Sport The Formula 1 Thread

[marsh]

Implosion? Following? I used to watch it on dave but since the exodus to espn I thought it had stopped.....

[RFT]

Basically, the promoter (North One) has gone bust and the FIA has transferred all the rights to the championship to Eurosport.

The Monte Carlo rally starts in a fortnight and no-one really knows where the TV rights have ended up (North one sold them to ESPN may still have the rights, or Eurosport might now).

BMW/Mini were late putting their entry in and have (in only the second year of their program) decided to drop funding and sell one of the seats in the team to whoever brings cash, at the expense of Kris Meeke.

The Monte Carlo Rally (which is back as a WRC round) starts in a couple of weeks, whihc means a very short window to get things properly sorted out or face total collapse.

The whole thing's a mess...

[marsh]

Yep, and the cars are shit, and not the spectale that it once was. Shame really, you don't have to go too far back to see roads lined with soectators and decent tv coverage. Till the cars change to something approaching group b, it's not going to happen.

[Plissken]

Yep, and the cars are shit, and not the spectale that it once was. Shame really, you don't have to go too far back to see roads lined with soectators and decent tv coverage. Till the cars change to something approaching group b, it's not going to happen.

I'd be amazed if the cars aren't hitting Group B type speeds by now.

The problem was that the Group B cars were unsafe for the crews, plus the lack of keeping spectators back (they would walk out into the road and duck out at the last second) meant it was a bunch of accidents waiting to happen.

[Sidewaysbob]

SO as it stands Europsort are the promoters of WRC ? how does that work ?

[marsh]

Spectators aside, the cars are not dramatic enough, even though they may be as quick. It needs more fire breathing monsters involved.

[Plissken]

Spectators aside, the cars are not dramatic enough, even though they may be as quick. It needs more fire breathing monsters involved.

Can't disagree with that. I watched Rallycross with all those amazing cars shoved onto a startline next to each other. Absolutely mental but great fun.

[RFT]

I'd be amazed if the cars aren't hitting Group B type speeds by now.

The problem was that the Group B cars were unsafe for the crews, plus the lack of keeping spectators back (they would walk out into the road and duck out at the last second) meant it was a bunch of accidents waiting to happen.

The Group A Cars of the early 1990s were already beating Group B stage times due to improved tyres and differential technology. they're way past that now.

Martin Haven had a long rant on twitter about it last night that could basically be boiled down to "make it the late 70s again". which has it's merits, but isn;t really practical.

Rallying was really at it;s peak in the mid-tolate 90's and has declined since then, so it's interesting to see how it;s lost it's way...

Rallying in the Group A era was incredibly expsnive for manufaturers (reportedly 10x as much as F1 was at the time). This was because of the nautre of the sport: you had to build a lot of cars for each driver (a Gravel Car, a Tarmac Car, A Safari car, plus spares). You had to spend an awful lot on tyres (most rallies were multi-surface). Each Rally could be up to 5 days. You also had to fund the development, building, type approval etc of your run of homolgation cars, which you'd probably have to sell at a loss, lest they fill up your dealerships for the next 5 years.

So the manufacturers complained, and the World Rally Car rules came in. You didn't need to do your run of proper homologation cars any more, and most manufacturers didn't. Subaru and Mitsubishi carried on, because they were making money on the cars, but Ford, Citroen, Peugeot, SEAT, Skoda didn't. And so that direct link between road cars and the cars competing was eroded. You can buy a hot DS3, but it's not got that direct link any more.

Then the manufacturers complained about the length of events, so they were made shorter. 3 days tops, the same as an F1 race weekend. The Rallies, which used to have all sports of unique aspects, became very similar in character (the RAC lost the sunday "country house" stages, for instance. the teams and crews liked that as the stages were always a bit "mickey mouse", but it had got the sport in front of Thousands who wouldn't make the long walk into the forests). The rallies were also compressed to single bases with all stages within a small radius of the base. (in the 80s, the RAC would take 5 days and go across the country, stopping somewhere different every night- I remeber in the Group B era watching the rally arrive in Worcester.)

Then the manufaturers complained about having to spend all this money on tyres for mixed-surface rallies. so that went, and every rally had to be something like 90% on the same surface for the timed stages.

Then the promoters noticed, we're running stages in the dark/early morning. that doesn't work for TV. so they went. (yet, the huge light-pod on the nose is still mentally there when fans imagine a rally car).

The cars got cleverer and cleverer and (and this is the most important thing) stopped going sideways everywhere.

World Championship Rallying, essentially, suffered a death by a thousand cuts to its soul. all the things made it really interesting, really compelling, the little things that didn't seem important taken individually, were stripped away.

