Ho humOriginally Posted by The Gismo Man
Even more disgusting was the result of the enquiry published today, no further action to be taken
Well, i for one will never knowingly part with my hard earned to help Ferrari make a single dime, feckin disgrace to real racing
R50 Cooper ..... Mini Plant Oxford
19 years of MINIfascination
So they are getting off with it AGAIN!! ...theres a shockEven more disgusting was the result of the enquiry published today, no further action to be taken
Well, i for one will never knowingly part with my hard earned to help Ferrari make a single dime, feckin disgrace to real racing
I think the F in F1 stands for Ferrari1 and not Formula1, thats the way Im seeing it anyway.
jings crivens i think the boys got it !!lol lolSo they are getting off with it AGAIN!! ...theres a shock
I think the F in F1 stands for Ferrari1 and not Formula1, thats the way Im seeing it anyway.
It seems to me that there is a fundamental misunderstanding about the way fans perceive F1 teams are run and why there are 2 cars in a team. Principly, there are two to double the exposure of the brand, but traditionally, F1 teams have always tried to field at least 2 cars, often more, to increase there chances of decent results, then as the season progresses, if one driver begins to extend a lead over the other, the lagging team mate helps the leading one to win the championship for the team, this is not a new thing, even back in the days before commercialism of the sport and it was still being run with cars with spoked wheels and 'gentleman' drivers with leather helmets... These guys would even commandeer there team mates cars if their one failed mid race to remain in the hunt for championship!
Formula 1 has always been a team sport, and no team is ever going to be happy allowing there drivers to race each other unnecessarily, the risks are to great when it goes wrong... Red bull, the team and it's drivers, may yet pay dearly for their little squabble over the same peice of Tarmac earlier this year... And look how much they were ridiculed at the time for it!
I totally agree with DC, this is a team sport, if a driver doesn't like that arrangement, then go and design, build, develop, prepare and repair your own chassis, gearbox, engine, aero package, tyres, brakes, etc, etc.
I can understand that F1 needs to listen to the fans too though, but it seems to me that the fans either need to wake up and smell the coffee and accept that teams are always going to sacrifice spectacle for results everytime or remove the issue of team orders once and for all... Ban second cars and make all teams 'one car teams', I don't like the idea one little bit, but it would definitly stop any accusation of teamorders!
As for Ferrari getting alot their own way, I am not a ferrari fan, but I know that Ferrari and F1 are inextricably linked in more ways than one, obviously they are the longest surviving team in the championship, but they are by far F1's most globally recognised brand in it's portfolio.... Honestly, when was the last time you heard someone say "if I win the euro millions, I am going to go straight out and buy myself a Renault!" or regardless of how much you might say you don't want a Ferrari, if someone came up to you and offered a free Ferrari or all the red bull you could consume for the rest of your life, you ain't gonna be walking away from the deal with the high caffine drink are you! Similarly, Ferrari would sell sh1t load less cars if it were to walk from F1... not to mention the backlash from the Italian car buying public that would devastate FIAT.
That said, Ferrari is a shadow of it's former self, and I hate to point out, will not be "the" top team again for a couple of seasons. I was a fan of the Schumacher/Brawn partnership and I think they did a great job of getting the team to work around them and the ethos of that team was to win at all costs... Not to win in the most spectator friendly way... These guys, and most racers in general, don't give a stuff about spectators anyway, and although we all know it's the fans that ultimatly pay for the yaughts and fancy cars the drivers prance around in, most of the real die hard racers would still go racing if no bugger was watching at all!
Sorry. I really need to get rid of this insomnia... These bloody posts are getting bigger!!
Last edited by C.Noble; 12th September 2010 at 03:20 AM.
All very valid points and well put from a racers perspective.
Now, assume that i am a gambler and i had paid decent money for a particular result, along comes the instruction for Massa to move over live on the airwaves and bam, there goes my wager. Which is just one reason why i don't like to "know" race fixing goes on.
We, as fans expect true and honest racing, look at the controversy surrounding the Pakistan cricketers who cheated, i don't see much difference in this particular Ferrari episode.
