[Other Sport] Formula 1 2019

[Gritt23]

It’s back- looks like the new regs and new driver line ups could potentially mix things up a bit..

Or not. Looks like more of the same old sh&^ being served up. Watch the first couple of laps, and then tune in for the last one to make sure you haven't missed anything. Then pat yourself on teh back for having bnot missed anything and actually done something more interesting with the intervening 90 mins.

Don't quite know what they can do, the cars are just so reliable these days, and the drivers make too few mistakes. Short of making teh drivers drive with a massive hangover, or soaking the track at the stary and watch a race on a drying track (which is always more interesting) then it really is stuck with what it is.

I've fought against the "processional" argument about the sport for many years, but simply can't any more.

 

[The aloof gatekeeper]

If you want a race to be an interesting spectacle what you don't do is give the fastest competitors a head start. They can piss about with the regulations as much as they like but until they address this fundamental issue the problem will remain.

The answer is simple. Scrap qualifying and line the cars up on the grid in reverse Championship order.

 

[Geestar]

Ricciardo didn't go to Renault for the money.

I'm sure tripling his wage had nothing to do with it.

We'll never know

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[GOM]

I'm sure tripling his wage had nothing to do with it.

We'll never know

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Wow, did they triple his wage ? What's he being paid now then ?

 

[Shropshire Seagull]

Or not. Looks like more of the same old sh&^ being served up. Watch the first couple of laps, and then tune in for the last one to make sure you haven't missed anything. Then pat yourself on teh back for having bnot missed anything and actually done something more interesting with the intervening 90 mins.

Don't quite know what they can do, the cars are just so reliable these days, and the drivers make too few mistakes. Short of making teh drivers drive with a massive hangover, or soaking the track at the stary and watch a race on a drying track (which is always more interesting) then it really is stuck with what it is.

I've fought against the "processional" argument about the sport for many years, but simply can't any more.

Each driver is only allowed 3 power-plants [engines to you and me] per season before grid penalties come in. I dislike the fact that the race is not flat-out - drivers back-off the power "mode" to enhance reliability - all because of the reliability rules.
Bear in mind there are only 4 engine manufacturers in the entire F1 grid - this has definitely contributed to boring races.

That, and having to ease-off to save fuel.

I guess it's the purpose of F1 moving away from out and out performance [big cost] towards technology development for tomorrow's road cars - Electronic ignition, fuel injection, turbos, ABS and traction-control all started life in F1 and the hybrid era in F1 is a few years old and these will become more available in road cars in the near future ....

 

[Geestar]

Wow, did they triple his wage ? What's he being paid now then ?

(AUS) $49mill

Max at Red Bull - (AUS) £18mill

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[Audax]

(AUS) $49mill

Max at Red Bull - (AUS) £18mill

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Edit: To preface my original reply (below), the way you've presented those salaries is massively misleading. Not sure of your source, either. According to the sources I've seen, however, the difference between Verstappen's and Ricciardo's base salaries actually isn't that large. Back in Jan, the speculated salaries for all drivers were widely reported on. DR listed at roughly US$17million, MV at roughly US$13.5million. However, it's likely that the Verstappen figure doesn't include the big results bonuses that Red Bull pay out, so it's likely that Verstappen will actually earn more than Ricciardo by the end of the year. Renault's position in WCC isn't strong enough yet to attract a Ricciardo-level driver on a results-bonus contract, they have to front load it into the salary.

Edit 2: OK, found your source. An Aussie paper recently (earlier this month) rehashed a rumour-laden article from UK rags in August last year, then combined it with the numbers I've seen, but kept the massively inflated number for Ricciardo that has since been superceded by the numbers above. So: August 2018, wild rumours in UK rags that Ricciardo would earn US$30million+; January 2019, more measured reporting of around US$17 million, but the Aussie sites have for some reason chosen to use the old inflated figure.



Yeah, those headline figures are massively misleading. Red Bull have a very different salary structure for their drivers from other teams. They put a lot more of it into results bonuses (that don't get reported very well in the press) than other teams do. They also have a very strong negotiating position over the drivers who have come through their junior program: 2019 was the first season that Ricciardo was free to make his own choice on team to drive for, and as a result that gave him a lot more power in negotiating terms. I don't think we know what exactly Red Bull were offering him for 2019 onwards, but it *was* substantially more than what he was receiving in 2018.

