Talk:Formula One/Archive 1

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Costs

You will have to convince an American this is more expensive than CART or Indy racing.

The article does not tell what distinguish Formula One from other car races. Is it the design rules of the car called Formula One? I have seen some car makers touted their production cars using Formula One technology. But to a layman, what is Formula one exactly?

I have had no luck in trying to find comparative costs of F1 cars versus American Indy cars. Also I could not find any season attendance records for Formula One. NASCAR brought in 6 million spectators, over 190,000 per one day race in 1997. How does Formula One attendance compare? --rmhermen

I will work on addressing your points. Some brief one-liner replies to work into the article:

• Formula One is a category of automobile circuit racing. It has been, since its inception, the premier category of circuit racing in the world.
• It consists of an annual series of (currently) 17 races.
• Formula One cars are constructed by the teams (who are often, but not always, associated with major auto manufacturers) according to a set of rules. The teams must construct their own cars, and no other series races cars built according to the F1 regs (nobody could afford to).
• The races are around either purpose built road-racing circuits or adapted street circuits (no oval tracks), and are typically around 300 kilometres in length and take a little under two hours to complete. Racers stop for fuel and tyres at least once, sometimes more, and pit speed and strategy is crucial in deciding a race.
• Costs are way higher in F1 - the cars are custom-built rather than off-the-shelf like they are in Indycars, there are fewer restrictions on materials etc (to take a small example, Indycars use steel brakes but F1 uses carbon fibre brakes at about $7000 per set), and the consequent R&D efforts are out of this world. Not to mention Michael Schumacher's salary :)
• It's generally believed that the best circuit racers are in F1. Evidence for this includes that a large number of Indycar drivers go to F1 and few succeed, whilst Nigel Mansell went to Indycars in the early 1990's and beat the lot in his rookie year. If, as is rumoured, Jacques Villeneuve (F1 driver and former World Champion) goes back to CART in 2003, there will be a good chance to test this theory.
• As far as attendance goes, there are 17 races a year and they probably get raceday attendances of around 100-150,000 each, and total rollups of around 300,000 person/days each, so it's smaller than NASCAR in that respect. However, the TV audience for F1 is way bigger than NASCAR - F1 is global, while you'll struggle to find a NASCAR telecast outside the US. Indycars are maybe a little more global, but nowhere near F1.

Another candidate for most expensive sport is America's Cup Yachting. For example in 1999 Team NZ spent $US40 Million to compete in five races.

During this year's coverage of the British GP in the US on Speed TV, it was announced that a British media entity calculated the Ferrari team's cost to compete in the 2003 World Championship at $100,000 per mile. If you do the math, that's nearly $US 300 Million for the season, presumably all-inclusive. That said, the team is still making a lot of money. The contract with Marlboro for sponsorship signed in 2003 was a three year, $US750 million dollar piece of paper. Obviously, Shell, Vodafone, and AMD make up the remaining $US50 million or so, and then some, which is important given Michael Schumacher's intelligently-estimated salary of $US35 million annually.

While Eddie Irvine drove for Jaguar, he was the second-highest paid Ford employee behind the President and CEO whose name appears on the brand's marque. For an F1 driver to get between $5 million and $20 million is not uncommon, depending on appeal and skill. By contrast, the Rahal, Penske, or Ganassi teams racing in American series could fund their entire racing season with the money spent by most competitive teams on a single driver.

A new team entering the world championship must place a $US40 million, non-refundable, deposit to Bernie Eccelstone. This will allow them the right to race, assuming they can manufacture a car or obtain the exclusive intellectual property rights to one, per the F1 regulations. Don't forget that you have to purposely destroy your first one or two to complete the mandatory crash test approvals. Despite the immense global financial girth of a manufacturer like Ford, recent suggestions are that it's becoming too expensive for them to continue competing at this level (!). So much for race on Sunday, sell on Monday. I must say that knowing what it takes for a team to compete in F1, I am disinclined to purchase a Mercedes-Benz (now moreso than ever), a Honda, or a Ford/Jaguar. I am very inclined to look at BMW, Ferrari (yeah right), and even Toyota and Renault (though the latter is missing in the US). Toyota, Ferrari, and Renault are unique in that they manufacture each major component of the car themselves - engine, transmission, chassis. Other teams use a combination, although everything on any given car is handmade. The Sauber team is somewhat unique in that they receive equipment from Ferrari that is exactly one year old at each race. By all rights, their car is in fact the 2003 Ferrari - the reason they are not trouncing the rest of the field is a testament to the brilliance of Michael Schumacher, Ross Brawn, and the Scuderia team.

