America and F1

In theory, yes, but in practice, they basically based their design on the original design by Lola!

Also, the Gurney Weslake Engine in the GT40 is British.........
 
Over Clocker said:
In theory, yes, but in practice, they basically based their design on the original design by Lola!
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The only thing the MkIV shared with the other GT40s is the 7.0 Ford big-block motor (taken from the Ford Galaxie originally). The chassis was completely different, an aluminium honeycomb tub designed with some help from an American aircraft company.

Over Clocker said:
Also, the Gurney Weslake Engine in the GT40 is British.........
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IIRC, Weslake made the heads and some tuning parts for the 289-305ci engined GT40s. The core of the engine was still FoMoCo. Don't think they did much with the 427ci - and pretty much all Ford did was change the inlet for something race-spec and fit the 'snake bundle' exhaust setup.

Could have that wrong though. Been a while since I read up on the GT40 and its development.
 
They could dominate if they could get the interest and then the backing of a major sponsor. A coke or a pepsi and then start building a team with the money.

Anything is possible but unlikely to happen because America on the whole thinks F1 is a joke and dull. Theres little interest in it from the states, they require more entertainment from sports than we do, after all we have cricket. ;)
 
dannyjo22 said:
They could dominate if they could get the interest and then the backing of a major sponsor. A coke or a pepsi and then start building a team with the money.
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This is very true i.e if William Gates got into F1 the cash he\Microsoft could pour into a team is just out there.
I have always wondered why they never had.
 
dannyjo22 said:
They could dominate if they could get the interest and then the backing of a major sponsor. A coke or a pepsi and then start building a team with the money.

Anything is possible but unlikely to happen because America on the whole thinks F1 is a joke and dull. Theres little interest in it from the states, they require more entertainment from sports than we do, after all we have cricket. ;)
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Yeah, and it's amazing that america thinks F1 is a joke and dull when you consider the repetetiveness of their boring oval or circular race tracks that have no interesting features like chicanes, twists or turns.
 
The US aren't interested because your basic Yank isn't clever enough and doesn't have a long enough attention span for F1. The American sport market is dominated by high-scoring, all action stuff. Same with the racing - an oval where cars pass each other a lot at high speed. Yawn.

The US should be left playing with themselves and their own special sports, well out of the way of where they can do harm to our stuff.
 
deuse said:
This is very true i.e if William Gates got into F1 the cash he\Microsoft could pour into a team is just out there.
I have always wondered why they never had.
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Toyota emptied the proverbial 'shed load' of cash in to F1. That didn't work out too well. :D A team needs the people, and there are only so many of the 'Newey' caliber around.

Personally, I couldn't give a monkey's about a yank F1 team and all the unnecessary flag waving that would follow it around, but I would like to see a US driver or two. However with Nascar's dominance over there, it's unlikely.

I'd also like to see a US Grand Prix, but not at Indy, which was awful. Maybe Road Atlanta? Or perhaps scare the precious F1 boys to death and send 'em to Laguna Seca and the corkscrew.
 
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JRS said:
*sigh*

Yeah, 'cause Watkins Glen, Sears Point, Barber Motorsports Park, Miller Motorsports Park, Mid-Ohio, Laguna Seca, Road Atlanta, Road America, Lime Rock et al all have no interesting features whatsoever....
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Heh, I stand corrected, was mainly thinking of nascar or whichever it is that has the oval tracks. I should have remembered road america and laguna seca having recently played them in need for speed. Well then, why do they find F1 boring? And it's courses like the ones you listed that make me more sure they would do well in F1 (if they were interested).
 
Merlin5 said:
Well then, why do they find F1 boring?
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That might have something to do with the fact that for a while F1 was....well....quite boring. Overtaking mainly being done in the pitlane, cars so aero dependent that they can't follow each other, results decided by stewards enquiry weeks later....it can't be much of a surprise that America looked at it and said "no, on balance I think I'd rather watch 43 guys go duke it out in 3400lb 750bhp stock cars".

Sure, they seem to be moving in the right direction with the sport now (slick tyres, less winglets, no refuelling). But they keep these bat-**** insane rules like having to use both tyre compounds in a dry race, and it always seems like someone is getting their car/technology protested (double diffuser, ride height trickery to name two).

And then there was the US GP 2005. My God, what a **** up by all parties concerned. Michelin bring along a tyre that just isn't up to the job, wiping out the race for more than half the grid. The FIA don't let them rectify the situation when there was still time. The Michelin-shod teams don't take the options that were still available to them courtesy of Mad Max's intransigence. Ferrari (rightly or wrongly, your call) object to any concession that effectively punishes the Bridgestone teams for having tyres that are up to the job (such as the temporary chicane idea). And Bernie wanders aimlessly around powerless to sort the bloody mess out like he would have done back in the day.

It's no wonder that the USA started to feel that F1 wasn't worth the effort after that.
 
JRS has it nailed, why would the yanks be interested in F1 when they had Cart. Cart in the 90's offered better racing wheel to wheel than I have ever seen in F1. The passing was actually done on the track.

Alex Zanardi passing the complete field to win, Villeneuve getting a 2 lap penalty at Indianapolis and passing the complete grid twice to win in 95.

Cart in the 90's was as good as racing as you can watch and you didn't have to be in the best car to win the championship.

Blaming yanks for not being clever enough or having an attention span doesn't cut it. For starters F1 fans all over the world are switching off from F1 including in this country and secondly have you seen how long that boring version of football they have goes on for about 3 weeks.

F1 just isn't that exciting which is why it's having trouble bringing in big sponsors and interest from younger fans.

Sponsors and fans are not interested in a sport where traditonally one of two or three teams win all the time.
 
It's a difficult one this. I'm not sure that the Americans find it boring I think there are other factors working against F1 in the US.

1) Timing. A 1pm BST start, as most of the European races are, means an 8am EDT or 5am PDT start. With only a couple of races at sensible times you're on to a loser from the get go unless you do re-runs which then end up clashing either with church or domestic sport.

2) Accessability. The Americans, by and large, support people not teams. For example they'll follow Jeff Gordon or the late Dale Ernhardt rather than Hendrik Motorsports or Richard Childress Racing. In F1 the personalties don't really stand above the teams to the same degree so it's a bit of an alien concept to the Americans.

3) Car vs Driver. American motorsport is much more like GP2 or WTCC than F1, it's not one make racing but it's nowhere near as diverse as F1. That then leads to problems understanding why, for example, Lewis Hamilton can win the championship one year but be absolutely nowhere the next. I suppose this also comes back to the support being with the US drivers rather than teams.

4) Lack of relevance. No US drivers, no US manufacturers and no predominantly US sponsors so it's difficult to see where to start. If you want a comparison go and watch an Indycar road course race and see how long you can stick it for - if there's nothing holding your attention then you'll be flicking channel fairly soon.

5) Poor show. Sport in the US is entertainment. Just look at all the complaints over the years about football not having a high enough scoring rate (don't even start Americans on draws!). You've got to admit that F1 has a long way to go to match the US motorsports when it comes to the show both on and off the track. F1 has none of the pre or post race showmanship of US racing - if an F1 driver did donuts or climbed the catch fencing after a win they'd be banned or fined, in the US they get stick if they don't do something!
 
I thought about this for about 10 minutes now. Is there an international sport that the USA dominate? I was thinking perhaps Golf but struggle to think of anything else.
 
They're very strong in "amateur" sports like athletics and swimming because of the amount of emphasis put on them in the college system. Generally the US is somewhere that people go to play professional sport because of the money (much like footballers wanting to play in the Premiership). As a result the US golf & tennis tours are much stronger than their European counterparts.
 
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