German bank turns down £19.9m Ecclestone offer

F1 Fanatic Round-up

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In the round-up: German bank BayernLB, which demanded $400 million [£238.4m] from Bernie Ecclestone after claiming he undervalued their stake in F1, has rejected his $33.5m [£19.9m] settlement offer.

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BayernLB says rejects Formula One boss Ecclestone’s settlement offer (Reuters)

“State-backed BayernLB claims Ecclestone collected unjustified commissions and undervalued its stake in the motor racing business when private equity fund CVC became Formula One’s largest shareholder eight years ago.”

Lowdon praise for Bianchi and Chilton (Crash)

“As ever, there’s 101 different influences on teams and driver preferences and the same with the drivers as well. So in terms of the line-up for next year we typically leave that until December time and see where we get to and focus entirely on trying to keep our place in the championship for the rest of this season.”

Ancora su LCDM (Quotidiano, Italian)

Thoughts on the rumours in Italy which suggest Ferrari president Luca di Montezemolo could step back from his role relating to the F1 team to head up the alliance between Italian airline Alitalia and Etihad of Abu Dhabi (which in June he spoke of having a “big passion” for), handing over his current duties to Fiat chairman John Elkann.

Ferrari’s Dilemma: It Can’t Win, But It Can’t Stay Home – The Big Picture (Motor Trend)

“Montezemolo hates losing. But despite his grousing, Ferrari’s not quitting grand prix racing. Thanks to a long-standing sweetheart deal, Ferrari is handed 2.5 percent of the F1 prize pool­ – reportedly $17.5 million last year – ­before any other team gets paid a dime.”

Ecclestone must now tackle F1 problems and his legacy (Oman Daily Observer)

“Dieter Zetsche, chairman of the board of Daimler who run the Mercedes team, called on Ecclestone to share his power. ‘In which company must the boss do everything?’ Zetsche asked in an interview with the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung last month, calling for instance for a professional to be in charge of social media marketing. Zetsche added that ‘we need changes and developments in this respect, regardless of the leadership.'”

Comment of the day

Is F1 starting to become too expensive even for some of its most dedicated fans?

I’ve been following F1 for years but there’s no way I’m going to pay hundreds of pounds for general admission tickets to a GP so I can spend the weekend sitting on a bit of grass, fighting for a limited view of the track, queueing for ages for the toilet, being charged stupid amounts of money for food and drink and that’s before we get to the issue of access to teams/drivers.

Every year I check out the Silverstone website for the ‘early bird’ offers and every year I come to the same conclusion – why spend hundreds of pounds for me and the wife to go watch F1 for a few hours over three days when for the same money we can spend two weeks on the Isle of Man enjoying the TT.

TV audiences can be explained in a similar way, I cancelled my Sky Sports subscription a few weeks ago, not because I’m unhappy with the sport or the coverage Sky provide, I’m simply unwilling to pay almost £30 a month [actually closer to £50] to watch F1 so now I, like millions of other people, have decided to stream it for free.

I love F1 but I’m not willing to be ripped off by a sport that has completely lost touch with the fans and operates a business model that only benefits Bernie, CVC, and a couple of the big teams while screwing over most of the other teams, circuits and the fans.
@Beneboy

The latest Caption Competition winner will be chosen for tomorrow’s round-up so you have another 24 hours to submit your funniest suggestion here:

From the forum

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On this day in F1

Benetton found themselves embroiled in another controversial episode during the 1994 season on this day 20 years ago, when the FIA held them responsible for the fuel rig fire which engulfed Jos Verstappen’s Benetton during the German Grand Prix.

The sport’s governing body claimed the fire had been started because fuel was spilt from the nozzle due to Benetton removing a filter from the refuelling system without permission.

Image © Jamey Price/James Moy Photography

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Keith Collantine
Lifelong motor sport fan Keith set up RaceFans in 2005 - when it was originally called F1 Fanatic. Having previously worked as a motoring...