The Manufacturers still pulled out, leaving less seats for drivers, meaning the (arguably) early end to the careers of many fan favourite drivers who still had good years in them (McRae, Sainz). Richard Burns' early death probably didn't help the sport in the UK (where it had always traditionally been strong, even before the McRae era).

Rallying then entered an era of such total domination by Citroen/Loeb that anyone still interested by that point, started getting bored. Even Sebastian Loeb is bored of it, and wants to go do Le Mans instead.

The upcoming rules change look likely to make things even worse, by stripping the cars of power but them remaining 4WD.

My Solution?

Either reinstate a group-B esque formula (2.0 NA Engines, RWD only, Windscreen, doors, Head and tail lights and side windows off a 20,000 plus production road car, the rest can be a mid-engined tubeframed special, with no road homologation requirement (though will still need to be street-legal, obviously) that gets you interesting cars back, not really any faster than the current crop. you still don't have the direct road link any more, but you've at least got something interesting on the stages, going sideways and not too expensive for Manufacturers. To be honest, this is similar to Colin McRae's R4 concept.

Or, Re-instate Group A, properly.

[marsh]

Wow, worthy of applause. Can't really get any worse can it?

[Dudley]

Rallying does always have the problem that you don't see the cars much. If you spectate at a BTCC round, Jason Plato is going to pass you 40-50 times. You go to a proper WRC event you're going to see Loeb once.

Which is survivable if you have a 30 strong top class field and at the RAC back in the day, near 200 other cars of various types to watch.

When there are effectively 4 or 5 works entries over 3 different types of car and the 5 or so privateers are all using the same cars as well then you can see why it's not so attractive.

[marsh]

Rallying does always have the problem that you don't see the cars much. If you spectate at a BTCC round, Jason Plato is going to pass you 40-50 times. You go to a proper WRC event you're going to see Loeb once.

Which is survivable if you have a 30 strong top class field and at the RAC back in the day, near 200 other cars of various types to watch.

When there are effectively 4 or 5 works entries over 3 different types of car and the 5 or so privateers are all using the same cars as well then you can see why it's not so attractive.

But spectator wise, that's always been the case. Now nobody watches. Even I'd drag the kids out into a forest for the glimpse of some slidey fire breathing rally action.

It's a sport that needs as many entries as possible. Is Dave Richards not involved with it anymore?

[RFT]

No, he sold his interest on a couple of years ago.

It's really sad. I used to love rallying - not more than F1, and not enough to go and brave a welsh forest trip for it, but I loved watching it on TV. it fit nicely into a 30-minute highlight segement on grandstand, with some live coverage of one of the the RAC's country house stages when it was on.

it used to be that the mainstream media got almost as worked up about the RAC as the british GP. the last few years you'd barely know it was on.

Even leaving aside the erosion of what the sport used to be about, rallying's other problem is the thing I mentioned in the first para. It doesn't really work as Live TV sport. But these days for a sport to be taken seriously, it needs a live TV package deal. Also, with modern communications and social media, the results fo a stage, and rally, will be widely known to everyone who's interested long before the TV team are done in the edit suite. B ack in the 80s (or even 90s), If you didn't buy Motoring News or Autosport, then you wouldn't know the result of a rally until the highlights were on Grandstand.

So, there's been so much ranged against the WRC in the last decade that it's surprising it's survived as long as it has. Maybe Eurosport will make it work again (they at least have better penetration than ESPN) - I hope they do.

[Sidewaysbob]

Until it gets bumped for the world tiderlywinks qualifying from Barundi. Eurosport will stick tennis or Spanish handball on before they cover a Rally weekend in any kind of depth.

I can't understand why Motors TV or Dave don't get promotors beating down their door for coverage. Dave TV especially with it's Top Gear franchise. They are begging for a major series to cover.

[Dudley]

Dave had the WRC for a couple of years.

[marsh]

I can't understand why Motors TV or Dave don't get promotors beating down their door for coverage. Dave TV especially with it's Top Gear franchise. They are begging for a major series to cover.

This. There's only so many times you can run repeats of have I got news for you. When dave did the higlights I could happily avoid finding out the result on a sunday evening. Don't put it on motors tv though.....

[JPR]

Rallying seems perfect for internet streaming and then TV highlights program. You've already got cameras all over the place so let me go on a website and watch them, I'll start in cockpit but then see from the course tracker we're coming up to the big jump so jump to the outside camera for that, now I'll have some nose cam, helicopter's in range now so I'll have that and finish with the cockpit to see the driver responses. Maybe I just like to sit and watch a single spot or stick with the nose cam on each run, no problem, can also sit and watch it all day or check the start order and pick the drivers I want to watch.

