wrong 30 years ago when F1 was top dog? There are many other factors affecting F1’s current status and one of the biggest killers is uncertainty which Liberty Media have brought in droves. It’s clear to me, they don’t know what the heck to do with it and are going to fiddle with it until it implodes. It needs bold decisive action by people with vision, and I haven’t seen a single sign of any of that, just a lot of down-market fiddling.

      1. @baron I disagree. First of all BE’s business model imho changed drastically when he and Max post-Senna orchestrated the MS/Ferrari elephant in the room, which forced costs to compete through the roof for the other teams, and which eventual saw the audience decline due to the predictability of MS’s effortless wins. And in the last decade it was, by BE’s own admission, all about making money for CVC. So yes, it has been broken, and it does need fixing.

        What surprises me is you seem to not even want to give Liberty one season to put their twist on the plot. Bold knee jerk reactions was BE’s thing. Liberty have only talked about well thought out ideas, properly implemented for the long term health of the sport, including taking away some of the skewed influence the selfish self-interested have teams enjoy, and giving the lesser teams a little more chance to compete and grow.

        Can Liberty have a minute to analyze what is good and what is bad about F1 as it sits today, and then make conscientious decisions, including in a media environment that is itself changing rapidly right now?

      2. @baron, BE has brought F1 to the brink of self destruction and it’s time that people born after the stone age take over.

        What has changed over the last 30 years is that back then everybody could watch F1 on TV. Often including all practice sessions and qualifying. Now only a “happy” paying few are able to see any of it really. Which means the teams are losing income because advertising is what pays for this whole circus. Less and less TV coverage means less and less income.

        Liberty media at least has made the improvement there that they use technology which BE has never wanted to embrace. At least now we get an overview of what happened during all sessions on Youtube. Massive improvement right there if you ask me.

        What has also changed over the last 30 years is that F1 has more and more become the vanity toy of despots and corrupt regimes. In an effort to pilfer more and more money from race organizers the fees have grown to ridiculous heights. Everybody needs to pay for BE’s greed. Because of this, countries with a heritage in autosport have more and more been removed from the calendar and replaced by nations which have no affinity with F1 whatsoever. After a few years F1 tends to leave these new nations and replaced by another rich milk cow.

        Liberty media seems more keen to keep historic venues and hopefully use a more sustainable fee structure so race organizers actually have some money to improve their venues rather then struggle endlessly to keep their head above water until they go under and BE happily buries them and blames the government who wouldn’t pay more.

        The emphasis should come back to improving the sport, instead of some white collar goons milking F1 for every penny.

        1. +1 Excellent summation of the current situation in F1.

  20. Bernie’s problem is that it no longer matters whether he makes any good points about the direction of the sport as

    (1) it looks very sour grapes at being effectively forced out against his will
    (2) the direction he was taking the sport wasn’t exactly a fan’s dream anyway.

    I’m kind of wondering what Liberty are thinking about him. They’ve given him this honorary position and all he seems to use it for is to attack Liberty – he’s clearly gone into full sabotage mode.

    So far though Liberty haven’t done that much and what they have done is generally good and what they have said the will do is generally what I want to hear. So I think I’d prefer it if Bernie put his money where his mouth was and started working on something else as opposed to just mouthing off.

  21. Completely agree with CotD the current logo is actually pretty clever – by the way, i think the horizontal stroke on 3rd logo is to make it look like 1 car following another? – Still crap, and it makes no sense, but yeah…

    1. @N – that makes sense, thank you.

  22. I get why they’re looking into new logos. What I worry about is that even though they won’t come up with a better logo than the current one they will move full steam ahead with the change anyway.

    Tweak the current logo slightly and make it look a bit more contemporary by all means, but don’t change it to something worse for change’s sake.

  23. Teams & media people have been shown the new F1 Logo & apparently it’s not gone down well but despite the criticism Liberty said they were pushing ahead with it anyway.

    I also hear that next year’s there will be a heavy emphasis on computer generated advertisements on the TV broadcast’s with the ad’s been catered for each region’s TV feed.
    Also the general tone of the broadcast will likely feel more American because a lot of the people been brought in have American broadcast backgrounds & have been pushing for a more American style presentation & graphics set. However due to it been pointed out that that style of presentation doesn’t work well everywhere & that the style of graphics you tend to see in things like Indycar also don’t work well for some of the features F1 has available as well as not been a popular style in European broadcast’s it’s expected that the 2018 graphics will be similar to what we have now or potentially customized for each region with different regions getting different graphics, information & so on (Something broadcasters don’t like BTW as it’s felt everyone should get the same).