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63 comments on “German bank turns down £19.9m Ecclestone offer”

  1. In other racing news, Kevin Ward Jr was killed in an on-track accident involving 3-time NASCAR champion Tony Stewart, at a local short track in upstate New York. May he rest in peace. http://www.13wham.com/news/features/top-stories/stories/driver-hit-tony-stewart-has-died-14695.shtml

    1. Here is the video that makes that article a little more clear.
      https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_QJdBd0437U

      1. *WARNING GRAPHIC CONTENT*

        1. It’s hard to make a judgement from that video. It looks intentional, although I really hope it wasn’t. In any case, those cars are really don’t handle all that well, and on dirt, at night, in a black race suit… not a good recipe.

          1. To me it looks like a driver running onto a barely lit track in dark overalls being missed by one car but gets hit by the second one. You can’t see whether he gets closer, or whether Steward even did see him before it was too late.
            I think the biggest issue is that the driver gets out and instead of bringing himself in safety, gets onto the path of the running cars. I really think the FIA should step in and start to force US series to abandon their lax attitude to this kind of thing.

    2. Unbelievable – Ward’s sprint car was clipped and span off in what looked like pretty light contact; after a pause, he got out, walked right onto the track, tried to stop a car and was hit by the unsighted car behind, I think – although the press reports that he was hit by the car he tried to stop (Tony Stewart’s). And they seem to be blaming Stewart’s “famous bad temper”, not sure how that’s even relevant.

      1. Not to talk bad about the dead, but how stupid was that .. running out on track, in a black racing suit. I read reports mentioning “motor racing is dangerous”, i’d say human stupidity is dangerous. May he rest in peace though.

        1. Agreed, that was dumb. What on Earth was he trying to do? Seemed to me like he was waving to the other cars to stop. Isn’t there a way to get off the track through the outside fence? He was a racing driver, he should’ve known better than to stand in the middle of the track. In any case, may he rest in peace, this was a sad incident, regardless of whose fault it was.

          1. It’s not the first time a driver who was put out of the race has shown his displeasure to the driver the he collided with on foot. It’s just that this time, Ward walked little too far on to the track and Stewart’s intimidation tactic went horribly wrong. Could have been so easily avoided.
            Such a shame. RIP.

        2. As harsh as it is to say, “what an idiot” was all I could think as soon as he started walking into the middle of the track. Oh well. RIP.

      2. First of all, RIP Kevin Ward Jr.

        Second of all, I can not believe how many people on US sports sites are ignoring everyone’s requests to wait for the police to do their work and are saying Stewart did it intentional. Sorry, but I’ve seen the footage (kind of wish I didn’t) and if Stewart has such amazing car control, he wouldn’t be involved in any one sided incident ever. People are calling websites who are not partaking in speculation ‘Stewart fanboys’ and ’12 year olds’.

        Not a great day for racing..

        1. kind of wish I didn’t

          Same here

      3. Those cars steer by kicking out the back end. Black racing suit, that part of the track, at night, by the time Stewart saw Ward, it was too late.
        Option 1) Off-throttle full-lock turning to the left: This would provide minimal actual turn, but losing enough speed to get rear ended while the wheel is turned hard enough over to roll up the banking. Easily, Ward would be at risk here, along with Stewart and other drivers.
        Option 2) Off-throttle turn to the left, not locking the wheel: Here there would be an increased likelihood of Stewart hitting Ward with the right front.
        Option 3) On-throttle turn to the left: Here, Stewart would be drifting, increasing the chances of hitting Ward with a far larger, and powered, right rear.

        Any which way you slice it, there was not enough time for Stewart to make a decision to spare Ward’s life. Ward was incredibly reckless last night, and paid with his life for that recklessness.

        1. WilliamB (@william-brierty)
          10th August 2014, 16:00

          @spdoyle17 – My thoughts exactly. Although this kind of sprint racing is the type of thing I wouldn’t touch with a barge-pole, it is immediately apparent that these cars are set up to slide and drift, so Stewart’s choice was to risk his and Ward’s life by steering right into the bank, or to try and pitch the car into a full-lock left-handed slide, but still with a very real chance of killing Ward with the rear of the car.