Also, on the above questions, further clarification. F1 represents the most popular spectator sport in the world, with the exception of the World Cup football (soccer) competition held every four years. With regard to the class of drivers, there are only 20 seats in F1 right now, and everyone (including NASCAR's Jeff Gordon) who races professionally realizes that F1 is the pinnacle of competitive driving. Alex Zanardi actually raced in F1 in the early 1990's, then came to CART and dominated. He attempted to return to F1, but could never adjust to the braking after having spent so many years in steel-rotored ChampCars. Jacques Villeneuve followed his father's footsteps, after whom a circuit in Canada is named, becoming a successful F1 driver after having dominated in CART the year prior. Christiano de Matta, a former CART driver, is now driving for Toyota in F1 (and hopes to keep his ride after a sub-stellar season). CART and IRL are feeder series to some extent to F1, not vice-versa. Regarding attendance, the USGP at Indianapolis is one of the more popular and less expensive F1 races on the schedule. About 100,000 - 150,000 people attend this incarnation of the USGP (new since 2000), at roughly $50 - $100 per seat. In Canada, by contrast, the weekend will run about $325 per person or so. The Monaco race, well, a business colleague spoke to a woman on a flight who lives in Monaco - she rents out her condo, which oversees a section of the circuit nicely, and is able to pay for her residence for the remainder of the year with the income. There is likely $10 billion in the water at the marina in the form of luxury yachts. It is the race to see, and if you have to ask, you can't afford it.

IMHO, Watching Michael Schumacher race is like watching Michael Jordan play basketball one-on-five and winning by 100 points, or like watching Tiger Woods win the U.S. Open by 72 strokes. I'm trying not to exaggerate, but his dominance at this - the highest level of motorsport in the world, is simultaneously unbelievable, unprecedented, and wonderful. He has been doing it for 10+ years, and the magic seems to be uniquely his. It's a great time to be a race fan. TM 01:30, 13 Jul 2004 (UTC)

Those are some interesting statistics. Good work. Maybe a section on costs could be incorporated into the article, outlining sources of income, budgets, where spending goes, cost of tickets etc. SamH 10:31, 13 Jul 2004 (UTC)

McLaren video

Check out the article on Formula One cars, I've added a Performance section that links to a very cool video Mercedes did years back comparing standard automobiles and the McLaren MP4/12 (I think) at Silverstone. TM 02:02, 22 Jul 2004 (UTC)

Jim Clark

I reverted Jimmy Clark back to Jim Clark, on the grounds that I usually hear & use the latter, and I just compared Google stats on:

• "jimmy clark" "grand prix" (354)
• "jim clark" "grand prix" (6930)

Hotlorp

Yep, Jim Clark is what I read most of the time. --Robert Merkel

Matra

Matra (later Ligier) removed.

Matra sold engines to Ligier and Ligier hired a lot of ex-Matra team members. But Ligier has never buyed the Matra team.

Various suggestions

The pinnacle of "auto racing"? Is that what Americans call it? The change to naturally-aspirated cars happened in 1989, before the banning of driver aids. Maybe it should include Benetton in the list of teams that have dominated since 1984 so it could say that those teams have won all the championships. The points scoring system is now out of date. Giuseppe Farina and Nino Farina are one and the same person, so perhaps one name should be used or an indication should be given that they are the same.

In the list of drivers, I don't think the following actually raced in Formula One (from 1950 onwards): Mario Umberto Borzacchini, Rudolf Caracciola, Enzo Ferrari, Vincenzo Lancia, Tazio Nuvolari, Bernd Rosemeyer, Nino Taruffi (is he the same person as Piero Taruffi?), Achille Varzi, Jean-Pierre Wimille. That's a third of the names mentioned. - Some guy

Hello, "guy". You clearly know a lot about Formula One motor racing. You can correct the things you point out as errors yourself, if you want, and write some more stuff to clarify everything. Oh, go on, you know you want to really... :) Oh yes, and you can use "----" to create a horizontal line to separate your text from what has gone before, to make it clear where your bit starts. -- Oliver P. 15:13 Mar 22, 2003 (UTC)

A big problem is that formula one existed before world championship Tazio Nuvolari for instance never raced any world championship race.