    1. @gt-racer I think the virtual ad’s have been a lot better this year than they were the previous few. The virtual banners they have used have looked better than the stuff they were putting on the runoff’s in past years & even the stuff they have put on runoff’s this year have seemed to blend in better/stand out less.

      The only thing I hope they don’t do in terms of the on-screen presentation is come up with something too much in the US sport style because i’ve never really been that big a fan of the way US sports presentation is. In terms of graphics (That tend to be too big & provide less info of interest) & overuse of things like split-screen (I hate Indycar’s constant split-screening of OnBoards, Especially for the races on ABC).

  24. Well obviouslly it is a non-racing news weekend. Featuring Bernie talking nonsense, Ferrari blocking wise rule change to gain an advantage, then there is Lewis talking smack.

    Atleast Lewis delivers on track.

    Bernie for last 10 years failed to improve F1, Ferrari failed to win a championship, lots of talk, no action.

    Any news of Kubica Williams signing?

    Any news when new car companies will come in? Any news when teams with 200 milion budget can compete for championships?

    1. I think the Ferrari excuse is daft. They may have worked on 3 engines a season but reliability wise this year Merc were better on power and reliability. By agreeing to more engines they would have nullified a Merc advantage based on the engines since 2014.

  25. C’mon Lewis, aha, wee 5’6 Massa warned you on camera few years back on live t.v and you stood there like a little a little girl. Youre starting get over you’re head.

    1. Massa’s friends may have waited for Lewis outside the gates at Interlagos. Who wouldn’t back down?

    2. You mean when Massa tapped him on the shoulder and Lewis turned round to him and said ‘Don’t touch me, man’ and Massa walked away?

      Yep, big warning, lol.

      1. Lewis stood there waited for Massa to walk then spoke when Massa had left. Great driver Lewis but like 99.9 percent of racers he is no tough man.

  26. So they simplify the engine formula by eliminating the mgu-h to try and get other suppliers in the sport. Then they go and limit the total number to three. I think they just shot themselves in the foot.

  27. Mercedes gets $685,000 for each win, Red Bull $1,830,000 per win, but Ferrari get a whopping $6 million per win.

    Cheap polemics. There is (virtually) no relation between the payout and the number of victories.
    Saward does state that in his blog:

    There are then various bonus schemes, the most importnt one being the Constructor Champions’ Bonus (CCB) scheme, which rewards the three teams that have scored the most race wins in the previous four seasons. Thus 2013, 2014, 2015 and 2016. This is an odd way of calculating the cash as Mercedes have won 54 victories, Red Bull 18 and Ferrari five, but the CCB does not take into account the actual number of wins, but rather the position in the hierarchy.

    But, Saward being Saward, he manages to weave a good dose of doublethink into his analysis, stating (more or less) that there is no reason for outrage, before he goes on to distort the figures in a way that the only reasonable interpretation of the author’s intention is him wanting his readers to be outraged. Judging by the quoted exerpt in this round-up here, this intended reading, rather than the factual basis, is what prevails.

    To fight some windmills:
    The nasty spin Saward puts into his analysis is disingenuous, plain and simple. He makes it look as though this bonus is all about Ferrari, when it isn’t. Not even remotely. This CCB rewards the three teams that won the most races over a given period of time, awarding them more or less the same prize money (with a slight gradation). The seasons from 2013 to 2016 just so happen to be one of the least successful stretches in Ferrari’s history, while Mercedes have been all-conquering, and Red Bull are saved in that ranking by their record-breaking 2013 campaign. The only other team to have won a race are Lotus, with a single race win, finishing 4th and thus not getting any additional money as a reward. But let’s just imagine for a second that the CBB rewarded 4 teams instead of 3, and 4th place got $10 million.
    Does anyone believe for a second that Saward would’ve written the same paragraph, with the punchline that Lotus “gets a whopping $10 million per win”?

    Now, let’s look at next season. No matter who wins in Abu Dhabi (let’s just assume that it’s going to be Mercedes), the picture changes a little. Mercedes will still lead, now with 63 wins, ahead of Ferrari and Red Bull with 8 wins each. I have no idea how this tie will be broken, but either way, MGP will only get less than $600,000 per win, and Red Bull and Ferrari will both get a ‘whopping’ $4,125,000 or $3,750,000 per win. Boo!

