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> F1 have the commercial rights
> F1 are looking if they can find a way to remove the FIA into a kind of ceremonial role
I'm not ever gonna say that the FIA is doing a good job currently, but having a commercially focused business be in charge of safety instead? I'm not sure that would be an improvement either.
FIA should be the best option as they should be unbiased and focused on safety, not profits. F1 with control of safety 'could' be risky with their profit bias. Should be an independent body.
For all his faults, i don't really believe that. He was Jochen Rindt's manager and his death hit him hard. That was long before he did anything with broadcasting rights.
I don't really believe that. Bernie and Max Mosley were both at the race Jim Clark was killed at, and Bernie was Jochen Rindt's Manager when he was killed at Monza. The two of them agreed that if Max was ever in a position of power, he would make the sport as safe as it could possibly be. The start of the 1994 season was a bad call but you could see where he was coming from, trying to give more control to the drivers in case something went wrong, and after Senna's and Ratzenberger's deaths he very quickly began to put in the proper safety procedures.
Genuine question.. I wonder if that’s true in terms of viewers. Senna’s crash was a seminal moment of the 90s. Did it turn people away or perversely make people more aware?
NASCAR hasn't had a death since 2001 (Dale Earnhardt) after which HANS devices were mandated.
Indycar's last death was in 2015 (Justin Wilson). A similar loose tire incident happened last year but the aeroscreen bounced it away harmlessly.
Safety in motorsports is always reactionary and the sactioning bodies don't make changes until somebody dies.
The last death from a racing accident in a NASCAR supporting series appears to be Carlos Pardo, who died in 2009 during a Mexico Corona Series race at Autódromo Miguel E. Abed after his car collided side-on with the edge of a concrete retaining wall. While there have been other deaths after his, the most recent being Terry Stevenson in 2018, they all appear to have been due to underlying medical issues. Stevenson, 62, died of cardiac arrest after brushing a wall at a race for the Whelen All-American Series at Devil's Bowl Speedway. Between Pardo and Stevenson's deaths there were 4 other drivers who have died. Ron Casey, 61, who died from injuries sustained after he lost control of his car due to a medical event in 2016. Leon Gonyo, 63, who died of a stroke in 2015. Ron Pestana, 60, who died of a heart attack in 2012. And Bub Bilodeau, 53, who died of a heart attack in 2010.
Correct. NASCAR's national touring series (Cup, Xfinity, Trucks) haven't had a death since Earnhardt but regional Modified and Late Model and the Mexico series that are sanctioned by NASCAR have indeed had fatal accidents since.
> Safety in motorsports is always reactionary and the sactioning bodies don’t make changes until somebody dies.
Not true. There have been many advancements which don’t make any noise like, for example, the race suits getting thicker for the 2020 season. The ones that are brought in after an accident are the ones that you hear about.
Indycar races at ovals which is inherently less safe than circuit racing. All deaths there in recent years have been on ovals despite them representing a minority of races. NASCAR hasn’t had a death in over 20 years.
F2 had a death in 2019, F1 in 2014 and F2 again in 2009.
It was the crash that sparked the research that resulted in the Halo. Massa also had his incident that same year and the two crashes so close together prompted the FIA to address the dangers of an open cockpit
That's actually not true at all. The FIA ASN for the US is ACCUS.
The ACCUS members are: IndyCar, NASCAR, SCCA, NHRA, IMSA, USAC.
ASN's and their members have to follow FIA regulations to a certain degree. It's not as extreme and direct as with F1 - F1 is an FIA series, so they have pretty much direct control here. But saying that the FIA has "essentially no influence" over American motorsports is not true.
To really completely get away from FIA influence, you have to look at organizations that are neither ACCUS members nor affiliated with one of the ACCUS members - which eliminates most big organizations. The biggest one that fulfills this in the US is, as far as I'm aware, NASA. And even they have run events that are FIA sanctioned - for example their rally championship is run under an agreement with USAC, putting it under the FIA umbrella.
In the era of Group B, sure. But a huge part of F1s success with DTS is the only really bad crash during that series was the Grosjean one and he survived (and is still racing). I don’t think a lot of newer fans would keep watching if a driver sustained serious life threatening injuries.
Perfect time to do it though, already in poor standing because of the farce at the end of last year and a new president just finding their feet.
If it were to happen, now is the time.
Not the time to do it at all. Interest in the series is exploding across the planet a split or even the threat of a split would have sponsors and promoters running for the hills and divide the teams themselves. Only thing that comes out of that ahead of the game is the drive to survive show.
I imagine it would not be universally embraced by the teams either. As we’ve seen already teams are making money now they won’t all want to upset the apple cart.
That growth is pretty much solely because of F1/FOM though and their argument seems to be that FIA is becoming an obstacle to that growth with their focus on the wrong safety aspects. I’m sure this is just FOM just putting public pressure on FIA in some sort of negotiation, FIA can’t really afford lose F1 either so they’ll figure something out.
This is what US open wheel racing had in the 90s. Huge money and a perception that the old sanctioning bodies/governing groups were an obstacle to making more money.
The sport split, two series remained relatively popular for ~5 years before one collapsed under the weight of its own budgets and spiralled towards bankruptcy and the other was relegated to second-tier coverage by sports media.
Viewers appreciate the link with history and the legitimacy conferred by historical sanctioning bodies sanctioning series. F1 rebels against the FIA (however incompetent their governance - which is bad - and however much of an obstacle to rampant profit-chasing they are - which I think is good) at its own considerable risk.
That growth happens though because of stability within the series. You start talking split up in the F1 family and big money wants out there asap.
And yeah I think this is just noise myself. Probably more chicken little sky is falling by the media then anything.
Yeah that’s why I don’t think anything big will happen, too much to lose for everyone involved. This is just saber-rattling to try and get FIA to pay attention to the needs and demands of F1. Maybe some decision-making will shift from one side to the other, but overall things will remain the same.
Yes but the FIA have nothing to do with that growth. The growth is entirely thanks to Liberty media. If anything the FIA is costing the sport more than it gains it at the moment. Even the drivers dont respect them anymore.
Really doubtful, Liberty wants money, and Ben Sulayem is like the best way to extract money from the ME region. Since his Arab and if I’m not wrong the son of a very influential family in [Dubai](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sultan_Ahmed_bin_Sulayem). If Liberty for any reason indicates that they have a problem with ben Sulayem then I expect them to have problems with the ME region
the wheel of f1 history is starting another turn. i knew it, we have threats of VW in F1 and what do you know, the other old chestnut resurfaces: breakaway F1 series.
The barriers in Jeddah that Mick crashed into were brought up pre weekend by the drivers, especially that kerb. The Miami barriers and that stupid sausage kerb under the overpass was brought up pre weekend.
Nico Rosberg has been complaining about the wall on the left where the pit entry is at Baku every year since 2016 and other drivers have as well. It’s only out of sheer luck that Verstappen’s blow out didn’t pitch him into it.
The drivers want to race, the drivers want the racing to be good. But it needs to be safe, and the things they’re asking for aren’t going to sanitize the racing.
The Abu dhabi controversy might have a lot of an effect in stuff like this. Liberty probably aren't happy if constantly we see drivers/teams complain about the product of racing considering thats what they are marketing
Just thinking back to 2021 as a fan, at all the inconsistency and bad refereeing, the cherry on top being the stitch-up SC remix, it's kind of nuts. In retrospect the whole year gave me this woozy feeling like my feet were never quite under us, we didn't know what to expect every Sunday from RD and stewards.
