Parr admits leaving Williams over Ecclestone

F1 Fanatic round-up

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In the round-up: Former Williams chairman Adam Parr says he left the team as he believed Bernie Ecclestone wanted him out.

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Top F1 links from the past 24 hours:

Parr delves into the art of war (Reuters)

“I had resigned that week, rightly or wrongly believing that Ecclestone had told my board that no Concorde offer would be forthcoming while I was running Williams. Under the circumstances, I chose to stand down so that the team could make the best deal possible with him. The offer arrived the day after my resignation had been announced.”

Red Bull must improve – Horner (ESPN)

“It gets harder, it never gets easier. This year for sure was the hardest of the three where I think we’ve had to show true strength of character of the team to fight our way back in to the drivers’ championship particularly and also the constructors’ as well.”

Marussia 2013 car on schedule (Autosport)

“This will be our first car that’s truly our car in terms of the new people involved. The car we’ve just finished with was a full CFD car when we hit the first race.”

A Ferrari fires up Bologna (Ferrari)

“At this the 37th year of the show, it fell to Giancarlo Fisichella to drive an F60, which the Scuderia ran in the 2009 World Championship, with Fisichella himself at the wheel for some of the races towards the end of that season, standing in for the injured Felipe Massa.”

Austin area hotels saw boost during F1 race week (Austin-American Statesman)

“‘Basically, we had a very good weekend,’ said Bob Lander, president and CEO of the Austin Convention and Visitors Bureau. Lander said that in some instances F1-related revenues were ‘astronomical’ and far exceeded expectations.”

Perry favourite to front BBC coverage (The Telegraph)

“[Suzi] Perry is thought likely to get the nod with the BBC keen to introduce a new dynamic to its coverage with a female anchor alongside regular pundits David Coulthard and Eddie Jordan.”

Merry Christmas, Kimi Raikkonen Style! (YouTube)

Tweets

Comment of the day

Is Formula One to focused on ‘the show’? And does F1 Fanatic contribute to that? Thought-provoking stuff from @MazdaChris:

In fairness, I think part of the problem is some of the fans, and their x-factor attitude of “if this isn’t incredible, it must be terrible and boo hiss get it off my telly”.

I hope that @KeithCollantine won’t take this in the wrong way, but I’ve always had a bit of a dislike for the Rate the Race features on here. Don’t get me wrong, I’m as guilty as anyone for contributing to them, but I do think that it illustrates a certain mindset which places an emphasis on a person judging exactly how entertained they have been by a race based on certain criteria such as how many overtakes there were, whether their favourite driver finished favourably, etc…

There’s a sense that every race should be more exciting, more spectacular than the last. Every championship should be that little bit harder contested. You only need to look at some of the comments on the ‘rate the race’ features to see that there is very little middle ground as far as a lot of people are concerned – races are either brilliant, or terribly boring and the venue should forever be stricken from the calendar.

Because of this x-factor mentality, people now seem to place an inflated sense of importance to their own viewership. They aren’t simply spending a couple of hours on a Sunday afternoon watching a race, they are doing the whole industry of F1 a favour by lending it their precious precious time, which might otherwise be employed far more productively by, say, watching something else instead, or getting round to clearing out that junk from the garage that their wife has been nagging them about for weeks.

They feel that they should be sitting there like Emperor Caligula; their every whim being bent to, to ensure that their enjoyment and stimulation never drops below a certain level, lest they become bored and decide to inflict the worst punishment possible – turning off their telly and looking at something else instead.
@MazdaChris

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On this day in F1

The row over the use of the name Lotus is one of the more unfortunate episodes in recent Formula One. It began at the end of the 2010 season and, as this poll from two years ago shows, sympathy was on the side of Tony Fernandes’s team (now Caterham) to begin with:

Image © Williams/LAT

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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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58 comments on “Parr admits leaving Williams over Ecclestone”

  1. I can only assume Horner will get his wish. Red Bull aren’t going to be hugely affected by any rule change I wouldn’t think (apart from possibly the loss of DDRS – although that loss may be negated anyway with the rule change) so I expect the season-ending form to continue for both McLaren and Red Bull.

