More Bernie desperation

[wesley123]

Have you checked that list? Or only posting as if it is a proof of something by itself?

2007-2008 McLaren/Ferrari.... You must be kidding, if there´re two teams then there´s no domination at all, but a nice competition

I wouldn't call 2 guys fighting for all the wins a "nice competition"

2005-2006 Renault.... Sorry? 2005: Alonso (Renault) 7 victories. Kimi (McLaren) 7 victories. 2006 exactly the same substituding Kimi with Schumacher, 7 victories for Alonso and 7 for Schumacher (Ferrari)

Still, only 2 guys raking in the wins. The other wins where just teammates picking up what's left.

1998-1999 McLaren.... Again same BS. There was same victories for McLaren and Ferrari on both seasons, so no domination at all

Except McLaren was far quicker and only lost most due to bad reliability. McLaren had quite a large gap on the competition.

Also, why do you name Senna-Prost as a beautiful competition, and not Rosberg-Hamilton? Those competition seems to be pretty much similar to me; 2 guys in the same team dominating the rest of the field.

Except Senna-Prost was a true competition between similar drivers, while Rosberg-Hamilton was an artificial competition due to the mechanical problems Lewis suffered on first part of the championship that provided some advantage to Rosberg wich was then neutralized by the easily better driver. Yes there was some competition, but not comparable

And so was there for Rosberg. Hamilton retired on 3 occasions, Rosberg on 2.

There was a strong competition within the stronger team, just like how there was with Senna-Prost.

I never said there has never been competition on F1, but lately it is becoming far from usual. Last seven seasons only when dominating team have suffered some mechanical problems (Lewis 2014) or the driver made some mistakes (Vettel 2010), or some driver performed some unbelieveble perfomance (Alonso 2012). Only these issues provided some excitement to the last seven seasons

There is still as much competition as there was back in the good ol' days.

Oh yes, i know it. Those rivalries didn't happen almost 30 years ago! It's fairly normal human behavior to think everything was better years ago.

Specially when it was

Which is your opinion. Just like how people out of the 70s will say the 70s were better, or people from the 60s would say the 60s were better. Etc. etc.

I really don't get why people want things to stagnate. The 80s happened 30 years ago already, we have moved on since then and you can't possibly expect things to stay the same forever.

It's always complaining about everything for some reason.
>"We want turbo's back!"
>"The turbos don't make enough sound and aren't powerful enough!!!"

>"We want more overtaking"
>"Overtaking is too easy and cars aren't quick enough!!!"

>"We don't want overtaking in the pits"
>"now no one is driving on the edge anymore and conserving their tires and fuel!!!"

It's a neverending complaint about literally nothing. Which brings me to my original point; You shouldn't ever listen to your fanbase.

[Andres125sx]

Have you checked that list? Or only posting as if it is a proof of something by itself?

2007-2008 McLaren/Ferrari.... You must be kidding, if there´re two teams then there´s no domination at all, but a nice competition

I wouldn't call 2 guys fighting for all the wins a "nice competition"

Maybe, but even so that´s much better than seasons like 2000-2004, 2009, 2011, 2013, 2015 when we all knew beforehand who will win. If you don´t consider a 2 guys fight as a nice competition I wonder how can you be happy with seasons when it was a 1 guy thing

2 guys fighting for all the wins at least provides some uncertainty wich is crucial for any competition to be exciting

And so was there for Rosberg. Hamilton retired on 3 occasions, Rosberg on 2.

What about Hungary with Lewis starting the race from 22th because of engine problems?

What about Germany with Lewis starting the race from 16th because of a disc brake failure on Q2?

Even so he managed to be 3th on both races, but that means Nico got 20 more points for the WDC than the british due to mechanical issues

Pointing out retirements as the only problems Lewis suffered make me wonder if you really watched the season. He sufferend a lot more problems than Nico, and that´s the only reason there was some uncertainty

There was a strong competition within the stronger team, just like how there was with Senna-Prost.

Are you serious comparing last season fight (due to Hamilton´s mechanical problems) with one of the most exciting fights in F1 history?

>"We want turbo's back!"
>"The turbos don't make enough sound and aren't powerful enough!!!"

>"We want more overtaking"
>"Overtaking is too easy and cars aren't quick enough!!!"

>"We don't want overtaking in the pits"
>"now no one is driving on the edge anymore and conserving their tires and fuel!!!"

It's a neverending complaint about literally nothing. Which brings me to my original point; You shouldn't ever listen to your fanbase.