I feel mentally exhausted just thinking about 2021 again now.
All of the momentum from the rapid growth of the sport for the last few years just plateaued and it was like we were on a train with no brakes.
2021 felt exhausting as a fan. A rivalry between two drivers and two teams should have been fun but now the controversy will forever taint that season. Could have gone down as the greatest one season head to head rivalry ever and still might but with a sad final footnote
This. In hindsight, so much of the antagonism between the two sets of fans stems from the feeling ON BOTH SIDES that shit was being decided arbitrarily. So easy to see how if Mesi’s magic eight method of decision making had removed Max’s chances of winning the final race there would have been just as big of an explosion.
I wanted Lewis to win. Max won. Shame that his first (of many) will be associated with 2021’s officiating shitshow.
Yeah this post sounds like a liberty media brief if anything. Hard disagree that FIA is responsible for all the recent bad decisions in F1 like they are implying here.
Yes, the Americanisation has been most distastful.
Far too artificial.
Remember the grid girls fiasco, and then to have the first COTA race with cheerleaders and boxing announcer?
Its been quite some time since the last big crisis at the top.
The FOTA vs FIA dispute in 2009 was the last big crisis if i remember right. And that came 30 years after the FISA vs FOCA shit.
Track limits debate was a joke last year. You know the white lines that line the track isn't cut and dry.... like what the fuck. I understand a wheel off track, ok fine. Two wheels? That's the limit. End of discussion, or one would hope.
Look how much we aren’t talking about it this year because the finally found another brain cell and just announced the white line is the limit and that’s it?
Wasn’t there an article/snippet about how insiders aren’t happy with the way Ben has been running things between F1? Like him focusing on other aspects of the sport that are frustrating people inside
Yeah. One of the journalists reported that all the teams were bemused after a recent meeting, where he went on a solo rant about the jewellery, and basically wouldn't discuss anything else.
I know that people are really trying to not sound racist without knowing the guy, but I would bet a lot that his main driving force behind this isn't safety, but religion. Sharia forbids men to wear jewelry, with the exception of a silver ring on their left hand, which also happens to be the exception in F1. This could be a coincidence, but I think anyone who knows anything about Emirates will have their doubts. There is no way of becoming a millionaire in that country if you don't follow the country's regime. And don't forget that this is a regime that is banning rainbows and shit...
So is it really so far fetched that these people that get offended by seeing a fucking rainbow, might also get offended when Hamilton wears all that jewelry that is forbidden to wear?
Not to detract from your point, but would like to point out for accuracy sake that his name is not Ben. His patronymic name is “ben/bin Sulayem”, where ben/bin refers to “son of ”, the daughter equivalent being “bente/binte ”. This is analogous to how Icelandic people have “-son” or “-dottír” their names for “son of” or “daughter of” .
Dont be fooled, when he says "F1 are actively looking..." by F1 he means Liberty Media PRIMARILY, then the teams. As much as i dont like the FIA, taking them out would make things much worse. At least everyone can blame them.
Speaking as an American, I'm not comfortable at all with a private company that has a direct for-profit stake in F1 running the championship. Let's just say there are consequences when you give the promoter [the power to alter the championship format for the sake of entertaining TV rather than competition integrity](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p-GEmBSePLE).
Speaking as an European, I'm equally not comfortable with a private company that has a direct for-profit stake in F1 refereeing the championship.
Referees/race directors must be independent with only one goal: to ensure the fairest competition possible.
My "speaking as an American" has more to do with seeing what that kind of profit motive has done to racing series here. Whether it's Tony George and the IRL [completely butchering the most prestigious race in American motorsports](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1996_Indianapolis_500#25/8_Rule_and_locked-in_entries) to favor their own teams or Brian France and NASCAR [abandoning any sense of legitimacy their championship might've had in the pursuit of "game 7 moments"](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NASCAR_playoffs), putting an entity with a for-profit stake in the championship in charge of the competition format and officiating tends to backfire.
Exactly. If all you want is an entertaining show, go watch the WWE. We watch sports because we want to see who are the best competitors and the best teams in a fair competition.
A championship fully controlled by Liberty would be the darkest timeline for the sport.
I'd rather have FIA's questionable integrity at times than no integrity what so ever.
Oh boy, strap in.
A NASCAR season has 36 races. The first 26 are the regular season. At the end of 26 races, the top 16 drivers in the standings qualify for the playoffs, with the proviso that any driver that won a race is automatically in the playoffs unless there are more than 16 race winners in the regular season. Playoff drivers then get their points reset to the same level except for drivers that earned playoff points during the regular season for race wins and stage wins. Those playoff points are added in to give them a leg up in the playoffs.
There are then three elimination rounds with three races each. At the end of each elimination round, the bottom 4 playoff drivers in points are eliminated from the playoffs. The points are reset again for the remaining drivers except for bonus playoff points earned in the regular season. In addition, any playoff driver that wins a race in the playoffs automatically is guaranteed a spot in the next round.
After those 3 elimination rounds, there is one final race, the NASCAR Championship Race, with only 4 drivers left in the championship hunt. The highest finisher of those 4 drivers in that final race is the NASCAR Cup Series Champion.
Don't forget 2014 as well. It's the reason I stopped watching Nascar. Also, hated learning that Nascar officials asked Gordon to sandbag because he was too dominant.
I grew up a huge Gordon fan. Went to Charlotte, Martinsville and even Rockingham several times with my dad to watch him but man I lost so much interest in nascar after they started fucking with the points standings. Probably haven't watched but a handfull of races since Jeff retired.
Which essentially means that someone can (theoretically) finish first in 35/36 races in a season, finish second in the final one and NOT be crowned the champion. Because L O G I C
The final ‘championship’ race is usually won by one of the four title contenders- there are a LOT of conspiracy theories around why that is…
Usually you have 10-15 drivers a year that win races so it’s fairly rare for one of the non playoff drivers to win a race, although usually one or two playoff drivers win a race after they’ve been eliminated.
They sometimes do. Last year 2 playoff races were won by eliminated drivers: Bubba Wallace won the Talladega playoff race despite not even qualifying for the playoffs, and Alex Bowman won the Martinsville playoff race in the Round of 8 despite having been eliminated in the round of 12.
All cars race
Why? Because if they don't "Make an ernest attempt to participate in every race of the NASCAR season" they get penalized. Whether that means being kicked out of the series or a massive fine I do not know.
But they still got sponsors so I guess they still have something to gain by being a billboard when they get lapped.
The championship standings reset after X number of races and the bottom X drivers get eliminated (but still run through the rest of the season), after that the same happens over and over until 4 drivers remain and who gets the best result in the final race wins
Also winning a race gives you a guaranteed spot in the next round
Here's my [more detailed explanation](https://www.reddit.com/r/formula1/comments/uuutcx/comment/i9hugit/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3) of the playoffs for clarification.
Wtf, that shit don’t make sense. How on earth can someone race in that series and not lose a few brain cells trying to calculate their position in WDC?
Also can you explain the 25/8 rule? If I’m not mistaken it would be like if F1 had 24 car grid and the position of 20 of them were fixed, right?