    Ferrari may indeed be aided by the qualifying rule changes but if they can have a decent platform from round one will they remain on contention? After all, their wind tunnel problems seemed to really affect the ability to develop so whether they’d be able to develop successful updates is an answer which will only be revealed after the season has well and truly started.

    1. What I don’t understand is, how the hell haven’t they fixed that damn windtunnel by now. I’ve been hearing about that miscalibration for years now.
      And how did they even manage to actually improve the car during the season is really puzzling me.

      I’ve read (I think it was Gery Anderson) that Ferrari actually had somewhat difficult to drive, but if you could understand it and hook it up, it would deliver some decent performance. The problem is, Massa just couldn’t get to grips with it. Ferrari in their attempt to make a car easier to drive, also made it slower and lost performance in the second part of the season.

      I think it’s great that they made totally new concept for this year and I just hope they managed to understand it better by now and make 2013 car really fast without the downfalls of 2012 one.

      1. @brace

        What I don’t understand is, how the hell haven’t they fixed that damn windtunnel by now. I’ve been hearing about that miscalibration for years now.

        There is no problem with the wind tunnel. There never was a problem with the wind tunnel.

        “We have a problem with our wind tunnel” is the favourite excuse of teams who do not really understand their cars and are facing a lengthy turn-around period before they can be competitive once again. The reason for this is because wind tunnels are big and expensive and any repairs will take a long time to sort out because they basically need to be rebuilt from the ground up. Hence, teams love to blame their wind tunnels for faults in their cars that they don’t understand, because it will be a long time before anything gets sorted out.

        1. As interesting as it sounds, I don’t think they would be going to Germany to use Toyota windtunnel just to make their excuse stick. :) That would be a bit too much. :)

          1. Perhaps, and that lends credibility to the idea that they have a genuine problem. But I’m still sceptical every time I see a team claim that they have a problem – usually miscalibration – with their wind tunnel. It’s a bit like “Our new car has an aggressive design” in that it doesn’t really mean anything, but sounds good and easily explains away any problems the team might have.

          2. I think there is a measure of truth. Both Ferrari and Mercedes have been upgrading to 60% scale models, which essentially requires a completely new wind tunnel.

            Adrian Newey’s first job at Red Bull was to oversee the upgrade of their tunnel(s) to 60% scale, hence the lacklustre cars during the 2006/2007 season.

          3. To add to what @optimaximal writes, the Enstone guys also updated their windtunnel (they did it last year) and that made a noticable impact on their rate of updating the car at the time.

            Also, Ferrari had problems interpreting their data into working solutions on the car before, so I guess having a bit of a tricky windtunnel with an insecure aero department (who wouldn’t be with Luca complaining about aero more often than not) are not the best recipe for development.

  2. Sankalp Sharma
    8th December 2012, 0:41

    Interesting COTD up there. But as some others might say, F1 is a sport after all – generating a precise few highly valued entertainment products. People will always vote according to the utility they derive from the products on offer. Be it overtaking or in my case the driver vs driver lap comparison which Sky shows on race days. An alternative would be for Keith to try and setup a conditional voting system. That is based on what they liked about the race: overtaking, fight for the race lead etc. But that would inevitably lead to more debate about the quality of the race and we would be back to square one. So final conclusion – let things be as they are.

  3. great, and insightful, COTD.

    1. +1 – although I might be appear to be someone that, at times the COTD appears aimed at, ultimately I love the sport so much, and I enjoy the worst race of the year more then I enjoy any other televised sports.

      I’ve just got very high standards, So if I’m not really enjoying the outcome or the racing of 1 event; then I might moan slightly – but only because I think F1 is matutre enough that it can take constructive crticism – anyone that defiently defends the formula of formula 1 is IMHO an unintellectual fool

      1. I’d like to amend my last comment. The worst race of 2012 wasn’t just better than all other sporting events to me; it was also better than all sports involving real people. The only things I might prefer on TV are excellent comedians.

        If you feel I am biased then fair enough but keep in mind my sister was in the olympics and Id’ve personally profited highly if she were a massive success. Unfortunately she came last and was only able to compete in the olympics on appeal
        because it was the first (and only) chance GB had to enter a group into the competitiion of which she entered.

