Motorsport Off Topic Thread

Skeeter said:
Guys, have you missed that Button is in Vodafone overals, so the clips are all 2+ years old, and it surfaced around April 1st?

Edit: Its apparently been around since 2013?
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I hadn't particularly paid attention to the date but... it didn't surface around April 1st, it went up in August. by the sounds of it, it is supposed to be a parody of some kind but not of itself. They were trying to make a aftershave style advert but for a student account... it's unclear if they were just ripping off a concept and thinking it would be interesting or intentionally trying to make a funny advert. Again it wasn't funny enough to be funny, it was far too serious while also being awful. Seems it was made/released around early August.

The actual time it went up doesn't really matter. THe thread in question was about the latest stupid PR thing Alonso was being forced into doing... a freaking smell test on motor oil. The thread was just linking to other horrific things Alonso/Mclaren drivers have done in the past. Lewis being roped(literally) into a ridiculous Mclaren thing when he was newly there, Alonso doing an awful Santander thing, Button doing an awful Santander thing in his Mclaren kit.

EDIT:- facebook reaction of that ad lead me to find this ad...

http://www.ispot.tv/ad/7nmh/mobil-1-featuring-jenson-button-tony-stewart

which is.... bad but less bad. The problem with the Santander one is it just wasn't actually funny, just cringe worthy, so it missed the mark completely. This one is awful as well and stupid but it's so much more obviously a joke that it makes sense. Though Jenson's 'oh my word' is just a bit too sexual sounding. The santander one needed, say Button to be pulling a stupid fragrance add type pose, then drop his helmet, that kind of thing. Rather than a funny parody(which I think was the intent) it feels more like a terrible attempt at a genuine advert.
 
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It's clearly a tongue-in-cheek advert and meant to be bad, also surprised some here hadnt seen it before. It used to be on most Sky ad-breaks on the F1 channel, let alone terrestrial ones.
 
Bernie Ecclestone has once again stated he believes F1 needs to return to normally aspirated V8 engines as soon as possible, with a boost in the engines bringing their power outputs close to 1000bhp.

Ecclestone has long been critical of the current V6 turbo era, and in a recent interview with prominent Italian sports newspaper Gazzetta dello Sport he affirmed these views, stating "We need to go back to engines whose costs are more reasonable, and we need to intervene with maximum urgency,Going back to a Formula 1 with naturally aspirated engines and KERS, while setting precise constraints, would drastically reduce costs and would be convenient for those already in F1 and for those would like to enter it."

Ecclestone also outlined how he believes a return to normally aspirated V8 engines should also see a boost in engine power, saying "We'd just need to take the old V8 engines and modify them by increasing displacement to bring power output near 1000bhp.People would return, the show would return, sponsors would return."

On one hand this move makes some sense, as the new F1 engine power units are ridiculously expensive, a major cause of a lot of the smaller teams financial issues recently. Replacing these power units with less sophisticated engines would significantly reduce costs, although would it also means manufactures such as Honda and Renault would leave the sport, as the engine technology no longer becomes relevant to their road car platforms.

Whilst a return to 1000bhp much like the 1980's era would be a good marketing tool for Formula One, it seems it is slightly wishful thinking for Ecclestone to think that by simply replacing the current engines with older technology this would solve F1's current problems. Whilst newer engines with 1000bhp would bring some fans back to the sport, F1 has a lot more to do in terms of enticing fans to a sport that is currently losing a lot of support.

F1 needs to do more to engage younger audiences through social media, alongside enticing causal fans and keeping them interested in a sport with increasingly complex technology. A return to V8 engines would help reduce one problem in terms of teams financial issues, and the 1000bhp power mark would be a good marketing tool for F1, however it may also create another problem with enticing manufactures to the sport, and new engines will certainly still leave some major problems in Formula One going forward in the next few years
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http://www.racedepartment.com/threa...rn-to-v8-engines.104169/#.VTD2iKvTUJE.twitter
 
Bernie's worried about car numbers yet he's apparently wanting to drive Mercedes, Honda and Renault away from the sport?

They've spent an exorbitant amount of money developing these units (even by F1 standards) and Bernie expects them to just throw them in the bin?