Please be serious wesley...

[Moxie]

The two things a business must never do are ignore the customers, and ignore the quality of the product. Bernie sells a show to individual tracks and to broadcast media companies. The media companies sell subscriptions and they sell viewer exposure to advertisers. In this business model, fans play both the roles of customer and product.

For this reason it is doubly important that Bernie or future FOM keep the fans happy. Rather than knee jerk reactions, hair brained gimmicks, and advice from Flávio Briatore, Bernie would do F1 a great service by hiring a firm to conduct some proper market research.

[Manoah2u]

hiring a firm to conduct some proper market research.

i'm sorry but that never works because you get these companies/firms that want to make a name for themselves
and invent the craziest and most unneccesarily things which will only destroy the sport even more.

there is no need for market research, F1 is not a perfume brand or toy brand.

all they need to remember and realise is that Formula 1 is motorsport. It should be aimed at motorsport,
promoting motorsport, and improving motorsport. Anything that is able to improve such should be welcomed.

Death is not motorsport. It can be a 'compromised' risk, but it should thus be avoided. improvement in safety thus
is part of motorsport. entertainment is part of motorsport. Motorsport excists because we want to be entertained
as a human being. Motorsport needs promotion to be able to entertain people; therefore promotion is a neccesary
part of motorsport - F1 thus needs to be promoted through available channels in order to bring motorsport to the
masses to entertain. All this costs money so sponsorship is a neccesary part of Motorsport. Finally, motorsport needs
regulation in order to maintain these criteria and to keep it fair game.

So, what does F1 really need?

Promotion
Entertainment
Safety
Sponsorship
Regulation

if these 5 essential basics are clear and understandable, and above all, reasonable, then F1 can not go wrong, ever.

[Writinglife]

not sure if the idea has been postulated before, but what about reversing DRS? Instead of using DRS within 1 second, all cars can use DRS (including the race leader) until you're within 1 second of the car in front, then you have to use actual skill to pass?

[Phil]

Sorry Phil but not true. It´s hard to find F1 audience graphs, but I don´t think you can point 2014 as an example of a season with good competitiveness wich didn´t see an audience increase. 2014 was a Mercedes season easy, yes there was some uncertainity, but only to see if Lewis managed to catch up after suffering mechanical problems first part of the season. 6 victories on last 7 GPs are a proof by itself.

Also, there´re some graphs out there wich are self-explanatory, for example:

The tendency is easy to see, falling down. But if you analyse it further, then you see the only increases occured exactly on seasons when there was no domination at all
2006 Tough competition between Alonso(Renault) and Schumacher (Ferrari). 7 victories each one. Audience increase
2007-2008 Not increases but neither decreases when Ferrari and Mclaren had a tough fight
2010 Good competitivenes with one car dominating when reliability was not an issue or Vettel didn´t crash with Button or Webber. Audience increase due to uncertainity
2012 Again good competitiveness only due to some issues Red Bull suffered with alternator, and an awesome season by Alonso wich made the season competitive. Audience increase

Competitiveness equals audience increases. Lack of competition equals audience decrease.

Andres, this graph was posted in some other topic here at F1 to which i already made a lenghty reply refuting exactly the correlation you seem to be seeing.

What that graph shows is that for instance, the fact that Italian and English broadcast both went to pay tv probably had a much bigger impact than the competitiveness.

RAI is an italian broadcaster and the data doesnt show anything beyond that the simpy fact that during the Ferrari dominating years, lots if Italians watched F1. And since they gave up on F1 due to sky buying the rights, the broadcast viewerships have dropped significantly.

If anything, that graph is very Ferrari biased because of the data covering RAI only (and then +Sky when they went pay tv).

Look, i'm not saying competitiveness isnt a factor. I'm simply saying it isnt the only one and at the moment, competitiveness isnt that much of an issue. 2014 was way better than both 2009, 2011 and probably 2013. Of course Ferrari fans wont agree, which is reflected by these graphs. It would be helpful to have better data that covers a bit more than a single nation.

[Andres125sx]

What that graph shows is that for instance, the fact that Italian and English broadcast both went to pay tv probably had a much bigger impact than the competitiveness.

They went to pay tv in 2012, so I agree from that season that may have more influence, but what about the previous seasons?

RAI is an italian broadcaster and the data doesnt show anything beyond that the simpy fact that during the Ferrari dominating years, lots if Italians watched F1. And since they gave up on F1 due to sky buying the rights, the broadcast viewerships have dropped significantly.

