Ban tobacco advertising??? Try banning...

[Minardi fan]

Alcohol.

Full stop. No advertising, no selling of it, no 'Foster's Belgian GP'.

Why? Because of the fans who ruin it for everyone else.

A classic example occurred on Saturday. There we were, standing in the mud at Austria, during the morning practice. Stangin next to us were some German Ferrari fans. And they were drinking. They watched Schumi go round once. The for the rest of the time, they drank, banged the fence, were loud, and threw beer cans onto the track. They watched none of the F1, simply talking away, pushing into us several times, and getting drunk.

And I hate to say this but it always seems to be German Ferrari fans who do this.

People go to a GP to watch some motorsport, not to get drunk. If they want to do that they can go down the pub, drink away, and watch the race on a tv, leaving the rest of us to enjoy our motorsport.

People who pay good money to see F1 should not have to put up with the intimidation these louts cause at the circuit - I saw it at Spa, and once again I saw it at Spielberg.

I couldn't care less about tobacco advertising - F1 needs the funding, and the move towards more technological sponsorship (ie. Orange, Telefonica etc...) means it is becoming less and less prominent any way.

It's alcohol - actual and advertised - which needs to be banned.

[Marshal]

I think that maybe a little of an over reaction, though I do know what you mean. When "Our Nige" brought a lot of new "fans" to F1 in britain, I had simular thoughts. Getting drunk, cheering Nige and makeing rude gestures at Senna semed to be the limit of interest.

Maybe its inevitable that when one personality becomes very popular in his home country, he attracts the sort of individuals that the diehards like you find at 10 tenths find distasteful.

I'm not sure banning alcahol would cure the problem, in fact it might make it worse, as they might then be able to go on all day, rather than passing out mid afternoon..

[Nuvolari]

While I do support getting tobacco money out of racing, I don't think banning alcohol advertising will cure the problem of rowdy, boozed-up fans.

I think that could be better handled at the circuits: no alcohol brought on site . . . and limit sales.

[marcus]

must have been the weekend for it minardi fan..i went to rnd 8 of the Oz V8 supercar series and there was a fool next to us who at 8.30am (would that suggest a little problem) decided to get stuck into a bottle of bunderberg rum..well he finished off the bottle before lunch and became very rowdy and abusing spectators and drivers he was told by a lady with her 2 children to stop the rude behaviour and well of corse that didnt stop him..fortunetly he became bored and dissapeared...allthough on the slow trip out of the track we spotted him again...a huge line of 3 or 4 hundred cars was slowly moving out ..there was one pulled over to the side and sure enough there he was throwing up beside a tree and i meen i have never seen someone vomiting that bad ...boy did he get alot of abuse by all the passers by.....

but banning it would not stop this behaviour..some people just carnt help themselves..but esky searches should be done to stop excessive amounts being brought into the tracks....hope ya had fun anyway MF

[Minardi fan]

At Austria you weren't allowed to take your own alcohol.

Forget limiting sales - it shouldn't be on sale at all.

[TimD]

I don't think you're going to get many takers on this one, old chap.

Not after the levels of consumption noted at the Snetterton night race. Good grief, I mean one of our esteemed ten-tenths persons was seen wandering around with a chair attached to his head at the end of the evening.

I suppose we could make a start by limiting the supply of WELSH lager.....

[Minardi fan]

I know this won't get many takers, but it's really quite sad at how much value people place on alcohol.

[Liz]

Better security might be the answer. That's what they do at Blue Jays games - if someone gets obnoxious because of alcohol, the security people make sure he leaves right away. The Montreal Forum used to ban people drinking in the seats and that worked pretty well, too. That way people who wanted to watch the game could do so, and people who wanted to drink could stand at the back.

But I agree with Tim - without Beer, the Snetterton race would have been merely 24 hours of standing in freezing rain to watch a 20 lap race at midnight...instead of a great convivial gathering of friends ... and a couple of louts.

[Jay]

Minardi Fan, I agree with you that Alcohol is a big problem at many racing events, however I don't think that the advertising has anything to do with it. Even if you banned alcohol at Grand Prixs people would still sneak it in their coolers.

I was at this years Canadian GP, and everybody there dranks tons of Labatts Blue, even though Molson beers were the only ones on sale around the park.

During Qualifying I had to sit beside a group that had one of those giant coolers that takes up 2 grandstand seats. Unfortunately there were not many people there so there was room for it. I should also mention that in Quebec they sell beer in giant 1 litre cans in addition to the smaller 355 mL cans. They had a few 1 litre cans and several smaller cans. They had obviously already had some, but during the session they each downed at least 1 litre of beer each.

Throughout the entire session they kept bumping us and asking us stupid and often personal questions even though they did not know us.

I am all for a ban at the track, but it would be very hard to enforce in Montreal as each grandstand only had about 2 or 3 ushers to keep track of the people.

[fatbloke]

Uh oh, MF is turning into Bert ****kon... Like guns, there's nothing wrong with alcohol - it's the people who abuse it which you need to whinge about.

[Minardi fan]

Don't compare alcohol at F1 races to guns...

As yet no-one has given a decent argument as to why alcohol SHOULD be allowed at F1 races.

