Sky F1

[DorsetJon]

I LOVE how Sky are endeavouring to plug their"F1 exclusivity"with what seems to be every passing commercial break on Sky News,and its sports channels.

Even watching the highlights on channel 4 has now become a yawnfest,so quite how the criminally underpaid pundits at Sky's F1 coverage manage to make one of Sky's flagship live broadcasts sound appealing or dare I say it nowadays,enjoyable,is beyond me.

We are being asked to stump up a lot of money(well I'm not,as I got rid of SkyF1 around eighteen months ago)for a sport thats now dominated by one team,one car,and one driver.

The sport is as it stands for me,is dead in the water.

"Anybody else agree,both with Sky's F1 package/pricing,and Formula One,taken as a whole?"

[TimmyBGood]

@DorsetJon 

I'd observe that Sky is a small regional television distributor of a global franchise: it's not actually up to the broadcasters to devise ways to make the 'sport' itself into a competition.

Sky may, however, be regretting their longterm contract at this point in time...

[MarkGoldsmith]

There are 2 different points here.

The price of the Sky F1 package cannot change and would need to be priced in order for Sky to make a return on the large broadcasting rights deal they did with Liberty Media for the exclusive live F1 rights. Ultimately its the job of the presenting team to try and make the sport sound exciting and compelling, they obviously can't control the on-track action in any way.

Is F1 going through a bit of a slump at the moment - yes. Will this likely affect global viewership over the next 2 or 3 seasons, almost certainly. However this really isn't any difference from the normal F1 pattern. Every 5-6 years when they do car regulation changes, it always tends to lead to excitement for the first 2 or 3 years of the new regulations, then as you get towards the end of the era it tends to get repetitive as typically one team will come out of top. We have seen this during the Schumacher era, the Red Bull Vettel era, the Mercedes era and now the Max era. The only slight difference is that during the Mercedes era, well for part of it, there were close battles between Hamiliton and Rosberg which made the races slightly exciting, however all the other eras the teams generally have had a Number 1 driver and a Number 2 driver, where the Number 1 dirver will dominate. The viewership of Drive to Survive is a indication that the recent F1 boom is slowing down and coming to a end, with the viewership of the latestr season on Netflix not exactly anything for Netflix or F1 to shout about. Something which has likely affected the last few seasons is the lack of new drivers comming into the sport. What F1 really need to is replace some of the drivers who will always be mid or back of the grid drivers with the younger talent like Dawson and Bergman for next season to give something a bit more interesting. At least that way if Red Bull dominate again next season, there are some interesting stories with the development and progression of the young drivers who may be "future world champions". They can't really push the excitement of Norris or Russell or Lecerc in that category anymore as they are already in the more established teams and nothing will change for those teams until the 2026 regulations come in.

[DorsetJon]

@MarkGoldsmith @TimmyBGood totally agree,guys.

Although my dear grandad makes a valid point.

He says to make the racing interesting and for there to be some overtaking(shock,horror :P)he suggests that half the grid goes one way round the track,whilst the rest go in the opposite direction - LOL

He's a veteran of attending 34 Le Mans 24 hrs,countless Goodwoods,and at last count,26 GP's.

He wants to see the British GP going back to what we both think is our finest circuit in the land,Brands Hatch.In fact he was actually there to see Mansell win,back in '86.

But yea,in OUR opinion F1 is treading water right now,with a global audience really not needing to use a crystal ball,to already predict where both world championships are going,come seasons end.

[MarkGoldsmith]

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@DorsetJon wrote:

@MarkGoldsmith @TimmyBGood totally agree,guys.

Although my dear grandad makes a valid point.

He says to make the racing interesting and for there to be some overtaking(shock,horror :P)he suggests that half the grid goes one way round the track,whilst the rest go in the opposite direction - LOL

He's a veteran of attending 34 Le Mans 24 hrs,countless Goodwoods,and at last count,26 GP's.

He wants to see the British GP going back to what we both think is our finest circuit in the land,Brands Hatch.In fact he was actually there to see Mansell win,back in '86.

But yea,in OUR opinion F1 is treading water right now,with a global audience really not needing to use a crystal ball,to already predict where both world championships are going,come seasons end.