More to the point: Ricciardo's #1 motivation is to win a WDC. He wasn't convinced that Honda was the right engine to power him to a WDC, so he got out. He was also very disillusioned with RBR as a whole after the way that the team leadership threw him under the bus over what happened at Baku last year (the team have since admitted they shouldn't have and that Max, and the team leadership, was far more at fault than they were willing to admit at the time).

Long story short: Ricciardo wasn't comfortable at Red Bull anymore, and didn't have confidence in the Honda project. I'm sure the Renault money had a small part to play, but at the end of the day it was exactly that: a small part of a much larger decision making process.

 

[blue-shifted]

F1: The worlds best drivers, driving the worlds best cars on a series of race tracks all round the world. At the end of the season the worlds greatest driver is crowned.

Sounds great doesn't it.

Then in rushes the money and corporate interests. Out goes the money, to competitors, hangers on and the corporate interests. Every change that happens in the sport is made to maximise revenue. The integrity of the competition is continually diluted. Eventually everything which was once pure, is now sullied. A few die hards pay for the expensive TV subscriptions, but families, casual viewers, young adults drift away and the sport enters a long slow decline. The career sports execs in charge don't care about this as short term profits are up through sky subscriptions and they've taken their bonuses. They'll be off to let others deal with managing the decline.

It's a well trodden path

 

[Guy Fawkes]

F1: The worlds best drivers, driving the worlds best cars on a series of race tracks all round the world. At the end of the season the worlds greatest driver is crowned.

Sounds great doesn't it.

Then in rushes the money and corporate interests. Out goes the money, to competitors, hangers on and the corporate interests. Every change that happens in the sport is made to maximise revenue. The integrity of the competition is continually diluted. Eventually everything which was once pure, is now sullied. A few die hards pay for the expensive TV subscriptions, but families, casual viewers, young adults drift away and the sport enters a long slow decline. The career sports execs in charge don't care about this as short term profits are up through sky subscriptions and they've taken their bonuses. They'll be off to let others deal with managing the decline.

It's a well trodden path

You are right, bring back driver deaths at virtually every race too, far better than the modern, safer F1 we have now

 

[GT49er]

You are right, bring back driver deaths at virtually every race too, far better than the modern, safer F1 we have now

Well, of course, if he'd said that, you criticism of his post might have had a point.

 

[Icy Gull]

Going against the grain I still love F1 even with it’s semi predictibility.

It is nowhere near as clearcut as some on this thread are suggesting imo.

 

[Guy Fawkes]

Well, of course, if he'd said that, you criticism of his post might have had a point.

That was the old races, before the money rushed in.

Only blaming money for boring races when design and safety factors have played as big a part in making it a boring watch is a bit far fetched imo. Cars being close on the track and able to overtake = unsafe designs and little or no aerodynamics on the cars, which is why they also had a lot of deaths

A lot of the old races were boring too, and semi predictable. The fastest cars dominate and often there would be very little overtaking yet hindsight makes people only remember the best bits from bygone races, and not the dross that filled most of them

 

[GT49er]

That was the old races, before the money rushed in.

Only blaming money for boring races when design and safety factors have played as big a part in making it a boring watch is a bit far fetched imo. Cars being close on the track and able to overtake = unsafe designs and little or no aerodynamics on the cars, which is why they also had a lot of deaths

A lot of the old races were boring too, and semi predictable. The fastest cars dominate and often there would be very little overtaking yet hindsight makes people only remember the best bits from bygone races, and not the dross that filled most of them

Formula one is now a very rich man's sport with vast sums of money involved. It's also very expensive to watch - even on TV for the races which aren't on free-to-view channels. Yes, it is much safer for the drivers now - but to suggest that the huge global revenues now generated by Formula 1 are all channelled into safety is way off beam. The money has, and is, ruining the sport, to the extent that it's hardly even a sport any more, more a very expensive spectacle.
Many people - me included - seem to be finding F1 a little less interesting every new season. And no, that's not because we're being deprived of watching drivers die.

 

[Two Professors]

Anybody who didn't enjoy Max's drive,especially the overtake on Seb,must be a bit daft.F1 isn't as good as MotoGP,but it's still entertaining.Perhaps the technology involved is too complex,but it's very relevant to today and the future.