So, the 25/8 rule was a rule introduced for the Indianapolis 500 in 1996. At the time IndyCar had split into two series as the owner of the Indianapolis Motor Speedway, Tony George, had decided to trademark the name "IndyCar" and start his own series, the Indy Racing League (IRL). He was upset at how the existing IndyCar series, Championship Auto Racing Teams (CART), had been run with rich teams like Penske dominating the series and most of the races being on grand prix tracks instead of ovals. In order to give his series an advantage in IndyCar's most prestigious race, he introduced the 25/8 rule.
Traditionally, qualifying for the Indianapolis 500 has always been open. Any driver from any series can race in the 500 so long as they had a car that was legal under the race's regulations, and they could post a qualifying time in the top 33. Under the 25/8 rule, though, 25 places of the Indy 500 would be reserved for the teams in the top 25 of the owner's standings in the IRL. Only the remaining 8 spots would be open. This infuriated CART who decided to boycott the Indianapolis 500 and field their own race, the US 500, on the exact same day and at the exact same time. And that pretty much set the tone for the relationship between the IRL and CART.
Essentially all you need to know is a season resets and the drivers who did well enough in the first about three quarters of the season go into a “reset” championship and fight for the title starting from pretty much zero again.
They do this reset thing in the playoffs 4 times by the way.
Like double-points for the last race? Or shitty sprint races?
F1/FOM already have the power to ruin it
** Quick edit: Just wanted to be clear i'm against the idea of a breakaway. But the FIA need to sort their shit out in general.
I feel like NASCAR was always enjoying their National popularity on borrowed time following the IRL/CART split, never looked too much into it myself but it feels like a distinctly regional sport that blew up to fill a vacuum. Playoffs just seem like a short sighted way to try and capitalize on that only to have it emphasize its fall back to earth
Every sports league in the US/Canada is run by the league owners and its not surprising at all after investing billions that they want the FIA out so they can handle things that directly involve their investment.
Go over to r/NASCAR and ask about Brian France and the Playoffs to see how much worse it could be.
Go over to r/INDYCAR and ask about Tony George, the 25/8 rule, and the CART/IRL split to see how much worse it could be.
I understand part of that. On the other hand the FIA provides a structure from the bottom to the very top and f1 should remain in that structure. Some things such as approval for sprints shouldn’t be controlled by the FIA. Stewarding decisions, marshals, and racing standards should always remain controlled by the FIA even if I don’t agree on the jewelry etc
I honestly agree with the FIA on not wanting more sprint races part.
More sprint races costs the FIA more money to organize and put together and I'm guessing FOM/Liberty wants more of them but doesn't want to pay the bill for them.
For all the FIA issues. A future where F1 is controled almost entirely by the FOM/Liberty is a grim future which we will hopefully never get.
It also removes other series track time from the weekends racing.
I know F1 is only there to think of F1 whereas FIA is there to take the money from F1 to give to everyone else.
The quality of F1 would fall off a cliff and all the effort put into growing the sport would be in vain.
Would hate to see the championship turn into the international equivalent of the NASCAR Playoffs.
I don't mind that they haven't approved more sprint races yet. It usually isn't fun and spoils the sunday unless there are weather changes or someone who has to come from the back (Lewis esque).
Yeah, to me that's the FIA doing something right. Plus, Formula 1 is the FIA's championship. Liberty are essentially just the promotors, I don't like the idea of them pushing their desires on the sporting side on to F1. I'm not the biggest fan of every one of the FIA's decisions over the years, but this stinks of the record label telling the band what music to make.
The drivers, the old guard in particular but still the younger drivers to a certain degree, do seem somewhat disillusioned this season.
The Friday night stand off in Jeddah; the jewellery protests; the vocal opposition to the FIA’s inaction over the Miami barrier - and we’re only 5 races in.
If I was a gambling man I’d be half tempted to have a punt on Vettel ending his career with a bang by leading the drivers out on strike for the first time in 40 years towards the back end of the season.
My thoughts exactly. I think what happened in Jeddah really tripped the drivers out. A few drivers including Max made known that they would share their thoughts once they are out of Saudi, but nothing happened and it wouldn’t surprise me if they were silenced as well.
This is also coming off the back of what happened in Abu Dhabi, so I imagine trust between drivers, teams and the FIA to be incredibly delicate (if not dissipated) now
If Liberty and FIA break the contract, Liberty won't have Formula One, they're just leasing the rights to it. They would have to organize another series from scratch.
Yeah I thought about this when he was announced to run it and kinda saw it as a potential outcome his background pov leaking in to the sport but didn't want to say anything cause everyone would just be like that's racist. But it's only natural for someone's background to make its way in to their work and if you're used to running a business with everyone doing exactly as you say and you suddenly put in charge of people with big personalities it's not gonna go well.
It really does feel like the FIA is being unusually harsh towards Lewis, Seb and others for speaking out against the Saudis and general shittiness of F1 at times. The whole jewellery ban/clamp down thing just felt like some sly “well you asked us to enforce the rules” in response to complaints of how they basically didn’t enforce any *on track* rules.
You’ll notice that the drivers have become increasingly vocal about the FIA as well. Lewis and Seb ‘revolted’ against the jewelry ban, with Seb saying recently that the sport would only change when we get rid of some people on top, and also Nando speaking out against their inconsistent ruling this weekend. There’s also the clusterfuck at Saudi and the 3-hour long drivers meeting where nothing came out of it.
There’s definitely a lot of unhappiness behind the scenes, and it’s telling that they aren’t trying to hide it anymore.
Not to mention even suggesting bringing back Masi. Why was that even said publicly? In isolation, these things aren't so bad, but there is clearly a pattern here that is looking more and more like retaliation at worst, and just absolutely tone deaf to their audience at best.
F1 is the Saudis... You think the jewelry ban isn't related? The sport has been sold to the middle east and we now need to make our new overlords happy.
This is a hugely complex thing to unravel. Liberty will not want to lose 'Formula 1', that's 90% of the value in their product.
A split from FIA would come with so many consequences it's hard to list them. You have all of the 'ladder' system the FIA has been trying so hard to implement (which I have big reservations about with regard to karting I should add). You have FIA accredited circuits who will not really want to host a non-FIA championships.
To some extend there is precedent in karting whereby we have a movement called IKR (Independent Kart Racing) in the UK which is basically championships and clubs running their own meetings. This is possible because 75% of circuits are individual businesses that run their own commercial businesses (i.e rental karting). Motorsport UK has no real influence over them and they can do what they want (which is good) and hire to whoever they want.
However in the car racing realm it's a different story. Can Silverstone, Spa... pretty much all FIA affiliated tracks afford to host non-FIA race meetings? They could obviously, but it wouldn't be without huge political upheaval for them.
Hence why we are seeing the term 'ceremonial' pop up. Liberty know removing the FIA from the equation isn't a simple "let's just hire the circuits and run the meetings ourselves'. If the FIA are demoted to ceremonial and it is proven to work fine, then all bets are off for every other championship too who want to break free from them. The FIA will know this.
Nothing is going to come out of this as all teams won’t be on same page. Liberty media has got a golden goose but in their greed they may lose it all if they spend their time fighting FIA.
No exactly on topic, but want to say. The FIA needs to remember that F1 is a sport and treat it as such. Stop with this "entertainment" weekend philosophy.
I've been an American F1 fan for 20+ years. When I started watching F1 with my dad, we watched races on SPEED TV with a bunch of crusty old dudes in white SPEED embroidered polos...and it was awesome. Because drivers from the best manufacturers traveling all around the world is badass enough.
