Would this make races shorter? Hell yeah! But look at MotoGP – 40 minutes and it’s done. Yet, there’s more overtaking in one MotoGP race than in 7 F1 races.

F1 is fundamentally flawed, IMHO.

I would agree that American series’s like IRL and ChampCar are definitely fan-friendly. NASCAR does very well in this area as well. It is a shame that F1 is hard to follow, particularly in countries where there is such a huge potential market. Losing the USGP will not be good for Americans, especially the ~100k who like to attend the event each year (I should point out that if the traditional European circuits could hold as many people, they probably would do on race day).

Maybe if Bernie can sort out his issues with the branding and presentation of F1, and if Max can stop changing the rules every five minutes and try listening to the fans, then F1 may have a chance should it ever return to the US.

I live in the state of Colorado, USA and have to say that being an F1 fan in America is not easy at all!

With so many racing-series available in the US that are perceived as more fan-friendly than F1, it is hard to gather a following.

Even though I do not find F1 boring at all (as you implied, when racing is less than exciting you can always resort to F1 backstage news), a lot of Americans do – Most Americans are speed-oriented people (as the Meanwhile in America article explains). And they have plenty of that!

Easy-viewing series as NASCAR, IRL or CHAMP offer lots of speed and fan-friendly facts. Not to mention that cars are driven by your avergae joe! F1, in contrast, requires a lot of thinking and analysis for full enjoyment…something that a lot of thrill-seeking / short-span attention fans are not willing to put in…

On the bright side (if there is one after the USGP being taken away), a great team of commentators from a US cable channel (Speed) has done an impressive job to translate F1 to new fans and make it more interesting…

Good blog mate!

However, most of my friends couldn’t care less about F1. These can be separated into three roughly equal categories; the ones that are put off by the word “sport”, the ones that are put off by the word “motor” and the ones that were turned off by its repetitiveness and negativity (several of my friends think Michael Schumacher is currently leading the world championship, and one quite seriously asked me two years ago which team Damon Hill was driving for that year). The damage was done in the late 90s and early 00s. Seems strange, since I remember the late 90s to be the least repetitive and negative era of the 14 years I have watched so far, but there you go.

It is the latter third that F1 needs to attract. The current attractions appear not to be having much effect on the people I know; none of my friends have even heard of Lewis Hamilton as far as I am aware. The only glimmer of fresh interest recently was when Singapore announced it was having a race – and that was only because two of my friends are Singaporean. What F1 needs to get a new audience is to attract general news headlines for something radically different from what other sports are doing that casts positive light. If it makes people figure out that fresh talent has replaced Michael Schumacher at the top of the F1 tree, so much the better. However, even Lewis-level hype isn’t working, as the prospective fans don’t pay attention to that sort of thing. New heroes are two-a-penny these days…

So many times races are full of potential and it never quite happens, then it’s all about the what ifs.

I think you can’t really be a part time fan of F1, it’s not really a sport you can dip in and out of, because then it is dull. Bunch of cars following each other round a track, occasionally spinning off the road, and if we’re very lucky catching a flash fire.

Once you start getting into it, following who’s doing what, and why, then it starts to become more interesting.

Course I’m bound to say that, as I give up my entire weekends to talk about it. But I remember when I used to sit and wonder why the hell we were wasting our time when there were beaches to visit and pictures to be taken. Now I know, all the facts were gently settling into my mind, and it was an investment!

I also think that as the fans get more knowledgeable, the sport is eventually going to have to start taking notice and making some changes. I’m not holding my breath though.

Yeah, Heikki’s cookery lesson was a bit stupid. The coverage could definitely improve, and would help entice new fans. I think Brundle is driving a Formula One car again for some insightful segments for later in the season. But ITV don’t do these nearly as often as they could do. I mean, they have a relatively recent F1 driver on their team, why not make full use of him?