    The thing is, they don’t. Sawards use of the word ‘gets’ is as disingenuous as it ‘gets’, because it ambiguously implies that the payout is directly connected to the number of race wins, and that some teams get an unfair advantage by earning about 10 times as much extra prize money per race win as Mercedes do. But that’s factually wrong. Mercedes still get more money than anyone else, and the only way for anyone else, including Ferrari, to earn more money from that bonus, would be winning more races over the course of 4 consecutive seasons.

    Yes, Saward could weasel his way out of that by saying that he laid out the fact and simply drew a logical, factually correct conclusion. But as a reader with a brain, there is no way to look past the fact that he segmented and packaged the truth in a way that only lends itself to be interpreted as an accusation of systematic pro-Ferrari bias. Ferrari does have an unfair advantage, in the shape of an unconditional $90 million payment, that doesn’t have anything to do with the CCB. Apparently, criticising that payment isn’t enough, so rhetorical poison darts are needed in unrelated fields as well.

    This is disgraceful journalism.

    1. +1000000!!!

  28. Hey @robbie I sincerely hope Liberty spent more than just one season to decide whether to spend billions on it. Here’s the thing. If F1 goes bad for them, they can just walk away and claim tax relief. For Bernie, it was his life. Sure, he made money out of it but most of the teams backed his model. F1 today is because of Bernie, not in spite of him. Bernie was (is) ‘family’. PS I’m not against Liberty, I just want to see more than hot air & a huge moustache.

    1. I just don’t share the same pessimism, don’t expect them to just walk, it is their life now, and they deserve time. I don’t believe BE was the only one that could have built F1 up the way he did, but kudos of course for what he did. Most are of the opinion his time was up. Until Liberty takes the proper time it might just sound like hot air, but I’ll take that over knee jerk more of the same. Why not?

  29. Here’s everything you need to know about Bernie saying, “Everyone in Brazil appears to be corrupt. You need someone like [Russian president] Putin. He’d fix everything”, the businessman said.
    If Bernie thinks Putin isn’t corrupt, he’s delusional!

  30. I was against Christian’s agitating if favor of the new engine specifications in the past weeks. However, I feel sorry because RBR initiative to scrap three engine rule per season wasn’t successful. It’s not easy to oppose Ferrari in F1. It’s so hard not to notice abundance of dubiety in technical regulations made by FIA and how is F1 governed. Keeping four engine rule would be very practical way of reducing development costs. This way it seems some teams, sorry Ferrari, doesn’t care about the costs.

    1. Keeping four engine rule would be very practical way of reducing development costs

      Would it? By reducing the number of engines that can be used in a season it reduces the number of “updated” engines that can be used within a season without penalty by 25%.

      In fairness, I don’t really think that the number of engines allowed per season will have any effect on development costs at all. The manufacturers are going to follow all development paths that they can to find either improved performance or reliability or both pretty much regardless of cost. It is more likely to be about allocation of resources (such as time and personnel) than outright cost.

  31. I’d always treated F-1 as if it were a 3-star Michelin restaurant.

    Damn Bernie, I can’t afford to eat at a restaurant like that. Is that why I haven’t been to a Grand Prix in nearly twenty years?

    If there was anything I could do to help Ferrari, then I’d do it. Mr. [Enzo] Ferrari helped me a lot.

    Everyone in Brazil appears to be corrupt. You need someone like [Russian president] Putin. He’d fix everything.

    Ye gods, Bernie.

  32. Biskit Boy (@sean-p-newmanlive-co-uk)
    19th November 2017, 22:42

    Liberty’s appointment of Ross Brawn shows they are on the right track (no pun intended).

    Mr Ecclestone never made such a sportingly shrewd appointment.

  33. None of the logo’s are great tbh. The first one seems the least schoolboy but even so its a bit too chunky. They’d get great PR if they opened up a global competition and they’d get the new logo for free. Still, obvious solutions and f1 are not comfortable bedfellows.

  34. “…don’t ever disrespect me like that again otherwise then we will have problems”
    Well, we wouldn’t want that now, would we? Or else what? Is Lewis going to go all NASCAR on Vettel and start throwing helmets? Please.
    These two seem to vie alternately for chief prima donna, with Max close behind taking notes. I’m ready for a Ricciardo championship.

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