Backmarkers need to respect leaders too – Wolff

52 comments on “Backmarkers need to respect leaders too – Wolff”

1. 

   dusty (@dusty)
   19th September 2018, 0:43

   Somebody please think of the children.
   1. 

      @HoHum (@hohum)
      19th September 2018, 1:28

      What are the odds ?
   2. 

      maiagus
      19th September 2018, 1:29

      I bet they are.
   3. 

      RP (@slotopen)
      19th September 2018, 2:46

      I wager nothing good will come from this.
   4. 

      Adam
      19th September 2018, 7:29

      Stakes are too high for me to pass judgement
   5. 

      Mick
      19th September 2018, 12:18

      Stop playing russian roulette with childrens lives, it wil destroy the fabric of wholesome society
2. 

   Chad (@chaddy)
   19th September 2018, 1:00

   Ferrari launched 2 new cars today–
   https://www.ferrari.com/en-US
   …I think it’s safe to say they don’t view the halo as a necessary part of their cars.
   1. 

      Will Jones (@sleepywill)
      19th September 2018, 7:01

      There is one good use for the halo – if you construct a wall from them, all around your house – you’ll make it burglar proof. You see, it seems that no-one can get over the halo.

      badum-tish
      1. 

         luigismen (@luigismen)
         19th September 2018, 9:09

         It was so bad that I laughed.
   2. 

      Jimmi Cynic (@jimmi-cynic)
      19th September 2018, 7:01

      Thongfully not.
3. 

   petebaldwin (@)
   19th September 2018, 1:09

   F1 doesn’t really lend itself to betting… There aren’t enough shock results and there are only 20 races a year. Bad football teams often get results against good teams – no-one outside of the top 3 teams in F1 is going to win or get pole.
   1. 

      schooner (@schooner)
      19th September 2018, 1:27

      Team orders could potentially cause some real problems as well.
      1. 

         Zim
         19th September 2018, 6:30

         Very good point.
      2. 

         ColdFly (@)
         19th September 2018, 7:07

         Especially when a betting company sponsors a team
   2. 

      maiagus
      19th September 2018, 1:34

      I don’t think betting revolves around football derbies or major games, but on middle table matches, or even singular events on a sport event.
      For instance: who outqualifies who? Alonso gets better than 10th? HAM wins and leads 30+ laps? Who is 3rd: BOT/RAI?
   3. 

      John Toad (@)
      19th September 2018, 4:07

      Betting on football tends to be around odd things like:
      Time of first corner
      Number of corners in game
      Time of first free kick
      and so on.
      Unfortunately it has also led to a number if scams with players being bribed to force something to happen a particular time.
      I see Crashgate v2 looming large.
   4. 

      Fudge Kobayashi (@)
      19th September 2018, 11:26

      I’ve had some absolutely cracking results this season to be fair. Correctly predicted Bottas pole at Austria, Kimi pole at Monza (that one had pretty outrageous odds), Max on the podium a few times and a Danny Ric fastest lap.

      I generally only stick to betting on qually and fastest laps as the winners odds for Lewis or Seb are awful and other choices are mostly unrealistic.
4. 

   Foggy (@)
   19th September 2018, 1:30

   Disgraceful that F1 stoops so low as to advertise gambling, if this is the best way Liberty can generate money then I think F1 is in a pretty sorry state …. this is really really bad news.
   1. 

      Will Jones (@sleepywill)
      19th September 2018, 7:12

      As a Sky viewer, the sport may as well have been sponsored by the number of gambling ads I’ve been exposed too over the years. There’s nothing, in my opinion wrong with the actual act of gambling – speaking as an adult with no addiction problems, but it is one of those industries infested by some of the dodgiest companies. As far as I am concerned, so long as ISG and Sportradar make a good effort to protect the vulnerable, then it’s fine. I won’t be participating, but I’m one of those oddballs who finds most grand prix really exciting enough anyway!
      1. 

         bosyber (@bosyber)
         19th September 2018, 7:19

         Good point @sleepywill, maybe the only difference it will make for UK viewers is that it will be a bit streamlined; while for others, like me in Germany (or in the Netherlands), it should make very little difference too @foggy, for if they want to be strictly legal, they cannot advertise gambling at all (both countries used to have gambling be a state monopoly due to addiction risk – EU rules have made that contentious, but they both still keep it tightly regulated; quite rightly in my own opinion). I suppose that’s what that ‘integrity platform’ is partly about?
   2. 

      Jimmi Cynic (@jimmi-cynic)
      19th September 2018, 21:17

      @foggy: Agree.

      But, we already knew F1 was in a sorry state when Liberty bought Bernie’s $8 Billion used car. This ‘alliance’ confirms suspicions that Liberty are having a tough time keeping up the payments.

