Though Martin Bruble, Damon Hill, Johnny Herbert will all have to be rather silent on the matter. So likely not much to come from the BRDC.

Your statement is hypocritical if you pay for a TVL...you do know some of the money from the TVL goes to channels like ITV, so you are paying to watch channels with adverts, at least Sky give you the choice in that you don't have to subscribe to them.

Yes I do. You knew exactly what I meant.

Yes been a hypocrite...like most of those that are wanting things FTA, not prepared to pay for it, like to slag off Sky, but wet themselves silly if a channel that has been on sky for ages suddenly becomes FTA.

So you think it's a good thing that it's now been put behind a pay wall. Yes, that can only be good for the sport. It's a good thing that Sky is gobbling up everything and taking it away from the masses unless they pay up.

Doesn't bother me. 2019 is still a few years away, and if the sport doesn't improve as a spectacle it will only lose more viewers...Sky isn't killing F1, F1 is doing a good enough job on it's own.

Can't argue with that.

Looks like the new qualifying will remain in place after all. Looks like someone with an agenda got creative and did not submit a motion to go completly over to the previous qualification rules. Instead we had a half and half, 1st two rounds with new qualifying rules, but 3rd session with 2015 rules, as the owners etc had not been informed of this they did not vote to accept it, so we are stuck with the new qualifying, I bet Ecclestone is laughing for now.

I don't bother with qualifying, (unless it's on terrestrial) so will only pay £6.99 to watch the race live via Sky on NowTV.
Worst case scenario is 2 races Sky exclusive in a month. So £13.98 to get my "fix".
I didn't say it was value for money, but it's a whole lot cheaper than a monthly subscription to Sky when there is nothing else I want to watch.
Again, if I want to watch the Masters or the Open I buy a weeks pass which will cover it for £10.99.
Works for me.

I go with my android box 50 quid can pick up channels from all over the world can sit and watch Tanya Bauer all day

Well when the next qualifying session goes the same way as the first one they'll have no choice but to change it because people will just not bother watching it.

They're ok, but when you're used to HD quality it's too hard (for me at least) to go back to a relatively shitty stream from one of them .

Have experimented with Kodi and other software on android, windows etc and yeah they work and they give live coverage but the quality although watchable is no way good enough for me to enjoy on a big 49" Sony! At least with the torrents you get a full HD rip.

But agree with above, let's enjoy the 3 years we have left and see what the aftermarket situation for getting the coverage is by then!

I must say, it seems very blinkered, in an era where F1 is in danger of becoming marginalised as a sport, to willfully limit the number of viewers by signing an exclusive deal with pay-TV.

No doubt there will be people who're ready to say "Oh yeah, look how it RUINED premiership football!!!" but that would be to ignore the fact that football wasn't actually in decline in the same way that F1 currently is.

If I was cynical, I'd assume Bernie is planning on quitting in 2020 and he's intent on taking F1 with him.

I don't think that Sky is going to see a mass influx of new subscribers in 2019 as a result of this. They'll get some, for sure, but probably not as many as they expect.

More important, though, is that they're not going to EXPAND the future audience by relying on pay-TV.
At best, pay-TV means that the children of current fans will watch and might become fans themselves, thus meaning the fanbase remains static.
At best.

What you WON'T get, any more, is kids watching F1 while their dad snoozes quietly in his chair after Sunday lunch and coming to worship the likes of Senna, Villeneuve and Schumacher all by themselves.

In 30 year's time, I'd bet that there'll be no F1 fans who simply "discovered" it by themselves.
The only remaining fans will be the children of existing fans, and then only the ones who decided that they DO actually enjoy it.

And why is that? it's not because of TV ...it's because of the lack of spectacle, lets face it you must be a die hard fan to get any enjoyment out of the sport these days, for the most part or casual viewer it is dull, and that is what will kill the sport.

You mention Senna, quite simply there is no one on the grid like Senna, there are no personalities, you may say Hamilton is one, but he just comes across as a wannabe, look at me I'm so cool, I'm not going to play by the rules so much...but he's not cool, just a poor imitation of those from the past.

