Formula One - 2016

Advan046 wrote: As an aside, did anyone ever notice how Hamilton would brake into corners earlier in his career. He used a rather cool trick to spook those around him. I caught it when he first started in GP2. As he brakes he is somehow able to slightly kick the rear of his car towards his rival whether passing them or being passed. I thought it was just him setting up the car for entry but then he did it again another lap when his rival was on his right side going into a right hander. So as a competitor you can imagine seeing his rear tires all of a sudden jumping a little closer to you. I then noticed that he did the same in F1 for the first couple of seasons.

Wow, thank you for that, it’s great insight, I’m off to look for some old GP2 footage of him now.

Advan046 wrote: Ricciardo seems doomed. I think the media and team are so MAX focused that he will simply begin to fade away as the team continues to screw him over with bad setups and bad strategy. F1 must not like Aussies.

I’m not so sure on this one. I agree MadMax has a great future, but he’s not ready yet. It’s a shame he came to F1 so young. I think if he’d had a couple more years to mature in the lower formula he could have arrived as an instant superstar like Hamilton. Instead he is without doubt a superstar in the making, but right now he’s too high on my douche list (along with other wise great drives like Senna and Schumacher) for some of his moves. I don’t’ think he has the consistency yet to be a threat to the Honey Badger. Despite his maiden win for the big bull, Riccirado has outscored him since they were in the same team 176 to 152. If the Pink Cow squad get rid of him I think he’ll go to Ferrari with Seb after Kimi finally retires. At that point I’ll have no choice but to root for Ferrari!

Lauda on Mad Max. Well he’s known for spouting whatever opinion happens to be floating between his ears at that moment with no thought of what he said 5 minutes ago or will say in another 5 minutes time. It's what makes him worth keeping around the paddock, endless entertainment. A bit like Eddie Jordan. Not necessarily correct, on point, or relevant, but worth it for the comedy effect alone. I'm honestly not sure what his real roll is these days.

Weather looks great so not so much rain fun like last year. Still maybe RB can still give MB a run given the S's and some significant traction events out of some of the tighter corners.

FOM seems to have decided that Max is what they need for ratings, as Mercedes has made things boring. So he's going to continue to get the love unless something truly egregious takes place.

The weather looks great this weekend. I spent half the day at the track. It seems like the circus is a little bigger this year. FIA finally got smart and made a few changes to the intervention policies after Singapore and Russia. That was interesting to hear.

But, I've got my Fire suit, Helmet, tabaird, and my nomax gloves all packed and ready to be track side as usual for the next 3 days. To all in town....Welcome and enjoy.

Disappointing that Haas didn't make Q3 at their home race, but otherwise it was a pretty unsurprising session, I thought. I just hope they manage through lap 1 turn 1 without a bunch of shenanigans, but I'm not sure that's realistic.

Skipped Taylor Swift. Somehow I think I'll recover.

Watched the Swiftys from the relative comfort of the Heineken spot yesterday. That show was better than the actual concert IMHO (not that I went, just saying) On the way into the track now. Simply beautiful weather this year, hope Hammy doesn't bodge the start again.

Something that has surprised me is the relative lack of traffic. My parking pass is for lot N and we have had only the slightest bit of delay on Elroy road coming in from about halfway between downtown and the airport. Everything I read said to prepare for long backups on the roads around the facility so we've been here kind of obscenely early every day.

I'm not complaining about it! I guess the traffic backups apply to people that aren't showing up for the support races or concerts.

They were hoping for a better turn out. Texas, in general, was a bad idea for a USGP for many reasons. One being they keep threatening to cecede from the US. Be glad about traffic, the 2008 French GP was insane. Hours of back up.

Actually it was an absolutely great turn out. Most people ever for the USGP. It was really packed today. The organizers were extremely happy with the ticket sales. The reason for the lack of traffic is there is a lot of late arrivals. Most really don't care about the support series. Turn 1 GA was packed by 9:00.

Too bad for those people because the Porsche Supercup racing was really good. There was a spin at the exit of turn 12 and I was looking at it just thinking man I'm going to be cleaning this one up for a long time and some how everyone missed each other.

Overall it was a good race. The racing for 5-7 was tight and active. Max crunched a gearbox. It got stuck in gear and couldn't get it to neutral which triggered the virtual safety car that allowed Nico the opening to get into the 2nd place spot from Riccairdo. If max would have just pulled off the track at the opening at 13-14 where I was at instead of trying to make it home to the pits, I don't know that nico had the pace to pass.

