Sometimes there's races on back to back weeks, sometimes every other, sometimes every 3 weeks like now. It just varies. You have to realize the logistics of having to move everything to do with putting on a race. It's mindblowing. Plus unlike NASCAR or Indycar, these races are all over the world, not just in one country.
They were originally scheduled to have two races in the books. With Easter being early and Australia being tight with covid regulations they had an odd opening to the season.
How do the teams travel everything? Do they all just own/have access to cargo planes to transport it all?
Had a couple of conversations lately with people in similar industries. Does any sport/league/whatever make better #content than F1? The brand itself is incredible on social/YouTube and hits at an extremely high average. Then you have all of the individual teams who are also putting out really good stuff. And most of the drivers are really good at having handlers that help their personality shine through on social no other league can really compete
I was down a rabbit hole and the Mercedes-AMG F1 channel was great. That Allison guy went in depth about rule changes and even did a race debrief after Bahrain, talking strategy. Was really candid.
Every golf fan looks at F1 and looks back at the PGA with complete disgust. To be honest the access they give today would never have happened under Bernie
F1 doesn't jam some sponsored content ranking down your throat that nobody understands or gives a shit about in courier cup points. F1 doesn't whitewash over every personality and want to show nothing but gentleman to the world.
Do they put their big semi trucks in like a military style cargo plane to move them from continent to continent? Barge em? edit: looks like I should keep reading.
Plus what's interesting is the demographics do have some similarities in that they are both global sports with participants from all over the world and unlike soccer, basketball, baseball, football....you (unfortunately) do need money to really get involved in the sport from a young age. Actually even moreso in F1 than golf which is a rarity for any other sport. I mean Lewis' family is about the only F1 driver I can think of that really bootstrapped it from the get go. I'm sure there are others but it's even more rare in F1 than in golf.
Not sure. The other weird thing about F1 in particular too is a kids family may not have money growing up but they end up getting backers along the way that do....like Sergio Perez/Carlos Slim. That's tougher to hate on from the drivers stand point though because if they get good enough that someone who's not family wants to give them money then that's well earned. I just hate the "it's who you know" part of that when it comes to getting a seat but money talks and the sport is inherently expensive af.
I know it’s not a full sport wide thing, but the only thing close that I can think of is the Masters. They always put out incredible content on their social media/YouTube and it never has ads or anything sponsored. With that said F1’s got tremendous people who help make the content that much better. The weekend warmup with Will Buxton and Lawrence Burreto on F1’s YouTube might be the best thing out there. It is be such easy, and useful content for all types of fans, Both die hard or brand new to understand what the weekend has in store (PGA are you listening) Another sneaky good thing they’ve got going is the Beyond the Grid podcast with Tom Clarkson. It’s done on F1’s official channel, it’s weekly during the season and almost always has someone super interesting, or super in the moment on. A good example of this is they had the medical car driver and doctor on the pod 48 hours after the Roman accident in Bahrain, Seb right after he announced to Aston Martin, etc. They are the gold standard, and frankly it’s not even close. It’s no wonder their sport is growing in terms of viewership and interaction. All that great content, plus Netflix goes to show that maybe Liberty Media knows what they’re doing. If only they ran the Braves that way too
Favorite part of following F1? All the content. There's sooooo much from ESPN/Sky down to each team basically documenting everything. It's awesome.
I love seeing how each race weekend evolves. That aspect is going to be all over the place this year.
Assuming the date stays the same, it's gonna be a wild couple of weeks in Istanbul. They host the Champions League final on May 29 and now the Turkish GP on June 13.
They are currently discussing a Miami GP. I believe they just received approval here recently. The original plan was a street race downtown but that was nixxed.
The Miami GP would be so so so lame. Why race in a parking lot in Miami Gardens between 95 and the Turnpike... that’s not Miami. That’s a football stadium. The US has amazing tracks all over the country, sure they’re mostly of the oval variety, but many like Indy/Daytona, etc. have a road portion as well. Plus some classic non oval based tracks that have hosted F1 back in the day like Watkins Glen, and Sebring. We’re selling ourselves and the sport short if we half ass some track in a parking lot. COTA is an example of what should be the standard for F1 in the US. If they want a second US GP, it needs to be either a road course in the actual city somewhere like Miami or Vegas. Or at one of the classic tracks of the US, even if it means making adjustments to the track to bring it up to date for F1. Edit: If we do a street course, it has to be one that allows for overtaking. It cannot be Monaco. It’s gotta lend itself to true racing.
The lure of Miami is what might make F1 cave to a crappy street course. My hope is they build a track like COTA in Las Vegas.
May I propose Ozark International Raceway. In all seriousness I hope Indy comes there eventually. It looks awesome, albeit a little narrow.
I get why they want to go to Miami, makes sense really. It’s Miami and Europeans love Miami! But pigeon holing a bad race track into a parking lot 30 minutes away isn’t Miami. I think it’d be so so sick to see them do a street race there kinda like Singapore. You could build the paddock on the Port of Miami island and the race in and around the brickell area. It’d be so so sick
I still dream of a race at Road Atlanta, but it'll never happen. Even Laguna Seca doesn't qualify. Not wide enough.
Laguna would be awesome! I think the idea should be to take a classic track like Laguna (which I believe they’ve raced at before way back in the day) and bring it up to today’s F1 standards. Look at Silverstone. They’re constantly touching it up and keeping it up to date with today’s standards. There’s a lot of racing Heritage in the US. Too much for them to completely ignore to have races in parking lots. Do a Formula E race in the parking lot or something first
They would have to redesign the paddock to have garages directly exiting to the pit lane. Also, I'm not sure if the grid meets the 15m width requirement (it may though).
Getting into this sport has been an absolute blast. Great content which is typically freely (or cheaply) accessible. Got F1TV and have been going back and watching a bunch of old races which has been shockingly enjoyable.