          In motorsport hot-headedness kills, but in this case Stewart’s famous temper is irrelevant because of the ultimately fatal reckless rage Ward showed. Had fate been kinder, had Stewart been given a few crucial extra seconds to react, I would like to think that whatever governing body was involved in that meeting would have awarded Ward a lifetime ban for an incident that had all the hallmarks of a multiple fatalities. Unfortunately, no such action is possible…

    3. petebaldwin (@)
      10th August 2014, 14:04

      I’m sorry but Ward died because he decided to run into the middle of a race track and confront a moving vehicle. If he hadn’t done that, he’d be fine now. I don’t know any of the back story and that video doesn’t show the line he took etc so I won’t comment on that side of things.

      What I can see there though is a breathtakingly dull decision which unfortunately led to a horrible outcome.

      1. I’ve watched the video in super slow-motion…Ward tried to get out of the way at the last second, but Tony had hit the gas to throw the tail out for a good scare. It didn’t work out. If you point a gun at someone and it goes off by accident…you’re guilty of manslaughter. I see no difference here.

        1. How does one rate if a person accidentally pulled a trigger? Not by going with what some anonymous dude on the internet said. But sure, you can judge just by watching that footage that Stewart hit him intentional. Bravo. Well done. That mindset is the reason we need ‘innocent until proven guilty’.

          1. there’s no rating required…your’re not reading. “and it goes off by accident…you’re guilty of manslaughter”.

          2. You are not guilty of anything if it is unreasonable to demand other demeanor. Those cars were moving at a high speed around a circuit and that boy placed himself in danger. A more apt analogy would be a gun who was prone to randomly fire without being prompted, without the perpetrator knowing, or the victim deliberately running through a firing range with no warning.

  2. I love F1 but I’m not willing to be ripped off by a sport that has completely lost touch with the fans and operates a business model that only benefits Bernie, CVC, and a couple of the big teams while screwing over most of the other teams, circuits and the fans.

    I’m getting close to taking this position. If (or more likely when) sky stop giving me the F1 channel as part of the HD pack, I doubt I’ll still be following F1. It is not worth £30/month when that’s the only sport I watch.

    However, I did get a good deal on tickets to Spa this year through my wife’s work, and I’m really looking forward to seeing my first live GP :-D

    1. I live in the French border near Spa, been at the circuit every year but never watch an F1 race there. Instead I go there to watch the Formula Renault 3.5 and the WEC for almost nothing. With the price of two F1 tickets, goodies, food, hotel, transport, etc…I and my half went to Spain for two weeks.

      Anyway, fans pay too much, promoters too and Bernie gets the pockets full of money, escapes from criminal crime and so on from the start.

      I’m giving enough passion and dedication to the sport to even get robbed of my hard-earn money.
      FOFA we need. FOFA we will.

    2. @drmouse – agreed, and now that MotoGP has been hidden away on the non-free BT channels, there seems little point having traditional TV at all. I never could afford the Sky F1 coverage and my wife and kids seem to prefer streaming stuff anyway.

    3. @drmouse – and I hope you have an excellent time at Spa!

    4. I got past this point last year, and i won’t be going to another GP after this seasons Italian, which we are tying into a holiday.

      The costs of being a fan, from all angles is ridiculous. Tickets, TV, Merchandise (seriously upwards of 50 quid for a polo shirt), I used to collect die cast models (i have hundreds) but they have more than tripled in cost since i started.

      Added to that the cost of everything while you are at a GP. Parking (silverstone have started charging for friday parking now, and tried doing it on the quiet after advertising it as free and charging at the track last year.) Food, is a rip off. The couple of hundred pages of adverts in the programme which now costs 17.50 are inexcusable.

      Compare this with the WEC, 30 quid for a race day ticket, roaming round the whole track, pit access on race day in the morning, programme for a fiver and free parking. Great racing on top of that.

      Indycar in America is the same, less than 100 dollars for turn 1 at the 500 this year.

      F1 is dead as a fan friendly sport. Sad as it is its true.