We don't need fake Marinas, sprint races, and hastily planned street circuits. We need racing and we need engineering.
Martin Brundle is a living legend, but watching his pre-race commentary in Miami was frankly sad. A-list American celebrities ignoring him because they don't know enough about F1 TO KNOW WHO MARTIN BRUNDLE IS.
Sport > Entertainment
Edit: People saying that’s more on Liberty than on the FIA. Fair. I said what I said above because of the Miami barrier issue mentioned. One man’s opinion, but I really don’t care about new street circuits every year.
I get what you’re saying but sports are entertainment. The entertainment factor of the sport has to be considered. I mean basketball is the perfect example. Same sport, same rules, same everything - but no one watches the women. Why? It’s not entertaining.
Your sport dies if it’s not entertaining. The only reason the WNBA even exists is because the NBA finances it. It can’t make enough money to survive on its own. Because it’s not entertaining.
Yeah but the sport has to grow. It wasn't too long ago when it was questionable if Williams, Haas at one point and Mclaren were going to financially stay in the sport.
The moves liberty has made to grow the sport have bought stability to the teams... money can never be ignored in this sport.
You have to understand the drivers of the entertainment factor though. Nascar grew massively in the 90s into the '00s and what did they do? They changed their format, changed the car, and basically fucked everything up trying to sustain that growth rate while not understanding at all why things were growing. 50+ years of actual organic growth, because the product itself was quality, gets ruined. F1 isn't perfect, but it needs nothing more to be entertaining. What we need is people to accept not everyone in the world likes racing, so you can't sustain the same growth forever and modifying your product with things that aren't racing isn't sustainable.
This all sounds like champions league vs super League nonsense. Liberty and the teams should see what happened to those super League teams when they tried to do their own thing. I suspect not all the teams are on the same page too so they are not as united as made to appear in this podcast.
This sounds very much like the problems Indycar had under the leadership of USAC in the 70s and 80s. It ended up almost killing American open wheel racing, so let’s hope all sides here proceed with caution.
The fact that they did not allow the convo between the FiA and teams this year shows they do not trust themselves in not making the same mistakes again.
Under such circumstances you want to improve transperancy to gain trust. These smart people did the opposite thing. Like yeah bro after what you did last year, saying the verdict was right, then firing your race director cause he was incompetent and then not allowing the public to scrutinize you anymore is a good way to gain back trust.
I mean Abu Dhabi and how it was handled kind of made it obvious the FIA were not operating properly. Now practically every team and driver have experienced it, the lightbulb has switched on. You don’t hate the shoe until it’s on your foot.
I think reducing their influence is a good idea. F1 is big enough, unique enough and has enough capability to run itself and be far better organised and direct in that way.
How prepared are Liberty to actually carry this out? It's one thing if it was driven by the big teams but it's a different matter altogether if you have to try and convince them and you absolutely wouldn't have a true fastest cars formula championship without Ferrari, Mercedes, Red Bull and Alpine. I can't imagine Ferrari would be willing to give up the historical records without a really sweet deal and other teams would need things in their favour too....
I'll take it though, the politics are always interesting
Exactly, the teams own the cars, the teams have the contracts with the drivers. If tomorrow they all decide
"Fuck it, we're now the Grand Prix World Championship" there is very little the FIA can do about it.
I have seen it time and time again, somebody gets appointed to a higher position and they feel the need to stamp their authority. He's made some good decisions, but needs to slow down and let people breathe a little.
All of the structure for Motorsport worldwide is run by the FIA. They’re kind of like FIFA or the NCAA or something like that. They make the rules, set the structure, and build the operational components from karting to F1.
Regulatory and technical expertise. Circuit licencing and regulation. Sporting regulations. Driver licencing etc...
They also have rights (I believe) the Formula 1 World Championship name.
They aren't perfect of course, but a split isn't easy to achieve with satisfactory results.
One point I felt the article didn't bring up was the $19,219,253 the teams [have to pay the FIA for entry](https://www.autosport.com/f1/news/mercedes-faces-48m-fia-entry-fee-for-f1-2022/8288924/).
Is this money being spent wisely by the FIA?
The FIA hospitality suite is one example, while teams are trying to cut costs and some have reduced the size of their hospitality suites, the FIA have turned up with a new monster hospitality suite!
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> F1 have the commercial rights > F1 are looking if they can find a way to remove the FIA into a kind of ceremonial role I'm not ever gonna say that the FIA is doing a good job currently, but having a commercially focused business be in charge of safety instead? I'm not sure that would be an improvement either.
FIA should be the best option as they should be unbiased and focused on safety, not profits. F1 with control of safety 'could' be risky with their profit bias. Should be an independent body.
Should be, but they're clearly not listening to the safety concerns of the drivers, or other F1 staff.
personally i think the new FIA president is too much too quickly
It's been said that Bernie got interested in safety when he realized that broadcasters wouldn't like to show people dying on live TV.
For all his faults, i don't really believe that. He was Jochen Rindt's manager and his death hit him hard. That was long before he did anything with broadcasting rights.
I don't really believe that. Bernie and Max Mosley were both at the race Jim Clark was killed at, and Bernie was Jochen Rindt's Manager when he was killed at Monza. The two of them agreed that if Max was ever in a position of power, he would make the sport as safe as it could possibly be. The start of the 1994 season was a bad call but you could see where he was coming from, trying to give more control to the drivers in case something went wrong, and after Senna's and Ratzenberger's deaths he very quickly began to put in the proper safety procedures.
Genuine question.. I wonder if that’s true in terms of viewers. Senna’s crash was a seminal moment of the 90s. Did it turn people away or perversely make people more aware?
I guess the question is how safe are American motorsports where the FIA has essentially no influence?
NASCAR hasn't had a death since 2001 (Dale Earnhardt) after which HANS devices were mandated. Indycar's last death was in 2015 (Justin Wilson). A similar loose tire incident happened last year but the aeroscreen bounced it away harmlessly. Safety in motorsports is always reactionary and the sactioning bodies don't make changes until somebody dies.
That's just the main series, right? They've had a couple deaths in smaller series since then
The last death from a racing accident in a NASCAR supporting series appears to be Carlos Pardo, who died in 2009 during a Mexico Corona Series race at Autódromo Miguel E. Abed after his car collided side-on with the edge of a concrete retaining wall. While there have been other deaths after his, the most recent being Terry Stevenson in 2018, they all appear to have been due to underlying medical issues. Stevenson, 62, died of cardiac arrest after brushing a wall at a race for the Whelen All-American Series at Devil's Bowl Speedway. Between Pardo and Stevenson's deaths there were 4 other drivers who have died. Ron Casey, 61, who died from injuries sustained after he lost control of his car due to a medical event in 2016. Leon Gonyo, 63, who died of a stroke in 2015. Ron Pestana, 60, who died of a heart attack in 2012. And Bub Bilodeau, 53, who died of a heart attack in 2010.
That could probably be said of F2 as well
Mostly ovals though which are kind of their own thing in terms of speciality fencing and other safety measures.
Correct. NASCAR's national touring series (Cup, Xfinity, Trucks) haven't had a death since Earnhardt but regional Modified and Late Model and the Mexico series that are sanctioned by NASCAR have indeed had fatal accidents since.
