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14 Mar 2015, 21:25 (Ref:3515230) | #1 | ||
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Guardian article
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14 Mar 2015, 21:32 (Ref:3515232) | #2 | ||
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Appreciate the link, cheers
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14 Mar 2015, 21:42 (Ref:3515235) | #3 | ||
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It is probably best not to post it on the F1 forum they might get upset
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14 Mar 2015, 21:51 (Ref:3515237) | #4 | ||
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I wouldn't venture over there anyway
Always nice to see some mainstream coverage, but preaching to the choir over here; I'm just reading it thinking "well.....durrr". Or whatever the grownup equivalent is. |
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14 Mar 2015, 22:31 (Ref:3515243) | #5 | ||
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Perhaps more important than the article itself is its author, who is the previous chief sports writer at the Grauniad. He's not been shy in voicing his dissatisfaction of what F1 has become. One thing he did forget to mention was that even in the WEC he won't get away from the tarmac glory of the Tilkedrome!
Mainstream recognition is good to see, but I can't say I'm a fan of the "need" to compare sportscars to F1. I can understand it in this case but it never comes across well to me, and judging by the comments section most of the people who read it are already sportscar fans anyway. I also think his prediction(/hope?) of seeing F1 implode is a bit fanciful, but that's not a discussion for this forum |
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15 Mar 2015, 02:12 (Ref:3515277) | #6 | ||
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I started following F1 in 1967, and sportscar racing in 1971. I always followed both but was more of an F1 fan. Disgusted with what Bernie turned F1 into, I stopped watching F1 five years ago and now just follow sportscar racing.
I think there are increasing numbers of fans doing this. Currently, WEC is as good as it was back in the Group C era and the 1970's, if not better. I'm starting to thing the current situation is better. Certainly there is more major manufacturer involvement. It's a great time to be a sportscar racing fan, and I hope other fans make the switch. One, it will give the sport more resources. Two, it will show sanctioning bodies that there is a lot of interest in technical innovation and variety, and that could lead to better racing in all series. |
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Just give them some safety rules, limit the fuel (to control the speeds), drop the green flag, and see what happens. |
15 Mar 2015, 10:46 (Ref:3515414) | #7 | ||
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"Although, given that the designers of Le Mans cars also use computers, there is an inevitable similarity about their creations,"
Computers don't design cars, people design cars using computers. |
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15 Mar 2015, 11:40 (Ref:3515426) | #8 | ||
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I like most forms of motor racing but hate the politics that are present, the article makes the point that the WEC is on the rise and F1 in a bit of a crisis, i prefer sportscar racing but others F1 however there is room for both, however i do agree with him in that we can already see a shift in both fans and manufacturers towards the WEC approach to modern racing
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15 Mar 2015, 13:44 (Ref:3515456) | #9 | |
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Get on there and comment! They've had 22 comments; the more comments, the more chance they'll start giving more coverage to the WEC. To be fair, Giles Richards quite often has reports on the WEC, and Sebring sometimes gets reported.
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15 Mar 2015, 22:23 (Ref:3515601) | #10 | ||
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Good to see some long over due praise for our beloved endurance racing. F1 is getting evermore boring and evermore riddeled with fraud, backstabbing and corruption. Take the whole denial around Alonso's partial electrocution, for instance. To think they can get away with that, blaming his crash 'on the wind' is just an afront to all petrolheads.
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15 Mar 2015, 22:52 (Ref:3515621) | #11 | |||
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Quote:
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16 Mar 2015, 06:39 (Ref:3515691) | #12 | ||
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16 Mar 2015, 07:09 (Ref:3515695) | #13 | ||
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Well if you did not know how many finished you must have fallen asleep
But seriously that race was not very good and i can't see it getting any better to denign F1 has a problem is very blinkered, whilst the WEC is growing and that can not be ignored by the F1 people |
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16 Mar 2015, 11:12 (Ref:3515758) | #14 | |
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11 cars finishing is not the problem. You used to have numbers like that quite often not so long ago due to unreliability+crashes+stalls+pre-qualifyings+whatnot. Even with Australian Grand Prix itself, you only need to look at something as recently as 2008. 15 cars starting is a problem however...
I agree with everything Jay said. Also F1 doesn't care what WEC does. As I always so F1 would still be the most supremely popular motorsport series in the world if all of it was run on Uncle Bernard's backyard with lawn mowers. Last edited by Deleted; 16 Mar 2015 at 11:26. |
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16 Mar 2015, 11:24 (Ref:3515764) | #15 | ||
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I agree with the sentiments of the article but I grow tired of all the F1 criticism. I know it's the "right thing to do" as a sportscar fan to take any opportunity possible to take a swipe at Formula One but to the outsider, it looks like we've got a massive chip on our shoulder. Our side of the sport is meant to be welcoming and inclusive, not some sort of anti-F1 clique.
We have our reasons for preferring the WEC and other series to F1, and we should let others decide if we're mad for holding that opinion by just shutting up and letting the product itself do the talking. Starting from Silverstone, I'm going to try and go through a whole season without mentioning the "F" word. It doesn't do anyone any favours. |
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16 Mar 2015, 11:50 (Ref:3515770) | #16 | |
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I continue to hear from some on this board that the prototypes are in no way related to road-going cars but I repeatedly hear the factory teams make statements like this...