      1. i’ve said it before: if i have to pay the U$D 250 wich costs a good ticket in San Pablo, i’ll gladly do it, but i’m not going to, because that GP, the nearest one i’ll have, is 3000km away from here, so the trip and staying in brazil is a LOT more expensive to me than the race itself. So, i0ll watch it on TV, as i’ve been doing for the last 25 years. It’s not the ticket prices who drove away from the tracks! why you, europeans, can’t realize about that? the same with tv… i’m payiing less than 12 euros/month, so watch the F1 in tv is cheap for me. and i’m one of MILLIONS, if the F1 gets viewing of 500 millions annually, rest for sure is more from people like me who will never gets a GP near, and doesn’t have to pay that much money to watch it on TV, the same goes from brazil (it’s a big country,m some of them live farest from Sao Paolo than myself) venezuela, colombia, uruguay, even the US!

        1. I pay about $320 a grandstand ticket for my seat at Melbourne, which I think is extremely good value for four days entertainment – less than $100 a day – and I am there from gate open to gate close. I’ve paid more than that for rock concerts that lasted only two hours! When you look at it that way, F1 is still good value.

  3. In response to the COTD: I’m a University student who’s big dream in life is to become an engineer in F1, but there’s absolutely no way that I’d be able to pay anywhere near the amount of money required for a Sky Sports F1 subscription, or get to a GP to watch the cars in the flesh. I just dont have that kind of money, plan and simple. So my only option now, if I want to watch what I hope will be my future career, is to stream online for free. I can put up with the lower quality stream since I’m not paying, but with each passing race weekend I get more annoyed at Bernie, and the FIA. Its my generation and younger that they need to be targeting in my opinion. I got hooked on F1 when I was a kid, when it was still on the BBC channels. Other kids should have the opportunity to see the raw power of these cars, careering round the tracks at ridiculous speeds. Times have changed, the old men running the show are obsolete in this social media, technological age.

    1. I agree and share most of your story. As do many others.

    2. I got hooked on F1 by watching a grainy, black and white excerpt of the 1961 Monaco GP won by Stirling Moss. If that was enough for me, I would guess that streaming the entire races and season these days should be enough to grab the occasional new viewer today. But it’s not the point, is it? Going behind Bernie’s back to watch the sport shouldn’t be necessary – it merely proves that he’s not getting things right anymore. Whatever happened to his policy of refusing to sell the TV rights to any broadcaster that was going to make people pay for the privilege of watching?

      1. It’s not just about the quality.

        You sort of have to be a big fan to begin with, because finding those streams is difficult. And that is for a reason, the powers that be have a mountain of people and mechanisms to take every F1 content off the internet. If it is easy to find, it is easy to take off the net.

        If you are committed enough you will find good reliable streams, but it’s a lot different than just switching on the station.

        It’s a constant struggle, and I see no probable way of how a new fan could emerge from this process. Also, most kids are not good enough with IT technology, to even theoretically enter this process, and given the fact that the younger generation is the one which is the best with new tech, that is saying a lot.

    3. petebaldwin (@)
      10th August 2014, 13:13

      I’m used to grainy pictures from free streams now. I watch most of my sports this way!

      It always amazes me. If I had the option to pay for an HD online stream of each race, I’d do it but that option doesn’t exist so I am almost forced to do it for free! I don’t want 300+ channels, a satellite dish, a box that records and pauses live tv etc… I just want 19 F1 races. That is it.

      With the new stance on “online piracy” (in the UK anyway) being that they have basically given up, streams aren’t going to disappear. More and more people are using them and unless F1 and SKY wake up to what is happening, they will be in real trouble. Look at what has happened to the music industry because the old guys at the top refused to accept that we are now in the digital age. TV will go the same way.

      1. A NowTV set top box is £10. A sky sports day pass is £10. With 9 races on the BBC, you could watch the entire F1 season on your TV for £110 a year, which isn’t really that bad. I’d much rather have it all on the BBC, but F1 is a niche sport and the government are gunning for the BBC, so don’t be surprised to see all live races disappear in the future.

