"whats so wrong with f1 that tv audiences are 30% down on last year?"
For me, it's the fact that "suddenly" we are seeing 'wheel to wheel' racing as a regular occurrence when it hasn't been a feature of F1 for a long time.
So is it that the teams have 'suddenly' realised that they can race wheel to wheel, is it the drivers that have all suddenly got better, is it that the cars have suddenly become more equal? Unfortunately since it coincides with a variety of other measures aimed at making the sport more entertaining, one suspects that it might be because the teams have been told to make it more interesting and permit or encourage more overtaking moves.
Nothing directly scripted or choreographed, perhaps, but a bit like football where the outcome is predetermined (ooh! he's going pull his shirt, etc, and the ref isn't going to notice ) the entertainment has become more important than the sport.
Why bother watching when all you have to do is watch the last round, when the unexpected winner / underdog will create a dream by winning by a single point thanks to the double score on the last round and the leading team have an incident where they both take each other out in a fitting end to the simmering 'dispute' that has been cooking up in their tent ever since it was obvious they had a commanding technical advantage?
Or maybe I'm just too cynical.
(One notes a suggestion in karting recently put to the MSA that if you were being closely followed, you were no longer allowed to fight for position but must move over and let the other kart through, in case its nosecone fell off.)
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