TBK-Light.com

F1 really is out of touch.

It's this person who is leading the charge of the entirity of F1 and is pushing Countries / Cities for pay huge fees for staging races.

I'd argue that it's less and less Bernie now. No matter what, he is still a motoring enthusiast and he knows that Spa is a great circuit and F1 needs to go there. He has this corporate exterior, but he has helped Spa on occasion.

His hands are tied by CVC, who don't care about the sport, just the money. Its them who don't give a shit about F1's history.

_________________
Dan Wheldon | 1978 - 2011

And the rest of F1 goes along with it.

Bernie is in a way, losing control of F1.

It's like when everyone moans about Tilke. His hands are tied by the FIA's ridiculously shitty regulations on circuit construction.

Bernie has to make money, but he does have the interests of the sport in mind. People use a lot of instances of abandoning Europe to go to Asia, but they forget that a lot of sport is going that way and that he kept Silverstone on the calendar and has lower fees for some European rounds.

_________________
Dan Wheldon | 1978 - 2011

In essence you could say F1 wouldn't survive if it remained the F1 we all want: European circuits that are old and classy.

Pretty much. If you want to watch races on those tracks, its F2 and the like. F1 is helped by being the first motor racing formula and the most popular, but you only have to see how difficult running a series is by the way Superleague and A1GP lasted about three years each.

We can dream about F1 coming back to some of the old school European tracks (I do) but currently, F1 goes where the money goes. Which is Asia and the Middle East.

_________________
Dan Wheldon | 1978 - 2011

China and Korea GP will be replaced by GP of East Barhein, GP of West Bahrein, GP of North Bahrein, GP of North-North-East Bahrein, GP of Brunei, GP of North Qatar, GP of South Qatar, GP of Middle Qatar!

I really wonder how F1 would have looked like if the money generated by the races would mainly go to the teams making those races possible rather than going to Bernie and CVC.

Would it kept some of the teams (Toyota, Honda, BMW) in F1 or would it simply stay the same but with larger budgets? The latter seems more likely....

It depends. I mean, money was an issue but success was as well.

BMW's pull-out is questionable - was it the dreadful 2009 showing, or was it financial? They say the latter, but we'll never 100% know. Toyota were affected by the financial crisis, as proved by the fact many believed their 2010 car to be bloody good. Equally, would they have pulled out had they scored that elusive win? Ditto Honda in a way - they made the terrible decision to go without sponsors and then the financial crisis struck mid-2008. They knew the Brawn was good, hence they gave them a large sum of money to continue.

There's no doubt that more money was needed, but had there been enough success to justify their spending then they would still be around.

_________________
Dan Wheldon | 1978 - 2011

I don't know if the problem is F1/Bernie. The issue is the same as Istanbul Park, which is a pitty. Spa is located in quite a poor country(relatively to other Europeans) and that will eventually threaten it's position in the calendar every once in a while.
It would be better if 2 good tracks like that would be located in other countries. One can blame Bernie as much as he wants for asking too much money to host the event but that's called "market". If there are places offering/capable of paying more, then Bernie have to choose the other shitty track once the former can't cover the offer. Even the teams wants as much money as they can get and track layout/history is a lower priority to them.

Belgium is a 'poor' country?

Interesting. I've been there twice and never thought it was 'poor'.

The only problem that Spa has, like so many other F1 tracks, is that the government will not pay (or not pay enough) to host the race.

_________________
Dan Wheldon ¦ 1978-2011
Marco Simoncelli ¦ 1987-2011
Jules Bianchi ¦ 1989-2015
Justin Wilson ¦ 1978-2015

Yeah, I know he's mad and I don't care. I do not care. I did not care then. I do not care now. I'm here to race him.

I'd have said the exact opposite to be honest.

The problem is that the government isn't willing to pay so much for it. And the eco-nutties protesting. And the fact that as much as we love it, the actual attendance is quite low; it just seems larger because there's trees etc rather than 20,000 grandstands like in Korea.

_________________
Dan Wheldon | 1978 - 2011

Because tickets are so much because of the race fee.

The sooner these high fee paying countries with no attendance bugger off the better. Then places like Spa could pay less and bring ticket prices down.

How drivers didn't snap their necks every time they hit a wall in those things still surprises me.

I really wish Toyota stuck around for just one more year.

Jos Verstappen in jail for trying to kill his former girlfriend?

According to this site, he had been charged for homicide (I don't know how exactly to say it in english):
http://motorsport.nextgen-auto.com/Vers ... 35298.html

Damn, being a Schumacher teammate during the Benetton era, it's not a good deal!

He's paying for his actions, simple as that, don't feel sorry for him at all

_________________
"An idea whose time has come cannot be stopped by any army or any government"


3x TBKL rFactor Hillclimb champion

Attempted homicide... she is not dead

And it is just the initial charge they hold him in jail for during the investigation. If it goes to court, the charge and/or final judgement by the court can be completely different. Just pointing out that we can only speculate at the moment on what actually happened.

I'm not sorry for him, even I used to be a great fan of the driver.
I just wonder how can people be so dumb, as I just heard the story of Verstappen punching a boy with his father on a karting track.

If he really tried to kill her, sure, he has to pay. Exactly like the J.J. Letho case.