Yeah never mind what I said about the traffic. Getting out was a pretty lengthy venture!

The Porsche race was pretty cool and it was awesome to see the classics out there.

It didn't seem that Nico had much pace at all. I wonder if they're trying to conserve mechanical parts to finish out the season.

I was there all weekend hanging out in the T4 grandstands.

The Porsche Supercup support race was indeed well worth watching.

For those considering it, its well worth the trip. PROTIP: my wife had a very smart brainwave when arranging this in Februrary. We got a cabin in Bastrop State Park. Sleeps 4 for $100 a night. Has heat/ac, linens provided, has a kitchen... was very comfy and the opposite direction of Austin from the track. Less traffic to deal with. Very quiet and peaceful.

Unfortunately, she forgot about getting tickets for parking at the track, so we had to use the shuttles. (we were on the first one each day) If you catch the early shuttle the traffic wasnt bad at all to get to the track. Getting back, there was a bit of traffic, but heading away from Austin helped. We are used to DC traffic, we have seen the beltway in worse shape. Yeah, you are going to have stop and go for awhile. All told, perhaps added 20min.

Regarding attendance...

https://www.sportsbusinessdaily.com/Daily/Issues/2016/10/24/Events-and-Attractions/USGP.aspx

Has attendance at (rounding up slightly) 270,000

Meanwhile; lets look at the best that football can muster...
http://www.espn.com/dallas/nfl/news/story?id=6096358

indicates that the sooooperbowl all time attendance record is a mere 112,250ish.

THE USGP HAD MORE THAN TWICE THE ATTENDANCE OF THE SUPERBOWL!

Although, I cant find solid numbers, here as a Nascar comparison https://www.reference.com/sports-active-lifestyle/many-people-attend-daytona-500-637bf2fe7f2a0e36

They estimate the Daytona 500 at 250,000. So it beat that...

I saw some numbers that the Indy500 may approach 300k, but cant find solid information on that. Wikipedia has it at 250,000 for the record there. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_sporting_venues_with_a_highest_attendance_of_100,000_or_more

That list has live attendance beating LeMans though...

In reply to wae:

I think he was playing it safe. He had the pace in qualifying, but borked T1 on his flyer. Through the race he didn't put up much of a fight, just kept his nose clean and it payed off.

In reply to Apexcarver:

Not quite apples to apples, I think. There's a difference between ticket entries per day and actual people. USGP counts ticket entries per day and adds them up across the days to get entries. Of course, a lot of people come for different days and multiple days. I know I've seen numbers for attendance for the day of the race in years past and it has been around 100,000. I don't know whether the Daytona number includes just race day or the practice days, as well, for example.

In any case, I understand that there were more ticket entries for this event than ever before, including the first year. I think much of that could be attributed to Taylor Swift, since I am sure there were a lot of folks that were there just to see her and probably many of those weren't normally your F1 demographic (12-14 yo girls springs to mind).

It is good to see a good year for them, though, especially after coming off the horrid weather event last year which exacerbated a flawed traffic plan that alienated a LOT of people.

Spoolpigeon wrote: In reply to wae: I think he was playing it safe. He had the pace in qualifying, but borked T1 on his flyer. Through the race he didn't put up much of a fight, just kept his nose clean and it payed off.

Agree totally. He certainly had qualifying pace, but he was letting Hamilton run away from him a bit on Sunday. I read that Lewis was taking it a bit easy towards the end which is when Rosberg started to close the gap. If he had said the same thing Max said to Lewis - "I was catching you" - there would have been the same smile and "no you weren't".

When Lewis got a good start (which was nice to see, btw!) and Ricciardo nudged him out at turn 1, I think the strategy was just to bring the car home and try to defeat RBR on strat more than by pushing the car.

Re: Great attendance- lets not forget that Indy had the largest crowd ever at F1 races. 200,000-250,000 on race day.

Not bad. Probably well over 500k for a three day weekend.

And that ended up going away. It's not about the fans that show up. Hasn't for some time now.

So the race was actually pretty good. The racing was intense up until Kimi fell out the race and the VSC allowed MB the free pitstops.

I was hoping for a nice battle between Rosberg and Ricciardo. The RB with older tires would still be a match for the MB at this track. So while DRS would give Rosberg a great chance, I think the corner exit speed advantage that the RB has would have made it very interesting.