      The article doesn’t state how much money Liberty gets from the deal. Also silent on whether the teams get a cut from this new ‘revenue’ stream or if this deal-with-the-devil is solely for Liberty’s pockets.
5. 

   Aldoid
   19th September 2018, 2:37

   F1 already went through the smoking & drinking phase. Gambling seems like the natural progression of things.
6. 

   Robert
   19th September 2018, 2:41

   I think the idea of the blue flag rule is good, those that are a full lap behind should not decide the outcome of the front fight. But it should not force a driver to put his own race position at risk, everyone on track should be allowed to have their own battles. What if when blue flagged you didn’t have to worry about loosing your position? Kind of like during a virtual safety car, you slow down – but keep your position. So if a group of cars are blue flagged together they would all have to slow down and put their fight on hold until the leaders have passed, and then have a small restart.
   1. 

      Aldoid
      19th September 2018, 3:08

      I agree that would probably be the most logical way to do it, similar to the virtual safety car period. Blue flags out while you’re battling for position: hold station until the leaders get by then resume racing. Seems like a very simple fix to me.
   2. 

      Will Jones (@sleepywill)
      19th September 2018, 7:13

      That is a good idea – don’t blue flag individual cars, blue flag a whole group at a time
      1. 

         Martin Nash
         19th September 2018, 9:03

         +!
7. 

   Jay Menon (@jaymenon10)
   19th September 2018, 3:20

   The shift to gambling was inevitable I feel. This is one way of increasing and or maintaining the levels of interest.

   I mean purists aside, sports like horse and dog racing exist predominantly because of the gambling business that goes hand in hand with it.
   1. 

      Shimks (@shimks)
      19th September 2018, 9:28

      @jaymenon10, this was not inevitable. It was a choice made, and a disgusting one at that. This is the world we live in. Top dollar is all that top management ever think about and, naively, I am always hoping for morally sounder decisions. Very sad.
8. 

   Tristan (@skipgamer)
   19th September 2018, 3:21

   As esports turns its back to the shady world of online gambling, more traditional sports jump in bed with it.

   Just digging their own grave honestly. I know what I’d rather let my kids watch…
   1. 

      Tristan (@skipgamer)
      19th September 2018, 3:36

      Also it makes a mockery of their decision to ban grid girls on a moral basis. What moral high ground could Liberty possibly have by bringing major gambling capability/advertising to the sport? They don’t care about morals and what values they’re promoting. Just makes me think someone must have lobbied them/offered money on the grid girl issue.

      What a joke, you’d be crazy to have high hopes for F1 for anything other than a short term investment. Maybe they’ve realised they can’t get the big teams to play ball with making a fair competition and growing it long term, so they have decided just to do a CVC and milk it after all.
      1. 

         Phylyp (@phylyp)
         19th September 2018, 4:08

         Also it makes a mockery of their decision to ban grid girls on a moral basis. What moral high ground could Liberty possibly have by bringing major gambling capability/advertising to the sport? They don’t care about morals and what values they’re promoting.

         What a joke, you’d be crazy to have high hopes for F1 for anything other than a short term investment. Maybe they’ve realised they can’t get the big teams to play ball with making a fair competition and growing it long term, so they have decided just to do a CVC and milk it after all.

         Both are very good points, @skipgamer .

         Just makes me think someone must have lobbied them/offered money on the grid girl issue.

         I think it might have been a cost-savings measure, combined with hopping onto the whole ‘me too’-related sentiment’s bandwagon for some quick and easy publicity.
      2. 

         Will Jones (@sleepywill)
         19th September 2018, 7:17

         What is immoral about gambling?
         1. 

            bosyber (@bosyber)
            19th September 2018, 7:28

            See the post by @Zim below @sleepywill – I guess it is partly a cultural difference, I know (and see from Sky UK! as you mentioned) that in the UK, betting on most everything is apparently quite normal; while in the Netherlands, it is frowned upon (and betting is often associated with criminal types that try to corrupt soccer, tennis, you name it, to manufacture odds for Russian/Asian betting gangs/their customers); here in Germany it seems a bit more accepted (in our neighbourhood quite a few ‘casino’ things, and shops with betting on sports adds, both presumably with license), but legally no advertising allowed. The reasoning is the addiction risk, though I think it is partly just seen as ‘uncivilised’, rather than part of normal sports appreciation (and the rather shady types that seem to be associated, I mean these casino things here smell of laundering money, don’t help …).
         2. 

            Tristan (@skipgamer)
            19th September 2018, 7:39

            @sleepywill

            It’s an interesting topic actually, I’m not so sure honestly, I was just writing for the drama of it all. There are links, especially with the smaller online bookies to laundering money for people smuggling rings, but obviously I doubt those are the kind of bookies F1 are getting involved with.

