Formula One to return to Long Beach?

Recently there has been talk about Formula One possibly returning to Long Beach. The founder of the Grand Prix of Long Beach, Chris Pook, is working to get F1 to the streets of Long Beach. According to him, F1 wants to have three races in the United States by 2016, the already existing race in Austin, Texas, and races on both the East and the West Coasts.

I think Long Beach would be a great location for an F1 race. The Grand Prix of Long Beach is the most famous street race in the USA. That's why a race in Long Beach could bring a lot of attention to F1 in the States and help it to become more popular there. I think it would be even more important for F1 to have a race in Long Beach if the planned West Coast race in New Jersey fails. The planned New Jersey race with Manhattan as the backdrop could have brought huge attention to F1 in the USA; there are no other races as close to the New York City. Unfortunately that project is already at least two years late, and it happening seems more and more unlikely as time goes by. To me, it feels like Long Beach would be the only other race in the States which could give F1 as much attention as that New Jersey race.

Long Beach hosted F1 already in the late 70s and early 80s before they replaced it with the less expensive and domestically more popular CART series nowadays known as the IndyCar Series. But why would Long Beach now want F1 back? Hosting F1 is much more expensive than IndyCar, and an F1 race would require improved facilities. But F1 would bring more exposure to the event. F1 draws an international crowd whereas IndyCar isn't followed that much outside the USA. The ticket prices would explode if IndyCar were replaced by F1, and many local fans would be unable to attend the race. But even though F1 isn't so popular in the States, an F1 race could have fans from all over the country. F1 races in the USA are rare events compared to IndyCar races; 16 of the 18 IndyCar races take place in the States. And an F1 race gets more spectators from abroad than an IndyCar race.

But can Long Beach afford an F1 race? I believe they can. The US Grand Prix has drawn big crowds in the two years it has been held in Austin. The USA is a big country, and even though F1 isn't the most popular motorsports category in the States, there are still lots of people interested in F1. I believe the USA could have two or even three F1 races with large enough crowds. But another thing is if hosting an F1 race is more profitable than hosting an IndyCar race. The IndyCar race draws big crowds in Long Beach and is much less expensive than an F1 race. Then again, the revenues from an IndyCar race are probably smaller than from an F1 race.

A race in Long Beach would be important for F1 in the States but a race in Long Beach is maybe even more important for the IndyCar Series. Long Beach is the most important street race in the USA and adds prestige to the IndyCar Series. Losing Long Beach from the schedule would take attention away from the series and be a sign of the series being in a bad state; another series has the most famous street race in IndyCar's home market. That's why, for the sake of the state of IndyCar, I hope F1 doesn't return to Long Beach but it remains as an IndyCar race. For F1, I hope the race in New Jersey will happen. I believe it could bring a lot of attention to F1 in the USA and help to increase its popularity there. And I think two races in the USA would be enough at the moment. There are so many countries hosting Grands Prix that I think even two is a lot for one country. F1 could increase its popularity in the States also by having more races in the same time zones. Besides the existing US, Canadian, and Brazilian Grands Prix, have another Grand Prix in the USA and Grands Prix is Mexico and Argentina. That would mean six races in the American time zones.

How commercialism is destroying sports – Formula One

The rapidly degrading Pirelli tyres and DRS have somewhat changed the nature of racing in Formula One. DRS has made overtaking easier and rapidly degrading tyres give more overtaking opportunities for the drivers whose tyres are in a better shape. And that was the reason for why DRS and rapidly degrading tyres were introduced. Overtaking had become very difficult in F1. They tried to make overtaking easier with rule changes for 2009, for example aerodynamics were reduced and slick tyres were introduced to help to follow a car ahead. But that didn't increase overtaking very much. That's why something more radical was made for 2011; a driver can open his rear wing when he is enough close to the car ahead. Also, the tyres were made to degrade more rapidly. That was made because some drivers having much fresher tyres would enable more overtaking.

