GPWizard F1 Forum
F1 News & Discussions => General F1 Discussion => Topic started by: lkjohnson1950 on October 22, 2021, 07:18:40 AM
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F1's official survey shows less than 7% liked the sprint race format. Despite that, Domenicali says support from "New Fans" is overwhelmingly positive, and the program will be expanded next season. Sounds like change for the sake of change, or maybe the old We are Never Wrong that the FIA is famous for. Like so many businesses they seem more intent on getting new customers than keeping the old ones.
https://www.racefans.net/2021/10/21/fans-show-limited-support-for-f1s-sprint-qualifying-format-in-official-survey/ (https://www.racefans.net/2021/10/21/fans-show-limited-support-for-f1s-sprint-qualifying-format-in-official-survey/)
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Neither - it's change for the sake of saving the multi-million pound sponsorship deal Liberty signed with a cryptocurrency company before doing this survey. It's called "valuing the customers who paid more money over the customers who pay less".
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Lies, damn lies, and statistics.
Seriously though, reading survey results is a science. Even though existing F1 fans don't like the sprint races, they're unlikely to stop watching the sport over it. If it is bringing in new fans, who stay, then the FIA/FOM will see it as a good thing.
Compared with most other Sports, F1 has very little continuity. The drivers change, the cars change, the teams, the rules, the tracks, the technology, it all changes.
If you take a soccer (football) fan from 1930 and have them watch a premier league game, they'll be right at home (and vice versa). A racing fan from the same era would only have the vaguest clue what's going on in a modern Grand Prix race.
An f1 fan without appetite to accept change hasn't been paying attention. I agree change for the sake of change doesn't accomplish much, but if it's measurably growing the fan base, I can't blame them for giving up one 'old' fan for two 'new' fans.
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I'm ok with it...rather they run if for another season and see how it plays out instead of dump it for another gimmick.
I wish they would start seriously looking at fixing the aero problem. I know the teams will scream bloody murder since they have invested so much in aero over the years, but they have to allow the cars to get closer to each other, and the only way to do that is scale the aero way back. Pushing the teams in that direction will be baby steps I'm sure, but in 5-6 years of incremental restrictions in the air wash, we could have great racing.
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Bring on 2022!
I hope?
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I dislike the Sprint Races but I am not who they are targeting, so have little impact on what is done.
I would still rather dump the existing Qualifying format and go back to the 1 hr free for all.
With the current format, it gets easier for the drivers who proceed as they have fewer and fewer cars on track to contend with to get a pole lap. If every car is out for the entire time, we can really see who has pole skills and who does not.
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Like you Willy I'm not who they are thinking of with this experiment so they are bound to weight the survey in favour of the younger generation, especially non committed F1 viewers.
I'm in favour of the Sprint being moved to Fri afternoon with points like old time F1 scoring to just 6 places 8-6-4-3-2-1. This grid would be set by bringing back one & half hour practice session in morning as a free for all, top time gets pole etc.
Could shake Sprint grid up if teams get set up wrong out of box. Have to ditch rule about impeding in that Fri morning session or it will be an even bigger dogs dinner, - sounds like fun already. ;)
Then Saturday returns to normal P3 with Quali for big race as usual.
This system could allow some less well attended races to be just 2 day affairs Sat & Sun, might ease the pressure with 23/24 race calendar.
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I think the entire objective (having a compulsory focal point every day of race weekend) is misguided, because the majority of fans have their Fridays spoken for. Even if you happen to be able to schedule the session that counts for the evening everywhere (impossible thanks to geography) and TV happens to broadcast the session (the majority of TV stations don't show Friday or Saturday morning sessions as they were priced out of that before any of this happened), you still have the problem that Friday is a full work day in most countries without historic Islamic governance and Friday evening is a common choice for "extra-curricular activities" worldwide.
Either schedule any 3rd focal-point session for Thursday evening or Monday evening, but not Friday evening! Also, don't make it compulsory or affecting anything that happens in subsequent sessions, since it is inevitable that large portions of the fanbase will be locked out of watching.
(Actually, Thursday-Saturday-Sunday might not be a bad idea for a weekend schedule everywhere - except Monaco, which apparently needs to shut the roads for less time each weekend than before. Friday can be media and fan day, with drivers and teams actually having something to discuss but still near enough the beginning of the weekend that it can act as a set of preview quotes (if they've had, say, a practice session followed by a fun race in something like Caterham Sevens or Superkarts, you can still get published quotes out before qualifying, even if you write for a daily paper newspaper. Note that I think the schedule also needs to be reduced to 18 rounds or fewer on an urgent basis as it's become apparent to me that doing more exhausts the teams to an unacceptable degree considering this is meant to be the pinnacle of motorsport and what Liberty is doing with calendar expansion is outright dangerous).