            A lot of governments around the world at the moment are particularly coming down hard on (video) games which contain the same gambling-like mechanisms… Gambling is generally seen as not a very good thing on the whole lately, mostly because it’s “addictive” (science speak for something someone can enjoy too much to the point of it “ruining” their otherwise “normal life”).

            Whether that’s correct or not is another question, but it’s certainly something a lot of national governments are believing in.
            1. 

               Will Jones (@sleepywill)
               19th September 2018, 7:58

               Oh, I know all about the video game thing – I was one of the first people (back when Diablo 3 launched with a real money auction house) to ask the UK’s gaming commission if these mechanics met the definition of gambling. I think the big problem with gambling and gambling like mechanics in video games is not that they contain them, I’ve seen plenty of ads for casino websites with gambling games that look like your typical phone game, but it’s that they don’t conform to the regulations controlling gambling – so EA for example could probably not have a problem if they displayed their odds and ensured children couldn’t play their games with lootboxes in them. This is the issue I think is getting missed in the debate – gambling isn’t bad in itself, but what video games are doing is trying to market gambling and gambling like mechanics to children – who by definition are unable to deal with those pressures responsibly.

               @bosyber I understand that there are incredibly shady characters and business practices in the industry, but you can say that about almost any industry. Imagine if F1 banned a construction firm, because famously, construction is by far and away the easiest and most prolific money laundering industry. However, so long as the companies in question are free from any taint, then is there an argument that they shouldn’t be tarred with their industry?
9. 

   Tony
   19th September 2018, 3:38

   Screw the gambling, they don’t give a rats arse about the fans or the race just how much money they can rake in.
   As for ‘Blue Flags’ scrap them altogether if a driver is skilled enough and fast enough they will find a way past if not thats their problem, they are supposed to be the ‘Best’ drivers. My thoughts are we should scrap all in car communications except for a driver to advise they need to pit for tires or other repairs. As it is now the real winners are the pit wall engineers & strategists who decide everything. Let the drivers race & the cream (best) will always rise to the top. Sit back and imagine any of the top 6 drivers cooking their ICE, Turbo or any other parts or running out of fuel 1 lap from home because their was no one telling them to save fuel or the motor was about to expire because they were pushing too hard unnecessarily & it cost them a podium or the championship. Expect the unexpected just they way it was when Moss & Fangio were racing.
10. 

    Phylyp (@phylyp)
    19th September 2018, 4:11

    • Regionalised branded on-screen graphics
    • Physical and virtual trackside signage
    • Digital integration across F1’s rapidly expanding digital and social platforms

    As if the screen wasn’t busy enough with the new font, “fat” graphics and R2-D2 bleeps today, now we’re going to have this stuff also adding on to the screen. Just like how the audio stream offers a ‘racing sounds/no commentary option’, I’d hope there’s a way of cleaning up the screen.

    The timing of the announcement is interesting, as we head towards the close of this season – I’m sure the punters are salivating at the opportunity to bet on the WDC, as well as other minutiae up and down the grid.
11. 

    Fer no.65 (@fer-no65)
    19th September 2018, 6:12

    Very degrading and highly profitable. F1s motto. And they dropped grid girls because of moral values… If they raised money they’d still be there. Different owners, same thinking! They just couldn’t avoid those 100 million!
12. 

    Zim
    19th September 2018, 6:37

    Gambling is a cancer that preys on the desperate. In the end, the only winner is the bookie – never heard of a poor one as someone once said.

    Some say it’s a choice, but how much is really a choice these days when our senses are being bombarded with the most advanced marketing strategies that have ever existed, yet we still rely on our primitive, susceptable instabook brains to make decisions.

    Open for discussion! :D
    1. 

       Will Jones (@sleepywill)
       19th September 2018, 7:23

       I have been bombarded by gambling adverts since Sky started televising F1 – 7 years now and not once have I placed a bet.

       Don’t get me wrong, I know some people do have an addiction to gambling, and those people need our support and respect – and if these companies are taking advantage, not supporting them then this needs to be brought out into the open – but if the companies are doing all that can be expected of them, then maybe this can be done well.

       Wait, they are going to put graphics on the screen.

       Oh….. FFS
13. 

    Retired (@jeff1s)
    19th September 2018, 7:13

    The What They Say section should be renamed the What They Said section or Snail News section.

    I gambled a few times on F1 with Unibet and this is not attractive as it is either à Mercedes or a Ferrari winning.
14. 