        Forgetting that I can honestly say I’d rather be able to say that someone from my family had driven in F1 for a seaon than competed in any top level athletic/gymnastic event for a season

    2. Yup. COTD is spot on. Nothing against F1 or F1Fanatic, obviously, since I follow both, but there are quite many things that are more important all of us could be doing, instead of watching 24 dudes going around in cars for about 2 hours every other weekend and discuss it like crazy afterwards. And not just the junk in the garage, either. Sometimes I pray that F1 becomes as bad as football, so I can stop watching it, but it is above my willpower; I’m addicted to it. And recent years have only made it worst – it’s the best F1 since the years of Piquet-Senna-Prost-Mansell, no doubt.

  4. Wow. Bernie really is a piece of work. I would feel bad for Parr but he probably has millions in the bank so.. meh.

    If it’s Suzi Perry on BBC next year, I most definitely won’t be watching. She knows her stuff, but I’ve always been a top gear fan and a fifth gear hater, so I guess it’s just a weird rivalry sort of dislike!

    1. @timi Correct me if I’m wrong, but I thought it was Vicky Butler-Henderson as the female lead on fifth gear?

      Suzi Perry had The Gadget Show, until they changed it and it’s now just 2 presenters (Although I can’t complain too much, Pollyanna is definitely one of the most attractive girls on TV nowadays)

      If Suzi gets the F1 deal, then good for her, but I can’t help but think that Lee McKenzie would feel a bit cheated by it all..

      1. @keeleyobsessed Oh wow! I just looked them both up and it appears I had them mixed up! Cheers for that, I will continue watching on the BBC (when they have it) next year. Haha

  5. Former Williams chairman Adam Parr says he left the team as he believed Bernie Ecclestone wanted him out.

    Is that really such a bad thing? Sure, if it’s true, then it’s manipulative of Bernie, but we’ve come to expect that from him. No, I’m thinking more about Parr’s management of Williams. They hardly went through a renaissance while he was with them.

    1. That’s not what he’d have you believe in his book, The Art of War.

      According to that, he was instrumental in turning around the team’s financial performance and implies that Williams would not have had any of the successes they saw this year without his contribution.

      I found the comic-style tome a fascinating read to begin with but thought it got a bit lost at the end. Would recommend it, though. I wonder if @KeithCollantine is planning a review?

      Has anyone else hear read it?

      1. @thejohnx Apparently I’m being sent a copy but it hasn’t appeared yet.

        1. looking forward to the review then Keith. Its defenitely on my Christmas wishlist!

      2. I think the suggestion is that Parr was instrumental in bringing Pastor on as a driver, along with his many millions of Venezuelan dollars. That financial injection was certainly key in making the car as quick as it was this season – it was also ultimately responsible for so many of those cars being crashed into other things throughout the season.

    2. well they turned the corner this year didnt they. and Parr would be part of that.

      If its true that he was blackmailed by Bernie then that is the biggest controversy of the year by far. That would be disgraceful. But im sure it will be swept under the carpet.

      Its hard to take the sport seriously when bernie swans about like some WWF ring master rather than a professional.

    3. It’s very disturbing if Bernie is blackmailing them to get the people he don’t like fired. And I hardly think he did it as a favor to them, Adam Parr quit in March this year, do you really think they turned everything around i 2 months to become a winning team again?

      And insteed we get this Wolf guy, very credible to empoly your hopeless driver of a wife as Williams testdriver.

      1. It’s very disturbing if Bernie is blackmailing them to get the people he don’t like fired.

        And if he didn’t, then it’s just Parr being paranoid.

        And insteed we get this Wolf guy, very credible to empoly your hopeless driver of a wife as Williams testdriver.

        Susie Wollf has no other duties outside driving show cars. Valtteri Bottas was the team’s first test driver this year, and did most of their actual test work. Now that he has been promoted to a full-time drive, Williams will probably latch onto someone else to take on the role – most likely a pay driver – or keep Mrs. Wollf around, but without actually giving her any running time on race weekends.

