Upon sharing the latest "cap" news with a fellow F1 fan, he replied the following. i thought it was good enough to have this informed group to read and comment. i did get his permission to post this
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Some cost-capping is probably a good thing, at least in theory. Having a
double-standard (some with caps and others without) seems like comparing
apples and oranges (some teams can use technological advances, others
cannot). I don't like that.
Tyre warmers out - definitely.
Refuelling ban. I understand the cost cutting implications, but it seems
more logical to me to have refueling as a more realistic happenstance in a
race, than this dopey necessity to use widely different tyre compounds (oh -
and don't teams pay Bridgestone for this? - and what about the costs
involved with all that development and logistics of traipsing them around
the world?).
I agree it is a very wasteful sport. However, it is freakin' F1 for
goodness sakes. Get rid of all the stinking aero crap, create a reasonable
budget cap, and let the teams loss to develop what they want (i.e. different
engine configurations). I'm tire of hearing all the proposals for spec
items.
Ultimately, it's all about Bernie's show and the ability for him to keep
lining his pockets. Racers want to go race!! I don't like watching parades
instead of races either, but FOTA hasn't come up with anything to help with
passing. The diffusers work against it and all the aero aids disrupt the
air. It's become more about the cars than the drivers, in some aspect. Who
ever has the better car wins (stupid statement, but all these drivers are
good oar they wouldn't be in F1 - ok, with a couple of exceptions, but you
know what I mean). There ARE a few drivers that seem to be able to work
with a difficult car - Alonso comes to mind.
Hey - wanna save some money? Don't be taking the circus to the far corners
of the earth!! Oh yeah - they're the one willing to pay the ransom for the
races.
I love F1, but like so many others, it has become this huge political
beast, with all the entities intertwined. Teams buy in , get cuts of
revenues. It truly has become a business above and beyond the crux of the
whole point (for a spectator, to go back to that for a moment), which is to
see interesting, competitive racing. And, diversity, for me, can add to
that. At the rate it is going, it will be F1 (one Formula). If I want
that, there are a number of other racing series I can watch. I'm surprised
Max hasn't proclaimed that restrictor plates (ok, some form of fuel
regulation, since there aren't carburetored). Look at DTM - these cars
slide around, it's competitive (from what little I've seen), and fun to
watch. Too bad that's not more coverage of that!
Seems like the regulations are like band-aids, and not logical progressions
to get to an end point. They change and flip-flop form year to year. Hmmm,
likt that doesn't cost money (and I've already alluded to the cost of
night-racing).