Wolfgang Ullrich, Audi’s sporting director, is in no doubt about the purpose behind the effort that has given his team 13 wins in the past 15 editions of the race. “For our company, the point of our participation in motor racing is the development of technology that can be passed on to our road cars,” he told L’Equipe this week. |
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16 Mar 2015, 11:54 (Ref:3515772) | #17 | |
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I'd say it's 50% true, 50% public relations BS
In case of prototypes it's not the cars itself but the technology. GT programmes like Corvette say the exact same thing about the cars and how every new model is the best and closest to the road cars they've ever produced. |
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16 Mar 2015, 13:50 (Ref:3515827) | #18 | ||
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At least that's 50% closer than other series!
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16 Mar 2015, 16:14 (Ref:3515880) | #19 | ||
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Even when the company was in a bad financial shape the small cost (after sponsorship) of the racing programme and the flow back into the road car made corvette certain that they needed it to developpe and sell cars
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16 Mar 2015, 16:59 (Ref:3515893) | #20 | |||
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16 Mar 2015, 17:49 (Ref:3515915) | #21 | |
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I enjoy sports cars way more than f1, and I appreciate the article. However, some of the complaints of f1 can be seen in the early stages in wec. They've been a little greedy and cut off their nose to spite their face by competing directly with the alms and lms. They're also proposing turning p2 into a near spec class, which goes against what the article is praising them for and turning them into something closer to f1, where the engine specs are rigid and cars all look alike. They also race at tilke drones rather than more historic or more interesting tracks. So while they're on the rise, how long until their bad decisions start to catch up with them?
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16 Mar 2015, 17:55 (Ref:3515917) | #22 | |
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^If you compare the ILMC to WEC, you can definitely see how rapidly the FIA linkup and upgraded status started transforming certain things closer to the F1 model.
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16 Mar 2015, 20:40 (Ref:3515980) | #23 | ||
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I think most of the F1 forum would agree that WEC is better than F1 atm. If they don't have that view, they'll think the club stuff is better..et al. I think the threat of mass defectors to WEC is overstated though. Doing justice to endurance racing requires a degree of time and mental commitment. F1 already pushes that envelope and bigger commitments intrudes on time available to do other legitimate things on a Saturday/Sunday. People are more likely to leave the sport outright, certainly as TV viewers. And WEC self harms itself with that paywall deterring a slate of people who might be vaguely interested and would engage having appreciated the courtesy of a free stream and would be more understanding if a stream that free was to lag for them..
F1 isn't being developed, it's been turned belly up into a gigantic trough which is the end result of the FIA defanged and the power transferred to the piranha-teams and the miser-lunatic Eccelscrooge who all pursue a narrow self interest. That's happening and it's visibly destablising the series. And a threat to the WEC is the FIA who tend towards insidiously homogenising everything with what power they have. There's a spell people are under that assumes that F1 is 1. A success. 2. The solutions in F1 will work for any series. That 'groupthink' blatantly manifested itself when F1 changed it's points regime on basically a passing whim. Other series - who should regard themselves as independent, sovereign and stand alone - duplicated that system, without a thought, knee-jerk style. That DRS garbage also sprouts up everywhere like poison mushrooms. Look at the tracks WEC goes to, basically F1 tracks only less inspiring. There's really no need for that. Putting it in perspective though there's only so many ways the FIA can damage the WEC. It's defined by its endurance and multiclass aspects afterall. That ain't gonna change. But for F1, the situation is quite perilous. Prising the powers away from the piranha teams and surgically reattaching the teeth to the FIA is a nigh on impossible task now. In lieu of that or some kind of revolution the sport will crumble indefinitely in an agonising slow burning civil war. F1 is akin - or will be akin - to a "failed state". I don't want to see that. I want to see 1995 again. I want to see CART, F1, BPR on a similar bandwidth of prestige but independent and proud surrounded by an honour guard of Super Touring/ITC (i.e their various modern equivalents) all in rude health. Unafraid to do their own thing, a relaxed confidence in their independence. There was no need for dumb gimmicks back then either. If only I had appreciated fully what we had back then and can never be again. And btw, if you think that WEC is better than F1 or vice-versa. Don't bottle it up, lets have a tough discussion about that from time to time. Last edited by Paradise City; 16 Mar 2015 at 20:48. |
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16 Mar 2015, 21:05 (Ref:3515995) | #24 | |||
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Auto racing was different. The technology was always a key part of the sport. For many decades, there was a lot of debate about whether racing drivers were athletes at all. Sportscar racing has maintained a technological presence, and that distinction is an important part of why the series is doing very well now. Fans unhappy with F1's direction are finding WEC does a good job exciting them with technological advancement. Ironically, because the rules allow a little space for the designers to play, it provides better racing action by reducing the parade effect because different cars are better at different parts of the track. |
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Just give them some safety rules, limit the fuel (to control the speeds), drop the green flag, and see what happens. |
16 Mar 2015, 21:16 (Ref:3516000) | #25 | ||
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LMP1 - EoT LMP2 - (by 2017) immensely spec-ified every way imaginable so... ... LMGTE - heavy race-by-race performance balancing & rules breaking waivers & political behind the curtain fights Admittely what they've achieved with P1 is much better than feared, and the fact they (factory cars) can only modify EoT changes once a year is a blessing, but still it's not perfection. It's true that F1 is all about trying to make the drivers the stars, and you have the stupid Super Mario gadgets + entertainment tires + more-and-more spec components in the cars + when someone comes up with innovations they usually get banned. But there is technically no real balancing factor. Mercedes 2014-2015, RBR 2011-2013 and Ferrari 2002/2004 are living proof of that, just to give some examples of more recent domination periods. What WEC does have supreme ruling over F1 of course, is the technological factor (in P1) and road car elements Last edited by Deleted; 16 Mar 2015 at 21:30. |
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