It’s been a long winter. It’s been a quiet winter. But this weekend the noise of 22 high performance, highly tuned, highly balanced, and expensive Formula One cars will finally break the silence and single the start of a new season in the world’s fastest sport.
Something seems wrong however, for the first time in a long while, I’m not overly excited about the new season and I can’t seem to place my finger on the reason why. The rule makers have tweaked and introduced a raft of new regulations, changing the fundamental appearance of the cars; gone are the aerodynamic devices littering the cars (which I for one will miss), in are smooth contoured designed lines, wide ugly front wings, smaller stubby rear wings and slick tyres.
Much has been written about the return of slick tyres to the sport, increasing the mechanical grip the cars will have – will this make any difference to the regular ‘arm chair fan’? I highly doubt it.
Also new for this year is the Kinetic Energy Recovery System or KERS, it’s a leap into a whole new arena for F1, developing systems that are able to capture and store the huge amount of kinetic energy normally wasted as the cars brake and turn and move and re-directing what was lost energy back into the forward thrust of the car. It’s an interesting technology, something which all car manufacturers should be investigating and working out where it fits into their road-car strategies, but when the cars hit the race track on Sunday, I can’t see the technology making any difference or being of any interest to the spectators.
What can us F1 fans look forward to then with genuine enthusiasm? Firstly, the coverage in the UK is moving from ITV and its constant adverts, back to the BBC, hopefully reviving “The Chain” theme music and presenting an excellent, well balanced and factual show. Apparently new digital graphics to help viewers understand the complexities of driving a car around a corner will also add a new element and without doubt the best thing of all will be uninterrupted coverage: no more adverts mid-race! Although quite how the “ITV adjusted viewer” will schedule mid-race toilet/drink/snack breaks during the coverage remains to be seen, but I’m sure a small amount of evolution will occur after a couple of races.
As speculated, the Honda F1 team have been rescued by one of the sports greats: Ross Brawn. The man is a legend in Ferrari circles, and equally well respected by just about everyone else in Formula 1. His new venture “Brawn GP” is already setting benchmark times and it would be quite a sight to see them race their way to the championship in their first year, proving all of those doubters wrong and irking those who failed to buy the team in their most desperate of times. It would be a great story and F1 is full of wonderful and quirky stories.
The drop off in the McLaren team’s performance will undoubtedly shift the main focus off “2008 wonder kid” Lewis Hamilton if they do genuinely struggle for performance and the ability to race at the front. We’ll finally find out just how good his really is, especially when compared to an Alonso who after parting company with McLaren went back to Renault to re-build a team that had fallen back to the middle of the pack; and even more remarkably scoring outright wins towards the end of the season. As if any more proof were needed, Alonso really is in the same class of driver as Schumacher and the other greats.
The dynamics I’m more interested in seeing though, as Lewis falls backwards down the grid, will be the presses reaction to this and pinpointing the exact moment the press and UK’s attention switches from their 2008 hero back to last years forgotten British superstar Jenson Button. Jense has always been an outstanding driver in my opinion and, a bit like Eddie Irvine before him, has always been let down by the quality of the car he’s been given to race. But given the car (Williams - 2000, BAR - 2005), and he can deliver outstanding results and thrilling racing technique. I felt sorry for Jenson last year, the forgotten man, but I genuinely hope that the press can eat humble pie and the British public are re-awoken to “Button Mania” this year.
The FIA have been playing around with the rules on points and wins to decide who wins this years title and after adjusting them, made an equally as quick about-turn. Is it any wonder the ordinary man on the street doesn’t understand Formula 1 and its alienating of the fans?
Already, motor racing (certainly at those levels), is something out of reach of the regular fan, why must they make constant changes to the rules in favour of more complex systems and procedures: just try explaining Qualifying to someone who doesn’t watch regularly, even I’m not sure what this years qualifying rules are (or if they have even changed), and I’m equally in the dark about this years Safety Car rules after all the talk last year of the changes they were hoping to make.
The rules governing the car designs however are not for fans to understand – that is for the engineers who spend their every waking moment designing solutions that meet specific guidelines and thresholds, balancing the rules against the laws of physics. The argument going into the new season over the legality of some teams diffuser designs are the same noises made every year over the legality of certain cars. I wish they could control this better or at least settle it without the threat of seeing the outcomes of races that have already ran being settled in court rooms (racing incidents and the McLaren/Ferrari “stolen” design issue of 2007 are different). Hopefully, these noises will turn out to be the same as every other year – just noises in the build-up to the actual event!
I’m sure the excitement of the new season will burst into life by the time I sit down and watch the lights for the first race go out. But right now, it seems like a long away, and my levels of excitement are unusually low.