Ericd 15:45 Mar 22, 2003 (UTC)

Formula 1 (at first known as "Formula A") as a formula started out in 1946 and the World Championship began in 1950, so it doesn't predate it by much. The problem is that Nuvolari and some of the others "Some guy" mentioned are sometimes included on account of the fact that they were part of the pre-war racing scene, which was in several ways a precursor to the post-war championship, though it was known as what the intro of this article calls "Grand Prix racing". I agree that those drivers perhaps shouldn't be included here and thus a separate article on the larger Grand Prix racing scene should exist. F1 and GP racing are not necessarily the same. Yet another issue would be non-championship F1 races: do we include them in this page or in a more inclusive GP racing article (and reserve this page strictly to the WDC and WCC)? I have plans for this page, but I'm awaiting possible rule-changes prior to the European season. -Scipius 16:22 Mar 22, 2003 (UTC)

OK formula One is post-war while Grand Prix is pre-war and world championship came after formula One... This need to be written somewhere. Ericd 16:26 Mar 22, 2003 (UTC)

I forgot something Formula One differs from World championship at the end of the 50's the world drivers championship was raced by formula two. Who feel to reorder it all in 3 articles with appropriate links : - Formula One (focusing IMHO on the cars and technical rules) - World drivers championship (focusing on the drivers) - Grand Prix (focusing on the pre championship era ?) Ericd 16:32 Mar 22, 2003 (UTC)

The "F2" years were 1952 and 1953, but it doesn't matter much as there was no F1 during those years so F2 became the de-facto "F1" IIRC. I'd suggest we not split the formula as such from the Championship. The problem is that currently people associate both "Formula One" and GP racing with the F1 WC and would expect an article named "Formula One" to be about that. GP racing and non-championship F1 races (last held in 1982 I believe) are historic phenomena and better dealt with in their own separate articles IMO. -Scipius 16:55 Mar 22, 2003 (UTC)

I'm not sure a complete article about formula One will be huge I think it's in fact a huge topic (something like photography) I believe it would be better to make separate arrticle what about an starting a list of topics related to car racing ?

Ericd 17:34 Mar 22, 2003 (UTC)

Obviously there's a lot to say about F1. I was thinking more along the lines of what we do with the country articles, i.e. split the info over several topical pages and have the central page be a summary of them. We could then have articles on History, Technology, Rules, and lists of circuits and drivers where we're not limited to concern over a single page getting too large. Any meta-topic on car racing would likely be best directed to Auto racing. -Scipius 17:55 Mar 22, 2003 (UTC)

Driver nationalities

Why is Jim Clark Scotland whilst other GB drivers are Great Britain? -- SGBailey 2003-06-17

Jackie Stewart too. Some one seems to have confused Britain with England. It should be changed - Efghij

Unfortunately Great Britain is unsuitable for us as well, given that it points to an article on the island rather than the country. I've changed it to United Kingdom. I also did a bit of restructuring. This page was getting rather large, so I've moved the unsightly lists to separate pages. The drivers were moved to a List of racing drivers, also given that some were not really "F1" drivers. The tables of champions have been moved up for a more organic result. Finally, I added two former circuits to "Past Championship Events", and renamed the GPs to a format ("Country" GP) that seems to be the more conventional use, but I also removed the years, as they were in many cases misleading or inaccurate given that they were supposed to be "Championship Events". We can deal with those in their respective articles. -Scipius 20:06 18 Jun 2003 (UTC)

You can't just keep swapping Great Britain and United Kingdom, as they're not the same. Great Britain excludes Northern Ireland, and several islands. For example, Eddie Irvine isn't from Great Britain, but is from United Kingdom.