        1. the government are gunning for the BBC

          This for me is the more compelling explanation for why the BBC had to cut their cloth post-2010 than the usual ‘the BBC spent too much money on F1’ claim which gets bandied about.

  4. If Montezemolo steps down, it’d be great news for Ferrari and F1. His time has come and he no longer is a man to lead an F1 team (he is de facto principle, isn’t he?). He just can’t recognize that times have changed and F1 is changing too. He lives with nostalgia to old F1 (I do it too, but I know that old times won’t get back), and tries to negotiate rules favouring his team, but is not willing to adapt. So I hope these news are true.

  5. Has F1 really become more expensive though? Ticket prices have always been high. I don’t see them being much higher than they were 10 years ago. But then I haven’t exactly kept track of all prices.

    Personally I got fed up with the large crowds and struggle to get to and from the venue. Been to enough so many races already anyway.

  6. The COTD is absolutely spot on. It’s precisely why I have not gone to a GP for years and not planning to any time soon. There are plenty forms of available motor sport which do not cost silly amounts of money to attend. There’s a similar issue with football to a degree, even below the Premier League.

    1. you proudly say that you’re not going to a GP because of bla bla bla. If you were in my situation that i can’t go to a GP because my country haven’t got one in the last 16 years, and the nearest one i have is 3000km away, believe me, if tomorrow they say that the F1 is going to race here, in my country, and the ticket’s price is U$D300, you can bet i’ll be the first one in the line to buy that ticket, and you’ll be doing the same in my place

      1. You must be from Argentina. That’s a country where F1 should be; I would like to see it again in Buenos Aires (not the configuration last used for F1, the No.15 layout with the big loop) or even at Portero de los Funes.

        1. Indeed. And i don’t see it happening any time soon because of the Bernies track fees and our really shattered economy…

  7. Daniel (@collettdumbletonhall)
    10th August 2014, 13:12

    Completely agree with COTD. Never been to a Grand Prix and I don’t plan to with those prices. Might go to Monaco though as my uncle works in the medical team for that race and can get tickets a bit more easily.

  8. You read my mind COTD!

    F1 is run by a generation that invented social, ecological and economic irresponsibility.

  9. Been an F1 site people obviously look at F1 more than other sports, But the high ticket prices & the move to Pay TV is not just an F1 thing, Its just the way most the big sports in general seem to be going.

    I’m frankly amazed that F1 stayed live on Free TV for as long as it did as just about everything else moved to Pay TV be it Sky or one of the other Pay Sports broadcasters (ESPN, Setanta, EuroSport, MotorsTV to name a few). It was inevitable that F1 would follow them eventually & I think were lucky that F1 still has a Free TV presence at all on the BBC.

    I’d also like to remind people in the UK that the move to PayTV was initiated by the BBC rather than Bernie/FOM. It was the BBC who underestimated the cost of covering F1 (By that I mean the cost of transporting crew/equipment & running the sort of features & extras that they were doing) & it was the BBC who went to Sky with the shared deal that is currently in place between Sky/BBC.
    At the time Sky were not actually actively going after F1 coverage, They had looked at it in the past but had never actually made a serious move towards getting the coverage as far as I’m aware.

    With the BBC looking to get out there wasn’t another ‘realistic’ FreeTV option.
    ITV lets not forget had dropped there coverage Mid-contract due to internal budget cuts.
    Channel 4 simply don’t have the budget to do F1 justice, Yes they put together a nice looking proposal but there’s no way they would have ever been able to get the budget together to do half of what they proposed & I doubt the frequent commercial breaks would have been any more popular as they were on ITV (Would likely have been more than there were on ITV as well).
    And Channel 5 didn’t show any interest & again simply don’t have the budget to do F1 justice.

    To be perfectly honest, Cost, accessibility & all that aside I think Sky have done a great job with the coverage & I’d go as far as saying there coverage is the best, Most in-depth F1 coverage the UK has had since the F1 Digital service in 2002.
    There’s no way any of the FreeTV broadcasters could have provided the additional content feeds on TV/Online & Mobile as Sky do & I doubt they could have gotten access to the additional In-car feeds directly from FOM as Sky have.