During the Ferrari dominating years, lots of italinas stopped watching F1 as the graph shows, and the audience decreased from 11M to 6M before going to PPV

So even when I agree PPV is a significant factor, you can´t ignore the audience was decreasing significantly way before PPV

It would be helpful to have better data that covers a bit more than a single nation.

If you find some I´d be glad to comment. Meanwhile an italian graph showing an audience drop, even on Ferrari domination days, is pretty ilustrative IMO

[Moxie]

hiring a firm to conduct some proper market research.

i'm sorry but that never works because you get these companies/firms that want to make a name for themselves
and invent the craziest and most unneccesarily things which will only destroy the sport even more.

there is no need for market research, F1 is not a perfume brand or toy brand.

all they need to remember and realise is that Formula 1 is motorsport. It should be aimed at motorsport,
promoting motorsport, and improving motorsport. Anything that is able to improve such should be welcomed.

Death is not motorsport. It can be a 'compromised' risk, but it should thus be avoided. improvement in safety thus
is part of motorsport. entertainment is part of motorsport. Motorsport excists because we want to be entertained
as a human being. Motorsport needs promotion to be able to entertain people; therefore promotion is a neccesary
part of motorsport - F1 thus needs to be promoted through available channels in order to bring motorsport to the
masses to entertain. All this costs money so sponsorship is a neccesary part of Motorsport. Finally, motorsport needs
regulation in order to maintain these criteria and to keep it fair game.

So, what does F1 really need?

Promotion
Entertainment
Safety
Sponsorship
Regulation

if these 5 essential basics are clear and understandable, and above all, reasonable, then F1 can not go wrong, ever.

[Moxie]

@Manoah2u

Your post implies that these decisions are intuitive, but clearly within this forum we have a diverse set of views about what we enjoy when we watch motors ports and F1 specifically. Economists study human behavior, most often as it relates to issues of money. It is their job to look at us as a group, and figure out what we really want from the product called F1. The five areas of need you present are pretty broad and poorly defined. Market research would more closely define those needs and the most effective way of fulfilling those needs.

Promotion -
Is the current model of selling F1 production at a cost that requires the media firms to broadcast the events on premium channels detrimental to the future of F1? If so then what is the most efficient way of convincing the public to pay the premium and lend their eyes to the F1 broadcast, rather than watching one of the many free alternatives available?

Entertainment -
What aspects of F1 find the most entertaining? Competition between teams? Competition between drivers? Noise of the cars? Smell of burning fuel and rubber? The sense of danger? The personal lives of the drivers? The drama that surrounds Bernie Eccelstone?

Safety -
Only a monster would want to see more people die. However, the fear associated with that possibility is likely to play a role in the levels of excitement associated with watching this sport. I would not suggest that F1 should take a step backwards and increase the danger of the sport. I do suggest that it is important for F1 to understand how improving safety conditions affect the excitement and entertainment value of the product. If F1 doesnt want to see more people die, how does it keep up the level of excitement?

Sponsorship -
This is the most straight forward market research issue you presented. It is all about Return On Investment (ROI). Sponsors can spend money on advertising in a multitude of ways. Individual firms will do their own market research to determine the cost/benefit of advertising on the side of a F1 car vs the side of a NASCAR stock car, advertising associated with F1 vs. football, TV vs. print vs. Internet. F1 needs to do its own research to determine how best to attract advertiser investment.

Regulation-
Again, regulations affect the entertainment of the sport. Here I believe that economists that specialize in game theory should be involved to create a set of regulations to meet the entertainment goals previously defined by market research.

[Phil]

They went to pay tv in 2012, so I agree from that season that may have more influence, but what about the previous seasons?

So even when I agree PPV is a significant factor, you can´t ignore the audience was decreasing significantly way before PPV

IMO, the data is inconclusive. They could have moved on to other broadcasts (which wouldn't be highlighted here), or decided to watch football on sundays. Or go out. Get a life. There could be so many reasons why the sport declined. Maybe there was a generational shift too (where many old fans stopped watching and not enough young ones picked up on it, prefing to play on their Xboxes and PlayStations than watch a sport on TV). Most probably, I think there were various factors coming together. The problem with the graph is that it only shows "season totals". So technically, you have to devide them by races. Then you got to ask yourself how good was the season in itself? Were there many competitive races or not?