With keeping the 90s elimination qualifying and the pay to view wall you do start to ask yourself who has a motive to see F1 fail?

I agree with your 1st statement - lack of spectacle. If they want to keep the watching public interested they should stop being able to manipulate engines from the pit lane! Sky will find that the likes of me will definitely NOT PAY for the privilege to watch.

I don't think Louis is a wannabe. In my opinion he is a good driver and has always acknowledged the work of his pit crew. There are several other good drivers, Button, Potash, Palmer, Vettel, Ricardo et al. I think Rosberg behaves like a spoilt brat.

I didn't mean in the sense of being a driver...no doubting he is a very good driver, probably one of the best that has actually graced the sport...just his persona comes across as a wannabe, too me he looks as if he is trying to have a personality, it just seems fake rather than natural.

Personally I think they should add refuelling back, though it might not add anything to results or the sport in a racing sense...but it did provide a spectacle.

Oh, I agree.

I have no real idea what can be done to fix the sport but I tend to think that it's a very complex problem and most of the measures that have been proposed have ranged from the narrow-minded to the downright farcical.

I suppose, from a purely economic point of view, perhaps the Sky deal will provide F1 with enough funds to continue and that's all that's considered to be important.

To me, that's a bit like discovering that a relative has left you a trust-fund and thinking "Hey, that's great! I can get by on £800 per month so I'm set for life".
Well, yeah.
If all you hope to do is "get by" then you're all set.
As long as the cost of living doesn't go up, and as long as you don't incur any unforeseen expenses and as long as you have no ambitions to achieve anything more than "get by", of course.


As for the drivers, I think they're a sign of the times.

Back in the day, we had drivers like Hunt, Senna, Villeneuve, Lauda and (at the risk of drawing an obscure parallel) we had bands like Led Zeppelin, The Clash, Queen, Fleetwood Mac, The Who, Deep Purple etc.
The common factor was that both the F1 drivers AND the rock bands were out there, doing it "for real". They were having sex, getting drunk, taking drugs, having fights and then dusting themselves off and going and doing their job afterwards.

These days we're living in a more "controlled" era.
The charts are filled with (what I consider to be) vapid dirge churned out by contrived acts such as Justin Beiber, Katie Perry and One Direction who's every move is controlled by a group of managers, publicists and PR people and, frankly, the same is true of the F1 drivers.

Of course, I suppose we have to consider that if that's what young people DO currently find appealing then maybe it's okay for the F1 drivers to act in a manner that their would-be fans are likely to find appealing.

Personally, I feel a bit sorry for Hamilton.
He strikes me as somebody who's desperately trying to find a way to express his personality but he doesn't seem entirely sure what that personality is or how he might express it in a manner that his management and sponsors approve of.

I'm not sure if it's worse to have drivers like him, who appear desperate to BE "characters", or drivers like Vettel who seem content to be "cardboard cutouts" with no apparent life at all.

It would be more watchable if the driver had to change his own tyres (imo)

And again IMO I think Hamilton has matured (since he got rid of his father breathing down his neck) into quite a pleasant lad & will no doubt be on our screens for many years to come. (in one form or other)

Instead of changing their own tyres how about using the same rules as in the saloon car races?

Agree, Hamilton has matured.

Excuse my ignorance but what rules are they ?

BTC they have two races reverse pole grids, weight penalties, engine equalisation and all sorts. I don't think much of it would go over well to F1.

You are right but it does make for much better racing & watching don't you think?

BTCC doesn't have reverse pole grids. Race 1 is purely qualifying order. Race 2 is race 1 finishing order (last year's dalliance with race 1 fastest laps has been dropped) and race three is a random reverse draw with between top 6 - top 10 being swapped around. It wouldn't really be appropriate for F1 unless it moved to a multi-race format.

Some times I like it and sometimes I don't. Even that is just watching it for entertainment value and not really from a sporting perspective.

It's always a constant in motor sport that there are many things in the background effecting how a driver is doing well or in a certain grid position. Some times you like those things and sometimes you don't.