    There’s no way they could have afforded to get access to the archive to get the classic races or done the deal which Sky recently have to get access to unseen parts of the archive to give fans new footage which hasn’t been seen before.

    1. Its looking forward to the end of the current BBC/Sky deal that is actually of more concern.

      As I understand it Sky have been happy with how things have gone & how there F1 channel has helped increase subscriber count. The recent deal thats seen BskyB buy there German/Italian counterparts (Both also which carry F1) & the likely merging of resources for there F1 broadcast’s will also likely see Sky keen to retain F1 coverage beyond the current deal.
      I can see them been willing to continue some sort of shared deal with the BBC, But more likely looking at full live exclusivity (But allowing BBC or whoever to get highlights).

      However I can also see BT been willing to throw a lot of money at getting the F1 coverage away from Sky & if they do they will almost certainly go for full exclusivity & be far less willing to share there coverage with a FreeTV broadcaster given how BT’s Sport channels are available on more platforms.

      I can’t really see the BBC keeping the coverage, Don’t really see ITV going after it & likewise with C4/C5 given there respective budgets. And I can’t off the top of my head think of any other freely available broadcaster been able to even think about going after it.

      1. petebaldwin (@)
        10th August 2014, 14:09

        @gt-racer – I’m happy with Sky’s coverage to be honest – they have done a good job. It’s just a shame I can’t get a a higher quality stream of it to watch.

    2. I agree with what most of @gt-racer is saying, although a lot hinges on

      To be perfectly honest, Cost, accessibility & all that aside I think Sky have done a great job with the coverage

      However good a job Sky do, their coverage costs too much for many potential viewers and is just not accessible to the masses.

    3. The BBC went with Sky because they are a spiteful company. They have no regard for the people who pay the tv licence. So taking an award winning show and sticking it behind a paywall was an easy choice. It would cost them nothing and Sky probably ‘rewarded’ some execs at the BBC for the honor of getting F1. Sky had tired in the past to get F1 and had it for a while but very few people subscribed as it was also free to air elsewhere. This ‘deal’ with the BBC where the BBC shows half of the races live is just an advert for F1 on Sky. F1 is dying because fans will pay Sky to watch. Things only have the value that people put on it. If people boycotted F1, it would be free to air within the year. Sky and its like exist because people pay them. Watch the costs of subs go up as people reject it and Sky squeeze the remaining die-hard ‘fans’ for more money.

      1. Sky had tired in the past to get F1 and had it for a while but very few people subscribed as it was also free to air elsewhere.

        If your referring to the F1 Digital+ service of 2002, That had nothing to do with Sky, It was an FOM service using FOM staff/equipment/resources & was produced from FOM’s Biggin Hill HQ which is where all the studio stuff & Commentary was done.

        The only involvement Sky had was selling us the EPG slot & transponder space as well as dealing with subscribers through there software & systems.

  10. Re: COTD…Just gonna play devil’s advocate a bit here, but then I have the luxury of not having to pay separately for F1. Here in Canada one of the major sports networks, TSN, broadcasts the BBC coverage as they have for years, and one can have TSN on even a quite basic package. Our satellite bill is still over $100 per month which yes is high, so I wouldn’t exactly call TSN free to air, but as I say one can have TSN on a more basic package so probably $60 to $80 gets you in along with all your other channels. That said, the coverage is basic. We get the full second practice on Friday during which they highlight what went on in the first practice, we get qualifying with no pre-event coverage nor the post-qualifying interviews, and then on race day we get 5 minutes of pre-race coverage, the race, and the podium interviews. I’ll assume the Sky coverage is far more involved.

    So I definitely feel for those who have no choice but to pay seperately and expensively to view strictly F1. That’s one route for one part of the world that BE has chosen and he will have the numbers to know whether it is a success or not. But he hasn’t chosen that route for the whole globe’s audience.