....stop the talking, start the engines, and lets go racing!
Something seems wrong however, for the first time in a long while, I’m not overly excited about the new season and I can’t seem to place my finger on the reason why. The rule makers have tweaked and introduced a raft of new regulations, changing the fundamental appearance of the cars; gone are the aerodynamic devices littering the cars (which I for one will miss), in are smooth contoured designed lines, wide ugly front wings, smaller stubby rear wings and slick tyres.
Much has been written about the return of slick tyres to the sport, increasing the mechanical grip the cars will have – will this make any difference to the regular ‘arm chair fan’? I highly doubt it.
Also new for this year is the Kinetic Energy Recovery System or KERS, it’s a leap into a whole new arena for F1, developing systems that are able to capture and store the huge amount of kinetic energy normally wasted as the cars brake and turn and move and re-directing what was lost energy back into the forward thrust of the car. It’s an interesting technology, something which all car manufacturers should be investigating and working out where it fits into their road-car strategies, but when the cars hit the race track on Sunday, I can’t see the technology making any difference or being of any interest to the spectators.
What can us F1 fans look forward to then with genuine enthusiasm? Firstly, the coverage in the UK is moving from ITV and its constant adverts, back to the BBC, hopefully reviving “The Chain” theme music and presenting an excellent, well balanced and factual show. Apparently new digital graphics to help viewers understand the complexities of driving a car around a corner will also add a new element and without doubt the best thing of all will be uninterrupted coverage: no more adverts mid-race! Although quite how the “ITV adjusted viewer” will schedule mid-race toilet/drink/snack breaks during the coverage remains to be seen, but I’m sure a small amount of evolution will occur after a couple of races.
As speculated, the Honda F1 team have been rescued by one of the sports greats: Ross Brawn. The man is a legend in Ferrari circles, and equally well respected by just about everyone else in Formula 1. His new venture “Brawn GP” is already setting benchmark times and it would be quite a sight to see them race their way to the championship in their first year, proving all of those doubters wrong and irking those who failed to buy the team in their most desperate of times. It would be a great story and F1 is full of wonderful and quirky stories.
The drop off in the McLaren team’s performance will undoubtedly shift the main focus off “2008 wonder kid” Lewis Hamilton if they do genuinely struggle for performance and the ability to race at the front. We’ll finally find out just how good his really is, especially when compared to an Alonso who after parting company with McLaren went back to Renault to re-build a team that had fallen back to the middle of the pack; and even more remarkably scoring outright wins towards the end of the season. As if any more proof were needed, Alonso really is in the same class of driver as Schumacher and the other greats.
The dynamics I’m more interested in seeing though, as Lewis falls backwards down the grid, will be the presses reaction to this and pinpointing the exact moment the press and UK’s attention switches from their 2008 hero back to last years forgotten British superstar Jenson Button. Jense has always been an outstanding driver in my opinion and, a bit like Eddie Irvine before him, has always been let down by the quality of the car he’s been given to race. But given the car (Williams - 2000, BAR - 2005), and he can deliver outstanding results and thrilling racing technique. I felt sorry for Jenson last year, the forgotten man, but I genuinely hope that the press can eat humble pie and the British public are re-awoken to “Button Mania” this year.
The FIA have been playing around with the rules on points and wins to decide who wins this years title and after adjusting them, made an equally as quick about-turn. Is it any wonder the ordinary man on the street doesn’t understand Formula 1 and its alienating of the fans?
Already, motor racing (certainly at those levels), is something out of reach of the regular fan, why must they make constant changes to the rules in favour of more complex systems and procedures: just try explaining Qualifying to someone who doesn’t watch regularly, even I’m not sure what this years qualifying rules are (or if they have even changed), and I’m equally in the dark about this years Safety Car rules after all the talk last year of the changes they were hoping to make.
The rules governing the car designs however are not for fans to understand – that is for the engineers who spend their every waking moment designing solutions that meet specific guidelines and thresholds, balancing the rules against the laws of physics. The argument going into the new season over the legality of some teams diffuser designs are the same noises made every year over the legality of certain cars. I wish they could control this better or at least settle it without the threat of seeing the outcomes of races that have already ran being settled in court rooms (racing incidents and the McLaren/Ferrari “stolen” design issue of 2007 are different). Hopefully, these noises will turn out to be the same as every other year – just noises in the build-up to the actual event!
I’m sure the excitement of the new season will burst into life by the time I sit down and watch the lights for the first race go out. But right now, it seems like a long away, and my levels of excitement are unusually low.
....stop the talking, start the engines, and lets go racing!
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