More Bernie desperation

[sgth0mas]

You also answered your own question sort of. There are almost 200 countries, so only 10% can get a grand prix. Obviously the grand prixs will go to the most economically feasible.

Also...some countries just dont care much. Im surprised we have an F1 race in the US, and would actually much rather organizers drop F1 for indy or nascar until F1 gets their act together.

[Andres125sx]

I doubt that getting rid of Bernie will change most of these problems.

Disagree.

Bernie took the route some time ago of prioritizing his income than popularizing the sport. That´s the only reason to substitude historical GPs like Hokenheim, Magny Cours or Imola with GPs in Singapore, China, Abu Dabhi or India.

He´s been increasing taxes to host a GP constantly, and that means GP hosters need to increase ticket prices more and more, to the point you get so expensive tickets (to see a probably boring race) that people stop attending GPs, hosters stop making profit, and they finally are forced to stop hosting the GP

This wouldn´t be a problem if all countries would act the same, the problem comes when there´re some countries so interested to promote theirselves they´re willing to pay taxes no matter how excessive they are because they take it as a worldwide advertising, so they don´t care if they get some profit or not, they see it as an investement.



So finally Bernie continue increasing taxes because he´s paid, and he doesn´t care about much more, this is a business so if he continue getting his profit it´s ok for him. If some historical tracks like Hockenheim, Imola, Magny Cours or Nurburgring dissapear from the calendar that´s only a problem for us fans, he doesn´t care at all. He did a long time ago, but he lost perspective and now he only cares about short-term income, but if he ignore the fans the long-term income is compromised because with no fans there´s no business. Long-term income may not be a problem for a 84 years old man, but he´s compromising F1 future seriously


IMHO, Bernie has become first and main problem for F1, what is a shame condering he´s the one who make it what it is today, but F1 reached the point of evolve or die some time ago, it didn´t evolve, so it´s dying

[zoro_f1]

Zdravo brat Makedonski... I am also Macedonian, although I live in Victoria, Australia.

На човек тешко му е да поверува дека не има Mакедонци на овој форум... поздрав до тебе и ти благодарам за твојот одговор! Пријатно сум изненаден! =D>

// translate from macedonian//
It is hard to believe that you can find Мacedonian members on this forum... greetings to you and thank you for your responce! I am pleasantly surprised! =D>

I can appreciate your post and I agree that there are many closed doors in F1, but unfortunately that is really the nature of the sport. Any sport or business for that matter, will generally perform at its best, when amongst a highly competitive local environment. I think its for this matter that F1 teams more often than not, set up there facilities in a general locality of even England! It would be quite difficult to set something up outside of England where there is little chance of finding experienced employees. That is not to say that there are not for example Macedonian engineers/technical staff involved with F1, it is however likely that they moved to England in order to do so, remember that is where the majority of F1 teams have their facilities set up.

Totally agree! The teams cannot build their facility just to hire engineers from other (small) countries but my opinion is that the chance to work in a F1 team as an engineer from a small land (in this case from Macedonia) is very, very small... almost impossible! The teams do not even want to make a first contact and secondly with Macedonian documents we do not have rights to work in other western countries of EU or even England. I think that this is more a political injustice, but then again, our or similar people are having more disadvantages than EU engineers because none of the teams would like to spent time to provide legal documents for that person... even if it is a suitable for that position!

As far as seeing a Macedonian driver in F1, I highly doubt that will ever happen, and it is really a question of simple economics. Actually Nico Rosberg is a multi-national if I'm not mistaken, and might have had the option to choose his nationality. I expect people can understand that a German driver has a far broader marketing reach than a Finnish driver, I expect this to be the primary reason, amongst many others that a driver would choose to take the more marketable/profitable choice.

Frankly I think Finland stumbled across two absolute gems in Mika Hakkinen and Kimi Raikkonen. Here are two guys who in different ways are remarkably charismatic, funny, personable and most important in racing, remarkably quick and talented. These are two guys who have enormous followings outside of Finland and I think that had a substantial impact on their marketing and commercial success.