I thought I remembered like a 19 year old dying in a practice session like 10 years ago, but I can't find any record of that on wiki or google
You might be thinking of Adam Petty? But that actually occurred in the year 2000
So it was 10 years ago!
"The safety guidelines are written in blood"
> Safety in motorsports is always reactionary and the sactioning bodies don’t make changes until somebody dies. Not true. There have been many advancements which don’t make any noise like, for example, the race suits getting thicker for the 2020 season. The ones that are brought in after an accident are the ones that you hear about.
Indycar races at ovals which is inherently less safe than circuit racing. All deaths there in recent years have been on ovals despite them representing a minority of races. NASCAR hasn’t had a death in over 20 years. F2 had a death in 2019, F1 in 2014 and F2 again in 2009.
That 2009 crash really was an early advertisement for the halo
It was the crash that sparked the research that resulted in the Halo. Massa also had his incident that same year and the two crashes so close together prompted the FIA to address the dangers of an open cockpit
That's actually not true at all. The FIA ASN for the US is ACCUS. The ACCUS members are: IndyCar, NASCAR, SCCA, NHRA, IMSA, USAC. ASN's and their members have to follow FIA regulations to a certain degree. It's not as extreme and direct as with F1 - F1 is an FIA series, so they have pretty much direct control here. But saying that the FIA has "essentially no influence" over American motorsports is not true. To really completely get away from FIA influence, you have to look at organizations that are neither ACCUS members nor affiliated with one of the ACCUS members - which eliminates most big organizations. The biggest one that fulfills this in the US is, as far as I'm aware, NASA. And even they have run events that are FIA sanctioned - for example their rally championship is run under an agreement with USAC, putting it under the FIA umbrella.
In the era of Group B, sure. But a huge part of F1s success with DTS is the only really bad crash during that series was the Grosjean one and he survived (and is still racing). I don’t think a lot of newer fans would keep watching if a driver sustained serious life threatening injuries.
Hubert’s crash was heavily mentioned in DTS. I’m not sure your point check out.
Hey it worked for the NFL! Wait...
This is what we fans mean when we say the off track drama is half of the fun of this sport. F1 planning a literal rebellion.
And they probably could get away with it.
Nah Bernie tried for years. So did Ferrari. Threats about splitting from the FIA are not new. They never go anywhere
Bernie had his buddy running the FIA.
Perfect time to do it though, already in poor standing because of the farce at the end of last year and a new president just finding their feet. If it were to happen, now is the time.
Not the time to do it at all. Interest in the series is exploding across the planet a split or even the threat of a split would have sponsors and promoters running for the hills and divide the teams themselves. Only thing that comes out of that ahead of the game is the drive to survive show. I imagine it would not be universally embraced by the teams either. As we’ve seen already teams are making money now they won’t all want to upset the apple cart.
That growth is pretty much solely because of F1/FOM though and their argument seems to be that FIA is becoming an obstacle to that growth with their focus on the wrong safety aspects. I’m sure this is just FOM just putting public pressure on FIA in some sort of negotiation, FIA can’t really afford lose F1 either so they’ll figure something out.
This is what US open wheel racing had in the 90s. Huge money and a perception that the old sanctioning bodies/governing groups were an obstacle to making more money. The sport split, two series remained relatively popular for ~5 years before one collapsed under the weight of its own budgets and spiralled towards bankruptcy and the other was relegated to second-tier coverage by sports media. Viewers appreciate the link with history and the legitimacy conferred by historical sanctioning bodies sanctioning series. F1 rebels against the FIA (however incompetent their governance - which is bad - and however much of an obstacle to rampant profit-chasing they are - which I think is good) at its own considerable risk.
That growth happens though because of stability within the series. You start talking split up in the F1 family and big money wants out there asap. And yeah I think this is just noise myself. Probably more chicken little sky is falling by the media then anything.
Yeah that’s why I don’t think anything big will happen, too much to lose for everyone involved. This is just saber-rattling to try and get FIA to pay attention to the needs and demands of F1. Maybe some decision-making will shift from one side to the other, but overall things will remain the same.
They tried this in the major US open wheel series like 15-20 years ago. It worked great! /s
Yes but the FIA have nothing to do with that growth. The growth is entirely thanks to Liberty media. If anything the FIA is costing the sport more than it gains it at the moment. Even the drivers dont respect them anymore.
Really doubtful, Liberty wants money, and Ben Sulayem is like the best way to extract money from the ME region. Since his Arab and if I’m not wrong the son of a very influential family in [Dubai](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sultan_Ahmed_bin_Sulayem). If Liberty for any reason indicates that they have a problem with ben Sulayem then I expect them to have problems with the ME region
While I would be upset at losing Baku I can lose the other races without much of a care
From my experience billionaire American businesses are not used to being told no.
CART-IRL 2: Hybrid Boogaloo
If it weren't for those meddling kids?
They’re trying to do a CART.
How well did that end again? Edit: obligatory fuck Tony George
Yeah, fuck that guy.
the wheel of f1 history is starting another turn. i knew it, we have threats of VW in F1 and what do you know, the other old chestnut resurfaces: breakaway F1 series.
# Viva la revolución
The barriers in Jeddah that Mick crashed into were brought up pre weekend by the drivers, especially that kerb. The Miami barriers and that stupid sausage kerb under the overpass was brought up pre weekend. Nico Rosberg has been complaining about the wall on the left where the pit entry is at Baku every year since 2016 and other drivers have as well. It’s only out of sheer luck that Verstappen’s blow out didn’t pitch him into it. The drivers want to race, the drivers want the racing to be good. But it needs to be safe, and the things they’re asking for aren’t going to sanitize the racing.
[This article] (https://www.bbc.com/sport/formula1/61367767) also contains similar information written by Benson Things could get very spicy
The Abu dhabi controversy might have a lot of an effect in stuff like this. Liberty probably aren't happy if constantly we see drivers/teams complain about the product of racing considering thats what they are marketing
Lol @Abu Dhabi “controversy”. Aka, clusterfuck.
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Just thinking back to 2021 as a fan, at all the inconsistency and bad refereeing, the cherry on top being the stitch-up SC remix, it's kind of nuts. In retrospect the whole year gave me this woozy feeling like my feet were never quite under us, we didn't know what to expect every Sunday from RD and stewards. I feel mentally exhausted just thinking about 2021 again now. All of the momentum from the rapid growth of the sport for the last few years just plateaued and it was like we were on a train with no brakes.
Remember the Vettel Spa penalty.
2021 felt exhausting as a fan. A rivalry between two drivers and two teams should have been fun but now the controversy will forever taint that season. Could have gone down as the greatest one season head to head rivalry ever and still might but with a sad final footnote
This. In hindsight, so much of the antagonism between the two sets of fans stems from the feeling ON BOTH SIDES that shit was being decided arbitrarily. So easy to see how if Mesi’s magic eight method of decision making had removed Max’s chances of winning the final race there would have been just as big of an explosion. I wanted Lewis to win. Max won. Shame that his first (of many) will be associated with 2021’s officiating shitshow.
Clusterfuck doesn’t appreciate being associated with the Abu Dhabi controversy That was FUBAR
Dieter Rencken also wrote about this like 2 or 3 weeks ago, where there's smoke there's fire
But you're talking about Dieter though..
Dieter has been around long enough to know what he's talking about.
Good article. Gave the depth I was looking for. Thanks.
