TBK-Light.com

Growing up, Ricciardo was a massive Earnhardt fan. He also drives the No. 3 car in F1 partly because of his fanhood to “The Intimidator.”
https://www.nascar.com/news-media/2021/ ... -no-3-car/

Yeah. How many new young fans they got with 2019 Paul Ricard race compared to, let's say, last race?

Well, actually how could a young kid see an F1 race in the first place today? You cannot accidentally turn on TV and see Formula 1 on a Free-to-Air channel, like we used to do. And even if their dad has a SKY subscription, kids don't watch TV these days. They have their mobile thingys.
So, it's about YouTube's algorithm whether or not they get exposed to Formula 1. And crashes are quite popular when it comes algorithms. I'm sure Grosjean's fireball accident went viral on YouTube, so it's pretty likely that some who saw the crash decided to start following F1 this year. And since both Bahrain and Imola were entertaining races, I think they are hooked by now.

that's pretty much the point. I still love the crashing that happens once in a while, as long the driver involved are able to walk away from it

but it must be something out of a racing incident, like a misjudged move or mechanical failure, not a forced thing just to make headlines and go viral online

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Motorsports trend for 2024: climate change ruining races everywhere

I don't know, but it feels like Dan is messing up. It looks like he's taking F1 Social Media channels at if it was a forum with crash compilations. Which definitely isn't the case.

To be honest though, that's because they have absolutely no idea how to produce good racing anymore. Crashing and fighting is all NASCAR has right now.

Judging by social media and reddit, 90% of new fans are coming in from Drive to Survive

So, I'll take it, it's not like DtS for all its artificial drama creation focuses solely on crashes.

These fans think F1 is the field from Mclaren to Haas and haven't heard of either Mercedes, Max Verstappen or Williams, but oh well, they'll learn

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RIP Birmingham Wheels: here's some of the crash videos I recorded when it was there:

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCIaKIE ... 5t9d5PvoHA

Twitter:

http://www.twitter.com/paulhadsley

Putting aside his complaints about F1 social media (which I agree are a weird sort of overreaction), I've heard the whole "Whoah Danny Ric's in trouble because in his first 2 races for Mclaren he's been slightly slower than his teammate who's been there for 2 years" a lot, and I'd say it's an even bigger and dumber overreaction. Saying Dan should be beating Norris from the first race and anything else is a failure is suggesting you don't really know how F1 works, the massively reduced testing time they have now, and the reality of switching to a different team and engine in F1 (he wasn't up to speed in the Renault until mid-season as well but just had a lot more unreliability to mask it). I'd feel the same way about anyone having a go at Carlos, Checo or Seb for not immediately being on the pace of their teammates, which they also aren't. It just reeks of trying really hard to be the first on the tall poppy train.

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Deep down, what makes close racing spectacular is the imminent threat of colliding and crashing. Otherwise, a time attack session with close laptimes would be more appealing to fans, and nobody in their right mind says that.

You have to show collisions to show what can go wrong. It doesn't take anything from racing, it gives more value to it. Closer racing also causes more crashes so I see it as a healthy indicator of how many close battles there are.

Tall poppy? No mate. I have no doubt that Dan will eventually get up to speed, but as one of the top marque drivers he shouldn't have to "get up to speed". I'm not saying that he should be smashing Lando, but quite frankly his race in Imola showcased just how much work he has to do, and he should have been closer to Lando. But when you are at this level, you don't have that luxury (unless your Dad owns a team of course).

And a long personal belief I have about Dan (you do know he is my favorite driver?) is that all throughout his career, he hasn't been able to maintain the tyres across a whole stint, he goes backwards, unlike Hamilton, Verstappen, Perez and Sainz. I truly believe that his ultimate race pace is the reason why Ferrari didn't pick him up after they have been flirting with each other for years. Sainz gets stronger the longer a race goes on, Dan seldom does.