Here you mention very interesting topic for discussion. Finland always has produced quick drivers, very quick! Mika Hakkinen and Kimi Raikkonen are already champions and it is a matter of time when this is going to happen with Valteri Bottas who is also remarkably talented and quick driver. A true star for F1 in the future! Comparing to german drivers and the brief of history how much they were involved is almost non-sense to talk about. German Grand Prix has been held since 1926 and that is almost 75 times! There were German drivers, teams and engine suppliers! For this enormous history of participating in sports car racing they were NOT celebrating an F1 title since 1994 when we loss Ayrton Senna and yield Michael Schumacher! How many years, money or victims were over just to produce one champion? How much is the cost?

As far as for Macedonian driver in F1 I truly believe that one day we can show the world how with much less money we can produce a real quick driver... I am not saying that we don't have one, but now this is a economical or national injustice for small countries... even Mr. Ecclstone said on that same interview with Ted Kravitz that there are thousands of drivers who can beat Lewis Hamilton but unfortunate that would not be happen! If that can happen than you can say it is a creativity from the heart and the achievement would be priceless!

As far as a Macedonian grand prix goes, I highly doubt that will ever happen either, perhaps in a similar way I highly doubt we will ever see a Finnish grand prix. To be frank, Finland is not too economically dissimilar to Macedonia, these are both small countries with low populations, somewhere around 5 million and 2 million respectively. Granted there is a large GDP/capita difference, but neither is a booming economy and for that reason, I highly doubt that there is the population or economics to support such an event.

Here i can say that we disagree! Finland and Macedonia are NOT equal in living standards. The problem lies here... F1 does NOT want to be involved in countries with lower living standards and that does NOT mean that these kind of nations are not producing drivers or engineers! Now we are going to circulate in a loop where world is not the same for everybody but everybody wants to be a racer or be involved on other way just because of the passion for racing sports. And the passion for racing sports can be much more bigger than other bigger countries. This is one of the biggest issues of Mr. Bernie Ecclstone for not allowing other smaller countries be part of F1 and that is part for NOT searching for passion. Also the passion can come from a much smaller size.

There is one quote which I hope everyone already knows it... size doesn't matter!
I don't know... maybe Mr. Ecclstone is scared from smaller countries!?
Maybe in the near future if someone get his chance would prove that money, nationality or ages are not crucial for succeed. And that could blow the mind of the world!!!

...
I doubt that getting rid of Bernie will change most of these problems. I think the best we can hope for is that when he finally steps down or keels over, the hosting fees will become more fair and less inflated.

Disagree too! The replacement of Mr. Ecclstone who is 84 years old (i guess) and who I don't think he will change his way of designing the F1 as a business and as a racing sport with someone who can bring back F1 to Europe and also to small countries with much lower economical standards can bring back show to grow up like in the mid 80's and 90's and able to create more stable show and which can allow more and more countries be host's of an F1 race.

Just see the example of what Vince Mcmahon did with his WWE (World Wrestling Entertainment)... the world can watch wrestling for just 9.99$ and now the WWE Network is the biggest network of the world. Bernie Ecclstone does NOT have this ability for solving this kind of situation and use the tools like internet and make F1 more and more close to the fans! Allowing the fans to watch F1 races LIVE from the internet is not a dangerous thing...

[kalinka]

Yes, you described the situation perfectly. He is doing "escape forward" strategy. He does not want to face current problems, as long as countries are standing in a row to organize races. No matter which country. When the fanbase disappears the whole thing will collapse.

[mattylwd]

Not sure where to leave this: but it seems RSE Ventures and Qatar Sports Investments trying to buy a chunck of the Formula One Group. What do you guys think of this?

http://www.gpupdate.net/en/f1-news/3272 ... a-1-stake/

[Emmcee]

I doubt that getting rid of Bernie will change most of these problems.

Disagree.

Bernie took the route some time ago of prioritizing his income than popularizing the sport. That´s the only reason to substitude historical GPs like Hokenheim, Magny Cours or Imola with GPs in Singapore, China, Abu Dabhi or India.

He´s been increasing taxes to host a GP constantly, and that means GP hosters need to increase ticket prices more and more, to the point you get so expensive tickets (to see a probably boring race) that people stop attending GPs, hosters stop making profit, and they finally are forced to stop hosting the GP

This wouldn´t be a problem if all countries would act the same, the problem comes when there´re some countries so interested to promote theirselves they´re willing to pay taxes no matter how excessive they are because they take it as a worldwide advertising, so they don´t care if they get some profit or not, they see it as an investement.