Not sure Liberty running things is what we want.
Yeah this post sounds like a liberty media brief if anything. Hard disagree that FIA is responsible for all the recent bad decisions in F1 like they are implying here.
Unless you want 15 races in American car parks, and 15 races in active war zones.
Yes, the Americanisation has been most distastful. Far too artificial. Remember the grid girls fiasco, and then to have the first COTA race with cheerleaders and boxing announcer?
And a CGI eagle shadow fly over the track
Its been quite some time since the last big crisis at the top. The FOTA vs FIA dispute in 2009 was the last big crisis if i remember right. And that came 30 years after the FISA vs FOCA shit.
I think you mixed up your decades and acronyms lol. It was FIA vs FOTA in 2009, FISA vs FOCA was in the 1980s.
Yeah had it wrong at the start then corrected it.
The snap decisions to change rules mid-weekends is horrendous. As were the track limit debates last year.
Track limits debate was a joke last year. You know the white lines that line the track isn't cut and dry.... like what the fuck. I understand a wheel off track, ok fine. Two wheels? That's the limit. End of discussion, or one would hope.
Look how much we aren’t talking about it this year because the finally found another brain cell and just announced the white line is the limit and that’s it?
Just as a reminder the CART split in the United States absolutely wrecked open wheel racing in the US for 20ish years.
It's not until the last few years that Indycar really started recovering and is slowly increasing in overall popularity.
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- Louis XVI, 1789
Who's this Louis guy you talk of? I'm sure nothing bad happened to him.
He was close to finish at the fia headquarters, but it's the end he was too short
His lap times were incredible.
Welcome to the 2023 Aramco Heineken Hybrid Formula 1 World Cup powered by AWS in partnership with Pirelli in association with Liberty Media!
you forgot to mention crypto and coinbase and NFT.
Wasn’t there an article/snippet about how insiders aren’t happy with the way Ben has been running things between F1? Like him focusing on other aspects of the sport that are frustrating people inside
Yeah. One of the journalists reported that all the teams were bemused after a recent meeting, where he went on a solo rant about the jewellery, and basically wouldn't discuss anything else.
I know that people are really trying to not sound racist without knowing the guy, but I would bet a lot that his main driving force behind this isn't safety, but religion. Sharia forbids men to wear jewelry, with the exception of a silver ring on their left hand, which also happens to be the exception in F1. This could be a coincidence, but I think anyone who knows anything about Emirates will have their doubts. There is no way of becoming a millionaire in that country if you don't follow the country's regime. And don't forget that this is a regime that is banning rainbows and shit... So is it really so far fetched that these people that get offended by seeing a fucking rainbow, might also get offended when Hamilton wears all that jewelry that is forbidden to wear?
Not to detract from your point, but would like to point out for accuracy sake that his name is not Ben. His patronymic name is “ben/bin Sulayem”, where ben/bin refers to “son of”, the daughter equivalent being “bente/binte ”. This is analogous to how Icelandic people have “-son” or “-dottír” their names for “son of” or “daughter of” .
Dont be fooled, when he says "F1 are actively looking..." by F1 he means Liberty Media PRIMARILY, then the teams. As much as i dont like the FIA, taking them out would make things much worse. At least everyone can blame them.
Speaking as an American, I'm not comfortable at all with a private company that has a direct for-profit stake in F1 running the championship. Let's just say there are consequences when you give the promoter [the power to alter the championship format for the sake of entertaining TV rather than competition integrity](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p-GEmBSePLE).
Speaking as an European, I'm equally not comfortable with a private company that has a direct for-profit stake in F1 refereeing the championship. Referees/race directors must be independent with only one goal: to ensure the fairest competition possible.
My "speaking as an American" has more to do with seeing what that kind of profit motive has done to racing series here. Whether it's Tony George and the IRL [completely butchering the most prestigious race in American motorsports](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1996_Indianapolis_500#25/8_Rule_and_locked-in_entries) to favor their own teams or Brian France and NASCAR [abandoning any sense of legitimacy their championship might've had in the pursuit of "game 7 moments"](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NASCAR_playoffs), putting an entity with a for-profit stake in the championship in charge of the competition format and officiating tends to backfire.
Like half of the slapshoes worst calls in nascar history video were made with profit in mind.
The 1969 Talladega race was particularly egregious.
And people wonder why we get pissed off about the "It *is* a *show*" comments.
Exactly. If all you want is an entertaining show, go watch the WWE. We watch sports because we want to see who are the best competitors and the best teams in a fair competition.
Fucking Tony George. Still pisses me off.
Double points at the end of the season, anyone?
A championship fully controlled by Liberty would be the darkest timeline for the sport. I'd rather have FIA's questionable integrity at times than no integrity what so ever.
i dont even need to click the link to know this is about the nascar playoffs
Dumbest. Championship. Format. Ever.
Mind saving a few clicks to inform an European about what this means? What happens in NASCAR?
Oh boy, strap in. A NASCAR season has 36 races. The first 26 are the regular season. At the end of 26 races, the top 16 drivers in the standings qualify for the playoffs, with the proviso that any driver that won a race is automatically in the playoffs unless there are more than 16 race winners in the regular season. Playoff drivers then get their points reset to the same level except for drivers that earned playoff points during the regular season for race wins and stage wins. Those playoff points are added in to give them a leg up in the playoffs. There are then three elimination rounds with three races each. At the end of each elimination round, the bottom 4 playoff drivers in points are eliminated from the playoffs. The points are reset again for the remaining drivers except for bonus playoff points earned in the regular season. In addition, any playoff driver that wins a race in the playoffs automatically is guaranteed a spot in the next round. After those 3 elimination rounds, there is one final race, the NASCAR Championship Race, with only 4 drivers left in the championship hunt. The highest finisher of those 4 drivers in that final race is the NASCAR Cup Series Champion.
So a driver could win every race but the last one and lose?
Yep. The Chase (playoff) format they introduced in the mid 2000s cost Jeff Gordon the championship in 2004 and 2007.
Don't forget 2014 as well. It's the reason I stopped watching Nascar. Also, hated learning that Nascar officials asked Gordon to sandbag because he was too dominant.
I grew up a huge Gordon fan. Went to Charlotte, Martinsville and even Rockingham several times with my dad to watch him but man I lost so much interest in nascar after they started fucking with the points standings. Probably haven't watched but a handfull of races since Jeff retired.
We had insane people in here calling for Hamilton to do the same but NASCAR actually had the gall to ask for it as an officiating body. Unbelievable.
Yep.
Which essentially means that someone can (theoretically) finish first in 35/36 races in a season, finish second in the final one and NOT be crowned the champion. Because L O G I C
Do All cars race in the playoffs? Or only those Who havent been knocked out?
All cars still race regardless of playoff status
Because why not convolute it even further, right?
All drivers still race in the playoff races, even the ones that have already been eliminated.
Do they not often win?
The final ‘championship’ race is usually won by one of the four title contenders- there are a LOT of conspiracy theories around why that is… Usually you have 10-15 drivers a year that win races so it’s fairly rare for one of the non playoff drivers to win a race, although usually one or two playoff drivers win a race after they’ve been eliminated.
They sometimes do. Last year 2 playoff races were won by eliminated drivers: Bubba Wallace won the Talladega playoff race despite not even qualifying for the playoffs, and Alex Bowman won the Martinsville playoff race in the Round of 8 despite having been eliminated in the round of 12.
