CTA's F1 Popularity Working Group

[cider_and_toast]

The trouble is, we're back to subjectivity then. How long would it take a steward to reach that decision? How quickly can they seem team data, telemetry, braking points etc.

It's a bit like the officials behind the goal line in football, they made next to bugger all difference in a game. Technology is the only answer but how to employ it is the challenge.

 

[snowy]

Hawk-Eye...

 

[F1Yorkshire]

Would an automatic system be beneficial?

Each circuit is split into more than 3 sectors for timing purposes. We only see the main 3 but there are up to 20 sectors on each track.

http://www.emmotorsport.com/f1-drivers-face-increased-scrutiny-yellow-flags

It must be fairly simple to combine transponder data from the cars with the smaller sectors and if a car is shown to have gained time in the same mini sector that they went off then it should be time deleted for qualifying and flag shown during a race.

In certain cases such as cars being forced off wide by another car I suppose a human override could be used to make sure penalties are not being given out unfairly

 

[snowy]

I could really do with all those extra sector times when running my rFactor simulator!

 

[Fenderman]

A lot of very inventive ideas here regarding the run off's. It was always unsatisfactory to see a still race-able car beached, especially when the driver was not to blame for being there so I'm not a fan of gravel traps. However, if a bloke drives off the circuit or shortcuts a chicane he should incur a cost.

The simplest solution is to lay an extremely abrasive material on run-off areas, especially those at chicanes. If the driver doesn't slow down whilst off the track his tyres will suffer and he'll be easy meat for his opposition. That maybe not be straight away but the tyre degradation will mean lost time and in extreme cases unplanned pit stops and a shredded strategy. The other benefit will be that drivers repeatedly exceeding track limits will find their boots going off unevenly. No need for iffy Stewards decisions as the penalty is automatically applied by the behaviour of the drivers themselves!

Unfortunately there is a very big BUT. There is a problem with my seemingly simple idea which is that it would be quite bad for motorcycle racers. Tarmac has become the favoured solution for bikers as it is better for a bloke to slide than to tumble. The downside is from friction shredding the leathers and scrubbing through to the skin. It's not a huge problem with existing tarmac runoffs but something very abrasive would cause quite horrible injuries. Ironically that makes me a fan of gravel traps for bike racing circuits (although I think the stuff should be a finer grade)! Bugger.

Another thought ... what happened to the ripples that some circuits used to have ploughed in the gravel traps? I haven't seen that for years. Theres no hardship in doing a quick rippling before car race weekends and smoothing over prior for bike meetings, is there?

 

[F1Yorkshire]

Thats a good point Fenderman what may work for one form of motorsport would be perfectly unacceptable for other forms.
A circuit can not make money from Formula 1 alone so it will have to make sure it's suitable for all types of racing. Getting an international standard would be a nightmare.

Barcelona is a prime example, F1 used to test there but now it only visits once a year but it's primary use is a bike track. Why should they have to incur costs to modify the circuit just to suit a race series that only comes 1 weekend in a year.

As unpopular as it is, tarmac is the best all round surface. Cars won't dig in and flip, bikers can slide safely across it. The only solution is to find a cost effective method of enforcing track limits that can be used at all circuits.

 

[Greenlantern101]

Maybe the simplest solution then is to ensure an Astroturf band is around all corners tight to the track bounds. If you go wide you loose time or could spin, but with big offs you are just going to cross over it onto more tarmac.

Seems like a solution if a bit of a health and safety cop out.

 

[snowy]

Fenderman We definitely don't want to go back to gravel traps, as the F1 guys have already forgotten why they did away with them. In no time at all they'll be raking them and creating furrows and the bikers will have all those horrific back injuries to contend with again!

 

[Fenderman]

I guess I should have mentioned one of my concerns about astroturf in my post above as it's another nasty for bike racers. Usually they only leave track limits when they over cook it or are forced wide but, unlike the car chappies, rarely gain advantage as they're bricking it! The trouble is that when they do hit astroturf it's a 50/50 chance of a pretty big "off". That may be why it's not universal and why not a lot of chicanes are lined with it, particularly on tracks that host a lot of bike racing.

As alluded to by F1Yorkshire , there's not really a one size fits all solution. I've thought about this issue a lot over the years. In fact I think about it pretty well every time someone has gone off! It just goes to show how difficult a problem it is.

I'm wondering now if this is worthy of it's own thread since we have strayed well away from the OP and I'd quite like to explore the subject of track design and safety somewhat more. Would it be appropriate to move the relevant posts to a new thread?

Edit: Indeed snowy , hence my remark about finer grade gravel. As for back injuries these have been replaced by busted collar bones courtesy of the airbags inserted into the leathers as neck and back protection!Still better than busted backs

 

[Jos the Boss]

Put all the tyre marbles on the tarmac run off, that's recycling for ya!

 

[no-FIAt-please]

I'd like to see a grippy but incredibly abrasive surface on the outside of the track. Safe but it would absolutely destroy a set of tyres.

 

[Mephistopheles]

I'm not convinced that it is drivers cutting corners and chicanes or the difference in safety between gravel and tarmac or some dodgy stewards decisions that is making F1's popularity decline if indeed it is in decline.

How do they come up with the viewing figures anyway?