 

[Geestar]

Edit: To preface my original reply (below), the way you've presented those salaries is massively misleading. Not sure of your source, either. According to the sources I've seen, however, the difference between Verstappen's and Ricciardo's base salaries actually isn't that large. Back in Jan, the speculated salaries for all drivers were widely reported on. DR listed at roughly US$17million, MV at roughly US$13.5million. However, it's likely that the Verstappen figure doesn't include the big results bonuses that Red Bull pay out, so it's likely that Verstappen will actually earn more than Ricciardo by the end of the year. Renault's position in WCC isn't strong enough yet to attract a Ricciardo-level driver on a results-bonus contract, they have to front load it into the salary.

Edit 2: OK, found your source. An Aussie paper recently (earlier this month) rehashed a rumour-laden article from UK rags in August last year, then combined it with the numbers I've seen, but kept the massively inflated number for Ricciardo that has since been superceded by the numbers above. So: August 2018, wild rumours in UK rags that Ricciardo would earn US$30million+; January 2019, more measured reporting of around US$17 million, but the Aussie sites have for some reason chosen to use the old inflated figure.



Yeah, those headline figures are massively misleading. Red Bull have a very different salary structure for their drivers from other teams. They put a lot more of it into results bonuses (that don't get reported very well in the press) than other teams do. They also have a very strong negotiating position over the drivers who have come through their junior program: 2019 was the first season that Ricciardo was free to make his own choice on team to drive for, and as a result that gave him a lot more power in negotiating terms. I don't think we know what exactly Red Bull were offering him for 2019 onwards, but it *was* substantially more than what he was receiving in 2018.

More to the point: Ricciardo's #1 motivation is to win a WDC. He wasn't convinced that Honda was the right engine to power him to a WDC, so he got out. He was also very disillusioned with RBR as a whole after the way that the team leadership threw him under the bus over what happened at Baku last year (the team have since admitted they shouldn't have and that Max, and the team leadership, was far more at fault than they were willing to admit at the time).

Long story short: Ricciardo wasn't comfortable at Red Bull anymore, and didn't have confidence in the Honda project. I'm sure the Renault money had a small part to play, but at the end of the day it was exactly that: a small part of a much larger decision making process.

We will have to agree to disagree. The only person who really knows is Riccardo. Who says what source is reliable. Is someone on NSC reliable?

He can say all the 'right' things and talk about Honda/Max/etc but I'm not buying it.

We all saw the improvement from Honda compared to it in the McLaren, with reports that it is improving again. How many times did the Honda engine have troubles last year?

Then how many issues did Riccardo and the other drivers have with the Renault engine?

Most in the game disagreed with his decision for a reason. His choice, but I won't be sad to see him just a mid table driver

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[Audax]

[MENTION=26197]Geestar[/MENTION] I believe I know why your source is so wrong. Again, it was from when Ricciardo originally signed with Renault. Some quick sums suggest they've confused the total value of the 2 year contract as being a single year. So they've overinflated by a factor of 2.

He's not gone to Renault for the money. He has probably made a mistake with his choice, I'll grant that, but it isn't the money that drove that choice. If it was, hed be at McLaren. They offered more than Renault did.

 

[Icy Gull]

[MENTION=26197]Geestar[/MENTION] I believe I know why your source is so wrong. Again, it was from when Ricciardo originally signed with Renault. Some quick sums suggest they've confused the total value of the 2 year contract as being a single year. So they've overinflated by a factor of 2.

He's not gone to Renault for the money. He has probably made a mistake with his choice, I'll grant that, but it isn't the money that drove that choice. If it was, hed be at McLaren. They offered more than Renault did.

Everyone, at the time said Hamilton made a mistake going to Mercedes.....from McLaren

 

[Geestar]

Exactly. There are only four teams that are going to win a championship any time soon and he’s at one of them.

I'll take a wager on that...

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[Perkino]

Exactly. There are only four teams that are going to win a championship any time soon and he’s at one of them.

I'm 99% certain it's a 2 horse race regarding teams who could win it. A bit like the Spanish La Liga, 2 teams of quality plus 1 other decent side then the rest.