Schumifan wrote:
Coldtyre wrote:
Objectively speaking though, is the challenge even as hard as it used to be?
Opening up St Devote, Swimming Pool and Rascasse has removed a lot of the challenge tbh.
Got to admit I'm surprised that so many people (not specifically on here, but the internet in general) are getting behind this idea that Monaco's had its day. Yeah it's most likely going to be a procession, we know that. It's still one of the most unique motor races in the world and one I look forward to every year. Ditching Monaco from the F1 calendar is almost unthinkable to me.
It's because it's never going to happen
F1 gets way more publicity out of that race than it does almost the rest of the calender put together, it's never, ever going to do anything to lose monaco
If you click around the F1 discussion forums outside of TBK and into the wider world of either casual fans (reddit) or more hardcore fans (motorsport magazine/autosport forums) you begin to realise what a backwards enclave of dated opinions this place can be sometimes
I don't count myself immune to this either, with my holy gravel traps and Ben Edwards is GOD opinions, but the more you consume F1 media, opinions, strategys, business plans and whatever else outside us phsyically aging but mentally regressing to the teenagers we once were when we first posted on here, you realise the world of F1 is rapidly moving on without us
We want it to be open tech regs, tracks that punish drivers, racing in the wettest of wet and anything else the sport was when we first started watching
But the world of technology, the enviroment, attitudes to safety and the legal challenges the sport faces putting 20 guys in high risk scenario, trying their best not to kill any of them and not get put in jail if the worst thing does happen means the sport can never be what it was when we got addicted to it, not to mention the challenges of social media marketing making it seem like something it's not while questing after audiences we don't even want at the track in the first place, getting in the way of our damn good seats and actually paying attention to the race.
Monaco cannot and will not go anywhere. It's not F1's Indy 500 in terms of race spectacle, but it is their marquee event where they wine and dine sponsors, court celebrities and basically do all that stuff behind the scenes that we all hate because it distracts us from the racing but keeps the wheels of F1 turning in the long run.
We have to try and look to the future and not get stuck in the past. The future is coming faster than we think, it's full of alternative fuels and technology that'll probably eliminate car to car crashes completely, it'll suck compared to the past but it'll be better than no racing at all (which is also a possibility if the world fully divorces itself from the car)
@
As a lot of cities are turning away from the car and some are banning ICE machines from their towns completely, its inevitable that at some point Formula E and Formula 1 will have to co-exist if not become one championship eventually, hell I think that the FIA confirmed this when the thing was launched all that time ago, but put it on an exclusive contract that it was the only single seater championship that could run electric engines for 30 years or so
When that contract is up, expect it to become formula 1 or Formula 1 to become it, whichever is bigger at that point
