Is it possible to have too many races?

[sportsman]

Beats me how I ever found time to go to work.I am very involved in several childrens charities, on he committee of my local race track.
During the week we have training days when we give promising youngsters a chance to drive one of our racing Golfs as many of them cannot afford their own.
So many other things with my sons school where I teach groups unarmed combat skills (not martial art) good old fashioned judo
Weekends with my ten year old son (my wife is fifteen years younger than me) who is in to quad bike racing so thats my weekends taken of.
Plus in winter I hunt and shoot mostly wild boar which are delicious eating.
So all in all life is very full, very rewarding and I am a very happy and contented man.

 

[KekeTheKing]

In terms of a time investment for watching sport, Formula One is a rather small one. They're in action only 60 days a year, and only 40 that actually count for something. I'm amazed that so many people that frequent F1 Forums seem to think that is an extraordinary sum.

Most major professional sports see their competitors in action much more often than motorsport. Major League Baseball plays 162 (3 hr) Games in a season, before the playoffs even start. The NHL and the NBA play 80+ games. I don't follow it, but there seems to be year round soccer going on somewhere. American football teams play only 16 games each, but you can watch different games all weekend if you choose.

All I'm saying is that 4 hours over the span of a weekend is quite small when compared to other major sporting leagues. I'm not admonishing people for not watching every second of F1 on TV, I'm just somewhat surprised that several people seem to think that watching an F1 season in its totality is a major time investment.

 

[johnnoble1990]

That is one of the things I like of F1 Keke. It protects itself from overkill making each individual race vitally important.

One concern I have with longer seasons is we could get a lot more races become redundant in terms of the championship. The more races we have, the more we are likely to see someone pull away into the lead. If we had 25 races last season, I'd say the season would've still been over by about the 12th or 13th race. It would've taken ages to make up the 125 point gap against the fastest car. In a 25 race season, the chances of the championship not being over by the last race would be extremely low. That said, can never have enough F1, with or without a championship on the line.

 

[RasputinLives]

Surely with more races it would have taken Vettel longer to be crowned champion mathmatically because they're are more points on offer or have I missed something?

 

[Slyboogy]

To add to johnnoble1990 's point, and to counter argue KekeTheKing 's,

F1 is a sport with expenses far greater than all the other sports Keke's mentioned, to add more races, the costs will increase massively, teams will be exhausted, sponsors are already hard enough to get as it is aswell.

Another point, just because the race and qualifying lasts 4 hours altogether doesn't mean that's how many hours they put in, the teams put in massive and I mean massive amount of hours into this sport already, so much work is done in F1 in such a short period of time that it is unbelievable how at times they achieve their targets etc.

The teams need breaks, as do their employees. You could say "simple, get more employees" will where back to the "cost cutting" point.

 

[Jos the Boss]

Football has 38 premier league games a season, a futher 44 Championship, League 1 and League 2 games also the best teams will have european games, a futher 13 if they get to the final, FA cup carling cup and Europa league is even longer, around an extra 15 games, and I never get bored of it, thet do this week in week out, without not long of a break and it's still "the beautiful game" That hasn't diluted it at all, F1 having more races wouldn't make it worse, for the viewers. The fatigue of the teams will be felt but every two weeks should be enough, and with the 4 week summer break. As a viewer I wouldnt mind 52 f1 races! But the teams have 20 weeks to work at races, with a lot more I'm sure at home but 22-25 would be a good number of races, for both teams and I and I'm sure with some more races put back to back, like France and Monaco, USA and Canada and more

 

[Mephistopheles]

I believe if more and more races are added we will actually lose not only quality of racing but also teams at the moment HRT have opted out of a test purely because they can't afford it.

More races is simply not financially sustainable for the smaller teams

 

[KekeTheKing]

just because the race and qualifying lasts 4 hours altogether doesn't mean that's how many hours they put in

I fully realize this Sly. My post was in reference to the fan's side of things and the apparent unwillingness to invest more time into a relatively light viewing schedule.

HRT have opted out of a test purely because they can't afford it.

I'm not convinced that's the case. I think they realize that their time will be better served by working on their home base than testing their back of the field car in its current iteration.