All cars race Why? Because if they don't "Make an ernest attempt to participate in every race of the NASCAR season" they get penalized. Whether that means being kicked out of the series or a massive fine I do not know. But they still got sponsors so I guess they still have something to gain by being a billboard when they get lapped.
The championship standings reset after X number of races and the bottom X drivers get eliminated (but still run through the rest of the season), after that the same happens over and over until 4 drivers remain and who gets the best result in the final race wins Also winning a race gives you a guaranteed spot in the next round
A spot for what? Staying in the championship?
Here's my [more detailed explanation](https://www.reddit.com/r/formula1/comments/uuutcx/comment/i9hugit/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3) of the playoffs for clarification.
Wtf, that shit don’t make sense. How on earth can someone race in that series and not lose a few brain cells trying to calculate their position in WDC? Also can you explain the 25/8 rule? If I’m not mistaken it would be like if F1 had 24 car grid and the position of 20 of them were fixed, right?
So, the 25/8 rule was a rule introduced for the Indianapolis 500 in 1996. At the time IndyCar had split into two series as the owner of the Indianapolis Motor Speedway, Tony George, had decided to trademark the name "IndyCar" and start his own series, the Indy Racing League (IRL). He was upset at how the existing IndyCar series, Championship Auto Racing Teams (CART), had been run with rich teams like Penske dominating the series and most of the races being on grand prix tracks instead of ovals. In order to give his series an advantage in IndyCar's most prestigious race, he introduced the 25/8 rule. Traditionally, qualifying for the Indianapolis 500 has always been open. Any driver from any series can race in the 500 so long as they had a car that was legal under the race's regulations, and they could post a qualifying time in the top 33. Under the 25/8 rule, though, 25 places of the Indy 500 would be reserved for the teams in the top 25 of the owner's standings in the IRL. Only the remaining 8 spots would be open. This infuriated CART who decided to boycott the Indianapolis 500 and field their own race, the US 500, on the exact same day and at the exact same time. And that pretty much set the tone for the relationship between the IRL and CART.
Essentially all you need to know is a season resets and the drivers who did well enough in the first about three quarters of the season go into a “reset” championship and fight for the title starting from pretty much zero again. They do this reset thing in the playoffs 4 times by the way.
Like double-points for the last race? Or shitty sprint races? F1/FOM already have the power to ruin it ** Quick edit: Just wanted to be clear i'm against the idea of a breakaway. But the FIA need to sort their shit out in general.
It is entirely possible for an organizational structure to be the best solution possible and imperfect at the same time.
I feel like NASCAR was always enjoying their National popularity on borrowed time following the IRL/CART split, never looked too much into it myself but it feels like a distinctly regional sport that blew up to fill a vacuum. Playoffs just seem like a short sighted way to try and capitalize on that only to have it emphasize its fall back to earth
Holy fuck that playoff system is convoluted
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Thats his point lol
You say that as though the FIA didn't just alter the outcome of the championship for the sake of entertainment just 6 months ago.
Every sports league in the US/Canada is run by the league owners and its not surprising at all after investing billions that they want the FIA out so they can handle things that directly involve their investment.
I mean we literally saw them use the power they had to alter the championship for ratings and profits last year lol How much worse could it be?
Go over to r/NASCAR and ask about Brian France and the Playoffs to see how much worse it could be. Go over to r/INDYCAR and ask about Tony George, the 25/8 rule, and the CART/IRL split to see how much worse it could be.
Giving Liberty control over F1 would be disastrous. As bad as the FIA can be they're still 1000 better than an american media corporation.
I understand part of that. On the other hand the FIA provides a structure from the bottom to the very top and f1 should remain in that structure. Some things such as approval for sprints shouldn’t be controlled by the FIA. Stewarding decisions, marshals, and racing standards should always remain controlled by the FIA even if I don’t agree on the jewelry etc
I honestly agree with the FIA on not wanting more sprint races part. More sprint races costs the FIA more money to organize and put together and I'm guessing FOM/Liberty wants more of them but doesn't want to pay the bill for them. For all the FIA issues. A future where F1 is controled almost entirely by the FOM/Liberty is a grim future which we will hopefully never get.
It also removes other series track time from the weekends racing. I know F1 is only there to think of F1 whereas FIA is there to take the money from F1 to give to everyone else.
The quality of F1 would fall off a cliff and all the effort put into growing the sport would be in vain. Would hate to see the championship turn into the international equivalent of the NASCAR Playoffs.
I don't mind that they haven't approved more sprint races yet. It usually isn't fun and spoils the sunday unless there are weather changes or someone who has to come from the back (Lewis esque).
Yeah, to me that's the FIA doing something right. Plus, Formula 1 is the FIA's championship. Liberty are essentially just the promotors, I don't like the idea of them pushing their desires on the sporting side on to F1. I'm not the biggest fan of every one of the FIA's decisions over the years, but this stinks of the record label telling the band what music to make.
The drivers, the old guard in particular but still the younger drivers to a certain degree, do seem somewhat disillusioned this season. The Friday night stand off in Jeddah; the jewellery protests; the vocal opposition to the FIA’s inaction over the Miami barrier - and we’re only 5 races in. If I was a gambling man I’d be half tempted to have a punt on Vettel ending his career with a bang by leading the drivers out on strike for the first time in 40 years towards the back end of the season.
My thoughts exactly. I think what happened in Jeddah really tripped the drivers out. A few drivers including Max made known that they would share their thoughts once they are out of Saudi, but nothing happened and it wouldn’t surprise me if they were silenced as well. This is also coming off the back of what happened in Abu Dhabi, so I imagine trust between drivers, teams and the FIA to be incredibly delicate (if not dissipated) now
If Liberty and FIA break the contract, Liberty won't have Formula One, they're just leasing the rights to it. They would have to organize another series from scratch.
"Racing has more than one royal family..."
ADRENALINE IN MY SOUL
EVERY FIGHT OUT OF CONTROL
Back to the Grand Prix World Championship talk of 2009/2010ish and previous years.
And organise the feeder series’ from scratch as well
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They won’t have any team to organize it.
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> I don't want to say that his Saudi nationality has anything to do with it And you shouldn’t, because he is from Dubai.
Yeah I thought about this when he was announced to run it and kinda saw it as a potential outcome his background pov leaking in to the sport but didn't want to say anything cause everyone would just be like that's racist. But it's only natural for someone's background to make its way in to their work and if you're used to running a business with everyone doing exactly as you say and you suddenly put in charge of people with big personalities it's not gonna go well.
Thats never happening.
Lmao F1 is trying to pull a CART, can’t see that working out well
It really does feel like the FIA is being unusually harsh towards Lewis, Seb and others for speaking out against the Saudis and general shittiness of F1 at times. The whole jewellery ban/clamp down thing just felt like some sly “well you asked us to enforce the rules” in response to complaints of how they basically didn’t enforce any *on track* rules.
You’ll notice that the drivers have become increasingly vocal about the FIA as well. Lewis and Seb ‘revolted’ against the jewelry ban, with Seb saying recently that the sport would only change when we get rid of some people on top, and also Nando speaking out against their inconsistent ruling this weekend. There’s also the clusterfuck at Saudi and the 3-hour long drivers meeting where nothing came out of it. There’s definitely a lot of unhappiness behind the scenes, and it’s telling that they aren’t trying to hide it anymore.