I think this year we should try to get RFT into the FIA to sort out rallying, either solution sounds great. Then get Mexos to take over F1 and dump all the rubbish the rulebook is now full of, my advice is to go in give Webber a slap tell him to stop whining about the rain and give Schumacher a nudge and a wink tell him to have at them, show them what real racing is. Then finally I think we can have sidewaysbob in as the WEC enforcer, make sure endurance racing becomes a success again, Ferrari and the likes do all want to run a full LMP1 team.

Hopefully then the FIA would be able to run at least three successful series at the same time, something it seems wholly incapable of doing, touring cars can be our next target.

[Dudley]

[marsh]

Sigh.

Is the general consensus that the fia are going to fuck up endurance racing or is that just my blinkered narrow minded opinion? They seem to have done quite well without them.

[JPR]

Sigh.

Is the general consensus that the fia are going to fuck up endurance racing or is that just my blinkered narrow minded opinion? They seem to have done quite well without them.

I have hope that this time it will work, especially as it's been done with the ACO so you have Le Mans and a number of big manufactures have said they will be making cars for it. Then again I was hopeful for the last time they redid it only a few years a go but that didn't work, and again the sound, the old GT1 sounded much better than the new GT1 spec they came up with.

What's happening with the IRC now, I seem to remember people saying a few years a go that it was actually the much better rally series?

I think one thing that sums up the changes in rallying for me, it used to be able to make a Metro look exciting, don't see that being possible now.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e01xeFetv_g

[wev]

My sisters boyfriend from when I was about 6 (so 1990) had a MG Metro that had some crazy bodywork on it, he bought it like that as far as I know. Was that a road going version of a Rally car then?

[Dudley]

My sisters boyfriend from when I was about 6 (so 1990) had a MG Metro that had some crazy bodywork on it, he bought it like that as far as I know. Was that a road going version of a Rally car then?

Yes, they had to do so in order to rally it back in those days.

They made 200 of them. If you want to google, it was called the Metro 6R4.

[wev]

Thats what I thought, although didn't know the numbers were so low, fuck knows how he got his hands on one of them then.

[marsh]

And had more trick on it or at least as much as an f1 car of the same era. Courtessey of williams gp. A shit and amazing car in equal measure. If my memory serves me correctly, if you timed it right the 6r4 and the rs200 were sold for fuck all at the end of their respective lives. Dealers couldn't give them away.

Could you buy a road going rally car now? Not really.

[JPR]

And had more trick on it or at least as much as an f1 car of the same era. Courtessey of williams gp. A shit and amazing car in equal measure. If my memory serves me correctly, if you timed it right the 6r4 and the rs200 were sold for fuck all at the end of their respective lives. Dealers couldn't give them away.

If only I was old enough at the time I'd have been more than happy to take an RS200 off a dealers hands, one of my favourite cars.

[wev]

If thats the case, that'll explain how he got it, he was only a tyre fitter at a garage, but as I said, I was at least 6 (parents split up when I was 6 and my much older sister did alot of babysitting so he was always round our house) so by then it probably cost less than a standard Metro.

Funnily enough, my (now ex) Step Dad had a Opel Manta with some impressive alloyed wheels on it.

[marsh]

I think it shows how far we've moved on. An fq360 goes like stink. A group b type with modern materials and big engine outputs is going to be insane. It just saddens me how far some of these companies have distanced themselves from their past. Like to see the toybaru go rallying.

[RFT]

Sigh.

Is the general consensus that the fia are going to fuck up endurance racing or is that just my blinkered narrow minded opinion? They seem to have done quite well without them.

Endurance racing goes in cycles. The ACO have managed to run things reasonably well for the last decade or so. Audi have dominated the scoresheets at Le Mans, but Peugoet have given them a good run. The GT classes are very healthy indeed, and sportscar racing seems to have relavance and a spring in its step.

Getting the FIA on board was necessary to get that "world championship" tag and it's been rewarded with more entries. right now, things are looking good and we could be looking at a new era to rival the Group C years of the 80s. There are some people who lose out a little (the American and European series are going to lose thier serious entrants to the WEC).

The real test is when the 2014 regulations come out. until then, we're running to the ACO's rulebook and while they seem to take some very odd decisions (the big honking holes over the wheels rrequired for this year) they seem, mostly, to get it. the new regs will be jointly written by the FIA and ACO and i've heard rumours of odd things being suggested by the FIA side, like making the cars narrower by 200mm.

So, we'll see. And remember, you can't spell "Acrimonous Fallout" without "ACO" and "FIA".

[McSpeed]

I just love how ridiculous it actually looks.

Ridiculously awesome, that is.

[marsh]

I just love how ridiculous it actually looks.

Ridiculously awesome, that is.

Cut and shut. Innit.

[Plissken]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kAq10F_aYXs

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x19t_ngKFFk