So not tall poppy. These two races so far (like I said I reckon he will be super quick in the McLaren eventually and hope I am proven wrong straight away) have just highlighted the feelings I have had for many years about him. Still love him and hope that I get proven massively wrong.

Fair enough, at least you're backing it up with observations you've made over a longer period of time. Mostly I just see people latch onto relative teammate performance between the new guy and an established driver after 2 races and try to make hot takes about how Driver X has won the war and Driver Y should be updating their resume. Same thing with using the words CHAMPIONSHIP IMPLICATIONS for any single event that happens in the first quarter of the season.

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Yeah fair enough, I get that, I just don't see how he's made the leap to slagging off the social media team. Of course they're going to put crashes on youtube, that's their job - whether people like it or not it brings new eyes to the sport and hopefully some of those eyes will be attached to people who realise they like motor racing. But his claim about their social media being all crashes just isn't true.

A race could exist of 20 drivers racing as hard as they can, on the absolute limit, pushing everything out of the car, 90 minutes of pure focus of man and machine. When some wins it, he could describe it as his best race ever, because he knows how hard he had to fight for it.
But that is boring as hell to watch on TV. Because on TV, it is hard to notice exactly how hard they are giving it all. The only way to realise is by watching each race 20 times, each time following one driver onboard for the entire race. Who has time for that. With a bit of bad luck, we see no changes in positions at all, the gaps between each driver increase every lap, and it's a real snoozer on TV.
What wakes us up? Someone losing control, someone making a mistake, someone crashing. Those are the moments that break the rut. I don't watch F1 to see 20 cars doing absolutely everything perfect, I watch it because when something happens, I don't want to have missed it. Crashes are part of the sport. And it could happen to everyone, so even a Mercedes or a Red Bull could have a DNF from time to time. A race with 10 guys crashing is one for the history books, it will be remembered forever. A race where 20 guys fight on the limit but all in the same order is one to forget the moment the race is over.

Yes, the Grosjean crash was replayed a bit much, but they only started to show the first image once it was clear that the driver was (as good as) unharmed. Only then did we get images and replays, and they had to show something to fill the time it took to repair the track.

that remembers me of an old interview with the late José Carlos Pace, in which he described how silly was the 1972 Monaco GP. He was laughing in the middle of the race because he thought that all of that was nonsense

plus he described the experience of driving sportscars at Le Mans as a dreadful boring thing to do and he only had satisfaction by driving F1 on the edge

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Motorsports trend for 2024: climate change ruining races everywhere

I think the Portuguese GP was a perfect example of what I was trying to say. I am convinced that Hamilton, Verstappen and Bottas forced each other to push all the way. And I am sure that behind them, other guys were racing as hard as they could as well, but that gained less air time. I enjoyed the race, but I will not argue with people who found it extremely boring as they will not be wrong either. I wouldn't call this race a classic that I would want to see again, and a video of the highlights will be very short. Imola will have been one of the better races of the 2021 season because it had action and crashes.

If this is what Ricciardo wants to see each race, then he doesn't realise why fans really tune in.

As we say here in Brazil, Bottas is starting to get fried.

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/sport/formu ... e-him.html

lol:

1) Their preferred driver is leading the WDC.
2) They're leading the WCC.
3) And because it's the Daily Mail.

Grosjean will do a one-off test in a 2019 Mercedes after Paul Richard. He'll also do a demo run at the race.

Bottas will be in thin ice if Perez gets his act together and actually help Red Bull earning the constructor points that should had been awarded to him

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Motorsports trend for 2024: climate change ruining races everywhere

I'd really love to see Max and Lewis drive the Haas for a weekend. More and more I get the idea that their team mates are less bad than we think they are but Max and Lewis are in a league of their own and pushing the car well beyond its limit.

I wouldnt be shocked at all of they would get into Q3 with the Haas.

Red Bull swiped another few names from Mercedes: https://www.redbull.com/int-en/redbullr ... nsAppoint/?

Wonder why they all want to leave Mercedes......