Soldato
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I imagine most drivers couldn't care less about numbers. I think some of you are reading too much into it.
The F1 2014 season
- Thread starter Merlin5
- Start date
As Duke said, they haven't referred to drivers in on screen messaged by just their number for a fair few years now.
This is a gimmick that wont mean anything until the numbers have been in use for a while, and knowing the FIA they will change the rules to something else before that happens.
So why did the Marussia (and Chilton's overalls) have nothing but Qnet on them?
Interesting trivia I discovered looking through his race stats... it seems he attempted one Star Mazda race in 2007 at Laguna Seca, finishing 15th. http://www.starmazda.com/results/2007/mazda-raceway/results/Pro Formula Mazda - Race - Results.html
Just what. How is it a gimmick. And why the hell do you assume they need to mean something. Its just an identification of which driver. Like pretty much every sport uses. Rather than swapping them around every year. Is it a gimmick in every sport? What an absolutely odd reaction.
But in MOST sport they stay constant through the seasons, with just occasional changes.
Personally I liked the fact F1 was different and it was dependant on theresults of the previous year, but hey ho
Also Im really not sure after so long of doing it this way how majority of F1 drivers can choose a relevant number, as they havent been using it for x amount of years anyway. By now its just an arbitrary number apart from those young enough to have only just changed.
Its interesting why they picked it, but again why do they need to be anything but arbitrary.
Going forward unless rules change, the numbers are static till they end there f1 career.
Oh and its wasn't where they came is what number they got. Only Half the grid at best had that, it was a pretty silly system with little meaning.
Going forward unless rules change, the numbers are static till they end there f1 career.
Oh and its wasn't where they came is what number they got. Only Half the grid at best had that, it was a pretty silly system with little meaning.
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The numbers don't need to mean anything IMO, they're simply identification. This way round, we will know who everyone is soon enough and then the numbers will stick, unlike before when they were totally meaningless because they changed every season and based on team positions with swapping drivers etc.
It would be interesting to see sales figures of merchandise though, will they improve because people are less worried their 'Lewis #1' cap will be out of date next year or drop off eventually because you won't need to buy a new Lewis cap every year to stay in date.
It would be interesting to see sales figures of merchandise though, will they improve because people are less worried their 'Lewis #1' cap will be out of date next year or drop off eventually because you won't need to buy a new Lewis cap every year to stay in date.
It also allows the numbers to be used a bit more as a brand on the car, rather than just a pokey little number you can barely see, as they'll be useful for long term identification of the drivers now. Kinda NASCAR style but not that extreme...
Alternatively they could drop the "car number 13" and just use the driver names.
People keep saying this, but you haven't had to try and figure it out for years. They now always put the drivers name against the number on any on screen messages.
Driver numbers work when the are part of the history of the sport and the drivers identity, like in NASCAR and MotoGP. But in F1 the numbers are bearly visible and have no historic attachment. Its just yet another useless stupid suggestion from the FIA to try to deflect people's attention away from the fact F1 is in deep ****.
In F1 they're barely visible and have no historic attachments because they change every year, assigning permanent numbers is an improvement on that system, just that the numbers aren't really a critical issue in any series, doesn't mean it isn't nice to have though, don't understand the negativity towards it.
Exactly this*.
And the worst part is, we used to have a perfectly good system before 1996 with F1 that allowed for numbers taking on a significance and importance. Ferrari #27? Williams 'Red Five'? They could have gone straight back to that. Instead we now have a half-baked setup that may, in about 25 years, achieve what TPTB want.
* - though it's "barely", not "bearly"
Soldato
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I can't disagree with anything you've written there. Mainly because I agree with it 100%!
Years ago the numbers on cars were easily visible on the rear wing endplates and on the nose. Nowadays the teams make the numbers as small as possible and place them where you just can't easily see them. Making the numbers static for drivers won't fix the fact that they can't be seen. It might have been better if the FIA had mandated that the numbers must be of a certain size, placed within a certain area of the car, be of a colour that contrasts very well with the bodywork colour scheme and have a set margin around the number so that the number is easily distinguishable from the sponsor logos and any paint work detailing around it.
Like I said, the numbers are small because they carry no significance at all, there is no point to them being large, but make the numbers part of the drivers brand and they have a reason to make them bigger again.
Saying that they're small so there is no point, misses the point that they're only small because they have no point at the moment.
Saying that they're small so there is no point, misses the point that they're only small because they have no point at the moment.
Soldato
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Surely the FIA have got the reason now? They've introduced numbers that are tied to a driver so why wait to make rules for the size of the numbers on the cars?
Why do the FIA need to make rules? They aren't mandated now, no need to be in the future, as the numbers begin to form parts of the drivers brands, the teams will adjust accordingly as they see fit, Bo77as being an obvious easy example that could be explored without needing the FIA to dictate a number style