    4. Is that really such a bad thing? Sure, if it’s true, then it’s manipulative of Bernie, but we’ve come to expect that from him. No, I’m thinking more about Parr’s management of Williams. They hardly went through a renaissance while he was with them.

      Who said it was a bad thing @prisoner-monkeys? Off course both Williams and Bernie denied that Parr’s departure had anything to do with Bernie at the time, so this is news (confirmation of what had been just rumours before).
      If you read what Parr himself says about his feelings about it:

      “The final event of my time in Formula One is not the most significant,”

      “I feel very regretful that I wasn’t able to finish what I set out to do…I certainly don’t feel bitter or resentful, because it was entirely my own failure in the execution of what I think was a sound strategy not just for Williams but for the sport as a whole,”

      Its just one of the many interesting twists and turns in his 5 years at Williams, and while you might say he did not achieve anything worhtwhile, it was changes set in in the last 3 years that now make Williams a company having a significant business apart from racing, having a bit of stability of ownership in light of an aging Frank Williams and Patrick Head (the stockmarket introduction) and lets not forget that he was still the chairman when the team developed the car that was able to win a race this year and had the speed to get into the top 5-6 in the WDC.

      1. @bascb I think it’s sad that Williams lost Parr, I think he would have been a good man to lead the team.

  6. I wholeheartedly agree with the COTD, and that people are expecting far too uch from each F1 race and season; for most people, for a race to be excellent, there is a set recipe and if the race even slightly deviates, then the race is automatically rubbish and boring.
    I personally find that you get processional F1 races, but they are never boring

  7. Here’s the latest strange story popped out by the silly season: Colin Kolles is attempting to buy what is left of HRT (and has been trying to for the better part of six months), but has to convince Thesan Capital to settle the team’s debts – which are actually said to be quite small, at around five million Euros – before he purchases their entry and contracts to develop the chassis and retain their powertrain.

    1. Interesting in that it would make some sense @prisoner-monkeys, as he already knows the team, but couldn’t get the owners to let him run it as he wanted (as far as I understood), which was why he left before they were sold to the current owners.

    2. I’d heard about Kolles being the only one showing any interest a couple of weeks ago already. I guess Thesan was not interested at first, but if they want anything for the team, that is probably their only chance of avoiding a complete run down of it.

      1. I just hope if it is the case, that he has the capacity to make it work financially.

        And that they give him an entry.

  8. I think the Comment of the Day takes things a little too far. I can see where MazdaChris’s thoughts apply, but I certainly don’t see them applying to everyone, so it comes across as a generalisation, and that, I feel, weakens his argument. No doubt there are some people out there who want every race to be better than the one before it, and leave disappointed when a Grand Prix doesn’t out-do the one before it, even if it was actually pretty good.

    But being disappointed doesn’t mean that we’re craving entertainment from races that have us on the edge of our seats. I was disappointed by the Korean and Indian Grands Prix this year. I don’t want half a dozen overtakes every other lap, but I would certainly like the possibility of overtaking, which was sorely missed in both Korea and India. And it’s doubly disappointing when such boring races prove to be so critical to the championship outcome.

    Likewise, I think it’s wrong to criticise people for valuing different things. MazdaChris implies that we all have to be absolutely objective in how we view races, but I feel that makes things boring, and if taken to an extreme, it creates a situation whereby all races are good races because they took place, regardless of what actually happened in them. Is it really so wrong if we support different drivers and teams, and that we have an actual reaction to it depending on whether they do well or not? I think that this is what allows us to engage with the sport that much more, and what makes our experience of it better.

    1. I too agree with the COTD, maybe that’s why I have voted in just 1 (I think) of the Rate the Race polls, or else, I am just lazy…
      But I agree, generalising the reaction and the thought process of fans takes it too far… However, the truth is the attitude that the COTD refers to is displayed by the majority of the fans… and I find it increasingly true in this day and age for more and more Sports, not just F1…. e.g. the IPL in cricket is a show and was created and is marketed as such… earlier coaches/managers/players would say they hope to have a good game/match and now all state that they hope to provide an entertaining event…
      May be its because of the economic scenario and the need to tie in maximum fans/spectators but the difference between a “Sport” and a Show/Movie/Circus is fast disappearing… people do not just enjoy the experience, they also “want” a dramatic storyline/outcome/spectacular action…

      1. @nomadindian

        they also “want” a dramatic storyline/outcome/spectacular action…

        Are they wrong to want an exciting race?