Funny to see the McLaren Honda guys pushing that far into the points. Seems that I just assume they will always be at the back. Haven't accepted that they are going well now. Good for them. The battle for 5th was great to watch. I think Sainz is very good, better than Max, but just has had bad luck with the car failing at key moments. I kind of hoped he would jump to Renault after Max bumped up to RB since Ricciardo nor Max are going anywhere soon.

At the back Palmer whining was rather odd. He should have thought about how that would hurt him more than help his status with the team. Kevin Mag will probably be dropped along with Palmer. I think both should be trying very hard for the Sauber or Manor seat. But I get the feeling that neither driver has good enough financial backing to get a seat.

I think Hamilton is resigned to 2nd and just going to try his best and see what happens. It is probably slightly easier to know that you lost the championship slightly more due to mechanical failures rather than your effort.

alfadriver wrote: It's not about the fans that show up. Hasn't for some time now.

I know what you're saying, but I think F1 is waking up to the fact that without fan attendance the tracks, like COTA, just aren't viable. F1 has stacked all the revenue in their counting house, leaving virtually only the gate to the tracks. That works when the track owners are sovereign countries or rich Arabs, but not when there is a true business model, like COTA. Of course, street courses like Mexico don't need the infrastructure outlay, but they aren't the greatest venues and are subject to all sorts of issues.

In reply to Basil Exposition:

I'm not sure if they do or not. Maybe. I think they are seeing that the viewers are down.

But given a choice to make an easy $20M in sanctioning fees (I made that up), F1 does't care if there are 10 fans or 100,000 fans. It matters to the drivers, and it matters to the teams (or at least the sponsors). But after years of them saying that, there's been pretty little movement.

And seeing that F1 is always threatening taking a race away (and have) from historic and established tracks- they don't seem to care about the track or the track owners.

I'm still stunned how many time Spa, Monza, and Silverstone are still threatened. With all the great tracks they left, it should just disappointing.

Viewership is down.

And with the exception of Monaco that doesn't have a sanctioning fee, most are closer to the $30-35 million per race range.

I think this is a large part of why CVC have sold (are selling, not done yet?) F1 to Liberty Media. CVC realize they've squeezed as much blood out of the stone as possible. It's almost impossible to make money with the current sanctioning fees CVC have in place. I think it's got to the point where even some of the 'bought' races are in trouble. The latest is that Malaysia may choose not to renew its contract due to falling # of butts in seats.

I think a lack of butts in seats eventually has a knock on to TV ratings and hence eyeballs and interest in general. If you are looking at empty grandstands what is going to make you buy a ticket next year for the same event. The message you take away is 'it's not worth paying to see' That leads to a lack of interest and people flocking away.

I also think that Liberty will care more about the heritage tracks as that gives a tie in to the past, which without current cultural fascination with retro futurism and modernizing old stuff, especially in the automotive sector (MINI, Beetle, Mustang, Wrangler etc. etc.) means what's old is cool. I guarantee when Liberty are in full control we won’t hear any more rumbling about Silverstone, Spa or Monza going away. And as America is still the wealthiest per capita market out there then we will also stop hearing about COTA being under attack and I'd bet on another US race to be paired with Montreal as COTA is with Mexico.

In reply to Adrian_Thompson: When ever the tracks say the CVC is to expensive, I think they are trying to get a lower rate. I still think the hefty cost for tracks is by design as all viewership across all sports is down, and there doesn't seem to be a winning strategy any of sports. F1 especially is designed as the elitist sport, so lowering the price and opening the floodgates, I seriously would doubt that would happen. When I say this I am half joking, if the Romanian Mafia put up the funds to bring F1 they would be there. If Austin Government threw another monkey wrench at COTA it could easily be gameover and onto the next track. This is regardless of how hard the commentators were selling everybody on how great of show they put on and how Williams sister was there. I am not sure I buy into liberty bringing back the nostalgia, of the old F1. I think Technology still a better sell, think about all the money invested in Formula E, any they have to switch cars, cookie cutter tracks, and they are slow.

I would really like to see Instanbul and Magny-Cours back on the schedule.

At least with the oil money grand prix's they pay nicely to bring in people to run the race. The folks in Baku are offering me flight from JFK and all lodging, food, and drink to come be a Chief Intervention Marshall for the 2017 race. I think I may just do it.

bmw88rider wrote: At least with the oil money grand prix's they pay nicely to bring in people to run the race. The folks in Baku are offering me flight from JFK and all lodging, food, and drink to come be a Chief Intervention Marshall for the 2017 race. I think I may just do it.

Absolutely!

I wonder how fast one of the MB would go on the straight at Mexico with the Monza Aero package!?