Updating required

The page desperately needs updating, particularly the bits re 2003 and 2004. I'd have a go but believe there are wikipedians with better knowledge on this who could do a better job. Moriori 20:45, Feb 14, 2004 (UTC)

Duly noted - in fact I think the 2003-2004 part does not belong on the Formula One page at all. Someone has created an unfinished Formula One rules page - perhaps we could do as they do with countries and split up rules, racing & strategy, technical aspects of cars and engines, etc each into their own pages. The Rules page could detail the complete evolution of FIA rules with a brief summary and link on the main Formula One page. Opinions? Rdsmith4 02:15, 6 May 2004 (UTC) ...Feeling rather silly just now as the exact same thing was proposed by Scipius above and I did not notice it. Great minds think alike I suppose. Rdsmith4 02:23, 6 May 2004 (UTC)

WDC chart and division of article

Someone put teams into the WDC chart, which makes the page feel a bit cluttered I think - oh well, in any case they aren't finished (no 1950-1981). If I had a resource for this I'd do it myself. I'll look for one. (Rdsmith4)

It was me that did that. You can find the neccesary information at www.f1.com --Tim 09:25, May 5, 2004 (UTC)

I have completed the list of teams in the WDC table. I agree that it looks cluttered and it also makes the text to the left uneasy on the eye. However, I feel that including the teams in the table is important and I would rather remove the nationalities. Your opinions please?

Ps. it would be useful if you signed your messages in future. 999 17:41, 5 May 2004 (UTC)

Sorry about that. Good work and I agree that the nationalities are not necessary (if anything they can be in parentheses in the same cell as the driver, that's how it is on all the individual grand prix pages). It's rather irritating that Juan Manuel Fangio drove with both Maserati and Mercedes in 1954 because that takes up lots of space. Oh well. Rdsmith4 18:37, 5 May 2004 (UTC)

Thanks for your response. I have now removed the nationalities. I agree that Fangio driving for two teams in one season teams is annoying but for the sake of accuracy I had to include them both. 999 19:43, 5 May 2004 (UTC)

I will write a short bit on the future of Formula One after todays meetings and new rules shortly. --Tim 20:15, May 5, 2004 (UTC)

My thoughts: Why not move the WDC and WCC off this F1 page entirely, and make a List of Formula One Champions page? The WCC table in particular bugs me (no goo distinction between the two columns), but putting it full-length would be even more akward. Why not split it off and make it entirely seperate?

Second, the 2003 and 2004 sections should be cut as suggested. I did some of the F1 Rules & Regs page, should I summarize and remove the respective parts on the mainpage?

And one other comment..why are the participating teams listed alphabetically, when the traditional arrangement is by car #s?

Willing to work, but not wanting to tear up an important page like this without consensus first. Kurohone 07:00, 6 May 2004 (UTC)

To be honest, I don't think we should have a 2003 and 2004 bit at all. We shouldn't just pick out two years, ok they were important, but so were others. In line with my section, The Future, we could call it 'The Current Climate' or something and have all that in there, and also some of the fortunes of the teams. What do people think? --Tim 08:09, May 6, 2004 (UTC)

I agree that the 2003 and 2004 sections are out of place. There has been many other major rule changes in F1 but they are not given the same attention. Also, the 2003 section is written from the perspective of 2003, not in past tense. They do however have some good content that I don't think should be scrapped entirely. My opinion is that the current sporting and technical regulations should be covered in a fair amount of detail in the cars and racing sections of the F1 page. This is because it is these regulations that define what the sport is CURRENTLY. As for historical regulations (including those 2003 changes), I think that the major ones should be summarised in the history section and then covered in more detail in a different article, possibly entitled 'History of Formula One'. This new article could incorporate the content from the rules and regs article. I think that the future of F1 section is best kept on the F1 page though. This would leave us with:

• A section summarising what the sport used to be with a separate page that has more detail (History section and new article)
• Sections about what the sport currently is, as defined by the 2004 regs (Cars and Racing sections)
• A section about what the sport might be in future. (Future of F1 section)

The WDC and WCC tables don't bother me personally but I'm OK with them being given their own page. 999 09:50, 6 May 2004 (UTC)

I agree that the "Formula One" page should only describe the rules as they are right now, but I think past and future FIA regulations would be better on a single subpage (it's already there: Formula One rules). Rdsmith4 13:45, 6 May 2004 (UTC)

I agree with Kuhurone about teams by car number and not alphabetical, same with WDC and WCC charts on their own pages. Rdsmith4 13:45, 6 May 2004 (UTC)

