07/04/2011
NEWS STORY
 |
Despite what the powers that be might tell you, aided and abetted by certain stooges within the media, F1 is slowly losing its appeal - even FIA president Jean Todt agrees.
Despite being accused of being negative, Pitpass has long argued that in spite of the inflated viewing figures and media hyperbole, F1 is not only failing to attract new fans - especially amongst the young - it is actually losing existing fans.
The domination by Schumacher and Ferrari in the early 'noughties' - though thoroughly deserved - led to an all-round decline in interest in the sport, indeed, in Britain the mainstream media had already begun to turn its back on F1. Then came the new order, Raikkonen, Alonso and finally Hamilton, not to mention Vettel and a re-emerging Jenson Button.
However, despite the claims that 2010 was the greatest season ever, the facts speak for themselves; as fans, already weary of constant rule changes, circuits (and rules) that prevent overtaking and a championship that has been manipulated to the point that it creates "points" excitement, not "racing" excitement, find better things to do with their time.
As we commented in a recent article, based on our stats, traffic for Melbourne 2011 was up on the 2010 event, certainly in terms of visitors (6.3%), though page impressions were slightly down (4.7%). However, based on our experience the first race of the year is often the busiest therefore, if we compare Melbourne 2011 to Bahrain 2010 the numbers are down (visitors by 5%). Not a significant amount but certainly enough to suggest that the last thing F1 needs right now - and no disrespect intended to Red Bull, Sebastian Vettel or Adrian Newey - is another era, or even a season, of domination by one man and his team.
With this in mind, it's worth noting Jean Todt's latest comments in what appears to be a gradual building of hostilities towards Bernie Ecclestone.
Speaking to Germany's Auto, Motor und Sport, the FIA president says: "People have many other ways of spending their free time. It's why we have to ask ourselves every day what we can improve in the show.
"Races like the season finale 2010 in Abu Dhabi, where you cannot overtake, are not acceptable," he added, referring to the highly anticipated showdown that - again, no disrespect to Vettel or Red Bull - fizzled out when Ferrari got its strategy wrong and Fernando Alonso was subsequently unable to pass Vitaly Petrov on a circuit built more with architectural aesthetics and sheer 'aint we wealthy' bling in mind than motor racing.
Having made what appears to have been a quiet start to his presidency - though in reality he has been working feverishly behind the scenes, especially in terms of establishing his own all-new regime - Todt is now emerging from the shadows and preparing to assert his authority over Formula One.
If this does become a head-on confrontation between Todt and Ecclestone, and it is certainly shaping up that way, F1 may well be the winner. On the other hand it could also lose.