[Crash Test]

"..but esky searches should be done to stop excessive amounts being brought into the tracks...."

Trust me, this doesnt work....whenever i drag the old man and his mate to the track they take the old trusty esky with a fake bottom...tey dont take too much in, just enough to avaoid the millions of dollars for one round bought at the track....

Its hard to stop these people, maybe if they just had a drunken section...somewhere around the track that has a **** poor view/hard to get to/uninteresting to the rest of us....they could drink themselves silly, not worry anyone, easy. Plus the cops would know where to set up their breath tests after the race

[fatbloke]

Originally posted by Minardi fan
Don't compare alcohol at F1 races to guns...

As yet no-one has given a decent argument as to why alcohol SHOULD be allowed at F1 races.

I'm not - i'm comparing your attitude against alcohol to many people's views on guns. Alcohol is not bad in itself - it's the people who get out of hand after drinking it that you should be angry at. Hey, people die in racecars... let's ban them too...

And, why do you feel that we should justify alcohol being allowed at race meetings ? Why is alcohol allowed on river boats ? Why is it allowed at railway stations ? Because, my friend, it is legal and, as long as people are responsible, there is absolutely no reason for it not to be allowed.

Anyway, shouldn't this topic be in the Gravel Trap ? It has nothing to do with F1.

[Tristan]

Because, don't forget kids, guns don't kill people, PEOPLE kill people. Only instead of letting their rage be released through grimmacing or MAY BE even fisticuffs, this way you just pull a trigger and end someone's life. Terminally.

In America people have guns and people shoot each other regularly. Everywhere else, people don't. And there's no link between thhose statements. Apparently

And that's your daily dose of bull**** completed.

Back to the point: whereas firing a gun is a split second thing and mistakes can be made, drinking takes place over (hopefully) several hours, a timescale you can be fully in controll of. It's up to you if you get ****ed. So lighten up re: alcohol. That IS up to the people drinking. You're looking at the problem from the wrong angle: Get rid of *******s, not booze. Besides, mmmmmmmmmm beeeeeeeeeeer!!!!

[Minardi fan]

I was wasting my time starting this topic then...

Remember it next time you are stuck next to 3 drunk Germans for several hours whilst trying to enjoy some F1 you paid an awful lot of money for.

[Minardi fan]

One more thing - which is easier to recognise at the turnstiles - the louts or the alcohol they are carrying?

[Bononi]

Unfortunately alcohol is bad in any sport event... it brings up the wild side of a person, loose the frustations, and gets into the violence of actions, focusing in the "enemy"... It all get worst in the crowd, when it becomes a only one "beast"!!
I like some beer, but I never liked to see a wild crowd yelling for some colours...
Let's go to a pub and sit around hearing some good music and having some fine drinks... that's all !

[Liz]

I agree with the idea of a drinking section - but how do you get people to go there?

Banning alcohol was tried. It doesn't work. Banning louts has also been tried, as the English football people can testify, and that does not work either.

How about we shoot the louts (with stun guns, if you think they deserve to live) in front of the not-quite-louts-yet? It worked with the drunken louts in our building in Atlanta who were pulling fire alarms "for a joke" - seeing their drunken friends being paraded through the building in handcuffs was an excellent object lesson in what a dim view the police take of such "jokes", and the difficulties ceased forthwith.

Or you could lock them all in a room together. Without a toilet. For 24 hours.

[Tristan]

You mention British football fans as having a "reputation". However, in UK there is rarely any trouble despite the open and wanton consumption of alcohol before games. In Britain, we've learnt our lessons re: the policing of football matches and there is RARELY any trouble. In Germany, Italy and (especially) Turkey, football violence is seen as part of the game, as are the attitudes and the far right political views. They have not reached the standards of treatment that we see in UK. They're still learning.

However, when Brits go abroad, ignorant (and often downright xenophobic) attitudes, hype by the BRITISH tabloid press and poor policing means the neanderthals (harmless in their own right, they're too thick) turn into *******s. THAT'S when violence brews, and alcohol is merely an unfortunate addition to that cocktail.

Anyway, I guess what I'm trying to say is alcohol is fine IF correctly managed and used appropriatly. It's easy to forget it's purpose IS to have fun and enjoy oneself, whether anyone likes it or not, otherwise it'd all be non-alcoholic drinks down the pub.

HOWEVER, as you correctly point out, THERE IS A TIME AND A PLACE, and an F1 circuit is NOT IT!!! Please don't take me the wrong way about what I say and think I'm all for booze and getting drunk and falling over. I'm not like that! Trust me! I just think that controls, to be effective, must NOT be utterly OTT and draconian in their approach. Don't forget, Minardi bloke, those ***** CHOSE to be drunk. It isn't the beer's fault, it IS theirs. Unlike shooting a gun, it takes quite a while (and several cans) to get ****ed. It is a concious decision. They didn't "mistakenly" get drunk. Therefore, they are *******s who should be chucked out. BUT, alcohol is NOT EVIL!!! Don't tar people with the same brush.

[Minardi fan]

I only said alcohol is bad at F1 races.

Do I get a stun gun next time I go to a GP then??? Cooool.