        1. @mike, I feel its wrong to want one at everyevent…

          and to then slam the race as boring, etc if it does not live up to expectations…

          1. @nomadindian I agree. F1 is more than that.

    2. @prisoner-monkeys Your whole comment is nullified because MazdaChris stated in his first sentence that he was referring to “some” fans. Read man, read!

      1. Yet if you “read man, read!” a little further, @timi “there is very little middle ground as far as a lot of people are concerned” you will see that MazdaChris claims ‘a lot’ of people etc etc.

        I tend to agree with prisoner-monkeys on this. I think it is natural to critique races, and all sporting events. I think doing a ‘rate the race’ is just a medium for discussing what one liked or disliked about a race. F1 claims they went to DRS because people wanted to see more overtaking, so they obviously feel that fan input and knowing what they would like to see is important. Not that most agree that DRS is the way to do it but the point is that F1 is always wanting to know what fans think of the show.

        I’m sure some fans are as mazdachris describes, but I think the majority understand that it is what it is…each race has it’s own fingerprint. I personally do not expect the next race to be better than the last. Just different. I think that better and better all the time would be unsustainable and people with those expectations were just borderline fans anyway, and don’t understand the umpteen variables that can change a race one way or another. I take each race as it comes, and even when SV seals up the WDC with 5 races to go I still watch the remaining races…have been since 1978.

        Sure there are probably more distractions for our time than ever before, so F1 must be cogniscent of that, which is probably why they wanted multiple winners vs. mostly SV winning. But I don’t think that is a new concern. F1 has always preferred if the season would go down to the final WDC deciding race. And I think those who lean toward turning off the TV or going to do something else because they haven’t been fully satisfied race after race, weren’t the ‘edge of your seat’ fans who understand the sport anyway, and want predictability (every race must be better than the last) that would take the very sport out of it if instigated.

        1. @robbie But Robbie, he says “a lot of people” when referring to the people who comment on rate the race articles. Not F1 fans in general (he didn’t make any reference to F1 fans in general). I get what you’re saying but I feel as though you’ve missed the main context of what MazdaChris was saying. And I agree with him, the comments on the rate the race articles are generally questionable, and vary from one extreme to the other.

          PM is right in some regards. I just thought I’d originally comment because PM seems to have a problem with pretty much anything anyone says, and tries to poke holes in it and it’s finally annoyed me!

          P.s You agreed with PM, and dislike the generalisations made by Mazda but then go on to say “I think the majority understand”, which is also a generalisation. Both you and PM disregard MAzda’s generalisation as being unfair, but you both then generalise yourself!

          I accept that you are not the type of fan that @MazdaChris descirbes in his COTD, but he didn’t say everyone was. He implicitly referred to the rate the race articles, and the people who comment/vote on them. I feel you and PM are arguing for the sake of arguing. You’re not the fan he describes? Congratulations, neither am I. I too would have written a few paragraphs about it, but because he didn’t generalise every F1 fan ( which you and PM seem to think), I haven’t said anything.
          There isn’t always a need to put your case forward, he wasn’t attacking you. If you aren’t the fan he described, be confident enough to not argue your case

          1. @timi I was referring to rate the race commentors too. I never get the sense from the comments on rate the race articles that ‘a lot of’ fans would rather be doing something else if one particular race was not as good as the last. They might wish for no DRS, or wish that safety car hadn’t come out, or wish their fave driver hadn’t been taken out etc, and they might hope for a better race next time. But they obviously watched the race in order to comment on it. And then likely watched the next race too. I don’t get this sense that a lot of posters are about to walk from F1 unless their every whim is met. A few perhaps, and sure, some people are disappointed with some races, and usually the majority agreed as indicated by a lower rating to that race than some other races have gotten. Of course opinions are going to vary from one extreme to the other. Thank goodness not everyone thinks alike or wouldn’t life be boring.

