The difficulty isn’t so much in predicting the future, but accepting it when it becomes part of the past.
I have a friend with whom I have had and continue to have discussions about ways to improve and assure the future of motorsport. As is the case with most such things, no one seems to want to listen to his or my own unsolicited advice.
Yet in retrospect, many of his suggestions, if someone had bothered to listen to them, might have been beneficial in helping to solve a number of problems currently plaguing the industry.
Formula One ended its 2007 season with hope and a sense of frustration for the years to come. Given everything, one suspects that the fallout from the scandals of 2007 might well continue to haunt the sport, particularly if it turns out that although there was rightful indignation on Ferrari’s part over the industrial espionage against it, that same espionage reveals that Ferrari’s “skirts” were necessarily clean in terms of following the rules of the FIA.
Even so, the real issue for the continued success of the “Bernie and Max show” is whether they can reduce the mind-boggling regulatory complication that has infested F-1 to such an extent that most feel the need to have a lawyer present when they watch to explain how this excess of scriptures impacts what they are seeing.
As an American I have a hard time trying to explain baseball to those for whom it is foreign. Much as an Englishman does when he tries to explain cricket to a person such as myself. Racing should be different, though. The individual who crosses the finish first, or who covers the most distance the fastest within a given time period, wins.
That is a simple concept that even the most dense of us can grasp. Yet the sport’s regulators persist in trying to complicate matters in an effort to create competitive equality and thereby “improve the show.”
The trouble is that all too often they “muddy the show” to the point where even the most interested tune out, or more importantly turn off their television sets. There are many within the European-based F-1 community who say they can’t understand why grand prix racing hasn’t succeeded here in recent times. In spite of their confusion, the answer appears clear: Most of us on this side of the Atlantic want to be entertained by sport, rather than feeling like we’re taking a pop quiz about it.
Too much of motorsport is right in there with F-1 in terms of being overly complex. Too many classes, too many artificial barriers such as mandated pit stops, or the use of things like Champ Car’s “power to pass” with its one-minute time limit.
So, my advice to those wanting success, is quite simply: simplify.