oops, the credit crunch hit F1:
BBC SPORT | Motorsport | Formula One | Honda poised to quit Formula One
Who's next?
BBC SPORT | Motorsport | Formula One | Honda poised to quit Formula One
Who's next?
Hi Dave,I really hate to see racing hurting. But you know it is not just these big series. Do any of you guy's remember when they stopped running the GTP cars and switched to world sports cars (I Think). Change can be good but racing is always going to cost cubic money. I just hope we don't end up with a spec hybrid series.
If the manufacturers leave will it really spoil "motorsport". There is too much money and politics at the moment and it's an industry not a sport. The technology and excessive aero development has killed real racing. The best racing is where the guys who build stuff themselves go racing for fun. That's where we got the Colin Chapman's, Frank Williams's, John Cooper's, Jim Hall's, Eric Broadley's et al. We even had a grids of cars which actually looked and sounded different. Even in the GT40 era you could tell one car from another. F1 cars look and sound so similar that it's a good thing that we have paint to tell which is which. There are also too many "one make " series used by manufacturers to advertise their cars. This is probably why there is a lot of interest now building in Historics which at least look and sound different although the cancer of mega money is steadily eating it's way in. Even in our local NW Formula Ford championship we have corporately dressed teams with huge transporters and a dozen people to run one car.
In the sixties and seventies people in the paddock would talk to you and even help out when someone had problems. What we need are the "garagistes" (thanks Enzo for the word) back in F1 with cars like souped up formula fords which can slipstream each other with lots of mechanical grip, huge power for the spectacle and minimal aero grip. We might even see the best drivers really doing their stuff - locked brakes, wheelspin, oversteer, understeer, slipstreaming, missed gears, overrevved engines, OVERTAKING even - remember this stuff?
Cheers
Mike