I suspect we're more likely to see certain manufacturers leaving F1 and joining WEC than we are to see the likes of VAG going in the other direction, and Bernie would be properly ****** if that happened in his lifetime.
 
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I usually back Bernie as you can see his gameplan through the madness, but in this instance hes just wrong. Flat out wrong. And to make it worse he's suggesting 'increases displacement', meaning what, 3.0L V8s like we had... 20 years ago! Yes, that would make F1 the pinacle of Motorsport! Idiot.

I've raised this in the WEC thread but the issue here really isn't the engine technology. WEC uses hybrids in its top class now, and nobody is saying they are a waste of money or totally pointless like they are with F1. But the thing is its the same technology! A V6 F1 engine meets the ACO WEC regulations!

So if in one series the technology is seen as the best thing since sliced bread, yet in another its seen as a disaster and a total waste, perhaps the issue is the series itself? F1 is practically embarrassed about the V6s while WEC is making the hybrid tech their front page pinup.

Nope, the problem with the F1 engines is not the engines, the problem is that the series and its promotion are run by antiquanted out dated organisations lead by ancient old men completely out of touch with the world around them.

The path F1 has taken with engines is the right one. They way F1 has gone about implementing it is awful.
 
IMO - What Bernie is doing is making an issue out of the cost of the engines. I'm quite sure he has absolutely no interest in going back to old engines. What he wants is for F1 as a whole to come up with a solution to the problem of expensive engines. As I think one of the pundits said, Bernie usually starts extreme and finds common ground. What might be an issue is Bernie's idea of common ground is more 80/20 in his favour. :)
 
But that's a total non issue. Were talking about engine costs that have risen from ~$10m to ~$20m in a sport where a teams budget is ~$250m+. And everyone knew the cost of the engines too. Plus if they have to develop another new engine that won't happen for free, and the cost of the V6 development still needs to be recovered, so changing again would probably see them cost even more!

There is no problem with the engine technology. There is no problem with the cost. The problem is the idiot dinosaurs running the show making a complete farse out of what should be a glorious new era for a modern, forward thinking F1.
 
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Slam62 said:
F1 cars are driven within their limits during a race and thus are dull, blame stupid tyres/fuel/pit stops/reliability/danger/money/etc
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Show me an era when F1 was about going flat out all race every race, and I'll show you a flying pig with unicorn horns.
 
When cars ran to a strategy that was defined by the optimum fuel level/number of stops strategy. Try again.

Has there ever been an F1 era where fastest race laps were anywhere near qualifying pace? F1 has never, ever, been a flat out sprint to the finish. This mentality of if now somehow being 'broken' because drivers have to manage something has become the new bandwagon to jump on for people with selective memories.
 
Slam 62 has a point in the early 2000s they ran three or four sprint races broken up by pitstops. The front running teams with good reliability like Ferrari could when pressed run them flat out. One of the benefits of unlimited testing. I certainly recall some races in 2003 where the fastest race laps were with half a second of or faster than qualifying.

On the Bernie thing, he's stirring the pot and looking through his rose tinted glasses with a selective memory of an old man. ;)

The WEC can sell a weekend ticket with unreserved grandstand seats for about £40 and they run advanced hybrid engines too. The cost of F1 engines is a much lesser issue than the ******** commercial agreements where the commercial rights holders syphon money out of the sport.
 
FOM are a nessasary evil. F1 is only so successful because their promoter is so strongly tied to its commercial success. If you don't have that, you end up with... well, the WRC.

WEC tickets may be cheap, but it doesn't have multiple live TV broadcasters globally and its own channel. F1 prize pools must be the biggest in the business.
 
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Not sure what your point is. I'm a right-winger in favour of free market economics, however even I can see from a long way off that FOM are greedy. Ticket prices are extortionate because the circuits have to pay FOM a fortune to "organise" a race. The only way to recoup the money is extortionate ticket prices as all the media rights reverted to FOM and are increasingly auctioned off to pay TV providers.

The prize pools can't be well structured or of sufficient quantity if the bottom half of the grid can't make the books balance.
 
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