For alternative coverage, I know a lot of people listen to Radio Five Live and watch the live timing on F1.com. It is particularly useful for the advert breaks. For alternative televisual coverage, I think we are in for a quite a wait.

Even I find sometimes as the cars process around the track in single file for an hour and a half, that the actual race is probably the dullest part!

I’m not into many other sports – but those I am into are high-octane and rely as much on technology and the team as they do on the actions of a single person (Basically, I watch F1, AirRace and World Rally)

Now if I could find an alternative form of coverage for race day on F1…

@Neeraj: Thanks for the compliment, always appreciated. It’s good to hear why other people enjoy F1 as we all tend to have our own (and often differing) reasons.

@Christopher: Sorry your comment went to moderation, but it’s up now. I have a similar view of football, and even considered mentioning it in the post. However, it was long enough without the inclusion of my views on 22 men and women kicking bags of wind about.

@Craig: Thanks for the confidence boost. I tend to be quite self-conscious, so I appreciate your kind words. The FIA, I feel, do more to damage the sport than to encourage new viewers. The constant changing of the rules makes the sport hard to follow from one season to the next, but I agree they need to find the right balance. It’s just a shame that they will spend 10 years altering the format 20 times to get there.

As for F1, it’s like any sport – some races are boring (Monaco usually!) in the same way that a football match can be boring or a cricket match can be boring.

Beforehand, you can’t be sure of what is going to happen though which I think is what makes people come back for more time and again. Even when Schumacher was winning nonstop it didn’t stop me watching – he had no right to win some of those races, yet he would pull something out the bag and manage to snatch victory one way or another!

Unlike a lot of sports, there is so much more to F1 than meets the eye – the pit-stop strategies, the complex technologies that go into making an F1 car etc – which can make it hard for someone to pick up the sport straight away. I’ve watched Grand Prix since I was a kid when my dad would watch them, but only really became hooked when David Coulthard started racing with Williams as he is from near where I stay so that added a “local hero” dimension to watching it on TV.

The fact F1 races are usually on in the middle of the day, every couple of weeks for only part of the year means it will never be as accepted as something like football which seems to be on in one form or another pretty much every day.

Some altering of the rules would no doubt help intice some fans of other motorsports to give it a second chance if there really was the opportunity of more overtaking etc, but whether the FIA can find the right mix of technological freedom and interesting, exciting viewing remains to be seen.

I think Lewis Hamilton is going to have a huge impact on the sport and (re)attracting viewers.

My two cents about the same.

I love watching Formula 1 simply because of the deep thinking process that it involves. Thinking about all the mind-boggling technologies it uses. Thinking about the equally impressive numbers that it throws up. Thinking about how a team, in 2 weeks time, can come up from 5 position to 2nd position and obviously the other way around. Thinking about what strategy will be used by a team to gain advantage during pit-stops. Thinking about the sheer number of people that are working behind the scenes to help team win a Grand Prix. And not to forgot to think about from where the next controversy will creep up.

For me, it’s just not a gratifying sport. I understand all the technicalities, the tweaks and modifications, the attempts to shave even split seconds off lap times. I just dont find it a very interesting thing to watch.

In general, I rarely watch sport, but when I do, it’s usually the extreme sports like skateboarding and Motorcross and very occasionally, contact sports like Ice Hockey and Rugby. Instant gratification. You get to see impressive things happen and you don’t have to wait all day to see.

I’d be sat around all day waiting for something visually appealing to happen – a crash, a streaker, etc.

There’s also the fact that I just don’t like sport. I’m a crotchety English man, and I generally bemoan most forms of sport. The sports I mentioned previously are easy to get into occasionally, but not something I have to make a commitment to. Whereas with something like F1, there’s all these teams, rules, techniques, and who knows what else, to bear in mind. You need to make a real commitment to be an F1 fan, and I’m just not prepared to make a commitment to any sport.

There you have it.

All that said, I did have a quick poke around, and you write well on the subject. I’m sure those that do enjoy F1 appreciate it. So keep it up.