So finally Bernie continue increasing taxes because he´s paid, and he doesn´t care about much more, this is a business so if he continue getting his profit it´s ok for him. If some historical tracks like Hockenheim, Imola, Magny Cours or Nurburgring dissapear from the calendar that´s only a problem for us fans, he doesn´t care at all. He did a long time ago, but he lost perspective and now he only cares about short-term income, but if he ignore the fans the long-term income is compromised because with no fans there´s no business. Long-term income may not be a problem for a 84 years old man, but he´s compromising F1 future seriously


IMHO, Bernie has become first and main problem for F1, what is a shame condering he´s the one who make it what it is today, but F1 reached the point of evolve or die some time ago, it didn´t evolve, so it´s dying

Totally agree, he has found a nice little scheme here and what ever decisions are made "for the best intrest of the sport" always benefit him. He is forgetting the roots that made him this wealthy to begin with and that authentic formula one. Not open wheeled prototypes with shocking fuel economy.

[r_b_l]

Agree with ya Andres125sx.

You just need to look at the fan attendance across the board. New F1 tracks only generate short term gain, a sugar hit, classic track fan attendance seems to be dwindling, increasing the globalisation of F1. Ticket prices and the sport no longer being a spectacle would be the main reason for the shortfall of classic tracks, including racing predictability & other aspects such as the missing roar of F1's of the past. Traditional fans are turning away perhaps by these reasons.

People, and hopefully someone in F1, needs to remember that most people who attend F1 races want traditional motorsport, heaps of speed, burning of rubber, overtaking, excitement unpredictability and a chance of an underdog pulling out a win from nowhere. Most of these fans are not overly interested in all the technical intricacies, complex rules & fuel economy or why a car has been pulled into the pits due to a fuel flow sensor or why 4 cars have 10+ place penalties for having a particular type of engine at the back of it.

Unfortunately Bernie is not this person and he is only interested in how deep his pockets can be filled. F1 needs a change of leader.

[Emmcee]

Agree with ya Andres125sx.

You just need to look at the fan attendance across the board. New F1 tracks only generate short term gain, a sugar hit, classic track fan attendance seems to be dwindling, fueling this globalisation of F1. Ticket prices and the sport no longer being a spectacle would be the main reason for the shortfall of classic tracks, including racing predictability & other aspects such as the missing roar of F1's of the past.

People, hopefully someone in F1, needs to remember that most people who attend F1 races want traditional motorsport, heaps of speed, overtaking, excitement unpredictability and a chance of an underdog pulling out a win from nowhere. Most of these fans are not overly interested in all the technical intricacies, complex rules and above all fuel economy. We do not go to the track with our You just need to look at the fan attendance across the board. New F1 tracks only generate short term gain, a sugar hit, classic track fan attendance seems to be dwindling, increasing the globalisation of F1. Ticket prices and the sport no longer being a spectacle would be the main reason for the shortfall of classic tracks, including racing predictability & other aspects such as the missing roar of F1's of the past. Traditional fans are turning away perhaps by these reasons.

People, and hopefully someone in F1, needs to remember that most people who attend F1 races want traditional motorsport, heaps of speed, burning of rubber, overtaking, excitement unpredictability and a chance of an underdog pulling out a win from nowhere. Most of these fans are not overly interested in all the technical intricacies, complex rules & fuel economy or why a car has been pulled into the pits due to a fuel flow sensor or why 4 cars have 10+ place penalties for having a particular type of engine at the back of it.

Unfortunately Bernie is not this person and he is only interested in how deep his pockets can be filled. F1 needs a change of leader.

Ross Brawn all the way!!!

[lkocev]

As far as a Macedonian grand prix goes, I highly doubt that will ever happen either, perhaps in a similar way I highly doubt we will ever see a Finnish grand prix. To be frank, Finland is not too economically dissimilar to Macedonia, these are both small countries with low populations, somewhere around 5 million and 2 million respectively. Granted there is a large GDP/capita difference, but neither is a booming economy and for that reason, I highly doubt that there is the population or economics to support such an event.

