"Cato Batista" 02/07/2015 19:05:09 ID #781

Ladies and Gentlemen,

The British GP is coming up this weekend, the 9th round of the Championship in the legendary Silverstone Circuit. Let’s get ready.

As many of us probably know (and participated), the Grand Prix Drivers Association conducted an online survey asking fans their opinion on F1 racing. The general response described the sport as ‘boring and expensive’ and want change but without gimmicks.  

Almost 220,00 fans from 192 countries answered the call from the GPDA, and their response was clear: “They want competitive sport, not just a show” said Chairman Alex Wurz, “and they think that F1’s business has become too important, jeopardizing our sport. They don’t want a radical overhaul that takes away from its historic roots”. The results came the same day the meeting of the Strategy Group in London, were the top 6 teams plus Bernie and the FIA are discussing changes for 2017. The summary revealed fans wanted louder and more powerful engines, more emphasis on driver skill, a return to refueling and competition between tyre makers. If somebody is listening, the words that were more used to describe the sport were: expensive, technological and boring…

Average age of respondents was 37 years old, 75% had followed F1 over 10 years and their favorite team is Ferrari.

The results were presented to various chiefs in the paddock, and some expressed surprise at what fans say they want to see. On the subject of more durable rubber (63% in favour) and a battle between tyre companies (78% in favour, GPDA 80%) Red Bull principal Christian Horner said: “(More durable tyres) will make the racing worse, you’ll have on-stop races which are never exciting”. Mercedes chief Toto Wolff didn’t like the refueling idea either (with 61% fan support, GPDA 60%) “That will limit the variance on strategy and you’ll see less overtaking” McLaren’s Eric Boullier added: The problem with refueling is you get a computer-driven strategy with no flexibility”. Pirelli chief Paul Hembery believes it would be risky for F1 to base its direction purely on the result of the surveys. “If you want exciting racing, the survey results go against that”.

The opinion of the team's principals in general is that “People forget - refueling or not, DRS or not, one or more tyre makers, there has never been passing in F1…”

The only clear signal out of all of this is that... nobody knows what to do.

In other news, is Ferrari dropping Kimi this year at the end of his contract? Let me copy & paste what David Coulthard had to say about him “I think it’s time for a change. I’m no not anti-Kimi at all but having lived through that experience myself, there’s a point in your career  where you just stop getting better. It happened to me in my career. I was never the best driver, but there was certainly a point at the end where you just lose the edge”. What other drivers you think are in that same situation right now? Button and Massa?. If Verstapen & Sainz can perform as good as they had so far that can spell the end of the 'mature drivers'.

And by the way, do you know who was the fans overwhelming favorite driver inthe GPDA survey?: Kimi Raikkonen.

Let’s get in touch again tomorrow

Cheers

Cato