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Friday, December 9, 2011

2000s: Greatest impacts on F1 part 2


 Circuits: Bernie Ecclestone/ Hermann Tilke

This is my second part on the largest impacts on F1 this decade.

With Bernie believing in there being a demolition derby off track instead of on track, lots of old circuits have faced the axe with number of new circuits (courtesy Hermann Tilke) coming up.
Good circuits such as Imola, A1-Ring have been removed, and great circuits such as Spa and Montreal have been on and off the calendar thanks to Bernie and co’s bambling. 

Wanting to generate more revenue (for himself), he has forced all circuits to cough up improbable amounts of money, but due to their inability to do so, has started circuits at places such as Bahrain and Abu Dhabi where prolonged interest cannot be expected. Circuits such as Malaysia, Turkey hardly get any spectators watching the races and hence are having astronomical losses.
It is not just the lack of fans that is being a downfall for these new generation circuits, it is the circuits itself which lack uniqueness.

It even came to the point where Silverstone was axed from the F1 calendar from 2010 onwards, but luckily Donington weren’t able to obtain the desired funds, and hence Silverstone has got its traditional slot back (which is great news for F1).
Circuits such as nurburgring and hockenheim are now being forced to alternate due to losses being generated by the millions. The only way out of it in this recession based climate is for Bernie to start accepting lower amounts from those circuits and keeping less for himself.
In short: Less overtaking and on- track action, less crowd and less revenue are all the major factors plaguing these new venues.
It is a harsh reality that F1 is facing, and with no solution close in sight, F1 is facing an uncertain future.
Presently: With the advent of the Indian grand prix, lot of the criticism has died down with the circuit coming in for lot of praise both in terms of on track challenge as well as region interest in sport. Will it last though?

3 comments:

pen-name said...

reading this article makes me a remember a point somewhere where someone said that though all fans pretend they want less crashes and more reliabaility, what fans relly want is the opposite of htat. One of the most illogical rules that exist now is penalizing people involved in accidents which I believe will make evey driver think 10 times before overtaking. And manyof these new circuits are getting one dimensional. i think it is aways better to get a new designer who can give a freah look. But yes it turned out that the indian gran prix cicruit was praised but again i do not expect such a big fan following in a couple of years especially when there ino indian driver. Racing is all about speed and aggression and with aggression getting seriously turned down now, it may soon come a time where they may actually have simulation races where people might find more exciting than the real races.

Sid said...

yes, its very hard on the drivers with these penalties, they are destroying the thrill of the sport. Some moves perhaps are too bad, but many of them are merely racing incidents. I hope they become more lenient in the near future

world said...

exciting