    Also, when I read folks saying BE is just lining his pockets and a few others, and screwing everyone else…realistically, a lot of people are making a good living in F1, many incredibly good, and let’s not forget, even if the smaller teams could be getting a bigger piece of the pie, and have been lately compared to before, and may yet get more, they also have a ‘hidden’ marketing impact by being in F1 that benefits many companies involved in F1, or they wouldn’t be there. eg. Haas will likely hugely expand his global business just from the exposure of being in F1 even if he never wins a race. It’s not just about what BE gives the teams. There’s so much they get from being in F1.

    As to ticket prices…I agree they’re expensive and perhaps that needs to be addressed, but as to T-shirts, food, hotels etc, those have been jacked up for many many sporting events globally for many many years. You want to watch this event, then here’s the ‘event’ pricing. A hotel that was $150 last weekend is $250 on an event weekend, and that has nothing to do with F1. Businesses take advantage of a captured audience. Also, I know WEC tickets etc. are cheaper, but then that’s not F1, and the hotels, food etc are still jacked up. NASCAR is struggling for audience too, and Indycar seems to be doing ok relative to recent years, but then they’re not F1 either. Not saying I don’t agree that F1 has big issues of course.

    You want to stream F1 races ‘for free’? I didn’t know you could get free Internet service without paying a server. As far as I know there is a monthly fee for Internet too. You need high-speed and I live in the country and our high-speed is not that high, and would we have access to higher high-speed I’m sure it would cost more.

    Just wanted to point out a few things to present another side to Cotd, while respectfully understanding why some folks feel as they do and agree with @beneboy.

    1. same here, i live in Argentina, and we can get F1 for less than that. But almost everyone in this forum seems to think that the onle reality is the one of the british people. Do they know how it’s broadcasted in of the most important markets for the brands advertising in the cars? Lotus is sponsored mainly by Unilever, and they have a Global market, and being like that, i’m safe to presume that China, India or brazil (for the only reason of being the most populated countrys) are the biggest markets for them. And, if as for china, or brazil, gets the F1 on a cheap basic cable they get a bigger TV exposition than all the EU together. they should really think outside the EU

    2. You want to stream F1 races ‘for free’? I didn’t know you could get free Internet service without paying a server. As far as I know there is a monthly fee for Internet too.

      Which for just about everybody is something they will have regardless of whether they use it to watch an F1 stream.

      1. Not to mention that for example in my case I have Internet that could support full blown internet TV if I wanted to use that and pay about 18 EUR for. Not to mention it gets paid out of the budget for home workspaces for both me and my wife, so it really is neglectable “extra” cost @matt90, @robbie

        Off course the situation with internet might be different in other parts of the world (paying USD 100 a month, or 60-80 for a cable or satellite package to me seems like a complete ripoff, but I guess its all about what you are used to).

        I do agree that while the cost of visiting a race is really high, when compared to other top sporting events or concerts its pretty much in line.
        Merchandise is incredibly overpriced at all those events for at least 25 years now too (I remember buying a dire straights T-shirt for 15 EUR equivalent in 1987, now that would be about 40-50 EUR, I guess).

        I guess the whole atmosphere of getting ripped off turns off many fans. Maybe its because with concerts there really is not an alternative for any band unless you start looking for new bands. For football I imagine the quality of free amateur football just is too far below top league to be quality time, except for staunch fans.
        But in reality the quality of racing in many of the lower tier series is pretty much as good, or sometimes even better than F1, but those events are cheaper, often closer by and far more accessible.

  11. Like many others have said, the COTD is spot on. I live only a short drive away from Silverstone, and it is immensely painful to miss the Grand Prix when it is so close – back in the V8 days I could hear the cars. But the cost is just too much for a student like me, especially when the World Endurance Championship race weekend costs barely a fraction of the Grand Prix. In the end I would just rather put aside £40 for the WEC, which has considerably more racing on offer with a more active schedule and much more access than you get at a Formula 1 race.

    1. Sennas sandshoe
      10th August 2014, 16:51

      You don’t see the value in something, you don’t pay for it….Fair enough and good on you for not being a mindless consumerist…But do you really agree that after you’ve taken responsibility and made decisions you don’t want to make but have to, that some freeloader just robs it anyway?

    2. @jackysteeg
      I went to the WEC this year too, I’m still drying off I think :D. The BTCC is great as well.