As it stands, the data is simply too big to pin-point it to a singular factor (competitiveness). If it had something to do with competitiveness, we would have seen 2005 as a good year, not only 2006 (both won by Alonso). 2007 couldn't have been more epic, though perhaps the absence of Schumacher helped out - but in terms of out right excitement, it had all the ingredients, Hamilton and Alonso as team-mates, Kimi right in there too.

The problem with the data is that we are only looking at RAI broadcast from one nation - a nation that is probably more focused on a singular team (Ferrari) than any other. I have no idea how good the RAI broadcast was, but fluctuations could be down to fluctuations within the broadcast - better broadcast, worse broadcast. For real data, we would at least need to know how other nations responded over the same years. Germany is a huge market with the RTL broadcast, then we have the UK with ITV and BBC. As I said, competitiveness is important, but IMO there isn't a problem there at the moment. The sport is as competitive at the moment as it has ever been. Mercedes at the moment is no more dominant than Redbull/Vettel was in 2011. And there are more overtakes than there have been in a long time, thanks still to DRS. Maybe the viewerships are slightly flattering and give the impression the sport is bigger or more interesting than it really is. It is motorsport. Competition is always going to be relativ, unless you have a spec-series, you are never going to have a level-playing-field. I'm not sure what else the sport can do that it is not already doing in trying to make the "racing better". At some point, it has to be careful not to make it too artificial.

[Andres125sx]

They went to pay tv in 2012, so I agree from that season that may have more influence, but what about the previous seasons?

So even when I agree PPV is a significant factor, you can´t ignore the audience was decreasing significantly way before PPV

IMO, the data is inconclusive. They could have moved on to other broadcasts (which wouldn't be highlighted here), or decided to watch football on sundays. Or go out. Get a life. There could be so many reasons why the sport declined. Maybe there was a generational shift too (where many old fans stopped watching and not enough young ones picked up on it, prefing to play on their Xboxes and PlayStations than watch a sport on TV). Most probably, I think there were various factors coming together. The problem with the graph is that it only shows "season totals". So technically, you have to devide them by races. Then you got to ask yourself how good was the season in itself? Were there many competitive races or not?

IMO it´s exactly season totals wich bring in the interesting data. If divided by races then the graph will depend on how good/boring that particular race was, but when it´s the total season you get a more realistic data about the average situation of the sport

As it stands, the data is simply too big to pin-point it to a singular factor (competitiveness). If it had something to do with competitiveness, we would have seen 2005 as a good year, not only 2006 (both won by Alonso). 2007 couldn't have been more epic, though perhaps the absence of Schumacher helped out - but in terms of out right excitement, it had all the ingredients, Hamilton and Alonso as team-mates, Kimi right in there too.

Agree on this, I don´t get the reason 2005 and 2007 don´t show an increase, but looking at the most boring seasons lately they all show a drop (2000-2004, 2009, 2011, 2013) and that cannot be a coincidence. Obviously there are many reasons for TV audience to vary, but this is a pattern no analyst would ignore

The sport is as competitive at the moment as it has ever been. Mercedes at the moment is no more dominant than Redbull/Vettel was in 2011.

2011 is far from an example about how F1 should be. One team and driver domination, one of the most boring F1 seasons ever with the champion getting almost 5 races advantage over 2nd clasified (392 vs 270), and champion team getting 3.5 races advantage (650 vs 497)

So yes, at the moment F1 is similary boring to one of the most boring seasons ever

And there are more overtakes than there have been in a long time, thanks still to DRS.

Yes today there are more overtakes than there have been in a long time, but also they´re not a half as exciting as they usually were because overtaking with DRS has no merit at all since your car is around 15km/h faster, so drivers do not take risks because they know it´s not necesary, just wait to the straight and you have an easy overtake

They´ve managed to ruin the most exciting part of racing, today not even overtaking is exciting

Obviously it will always depend on cars differences, but you get what I mean

I'm not sure what else the sport can do that it is not already doing in trying to make the "racing better".

I have some ideas, but mainly stop patching the sport and start solving the real problem, aero. DRS, crappy tires, engine freeze.... all are patches wich do not solve the real problem, aero is the main responsible for the two main problems F1 suffer, excesive costs and lack of on-track excitement/battles

For some reason they don´t want to freeze aero so they´re patching the sport with tires that wear intentionally to cause big pace differences and allow some overtaking, with DRS systems wich make up overtaking numbers but have ruined a big part of the excitement overtaking had always been, and with engine freeze wich are a joke for the suposed pinnacle of motorsports