Take a look at what I did with the List of Champions and the History of F1 page. Agree with it so far? The 2003-2004 section still confounds me though..it's not 'history' and it's not so much 'regulations' (though that could be extracted tot eh current Formula One rules article)...but this is a big thing for the sport nonetheless. Where do we put the current political crap? --Kurohone 06:35, 7 May 2004 (UTC)

Its looking good. We need one of those boxes though that makes it into a kind of webring saying what the next page is, ie, future, history, champions etc. Basically I think the spli needs to be more visible. --Tim 07:43, May 7, 2004 (UTC)

Good work. The F1 page is now far more cohesive. I'll try to contribute as much as I can to the history page but my knowledge of F1 history is quite limited. I think any important content from the 03 and 04 sections should be moved to the relevant place. So the fact that launch control is not allowed should be put into the cars section, the parc ferme rules should be put into the racing section etc. As for the political stuff, my opinion is that if it's relevant to the future of F1 then put it in that section, if not, scrap it.

Also, as we have a new, more comprehensive history page, are we going to scrap the F1 Rules page? I don't intend to offend anyone who has worked on it but to me it doesn't seem to fit in anywhere. 999 09:42, 7 May 2004 (UTC)

I think the Rules page should stay, as it's concerned with the regulations, and not the history...though the two are closely intertwined. But in most histories of F1 I've read the technical data gets lost in the color. It's not the most interesting thing, but I think it deserves it's own place.

As for the webring thing, I think some sort of infobox at the bottom would be good, but not necessarily a Next\Previous sorta thing. The only sort of 'linear' progression that it would be suitable for would be WDC and WCC, and taht's too limited. I don't know how to code a box like that anyways, but if anyone thinks they can organize it, do it! --Kurohone 13:11, 7 May 2004 (UTC)

Just create a page in the Template namespace, i.e. Template:Formula One (space ARE allowed). To place it in a page type {{Template:whatever}}. There already is one which lists all the races (Template:Formula_One_races).

...so here is a first draft: Template:Formula One. :::enjoy. Rdsmith4 20:06, 7 May 2004 (UTC)

Thanks! That's really cool stuff. But now my next question...is there some sort of limit (official or unofficial) to the size of a Template? If we merge Formula_One, Formula_One_races, and a theoretical Formula_One_Teams would that be too big and too akward to use across several pages? --Kurohone 23:41, 7 May 2004 (UTC)

No, not at all - for a prime example of a big one, see Politics of the United Kingdom. Recommend this be used sparingly, of course, and keep {{msg:Formula_One_races}} or something like it for the individual GP pages. Rdsmith4 05:02, 8 May 2004 (UTC)

Merge revert

RickK merged "Formula One racing" with "Formula One," which I had just finished separating - I think I will go ahead and revert it and put a notice to clarify the difference on the racing page. So you know. Rdsmith4 16:37, 10 May 2004 (UTC)

Driver list

Now that the mid-season driver shuffle seems to have started, what do we do? Timo Glock replaced Geogrio Pantano for the last race in Canada (for Jordan), if he starts again in America do we change the listing then? Kurohone 05:16, 18 Jun 2004 (UTC)

Pantano appears to be back in for the USGP. I think two races is a good wait time before changing a driver - we should certainly leave Ralf Schumacher in, for example, despite the fact that he'll probably be missing the French GP due to his crash last weekend. Rdsmith4 16:50, 23 Jun 2004 (UTC)

People section

Hey Ericd - is there any burning necessity to leave Jean Todt, Ross Brawn, Sir Frank and Ron Dennis on the Formula One page? It's meant to just be a summary of people in F1, and they're still on the list at List of Formula One people. None of them have terribly interesting personalities (besides Ron being an arrogant prat and Todt having a large nose) so I thought in the interest of less redundancy we could get rid of them. Just my opinion. Rdsmith4 21:47, 21 Jul 2004 (UTC)

Agree with Rdsmith4 above, the People section has bugged me for a bit. Feels too much like a 'Hey, look at the cool people who like us!' groupie-thing, with no rhyme or reason. Briatore, Todt, Dennis, of course. But Heidi Klum? Tony George? Why Eddie Irvine and not Jackie Stewart? Irrational and doesn't fit well with the historical/techinical aspect of the main page. Kurohone 03:02, 22 Jul 2004 (UTC)

Thanks for your response but I'm not sure we're in perfect agreement. I was in favor of removing Todt, Dennis, Brawn, SFWilliams and Head from the Formula One#People list in the interest of having the summary actually be a summary and not a reproduction of the page List of Formula One people. On second thought, of course, they aren't the most irrelevant names on the list, and it could use some improvement.