  12. Ferrari driver decision to be made in December too?

  13. Sennas sandshoe
    10th August 2014, 16:48

    I disagree with COTD wholeheartedly.

    It just smacks of the free ride culture we are becoming.

    An average ticket price to Silverstone is about £250….Thats for an annual, world famous sporting event. Tickets to an Arsenal game at the Emirates which happens 18 times a season is £63 at the cheapest…I think relatively speaking, GP’s are priced not great, but not as unreasonable as people make out.

    And thats only Silverstone, which is historically one of the more expensive GP’s, so other GP’s are even cheaper,as much as by half at places like Spa.

    As for the TV…It’s 2014. Sky paid millions of pounds for that TV deal…Why should they give it to you for free? So you’re just going to steal it like a common criminal and then brag about it!!?

    I work hard for my things. I work hard for my Sky subscription. I work hard to go to a GP once a year, be that at Silverstone or elsewhere. And then some freeloader not only tells me that he shouldnt have to work hard and pay the going rate for things but that he STEALS those things AND gets a pat on the back for it in the form of COTD….

    Disgusting….Simply disgusting. You should be ashamed for endorsing this Keith.

    To have this freeloading attitude

    1. I think most people do stuff with there families. Throw two kids and a wife and just going into the gates at Silverstone becomes $1600 by your reckoning. Throw in a hotel, food, etc and it gets even worse. To you that may be fine, but to a large majority of fans on this site and of F1 as a whole this would be hard to justify. People are being squeezed with stagnant wages and rising costs. Does that mean they are not working as hard as you? I highly doubt it. Probably the opposite is true.

  14. I think something to bear in mind with ticket prices is that its not as if your just getting F1, There’s a full bill of support races as well (GP2, GP3 & The Porsche Supercup as well as other events like the historic car parade this years).

    If you go to a football match your going to see 1 90 minute event, During an F1 weekend your going to see a full day of activities each day with a couple races on Saturday/Sunday.

    With regards to other categories like WEC, Renault world series etc… They don’t have the draw of F1 or the fanbase than F1 has & have never got the same sort of TV audience or circuit attendance that F1 has (Outside of Le Mans for WEC) so they have to have lower ticket prices to try & encourage people to turn up.
    Renault world series even used to give tickets away for free (Maybe they still do?) to get people to turn up & even then the attendance was fairly poor when I went the last time they ran at Donington.

  15. is this rejection from the bank significant at all?

  16. @sato113

    Wow!
    One would think so

    If bernie is offering around 10% or less of what the Bank is saying they got shafted by then Bernie could still end up paying huge compensation and still do Gaol ?

  17. One minute its over then next its back on ?
    Im not sure where this issue stands ?

  18. On the issue of COTD by @ benneboy and the comments by ‘ sennas sandshoe’
    I must say it i dont see it as anything but @ keithcollantine giving folk a say with free and open debate,
    Just because its COTD doesnt automatically mean its getting F1F endorsement ,

    I enjoyed both comments as they made me think ,

  19. I see no compelling reason now to spend big money to see an F1 race. I’ve attended Montreal, Indy, and Austin. Montreal in the mid-90’s was pretty fun as you could actually get reasonably close to the cars, especially at the wall of champions. The V12 sound was glorious and you could hear them from a great distance when they were on the track. It’s intolerable that an F1 car is now powered by a six cylinder plus electric motors.

    I’ve been a fan since the 1980’s and frankly the sport offers little to compel me to even follow it closely now, though I enjoy this website a couple times a week. The drivers’s have the personality of Al Gore, the cars have been neutered by Todt for apparently politically correct reasons, the race track experience unless you’re in a hosted luxury box is worse than most local county fairs, there is zero chance of getting close to the drivers, much less the garages, and the traffic to/from an event is pretty much unbearable. That all on top of the ridiculous cost of tickets tells me that F1’s attendance prevention bureau has done a top notch job.

    It’s too bad really, but most things evolve in and out of favor over time. I can see in the next year or so, completely decoupling from F1.

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