Instead of ignoring aero problem, solve it, and you can get rid of many patches FIA has been implementing lately. Racing will be so much better I really can´t get the reason they don´t do it. I guess it must be related to the top teams being happy with their development potential, with frozen aero they´d struggle a lot more to beat midfielders. But imagine F1 with these changes:

1- Frozen aero (instead of engines) and it must avoid turbulences so cars can get closer. Only this change will make F1 day and night compared to today´s situation. Both racing side and costs side
2- Stop this crappy tires, different strategies are fine, but tires shouldn´t be chewing gum. Marbles are a big problem, they can´t get out of the line at last part of the race, solve it.
3- Once aero allow cars getting closer, ban DRS or do it full active aero for everyone. With cars getting closer you don´t need DRS, they can start the straights close to his rival and use the slipstream or simply attack at the braking, but they need to be able to start the straights close to the car in front

I agree frozen aero is not the best scenario, but frozen engines isn´t either and that´s what we have today. If some important part of the cars must be frozen aero will be way way more effective, both to improve racing and to control costs

At some point, it has to be careful not to make it too artificial.

IMHO we reached that point some seasons back. DRS and crappy tires to cause artificial overtakes was that point. It is a very particular point of view, but IMO overtaking has always been the most exciting part of racing, but it was when they could fight on equal conditions. Today they don´t fight on equal conditions and that´s not the only problem, but since they have that advantage we don´t see overtakings at any other part of the tracks because it´s absurd to risk when you have such a big advantage on the straights

Obviously there are exceptions when a car is too slow (top speed) compared to his rival and not even DRS solve the problem. In this case that driver must take some risk at some other part of the track, but these are exceptions, the norm is "do not asume any risk because you can overtake easy on the straights". Awful norm for any racing category if you ask me, overtaking must be a big part of the sport, and real overtaking wich require brave drivers, not this artificial gadget DRS is. This is a must change

[FW17]

Well this should call for some desperation...............

With Caterham having gone under and Marussia rescued at the eleventh hour, MEP Annaliese Dodds - in whose constituency many of those who lost their jobs lived - wrote to the European regulators last November calling on them to investigate the FIA and the way it handles F1.
Ms Dodds wanted to know how it is that the FIA has allowed a situation to come about whereby three teams - Ferrari, McLaren and Red Bull received 46% of the sport's £484m prize pot and the top six teams have seats on the all-important Strategy Group.
According to the Sunday Express, a number of unnamed teams are now contemplating whether to lodge a complaint which would trigger the European Commission investigation Ms Dodds originally called for.
Competition Commissioner, Margrethe Vestager has apparently told the teams that unless they make a formal complaint the matter cannot be taken forward.
"The teams are considering their next course of action," a source told the paper.
Hmm... we wonder who those teams might be.

[Just_a_fan]

The FIA will just move its headquarters to Dubai or somewhere else outside of EU jurisdiction. Bernie's mob likewise.

[wesley123]

Have you checked that list? Or only posting as if it is a proof of something by itself?

2007-2008 McLaren/Ferrari.... You must be kidding, if there´re two teams then there´s no domination at all, but a nice competition

I wouldn't call 2 guys fighting for all the wins a "nice competition"

Maybe, but even so that´s much better than seasons like 2000-2004, 2009, 2011, 2013, 2015 when we all knew beforehand who will win. If you don´t consider a 2 guys fight as a nice competition I wonder how can you be happy with seasons when it was a 1 guy thing

2 guys fighting for all the wins at least provides some uncertainty wich is crucial for any competition to be exciting

Who cares if one guy or two guys win it all, it ends up the same.

People, teams, dominate. It's perfectly normal within a sport for one guy to rise to the top. I'm not sure why that is suddenly a problem.

If you want the competition you should focus more on the midfield, that is where the competition is at and always has been.

Maybe we should ban the championship winner from the sport for a year, that way others can win as well!

And so was there for Rosberg. Hamilton retired on 3 occasions, Rosberg on 2.

What about Hungary with Lewis starting the race from 22th because of engine problems?

What about Germany with Lewis starting the race from 16th because of a disc brake failure on Q2?

Even so he managed to be 3th on both races, but that means Nico got 20 more points for the WDC than the british due to mechanical issues

Oh no, he had a few issues! that's part of the sport.

Pointing out retirements as the only problems Lewis suffered make me wonder if you really watched the season. He sufferend a lot more problems than Nico, and that´s the only reason there was some uncertainty

So because one driver had more trouble than the other it suddenly isn't a competition anymore? Like said, it's part of the sport.

But this is a perfect example of the argument in my previous post; it's never good enough.