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Also there are far too many races in a season. It needs to go back to 18-20 races, its virtually impossible for someone to spare 24 weekends a year and invest the 2 hours for a race, and 1 hours for qualifying ( more if you include the 6  sprint events as well) for 24 rounds of it.

I think it would make it much more interesting if you 10 core circuits like Silverstone, Monaco, Spa that are on the calendar every year, then you have 10 alternating circuits that get a race 3 out of 5 years. 

[TimmyBGood]

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@MarkGoldsmith wrote:

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I think it would make it much more interesting if you 10 core circuits like Silverstone, Monaco, Spa that are on the calendar every year, then you have 10 alternating circuits that get a race 3 out of 5 years. 

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Probably not going to be acceptable to the increasingly dodgy collection of countries prepared to host...

[Mr+Ramsden]

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@DorsetJon wrote:

@MarkGoldsmith @TimmyBGood totally agree,guys.

Although my dear grandad makes a valid point.

He says to make the racing interesting and for there to be some overtaking(shock,horror :P)he suggests that half the grid goes one way round the track,whilst the rest go in the opposite direction - LOL

He's a veteran of attending 34 Le Mans 24 hrs,countless Goodwoods,and at last count,26 GP's.

He wants to see the British GP going back to what we both think is our finest circuit in the land,Brands Hatch.In fact he was actually there to see Mansell win,back in '86.

But yea,in OUR opinion F1 is treading water right now,with a global audience really not needing to use a crystal ball,to already predict where both world championships are going,come seasons end.

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F1 is ,as others have said, just treading water at the moment. Truth is RB found the magic bullet and Merc dropped the ball in design. If Merc had designed a decent car then the top would be closer with the midfield of McLaren and Aston snapping at the heels of top 3 for any scraps.

Brands '86 was glorious. Could it support F1 now ? I spend many weekends there over the summer and it's a discussion we were having during a very long red flag period at Formula Ford Festival last year  (a nasty crash in a juniour fiesta race). There is no way the external infrastructure would cope and Sevenoaks council woudl be unwilling to make any changes to aid the circuit. And then internally again the infrastructure just wouldn't cope, the GP loop would need way too many protected trees felled, the closeness to local properties woudl limit the possibility of adding viewing areas / grand stands on the GP Loop as well. And then around the Indy circuit again infrastructure would creak and so many grandstands woudl need to be added then any general admission woudl be limited. This in turn woudl lead to swathes of closed off stands on non GP weekends, which in turn would destroy the atmosphere of a normal race weekend.  

[TimmyBGood]

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@Mr+Ramsden wrote:

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There is no way the external infrastructure would cope and Sevenoaks council woudl be unwilling to make any changes to aid the circuit. And then internally again the infrastructure just wouldn't cope, the GP loop would need way too many protected trees felled, the closeness to local properties woudl limit the possibility of adding viewing areas / grand stands on the GP Loop as well.

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Probably not a coincidence that the majority of newer F1 circuits have been constructed in locations where local democracy is somewhat questionable.  And yes, I'd count both Miami and Las Vegas in that number ; )

[DorsetJon]

@Mr+Ramsden Brands is such an iconic circuit.

Followed Foggy throughout his glory years,and the monumental campsites that went with it.

BTCC when it was good,back in the days of Biela and Menu.

Countless sportscar meetings and easter trophies.

And we even got to walk and cycle around the GP track a couples,as part of having on site camping.

And just to walk or cycle down Paddock Hill,is terrifying.

[Mr+Ramsden]

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@DorsetJon wrote:

@Mr+Ramsden Brands is such an iconic circuit.

Followed Foggy throughout his glory years,and the monumental campsites that went with it.

BTCC when it was good,back in the days of Biela and Menu.

Countless sportscar meetings and easter trophies.

And we even got to walk and cycle around the GP track a couples,as part of having on site camping.

And just to walk or cycle down Paddock Hill,is terrifying.

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The campsites i remember, not as a spectator (not a huge bike fan) but driving past at a snails pace in the traffic just trying to go about daily life (and i'm not complaining). Last time i saw a buzzing campsite like that was al the Rossi fans there to watch him in the GT Race last year (i was ther for that one). For the price of a GA ticket at Silverstone you get a season ticket for Brands and its far more bang for your buck, couldn't justify a GP ticket and camping this year. Never walked or rode Paddock hill but been a passenger in a car a couple of times in the past and that's real heart in mouth stuff.