But was that good for F1? We can hear people praising today's F1 as it has much more overtaking than there was some years ago. But we can also hear other people complaining about how F1 isn't anymore proper racing. And that is my opinion, too. Rapidly degrading tyres have brought an endurance aspect to F1. Drivers need to nurse their tyres to avoid additional tyre changes. That wasn't the case some years ago when the tyres didn't degrade as much. Over the last decades, F1 had lost the endurance aspect it had had in its early decades. The relatively short race distance allowed building cars that lasted well for the whole race and drivers didn't need to save the car. The longlife engines and gearboxes introduced in the 00s multiplied the distances driven with them but because of their great reliability, drivers don't have to save the engines unless they are in a position where they can do it without losing their position.

But the rapidly degrading tyres have caused that the drivers need to save tyres and that's why we can hear engineers warning them of driving too fast. I don't think that kind of an endurance aspect belongs to F1. Endurance racing like Le Mans is another thing, even though the improved reliability has reduced much of its endurance aspect, too. Also, the rapidly degrading tyres have affected to racing in F1. It is easier to get overtaking chances if you have fresher tyres than the car ahead. That has increased overtaking. But if the driver ahead is struggling with his tyres and trying to preserve them, he may be reluctant to do all he can to defend his position. And I think defending a position is an important element of racing. That's why it is sad to see drivers being unable to try to defend their positions. Also, overtakes where a driver passes another driver who cannot defend are not so spectacular in my opinion. The greatest overtakes are the ones where a driver battles his way past a well-defending driver.

That is also the reason why I don't like DRS. Too often it leads to easy overtakes where the driver ahead cannot defend. I think DRS works best on circuits like the Hungaroring where it is almost impossible to overtake otherwise. On those circuits, DRS doesn't make overtakes so inevitable. But it is sad to think there is a DRS zone on places like the Kemmel straight at Spa. That was always a great overtaking spot even without DRS. DRS takes away all challenge in overtakes there. If there has to be an overtaking aid in F1, I would prefer the push-to-pass system used in IndyCar. You can get extra horsepower only for a limited number of times and you can use it also to defend.

But why does F1 need those overtaking aids? The purists may be complaining but more overtakes and drama is what the big crowd wants. The big crowd was bored of most races being processions after the first lap and it was hard to win from behind the front row. Now we can see a driver winning a race after a poor qualifying if he can manage his tyres better than others and now races aren't over after the first lap.

And F1 isn't the only sport which has been affected be commercial interests. One of my next texts will be about how commercialism has changed the game of tennis.

Thoughts about Sauber and the Austrian GP

For change I write about Formula One this time. The financial problems of Sauber are a sad thing for me as they are one of my favourite teams. They are a privateer team and one of the few teams competing still with their original name. But unfortunately it's financially hard for smaller teams to compete in F1 these days.

A good thing is that Sauber has secured sponsorship from Russian companies. And it was great to hear there won't be ownership changes. But Swiss SonntagsZeitung reports the Russian companies will pay 470 million Swiss francs (i.e. €380 million). That's a lot of money from sponsorship, and probably gives those Russian companies a lot of power at Sauber. They have already announced Sergey Sirotkin, whose father is leading one of those companies, will drive for Sauber next year. And SonntagsZeitung reported the CEO Monisha Kaltenborn will be replaced. Hopefully this isn't a start of a Russian invasion at Sauber. We remember Renault and Virgin switching their licence's country because of their partners, hopefully Sauber won't switch to a Russian licence. And even if there were some ownership changes in the future, hopefully the team will remain as Sauber. Yeah, that's quite unlikely in case of a takeover but the team would lose much of its identity if it became Force Russia or something like that.

Then some words about the return of the Austrian Grand Prix. It's great to get one more European race as Europe is the cradle of F1 but the number of races in Europe has decreased in the last years. Red Bull Ring isn't really my favourite track but I can find one good thing in its return to calendar. Most new circuits are quite similar with each other but Red Bull Ring would be quite unique. Maybe a different nature of a circuit would enable some surprising results.