            I think you are generalizing toward PM when you imply he “seems to have a problem with pretty much anything anyone says, and tries to poke holes in it.” I thought this was a forum in which all opinions are welcome, as they are just that…opinions. And all I’m doing is expressing mine. I didn’t feel attacked as you imply. I read a COTD, I took Keith’s words when he called it ‘thought-provoking stuff’ and I thought about it and I responded. Isn’t that what Keith wants?

            I took slight offence when you said to PM “read, man read” when in fact I thought MazdaChris was in fact talking about more than just ‘some’ posters, when he said ‘a lot of people’.

            Me saying ‘I think the majority understand’ is an opinion, not a generalization. Also, I never called Mazda’s generalization ‘unfair.’ That’s a word you’ve put in my mouth just as you have generalized about PM’s motivation for posting on this blog. This is not arguing for the sake of arguing. It is a conversation. Isn’t that what Keith wants to see? Are you the blog police that is here to tell everyone when it is ok to put forward their case? I am very confident in my opinions and therefore like to ‘argue’ a case once in a while, again though, with the spirit that it is a conversation, not an argument or an attack. I think you need to get over yourself. Stop assuming that because I presented my own personal opinion, and expressed that I’m not one of the fans MC is speaking of ie. expressed where I am coming from with my case, that I therefore felt attacked. You have made a wrong assumption, and you know what they say about those who ass-u-me.

    3. Morning chaps and chapesses. Firstly, a pre-emptive apology for what is probably a very long and rambling post. Secondly, thank you to @keithcollantine for giving me the COTD, it’s very much appreciated. I’m also really glad to see that it has sparked some debate, because it feels like an important time for us to think about these things. I believe that this is an important time for F1, and decisions taken by the organisers now will shape the way that F1 will continue into the future. Indeed, if it will continue.

      Despite how it may come across, I’m certainly not saying that everyone should be like an emotionless drone. There are races I enjoy more than others. I do enjoy every race, because I genuinely love F1. Admitting I like some races more than others is also admitting that, despite my protestations, there are elements which will generally make a race better or worse. It’s hard to quantify exactly what they are though; there are things which make an F1 race exciting, and the lack of those things will generally make the race less exciting. However these elements don’t necessarily carry across to other racing series. NASCAR has loads more overtakes than F1, but an overtake in F1 is far more exciting. Rallying is a time trial with no overtaking whatsoever, and yet anyone who can watch a ton and a half of flame spitting WRC car powersliding through the muddy Welsh countryside, missing trees by inches, and claim it’s anything other than breathtakingly exciting, is certifiably dead. In fact, I have it on good authority this is a more accurate test for life signs than a stethoscope and an ECG.

      So, we establish that some races are more exciting than others. And as a passionate F1 fan (and I am one, despite how it may appear sometimes!), I of course enjoy talking about the things which, in my opinion, make for a great race. I do struggle a little once you get into the realms of assigning a race a numerical value as an arbitrary figure for how much I enjoyed a race, because in many respects it’s far too simplistic. But I use it more as an illustration of a point. Perhaps I didn’t word this correctly in my original post. But what worries me are the posts you see on the ‘rate the race’ pages, where people not only seem dissatisfied with a race, but almost seem as though they were entitled to see a good race, and because they didn’t see a good race, they’ve been swindled and the FIA/Bernie/whoever, should do something about it to ensure it doesn’t happen again.

      Now, here’s the thing. I sat through the days of McLaren dominating. Through Williams, Bennetton, and Ferrari. I know a dull race when I see one, and believe me I’ve seen my fair share. I do believe that on the whole, the sport suffers if there is a lack of competition through a series. Nobody enjoys seeing a championship wrapped up four races before the end of the season. Nobody enjoys seeing cars race up behind another, only to be stopped two seconds behind thanks to dirty air. I do think that there has been a trend over the past two decades towards an over-reliance on aerodynamic devices which make it harder for cars to race wheel-to-wheel, which have harmed the quality of the racing. What I don’t like, is the way this has been dealt with. This idea that F1 is showbusiness. I’m a puritan when it comes to sport – I believe that the only thing the organisers and the rulemakers should be responsible for is 1 – making sure the sport is safe, and 2 – all competitors are treated fairly within the rules. However, when some of those rules are to the detriment of the competition, then I think they do need to be addressed. The problem with looking at the sport as entertainment though, is that it places too much of an amphasis on certain elements of the sport. Overtaking is obviously the buzzword of the day. It’s what many people, including me, has claimed has been lacking in the last decade. If you look at the sport as showbiz rather than a sporting competition, then there’s nothing stopping you from trying to create the overtaking in an artificial way. Because, hey, it’s not a sport, it’s a show, right? And as long as we tick those boxes, who cares how we do it? Well, I do, for one, and I think an awful lot of other people do too.