So, as long as i continue to follow the sport and actually pay money to watch and purchase their goods i won't partake of any of their stalls at events.
Of course, if Mr Ferrari should be walking down Pensacola Boulevard handing our free Enzo's i'll snap his hand off
I can see both points of view, but that doesn't mean I have to like it. According to the rules as they are today, Ferrari cheated. They get a 100K fine. Renault fixed a race, which in my mind is the same as team orders in so much as they affected the outcome of the race, and got a suspended sentence.
I think what rankles a lot of people is that McLaren, unproved that they cheated a few seasons ago, were fined £100M - where is the parity of punishment? We all know F1 is changing, it's getting more transparent and that helps, but teams need to acknowledge the fans are what funds their racing - they have to protect "the product".
Well, there is a theory that actually it was their own doing. The accident was very similar to Vettels clown driving into Button at Spa. The theory is that due to the "illegal" flexing wings and floor the balance of the car when it's in traffic is compromised - so if you pull out from behind another car, the wing is part flexed on the side that is exposed and causes instability. The video from Spa shows this much clearer than the earlier incident, plus people were actually looking for it, so you never know.
I am not being patronising, but if you dont understand the sport, dont gamble money on the result and tayloring a sport to the needs of a gambler always leads to sleaze anyway, unlike sports like boxing, F1 doesnt need gambling revenue to survive, and long may that be true. I dont know anything about cricket, but it is my understanding that the matchfixing was blatant and purely for some crooked gamblers benefit, and what was done was akin to what Renault/Briotore did a couple of years ago when they got someone to crash to influence the result of a race instead of driving to influence the result.
Whith the Alonso/Massa thing, surely this is more like Rooney and Beckham rushing into the box in the last ten minutes of a world cup match, Beckham has beaten the defenders and keeper but at the last minute back passes to Rooney for a clear shot at goal as he knows Rooney is in with a shot at the Golden Boot and he isnt, the goal is still a goal, the team still win, and the team still help an individual on their challenge... would anyone cry fix and demand Rooney and Beckham get red cards... assuming of course the goal was not scored against Scotland... then they would deserve lifetime bans and public flogging!!!
But that is my point, the law in this case is an ass. The rule "no team orders allowed" is totally uninforcable and completely out of touch with the sport... to anyone in the sport it is as ludicris as saying that the manager of a football team should not be allowed to make a substitution as it influences the result of a match... of course it does, thats why there are TWO cars!
The rule either needs to be removed completely and the fans then understand that it is going to happen and if they dont like it they can vote with their feet, or ban the second car, removing all team orders and leaving you with blatant cheating between competeing teams to influence results.
Which is my other point, the pace of modern F1 is such that the cars are now more upside down aircraft than racing cars, with around 90% of the grip available on a corner coming from aero generated downforce. As teams have to push the limits just to keep pace, let alone pull ahaed, the cars are becoming more and more nervous. Think about aircraft, any pilot will tell you that low level flying is harder than high altitude stuff, and the closer to the ground you go the more difficult is gets as the air between the wings and ground gets squeezed and bounces around unpredictably, these guys who race old WWII fighters in Arizona say that the buzz from trying to control their craft at less than 50 feet is mega... messrs Newey and Brawn have to engineer a "plane" that is predictable at 25mm off the deck!
Flight control regulations keep aircraft miles apart because of turbulance, even tight formation stunt aircraft keep tens of meters apart to prevent the lift that keeps their craft up from getting 'switched off' as the airflow is disrupted... again in F1, these 'planes' are expected to follow in the wake of the car in front and still behave predictably.
This is why overtaking is relatively rare in F1 these days, and why teams will do all possiblke to avoid their two championship hopes, not to mention two horrendously expensive upside down aircraft from tangling with each other.
I fully understand the sport and the reasoning for 2 cars and for one of them being better than the other then let them through etc, it's the rules of the sport that NO team orders are allowed, hence my greetin in this thread, if, however, the rule was abolished then i would accept it, so i'm sorry, your view is lost to me because of the actual rules in place at this time.
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