Here i can say that we disagree! Finland and Macedonia are NOT equal in living standards. The problem lies here... F1 does NOT want to be involved in countries with lower living standards and that does NOT mean that these kind of nations are not producing drivers or engineers! Now we are going to circulate in a loop where world is not the same for everybody but everybody wants to be a racer or be involved on other way just because of the passion for racing sports. And the passion for racing sports can be much more bigger than other bigger countries. This is one of the biggest issues of Mr. Bernie Ecclstone for not allowing other smaller countries be part of F1 and that is part for NOT searching for passion. Also the passion can come from a much smaller size.

There is one quote which I hope everyone already knows it... size doesn't matter!
I don't know... maybe Mr. Ecclstone is scared from smaller countries!?
Maybe in the near future if someone get his chance would prove that money, nationality or ages are not crucial for succeed. And that could blow the mind of the world!!!

I know the living standards are not the same, and I hope I didn't give the impression they were, but what I was trying to say is that I doubt even Finland realistically has the type of economy to support hosting this type of event. To be brutally honest about it, there is much more fruitful and beneficial things for people to be investing money in Macedonia than a bid to host a grand prix, like infrastructure and industry. Its not a problem with the Macedonian people, or government, its simply being responsible and pragmatic, at this point in time, hosting a grand prix would be quite irresponsible and wasteful of essentially public tax money, that wouldn't offer much benefit to the populace. I would expect that the local governments of Finland and the municipal governments of Macedonia might share this view since I don't think either would be willing to fill the pockets of Bernie. At least for the time being I think it is good policy not to make a bid to host this kind of event, no one knows if this will change in the future but for now I expect its not a good idea for the population of the Republic of Macedonia.

I hope I had not given the impression that I support Bernie, I in fact agree with most of the sentiment in this forum that he has done a fine job of pricing the sport out of the market and pushed the sport to the brink of collapse. But guess who keeps it going? WE ARE! It is we who love this sport, who follow it through its dark days and good, who get on forums and contribute discussion of various topics, we are the reason it still exists. There are many of us here that would like to change things in the regulations, and calendars and what not, but we still faithfully follow the sport because despite its short comings, we still find it interesting.

I agree Bernie has not been good for the sport, but we need to be pragmatic about things. Formula one management, to an extent does need to function as a business, because the sport itself needs to survive. I don't like the way things are being run at the moment because it is basically selling hosting rights to the highest bidder, and I don't like that because like zoro_f1 mentioned, it makes such a thing unaffordable to smaller, less economically prosperous countries. There has been no French grand prix for quite some time now, and that to me is a real shame, grand prix is a French term! Obviously the local governments and event organizers in France don't see value in hosting one, because if they did, there likely would be one, plain and simple. So maybe its not about economics anymore, who knows, I mean, I don't really know what the fees are so who am I to say anyhow?

So we all want Bernie gone, but who will replace him? really guys, who is the candidate here? An earlier post mentioned Ross Brawn, and I'm not sure he is a great candidate either, because first and foremost he himself is a rather wealthy man and I doubt that he will run the management as a charity, it will still be a business. I personally think it needs to be someone from completely outside the sport, someone not tainted by wealth and someone who is willing to open up FOM financial records for public scrutiny. I think that the teams should be getting larger shares of the commercial takings of FOM, and obviously that hosting fees should be reduced substantially.

I say that I'm not sure that getting rid of Bernie will change much, because I doubt that who will replace him will operate with any different sentiment or principal. Its really basic economics, the price will be set at whatever the market will offer. This is not a business model I'm in support of, but I'm not Bernie, nor will I be in his position, so what can we realistically do? At this rate it doesn't look like he will step down, so at the risk of making a statement un-becoming of a Christian, I hope that he kicks the bucket soon and that the management gets shaken up and things change from within the management. Remember removing the head does nothing if the rest of the body is infected, FOM corruption I expect goes far beyond that of Bernie.

[zoro_f1]

agreed and i hate when i see this all the time...
oh bernie... start learning from someone...
information technologies can only bring you more and more popularity rather then without it...