 

[cider_and_toast]

After catching up on the general shape of UK F1 viewing figures at the mid point of the season (I've not seen the global viewing figures yet) it doesn't make for good news for the powers that be. Sky's viewership has shown a small increase that equates to around a 3 percent increase from last year (but to put that into perspective that's around 22,000) and the BBC are taking a bit of a hammering, down on average by around 400000 viewers if I read the figures correctly. The Hungarian GP was the lowest watched Hungarian GP since 2008.

It is all the more surprising given the early season dominance by the Mercedes and in particular Lewis Hamilton. You would have thought, even when Hamilton had some qualifying issues dumping him at the back of the grid, there would still be a desire to watch him come up through the field.

The schedule for the BBC in terms of highlights, plus the World Cup and various other sporting distractions have not helped but from what I have read, these are the lowest figures overall since 2008 so it can't be blamed entirely on outside influences.

With traditional GP's now starting to see empty stands it further highlights that all is not well.

The BBC giving Gary Anderson the heave-ho over the winter because apparently "the audience doesn't appreciate technical information" just goes to show how the Beeb continually fails to understand their motorsport viewers.

Since the BBC / Sky deal, UK viewing figures have shown a steady decline overall. This was originally put down to the fact that Vettel was sweeping all before him and therefore there was little British success to cheer but now, that excuse has gone south with the ducks.

There are 3 years left of this split deal nightmare to run, and then what? With BSkyB, Sky Germany and Sky Italy pretty much one company now, there will have more buying power to retain Sky F1 on those channels. They have already said they are going to review their production organisation with a view to bringing all Sky F1 production under one roof (but not the commentary and presentation side you would presume??).

 

[Mephistopheles]

How do the viewing figures factor in more than one person watching a tv set for instance I went to a BBQ on Sunday and later in the afternoon half the people there seemed to disappear from the garden where it was gloriously sunny and the burgers where being incinerated, I found them in the front room all watching the F1 highlights on the BBC there must have been about 15 of them crammed in there.

Also what with sky and virgin being so expensive how do they know whether or not a bunch of mates got together and one of them paid for F1 and the rest bomb round to his house on a Sunday bringing the beers and about 20 sit there watching the race together.

Maybe the viewing figures haven't in fact gone down maybe the way people watch has changed for all they know thousands of viewers all bugger off and watch it in the local pub of a weekend..

 

[cider_and_toast]

The answer to all of the above is

I know for example that the viewing figures don't cover things like BBC I-Player or Sky Go. As I said, it's just a general trend. I would say they are accurate to the nearest 10's of thousands. Most of the figures you see are for average viewers over the length of the program. There are a number of variables. Peak viewers can be sometimes millions more (though not in Sky's case obviously) than average viewers.

The long term trend since 2011 has been a general decline in viewers. On average this remains the least watched season since 2008.

 

[cider_and_toast]

http://www.motorsport.com/f1/news/f1-suffering-global-tv-ratings-decline-report/

And here is the global news.

But fortunately, in the last paragraph of the report you can see that Bernie has finger on the pulse of global trends.

1.23 Billion active facebook users must be wrong then.

 

[Greenlantern101]

I think once the BBC's deal ends they will opt for dropping F1 completely rather than taking up a similar highlights deal.

We can only hope another free to air channel like ITV or Channel 4 picks it up. That would mean adverts of course. But if Sky can show the whole race without an advert hopefully any new channel would do the same.

 

[teabagyokel]

Facebook and especially Twitter cannot be considered competitors to TV. Twitter, indeed, can well be a complement to TV as all the World Cup tweets will show.

I agree that people will watch the television. I totally agree with that idea. There is one small problem with that that anyone with half a brain could see. F1 is not on television.

Briatore, meanwhile, thinks F1 drivers are not gladiatorial enough. Hmm, that maybe true since these days we have drivers deliberately crashing, winning titles by trotting up 2nd places and waiting for faster cars to retire or having one car in a team fitted with illegal codes they absolutely did not use.

Again, what's the point of improving the product if you don't put it in the shop?

Then there's the oft-mentioned YouTube total lack of engagement. I can watch highlights from every FA Cup game of last season on YouTube, and amazingly this hasn't meant that next year's FA Cup Final won't be broadcasted or watched! Stone the crows!

Unlike football and cricket, this is always going to be a mostly televised event, broadly you don't get to say that you like it so you'll go. Pulling it off FTA means fewer viewers means fewer sponsors means less money to Ecclestone in the long haul.

Being run by a man as old as the hills sure can lead to short-term, technologically ignorant and anachronistic thinking though, right?

 

[RasputinLives]

Its intersting that Bernie and F1 seem to be so anti-social media where the new Formula E series has gone out of its way to try and embrace the technology as much as possible.

On speaking to someone involved in the Formula E set up he kind of let on that this silly 'vote for your driver and he gets an extra push to pass' thing they put in for the sport is actually all about getting the teams to flood social media and get people interested in the sport in order for them to take the time to vote for them. If thats true then it certainly seems to be working as my twitter feed is littered everyday with various Formula E teams posting up exclusive videos and driver quotes.

I do wonder whether the powers that be in Formula E (or PTBFE's as they shall now be known) have deliberatly taken this stance to be seen as being the opposite of Bernie. I realise its also about promotion but it is a stark contrast.

 

[Titch]

Well according to Nici Lauder, they don't need Briatore to help make F1 more popular (good call), he thinks that it should all be left to Bernie ???? !!!!!!!
What the man who has made the sport so unpopular, that Bernie. Yes that's the one he means.

So F1 is really doomed then.