I wrote most of the names & descriptions listed on Formula One#People in the first place - this originally included Klum, Naomi Campbell and a few other quasi-relevant people because I couldn't think of any others at the time. I agree, now that there is a better list on its own page, that the models and Tony George can be got rid of. Feel free to add any other drivers or whoever you think is especially notable. Rdsmith4 04:17, 22 Jul 2004 (UTC)

Another discussion on the same subject was going on on my talk page : User talk:Ericd. Well this F1 people section is at second though a little bit to "people" in the bad sense to my taste. And I think a little wrong IMO the "peopleization" of F1 is a rather recent phenomenom.

Ericd 22:19, 22 Jul 2004 (UTC)

Right then. I will attempt to revise the People section, get rid of the "glamour magazine" people, and replace them with ones who have had actual influence on the sport. Rdsmith4 18:07, 1 Aug 2004 (UTC)

What about splitting in two section "influential people" and "glamour side of F1" ?

Ericd 19:05, 1 Aug 2004 (UTC)

Standard -> AE spelling changes

I've noticed that there has been quite a substantial shift in this article in the last few days from Standard English to American English spellings, which strikes me as a little odd for a European-centred sport.
Thoughts?
James F. (talk) 03:50, 25 Aug 2004 (UTC)

That may have been me. I was doing it for consistency and since I'm American it was much easier to Americanize them all. I don't think it's terribly relevant; feel free to change them, of course. Rdsmith4 04:09, 30 Aug 2004 (UTC)

GP pages

I have a couple suggestions to make; I thought I'd ask before editing myself, because I think the changes I have in mind are fairly major.

Having a look through some of the Formula One articles, it strikes me that things could be more consistent.

A lot of the articles on Grands Prix contain information which would be better suited to the articles on the circuit, most of which are empty. For instance, Malaysian Grand Prix contains the following: "The venue is widely regarded as the standard setter for all other Grand Prix venues with palatial pit and press complexes, and spectacular grandstands. The circuit itself is 3.444 miles long and is noted for its sweeping corners and wide straights. It was designed, in common with other new facilities in Shanghai and Bahrain, by German designer Hermann Tilke." I feel this would be better suited to Sepang International Circuit, whilst Malaysian Grand Prix should be more about results, history, etc. A link to the circuit article from the grand prix article would suffice. The circuit article could also mention other non-Formula 1 races held there. An excellent example is the distinction between European Grand Prix and [[N%FCrburgring]]. What do others think?

Concentrating on the grand prix articles only this time. Some, like Australian Grand Prix have the results in a table. Meanwhile, others, such as Belgian Grand Prix do not. Perhaps this is a work-in-progress though, I don't know; thought I'd point it out. doctorvee 00:04, 30 Aug 2004 (UTC)

It's all really a work-in-progress, though no one is working on the GP pages right now, I don't think. I intended to do it eventually - or so I tell myself - but I agree completely with your criticisms. I'll work on standardizing the GP results into tables, but be bold and feel free to separate the GP/circuit info yourself. Excellent suggestions. Rdsmith4 04:02, 30 Aug 2004 (UTC)

Thanks. I've started work on the GP / circuit separation. doctorvee 15:13, 30 Aug 2004 (UTC)

If we want to be accurate a race can last more than 2 hours for the winner the race end when the winner cross the victory lane after 2 hours and in fact the race is longer the real end is when the last car in the same lap as the winner cross the victory lane. Ericd 22:34, 8 Sep 2004 (UTC)

grands prix

A well-meaning and slightly pedantic anon has just changed all instances of grands prix to grand prix. The proper French plural is grand prix, but grands prix is in common English usage (and the Times of London says in their style guide - scroll down to Motor Racing - that the 's' must be included). The OED is silent on the subject. Also, grands prix is the Wikipedia status quo and it would be silly to change every instance. Consequently I reverted the changes (and so did DoctorVee at nearly the same time). Rdsmith4 23:01, 18 Sep 2004 (UTC)