      The depressing thing is this – a couple of years ago there were proposals to overhaul the formula in really radical ways. They would have addressed the problem of dirty air, while improving the green credentials of the sport and ensuring that it would have a solid future for decades to come by creating a formula that was attractive to car manufacturers, and allow for a crossover of technologies between F1 and many other racing series. Unfortunately thanks to universal grumblings from the teams about money and potential loopholes, the whole concept was canned. And instead we get these mickey mouse gimmicks like DRS, papering over the cracks in the formula.

      I love F1. I love it as a sport. And in the same way that professional boxing will always be more exciting to me than WWE wrestling, I believe that F1 needs to accept that it is a sport, and it’s the sporting nature of the competition which they must hold sacred and not start tampering with.

      1. Oh, I ballsed that up a bit didn’t i…

        1. No not at all. That was fine. I can go along with everything you have said in this most recent post. I hear what you are saying and agree that it can’t become just about the show, as in show biz, but at the same time I trust that there is enough common sense within F1 such that they will keep enough of the sport in it to still call it a sport with the understanding that along with good sport comes a good show. Create good sport, not artificially manipulated sport, and a good and true show will follow.

          I totally agree they shouldn’t tamper with it to the point where it is WWE, and I think DRS and lottery tires head it too far that way. But the teams started to adapt to the tires and I’ll assume that next year the tires won’t be throwing the teams such a curve ball. I still wish they would take away some downforce and hence the handcuffing in dirty air, and wish they would do away with DRS and use less downforce and wing allowance to curb the dirty air effect rather than a gadget. They have just announced that the planned reduction of downforce for 2014 has been scrapped and they will hold the teams to 2012 levels of downforce, which to me is still too much if it means that they need DRS to promote passing rather than good old seat of the pants driver instigated passing as opposed to push a button passing with the ‘passee’ looking like he’s standing still, defenceless.

          For my taste, any DRS passing degrades F1, and having cars out there on tires that are in extreme opposite ends of condition from one car to the next is also a bit artificial and doesn’t show one driver as better than another at racing as much as it shows how easily one guy can get past another when his tires have fallen off a cliff. Yes I know tire condition has always been part of the game, but it was unique to F1 this year to see cars going along great one minute and then half a lap later losing spot after spot like there was something mechanical wrong with the car.

          I’ll once again refer to JV’s opinion of what they should do which he stated back when they introduced grooved tires and he thought that was a joke. Gives us back the big fat slicks of the 70’s that created so much drag down the straights that if you wanted to obtain any kind of repectable straight-line speeds you had to run less wing, thus killing two birds with one stone. And I’ll add, no gadgets. Fat slicks=mechanical grip and less wing used, which totals less dirty air effect and more driver confidence to attempt passes.

  9. So, if I’m understanding the Parr issue in it’s simplest form… he resigned because Bernie Ecclestone wouldn’t give the team a contract if he were to run it? And all because Parr would fight Bernie on ideas he wants to introduce??

    To be honest, if this is correct. I am sickened! what right does Bernie have to ‘control’ who runs a team! A applaud Adam Parr for his loyalty to the team and for his self sacrifice. I wish Bernie only a slow death!

    1. @nick-uk

      And all because Parr would fight Bernie on ideas he wants to introduce??