    Joseph (@bigjoe)
    19th September 2018, 8:14

    The time has now come to implement ‘Bernie’s crazy idea’ (was it his?) of rotating drivers each race. Teams won’t own the drivers, F1 will.
    It would be far more exciting seeing what Hamilton, Bottas, Vettel and Raikonen could do with the McLaren and seeing Le Clerc, Alonso, Ocon, Verstappen getting to drive with the superior Mercedes team. Drivers and constructors championship remain unaffected.
    We could then see Hamilton win the championship scraping a few points in a Williams rather than romping home in a car 1-2 seconds faster than what his rivals have.
    1. 

       Jeremy
       19th September 2018, 10:51

       OH, i love this idea! The driver championship would then be awarded to the best driver, since all drivers would have driven the same car. Of course, there could still be an element of luck when for example, you have an engine blow up on you when it was your turn to race the Ferrari.
    2. 

       Will Jones (@sleepywill)
       19th September 2018, 15:51

       That was my idea!!!

       I wouldn’t put it past Bernie though
       1. 

          William Jones (@williamjones)
          19th September 2018, 15:58

          On this account (apparently I have two… that explains a lot!) here: https://www.racefans.net/2015/03/22/should-engine-performance-in-f1-be-equalised/
15. 

    JEREMY
    19th September 2018, 8:31

    What a sad state of affairs that 70% of the cardboard are now backmarkers. The fact that the gap between 6th and 7th is almost always a lap or more is really turning this fan off of F1.

    Maybe it’s Toto who needs to adopt more of a global perspective in order to deal with the disproportionate amounts of resources available to the different teams.

    We’ve effectively reached the point where there is a “B” race , whose racers are being penalized for racing. Grosjean gave the fans something to watch. It is F1 that should receive the penalty for allowing the creation of such a perverse structure that has led to two categories in the same race.

    By now, I’ve become fully exhausted with watching top six drivers “storm back” from the back of the field through cars that can’t even compete, as well as the pundits praising these fake “recoveries”.
16. 

    UNeedAFinn2Win (@uneedafinn2win)
    19th September 2018, 8:35

    I’ve been buying lunch betting on Mercedes winning for years, betting on the F1 races in Finland has been allowed since at least the early 2000:s. I don’t see a problem with money coming in to the sport from the public.

    Moral grounds, schmoral schrounds. fugeaboudid..
17. 

    GechiChan (@gechichan)
    19th September 2018, 9:23

    I see many people frowning upon this gambling thing, saying how young viewers get exposed to this by watching F1. But F1 has such a tiny audience compared to football, tennis, etc or even snooker where betting companies are completely owning the TV advertising time, pitch banners, sports-magazine websites or even the t-shirts of athletes. So i’m not sure how, as a sportsfan in general, you can NOT get exposed to betting nowadays.

    My point is: if in other sports is allowed, than F1 should use this too if it means better payments for the teams. But that’s certainly a different discussion and probably not translated like that at all. Also, i really believe allowing alcoholic drink brands to sponsor a driving competition is worse than gambling.
18. 

    Jere (@jerejj)
    19th September 2018, 9:45

    Toto has a valid point. I can agree with him on that.
    – I can also agree with Robbieeeee’s tweet to an extent although I don’t really mind about the fact this season all the pre-race track guide graphics following the intro have featured footage of past incidents/overtaking moves, etc., from a few selected corners of the circuit in question. I’ve been perfectly fine with it all-season although I don’t really care about it either way.
19. 

    Adam (@rocketpanda)
    19th September 2018, 12:52

    Really think blue flags should be gotten rid of. I mean those fighting in the midfield for the lower points positions or lower – that literally is their race. That’s as good as they’re going to get. The idea they have to hop, skip and jump out of the way for the leaders really bothers me. It basically says their race is not as important when for a lot of these drivers and teams they’re literally driving for their careers/survival.

    It makes little sense for the midfield runners to hold up the leaders anyway, it’ll ruin their tyres trying to keep a car that’s considerably faster than them behind and they’ll lose time in their own race so it’s pointless really, but I don’t think they should be obligated to dive out of the way. If the leaders get stuck behind a slow moving Williams for a few laps and the chasing pack catches them up… well it can only add to the drama then. If they’re quicker then let them be quicker and fight for it.
    1. 

       Gavin
       19th September 2018, 23:51

       Its good in theory until you end up with a huge chain of cars at circuits with few overtaking opportunities. The simple rule change required is that if you’re blue flagged then you cant overtake another car until the lapping car has passed you. That would instantly stop what happened at the last race.

       I can understand it’s frustrating and costs time letting others by but we really don’t want a championship where a Red Bull driver gets a wave by to lap Toro Rosso while everyone else gets deliberately (and legitimately if there’s no blue flags) blocked.
20. 

    Moose
    20th September 2018, 19:21

    Lord knows the leaders are always careful to not interrupt the racing between teams fighting for the last couple points spots when they come through.

    Wait…

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