You want competition, last year the championship was decided in the last race, that sounds very much like the competition you described in your post. Yet, it isn't good enough for some reason that is part of the sport.

There was a strong competition within the stronger team, just like how there was with Senna-Prost.

Are you serious comparing last season fight (due to Hamilton´s mechanical problems) with one of the most exciting fights in F1 history?

Yes I am.

>"We want turbo's back!"
>"The turbos don't make enough sound and aren't powerful enough!!!"

>"We want more overtaking"
>"Overtaking is too easy and cars aren't quick enough!!!"

>"We don't want overtaking in the pits"
>"now no one is driving on the edge anymore and conserving their tires and fuel!!!"

It's a neverending complaint about literally nothing. Which brings me to my original point; You shouldn't ever listen to your fanbase.

Please be serious wesley...

Sorry, that wasn't serious, it was meant to point out the complaints people have. It's a never ending story.

[Phil]

IMO it´s exactly season totals wich bring in the interesting data. If divided by races then the graph will depend on how good/boring that particular race was, but when it´s the total season you get a more realistic data about the average situation of the sport

....while at the same time, ignoring that we had a different number of races from year to year. So if we have 500'000 active F1 fans watching every single race, a season with 2 races more at the end of it will mark a "jump" of 1 million for the total, which you would then of course call an increase in viewership due to competitiveness (if it supports the narrative), when in fact the viewership hasn't changed at all.

But lets take a closer look:



The dark blue is the data taken from your graph. Then I added 3 graphs with normalized figures.

1.) Normalized by the number of races (total season viewership / races * 18)
2.) Normalized by the number of day races +/- (total season viewership / day races * 13)
3.) Normalized by the number of live broadcasts (2013 + 2014 RAI covered 9 live races)

The graphs are not ment to be compared by numbers so ignore the "million figure" on the Y-axis. It's only there to show the trend. The most interesting is the light-blue one, normalized by live-broadcasts. If we are to believe them, then statistically, 2013 was a pretty good year as there were more viewers relative over those 9 live races then the year before over the 19-20 races we had.

So again, it shows that comparing season totals of viewership fluctuates heavily, irrespective of what is happening on the track. What could influence figures? Competitive season? Yes. More likely; (this is RAI after all): Ferrari-competitiveness? Likely. What about weather? Or day-time races? Not everyone gets up in the morning to watch the oceanic/asia grand prix. What is undisputed is that RAI did have a drop in figures since 2000. The normalized figure (by No. Races) shows this. But again this data is only covering RAI broadcast. So, the high numbers during the Ferrari dominance years make sense. Since then, Ferrari has been less competitive, 2007 being an anomaly. But again, the above graph isn't highlighting this. 2008 should have been a good year too, yet again, accoarding to your graph, it isn't.

You can't just cherry-pick the few "peaks" and use that as "proof" of competitiveness being 'the factor' while ignoring the exceptions. In this case, the exceptions prove the inconclusiveness of the data. Also, if we had UK numbers, I'm sure the Button / Lewis years would have been good ones (or better relative to other years).

*EDIT: Also; 2000-2006 (with the exception of 2001), Italy hosted two grandprixes, in Imola and Monza. I wouldn't be surprised if more italians tuned into the Italian broadcast for their two home GPs. It isn't reflected that much in the graph (it probably would if we had the break-down per races), but I'm fairly confident it had some impact.

You see now why the data is inconclusive?

BTW; While doing some research, this is what I had to find:

http://motorsportstalk.nbcsports.com/20 ... e-problem/

The quality of the racing is important, yet it is not the problem here. 2008 was the ‘peak’ in terms of viewership, booming at 600m. However, this was a year dominated by McLaren and Ferrari, and arguably less exciting than the recent clashes between Sebastian Vettel, Fernando Alonso, Lewis Hamilton and Nico Rosberg. There is little reason for less fans to be watching because they simply don’t like what they see.

So 600 million as a total for the entire season, wordwide? 600 million / 18 races = 33 million average per race. One way or another, it makes the RAI viewership numbers of ~7 million for the total of that season a drop in the ocean so to speak. Actually, it's about ~1%. So 1% relevant. You are looking at a graph that covers 1% of viewers and drawing conclusions, which isn't even consistent on a year to year basis.

PS: I'm not disagreeing that competitiveness is important. But the data you are using isn't showing it and I don't think it's the predominant reason either way.


EDIT: Added the point about Imola & Monza, two GPs being hosted in Italy up until 2006 (see above).