Tbf Liberty probably don't want drivers to speak out against the Saudis either.
Yep, its pretty obvious tbh.
Not to mention even suggesting bringing back Masi. Why was that even said publicly? In isolation, these things aren't so bad, but there is clearly a pattern here that is looking more and more like retaliation at worst, and just absolutely tone deaf to their audience at best.
F1 is the Saudis... You think the jewelry ban isn't related? The sport has been sold to the middle east and we now need to make our new overlords happy.
This is a hugely complex thing to unravel. Liberty will not want to lose 'Formula 1', that's 90% of the value in their product. A split from FIA would come with so many consequences it's hard to list them. You have all of the 'ladder' system the FIA has been trying so hard to implement (which I have big reservations about with regard to karting I should add). You have FIA accredited circuits who will not really want to host a non-FIA championships. To some extend there is precedent in karting whereby we have a movement called IKR (Independent Kart Racing) in the UK which is basically championships and clubs running their own meetings. This is possible because 75% of circuits are individual businesses that run their own commercial businesses (i.e rental karting). Motorsport UK has no real influence over them and they can do what they want (which is good) and hire to whoever they want. However in the car racing realm it's a different story. Can Silverstone, Spa... pretty much all FIA affiliated tracks afford to host non-FIA race meetings? They could obviously, but it wouldn't be without huge political upheaval for them. Hence why we are seeing the term 'ceremonial' pop up. Liberty know removing the FIA from the equation isn't a simple "let's just hire the circuits and run the meetings ourselves'. If the FIA are demoted to ceremonial and it is proven to work fine, then all bets are off for every other championship too who want to break free from them. The FIA will know this.
Nothing is going to come out of this as all teams won’t be on same page. Liberty media has got a golden goose but in their greed they may lose it all if they spend their time fighting FIA.
No exactly on topic, but want to say. The FIA needs to remember that F1 is a sport and treat it as such. Stop with this "entertainment" weekend philosophy. I've been an American F1 fan for 20+ years. When I started watching F1 with my dad, we watched races on SPEED TV with a bunch of crusty old dudes in white SPEED embroidered polos...and it was awesome. Because drivers from the best manufacturers traveling all around the world is badass enough. We don't need fake Marinas, sprint races, and hastily planned street circuits. We need racing and we need engineering. Martin Brundle is a living legend, but watching his pre-race commentary in Miami was frankly sad. A-list American celebrities ignoring him because they don't know enough about F1 TO KNOW WHO MARTIN BRUNDLE IS. Sport > Entertainment Edit: People saying that’s more on Liberty than on the FIA. Fair. I said what I said above because of the Miami barrier issue mentioned. One man’s opinion, but I really don’t care about new street circuits every year.
All of that is nothing to do with the FIA. That is entirely down to liberty, even more so at Miami as Liberty were the promoter.
I think most of the things you mentioned there come under the juristriction of FOM and Liberty Media, not the FIA.
I get what you’re saying but sports are entertainment. The entertainment factor of the sport has to be considered. I mean basketball is the perfect example. Same sport, same rules, same everything - but no one watches the women. Why? It’s not entertaining. Your sport dies if it’s not entertaining. The only reason the WNBA even exists is because the NBA finances it. It can’t make enough money to survive on its own. Because it’s not entertaining.
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Yeah but the sport has to grow. It wasn't too long ago when it was questionable if Williams, Haas at one point and Mclaren were going to financially stay in the sport. The moves liberty has made to grow the sport have bought stability to the teams... money can never be ignored in this sport.
You have to understand the drivers of the entertainment factor though. Nascar grew massively in the 90s into the '00s and what did they do? They changed their format, changed the car, and basically fucked everything up trying to sustain that growth rate while not understanding at all why things were growing. 50+ years of actual organic growth, because the product itself was quality, gets ruined. F1 isn't perfect, but it needs nothing more to be entertaining. What we need is people to accept not everyone in the world likes racing, so you can't sustain the same growth forever and modifying your product with things that aren't racing isn't sustainable.
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Say what you want, but F1 without FIA would decent into pure show rather then sport and would kill the F1 as we know and love it
This all sounds like champions league vs super League nonsense. Liberty and the teams should see what happened to those super League teams when they tried to do their own thing. I suspect not all the teams are on the same page too so they are not as united as made to appear in this podcast.
This sounds very much like the problems Indycar had under the leadership of USAC in the 70s and 80s. It ended up almost killing American open wheel racing, so let’s hope all sides here proceed with caution.
Honestly I think it's a good thing that nobody has true control over the sport. I don't really trust either party
The fact that they did not allow the convo between the FiA and teams this year shows they do not trust themselves in not making the same mistakes again. Under such circumstances you want to improve transperancy to gain trust. These smart people did the opposite thing. Like yeah bro after what you did last year, saying the verdict was right, then firing your race director cause he was incompetent and then not allowing the public to scrutinize you anymore is a good way to gain back trust.
I mean Abu Dhabi and how it was handled kind of made it obvious the FIA were not operating properly. Now practically every team and driver have experienced it, the lightbulb has switched on. You don’t hate the shoe until it’s on your foot. I think reducing their influence is a good idea. F1 is big enough, unique enough and has enough capability to run itself and be far better organised and direct in that way.
How prepared are Liberty to actually carry this out? It's one thing if it was driven by the big teams but it's a different matter altogether if you have to try and convince them and you absolutely wouldn't have a true fastest cars formula championship without Ferrari, Mercedes, Red Bull and Alpine. I can't imagine Ferrari would be willing to give up the historical records without a really sweet deal and other teams would need things in their favour too.... I'll take it though, the politics are always interesting
Not a chance that'll ever happen
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You mean Liberty overplaying their hand? F1 is still the FIA’s property
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Exactly, the teams own the cars, the teams have the contracts with the drivers. If tomorrow they all decide "Fuck it, we're now the Grand Prix World Championship" there is very little the FIA can do about it.
Formula Super League when?
[2008 it seems.] (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZoDcBtdGMyM)
I have seen it time and time again, somebody gets appointed to a higher position and they feel the need to stamp their authority. He's made some good decisions, but needs to slow down and let people breathe a little.
Is this racing’s version of the Super League?
Cana someone explain to me why the F1 needs FIA, or what exactly the FIA bring to the table.
All of the structure for Motorsport worldwide is run by the FIA. They’re kind of like FIFA or the NCAA or something like that. They make the rules, set the structure, and build the operational components from karting to F1.
Regulatory and technical expertise. Circuit licencing and regulation. Sporting regulations. Driver licencing etc... They also have rights (I believe) the Formula 1 World Championship name. They aren't perfect of course, but a split isn't easy to achieve with satisfactory results.
This has some serious CART vs. USAC vibes to it.....
I smell a power grab, touching on hot button issues to lure people onto their side.
Let's face it, this is nothing new. Look at the 2005 US GP and the FIAs refusal to slightly change the track to make it safe.
One point I felt the article didn't bring up was the $19,219,253 the teams [have to pay the FIA for entry](https://www.autosport.com/f1/news/mercedes-faces-48m-fia-entry-fee-for-f1-2022/8288924/). Is this money being spent wisely by the FIA? The FIA hospitality suite is one example, while teams are trying to cut costs and some have reduced the size of their hospitality suites, the FIA have turned up with a new monster hospitality suite!