Is it time to stop patronising F1 fans?

I hate to begin my first blog about all things Formula One with a cliché, but I think I shall anyway; 'I watch it for the sport.'

There, cliché over with.  But this sums up my love for the highest peak of motor racing; I'm more of a neutral fan who is intrigued and fascinated by the racing, developmental and technical side of the sport.  Ever since I went to my first British Grand Prix way back in 1997, seeing Jacques Villeneuve flash past to victory, I was overawed by the speed, sound and atmosphere which surrounded one of the most glamorous passtimes in the world.

But recently, this neutral support and lack of a preferred team of mine has been called into question.  Ferrari in particular seem to be constantly questioning the rules of one of the largest sports in the world.  One of the most irritating quotes I've read, not just in terms of F1 but in all media this year, was by Luca di Montezemolo, President of Ferrari, who said:  "Do we need to race at two in the afternoon when everyone is at sea?  Could we have two races per meeting? Do races need to last so long? F1 is not an endurance race. We need races to be short and tough."

Um... When everyone is at sea?  Last time I checked, not everyone has a fifty-footer moored up in the cote-d'azure and a private helicopter to whisk them effortlessly to it on a Sunday afternoon!  Also, Grand Prix's should be treated as endurance races; it's the best drivers driving the best cars, both of which are tested to the limit over a race and a season.

As well as this, Stefano Domenicali vented about the safety car issues at the European Grand Prix at Valencia:  "We have to ensure that our sport remains credible in the eyes of those involved and those who follow it, at the track and in front of their TV screens."

Again, I felt a bit patronised by this, as it was obvious to everyone that whilst there was a slight flaw in the rules, whereby Lewis Hamilton inadvertently crossed the safety car line (a brand new venture brought in for 2010), the appropriate penalties were dished out and the rules were adjusted.  If anything, I'm sure that most fans (including myself) thought the race was exciting, especially towards the end where Kobayashi held his own after pretty much staying on the same set of tyres to finish a well deserved seventh.

Finally, various heads of Formula One seem to think that the majority of the audience is not interested whatsoever in the technical side of the sport, be it the development of various updates as the season evolves, or the way a car can be set up differently to maximise the performance on any given track.  This confuses me a bit and leaves me scratching my head as to why this is such a major consideration the FIA feels it needs to take. In football, you have fans who watch the games simply for the goals and nothing more.  Then you get the technical fans, who can name every player on the field, what height, weight and foot he is, what he had for lunch eighteen days ago and the training regime he's put under.  Not only this, but the formation, player and team records and manager's statistics are put under intense scrutiny.

Obviously I'm not trying to say that each sport's technical points are the same; F1 is a completely state-of-the-art affair where the height of technology is used to gain a fraction of the time it takes for you to blink on the racetrack.  But the same level of sport 'geekiness' exists wherever you look.  I think it's time to stop analysing this as a bad thing in Formula One and let the fans decide whether they want to watch it, rather than executives deciding for them.

Obviously my take on the above issues is just my opinion, as it is rightfully Ferrari's to bring the audience in as a bargaining chip when contesting race results or the rules of the sport.  But I think that talking down to fans is not the right way to go about getting the changes you desire.

And any way, people who don't like the sport and don't watch it are always going to say "it's just cars going around in a circle".  If the real fans didn't enjoy it like some high level F1 personalities believe, it wouldn't be as popular as it is :)