      No. If Bernie wanted to make changes to the sport, then he only needed about 75% of the teams – nine of them – to vote in favour of those changes. If Parr and Parr alone voted against him, it wouldn’t matter, because Bernie would have the required numbers to get changes approved. Bernie would have no motive for bullying Parr out of his position, because Parr did not have enough power to prevent Bernie’s motions from being passed on his own.

      1. yes but if parr convinced a couple more, bernie has a problem. so black mailing him out of the sport is clearly a benefit to him.

        This is to me by the far biggest story of the year as its shows how corrupt the sport is right down to its core. Bernie is so bent he will threaten the most historic private team in the sport. but it will all be forgotten tomorrow.

        Events like this make you doubt every decision in the ‘sport’

      2. The difference between getting 75% of a vote and not getting 75% of a vote is down to a single vote – in other words Parr could hold a huge amount of influence on certain subjects. You seem to assume that every other team was completely in-step with Bernie to indicate that using his power to influence a team would make no difference – what makes you think that is the case. In reality his tactic is probably to apply this type of ‘pressure’ to any team which looks like it might step out of line to keep his majority intact in both the short and longer term. Who knows how many similar strong-arm tactics have been used over the years?

        1. @jerseyf1, absolutely right, how else could Bernie convince the teams to give him a dollar for every dollar the 12 teams received from revenues raised by the teams racing the cars they spent hundreds of millions of dollars building.

      3. @prisoner-monkeys Ignore the vote percentages.

        As he said,

        what right does Bernie have to ‘control’ who runs a team?

        1. @mike – We only have Parr’s belief that Ecclestone forced him out of the position. He has absolutely no proof that this is what actually happened. For all we know, Toto Wollf went to Bernie and asked him to hold off on making his Concorde offer until the team could restructure itself, then tipped Bernie off as to the best time to make that offer.

  10. Seems unlikely a team, which is after all a bushiness, would allow Bernie to dictate who they hire and fire.

    1. Well, according to Parr, he made the decision himself so the team (business) didn’t need to make the choice of having Bernie dictate it, or fight him over that, so no they didn’t, but otherwise they might have had to. You could say that a director when he sees the company can do better with someone else should really resign, I suppose, and that that is just what happened.

  11. Strange nobody has commented on Kimi’s Christmas video ….. Very strange seeing Kimi playing the clown :)

    1. I don’ think seeing KR playing the clown is strange at all. From all accounts he has a great sense of humour. I think people just have a mindset about KR because they think that his straight-faced, seemingly unexpressive mannerism means he is boring or uninterested or unmotivated, which I have never thought was the case at all. I though the video was great because it shows what I’m sure is more the real side of F1 than we usually see. I think if at times he appears uninterested it is because he is mostly interested in racing cars, and couldn’t care less about the politics of F1 or getting drawn into commenting about extraneous stuff that has nothing to do with actual racing.

    2. I saw it the other day via Facebook, made me smile and it seemed to do the same for Kimi as well!

  12. I wish everyone Who’s birthday it is today a really nice time to celebrate it with people they like and in good health!

    1. As Do I @bascb…, as do I. I definitely appreciate your generally positive outlook. Be well

  13. While I understand the COTD sentiments, F1 can’t stop trying to improve. Competitive racing is better than processional racing and there are lots of things that contribute to that with the tracks, rules, and budgets. So in that sense Bernie’s correct. (But if it ever gets to artificially scripting things for drama then I’m out.)

  14. @mazdachris That is an outstanding COTD and perfectly reflects my own feelings on the situation. I love this sport and all its little idiosyncrasies. I appreciate that not everything can be pure ‘entertainment’, as in an exciting race but that for me is exactly what makes sport what it is. It should little regard for sponsors, advertisers or board members but total respect for its competitors and fans. Of course, I appreciate that can’t happen and I’m fine with that but the sense of entitlement that goes with many F1 fans I think its a direct result of the way the FIA and F1 handle the sport. They make no secret of ‘improving the show’ but if I was them, I’d like to say, “don’t like it? tough, that’s sport, deal with it”.

    Regarding the Race the Race feature, I do always get involved and voice my opinion but that’s never anything more than ‘that was a bit boring, I hope it’s more entertaining next week’. I will always defend the sport, even against those who claim to love it so much they do nothing but criticise it.

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