 

[sportsman]

KekeTheKing
As I stated earlier there is no enough time for me to watch all the races we have at present.From April until the end of October I take my son every Sunday to race his quad bike somewhere.
Other weekends we take part as a family in various pastimes without access to TV.
Some things are more important to me than sacrificing two hours in the middle of a Sunday afternoon to watch an F1 race.

 

[KekeTheKing]

And I've no problem with that sportsman. Makes no difference to me what people do on their own time.

My point is that there are tens of millions of people all around the world that spend several hours a day/week watching their preferred sporting events. And in the grand scheme of things, watching a full F1 season takes up just a fraction of the time that other sports do.

I'm not asking for anybody to justify their leisurely pursuits. This was just a simple observation.


edit - I guess this is one area where the American F1 fan has an advantage. Pretty much every quali/race is over before 10 AM so it doesn't exactly cut into the bulk of the day.

 

[soccerman17]

As long as the extra races are good ones it would be fine with me. Sad thing is they probably won't be and would most likely include more Tilkedromes.
Also the travel costs may be able to stay about the same with some smart planning. For example, F1 was just in Malaysia a few weeks ago. Now they have to go right back for the Singapore Grand Prix. Same goes for China having Korea and Japan relatively close, and also Bahrain with Abu Dhabi within reasonable distance.

 

[Kewee]

RasputinLives Hey Ras, you've popped the Indian GP right at the beginning of the monsoon season. Never mind mate, they could always take boats.

 

[Bill Boddy]

Friday FP1 1.5 hrs, then 2.5 hrs having lunch and coming on here to find out how it has decided the whole weekend.
Friday FP2, again 1.5 hours, followed by visit as above.
So that is at least 7 hours.

Shall I continue with Saturday and Sunday or can you work it out?

Just how many sports take that long every second week?

 

[KekeTheKing]

You mustn't be familiar with American sport Bill Boddy. And I'm certainly not counting lunch and internet forum time to the total.

Major League Baseball teams play 6 or 7 games a week from April - October, at roughly 3 hours a pop that's about 20 hours a week. Then you've got playoffs for a month.

NBA and NHL teams play over 80 games a season. Roughly 3-4 games a week at 2.5 hours a piece. Then with a total of 8 playoff teams per conference, Basketball and Hockey playoff seasons alone account for more viewing hours than every F1 session combined throughout the entire season.

Many "American Football" fans will watch 7 hours of football every Sunday. And if they're watching 7 hours on Sunday, you can be sure they're watching Monday Night and probably a bit of college ball on Saturday.

There is at least 7 hours of NASCAR viewing every weekend for about 40 weeks in a row, and that's not even counting the lowers series'. I think even the most hardcore NASCAR fans miss a session or two every once in a while.

Maybe you can help me with some major sports that involve so much less viewing time. I'm admittedly a bit behind on the latest goings on in the billiard and darts world.

 

[RasputinLives]

Kewee - i didn't put any dates did I? lol. Anyways Bernie chucked the Malaysian GP on at a time when its pretty certain we'll have a monsoon so whats the issue?

 

[Kewee]

RasputinLives No you didn't Ras. I countered in 7 GPs and it fitted in around the beginning of June. the monsoon season runs from June till September, approx. I was only having fun Ras, but believe me the monsoon in India is way way way more severe than anything you'll ever see in Malaysia.

 

[RasputinLives]

Kewee - I know you're only kidding. I was actually thinking that it would be end of April beginning of May time because I was gonna cut out the big gaps at season begining and have them between continents - that and we need to make it to Canada by September or Pirreli would have to develop snow tyres.

 

[Kewee]

RasputinLives - I'm not familiar with the weather in Canada. Maybe they could move the US races, unless of course the Americans have a reason to dictate the time of the year. I seem to remember in 2007 they went straight from Canada to Indianapolis so they made it work then.

 

[jez101]

There is quite a small window when Montreal is warm enough for a race and Texas is not too hot.

 

[Speshal]

KekeTheKing - You obviously aren't familiar with the game of snooker

Personally I think 23 races would be the absolute maximum, people are mentioning other sports, baseball, football etc but they have almost a whole other team as substitutes, driver and mechanic fatigue have got to be taken into account.