My thoughts about the MEX race. First one I've watched "real time" because it was on free TV in the US (like last weekend) and I had the time to watch it. Content was the Sky Sports feed. Normally I just watch the highlights later on.
First, some whinging: 3.5 hours of content on the DVR, less than 0.5 hours of compelling drama, IMO. 1.5 hours lead in before the start the race, that's more foreplay than on a lesbian holiday vacation! Honestly the 0.5 hours of drama was extended by me replaying the start of the race (and the Vettel spin) several times.
Real bummer that Vettel was hit by DR and spun around, maybe having him amongst the race leaders would have made for more drama. They tried to make drama out of Vettel moving up the pack but that's only because his equipment was better than most of the other drivers and in the end even that didn't matter.
Great pageantry at the end with Perez being on the podium at his home race, made for some enjoyable viewing.
Relatively few advertisement breaks compared to US sports which is positively riddled with them, which was a positive. The relatively few ad breaks featured some surprisingly local content, which suggests corporate sponsorship isn't yet where F1 wants it to be.
marcelh wrote:IMO it’s the nature of F1 you have got some top teams and some “lesser gods”. You’ve got 4 teams with Mercedes engines (Mercedes, MacLaren, Aston Martin and Williams), it isn’t obvious that MacLaren, Aston and Williams are fighting with Mercedes. When RBR was using the Renault engine -and outraced Renault- the latter weren’t amused. Also some teams can be considered as “second” teams (Alpha Tauri, Alfa Romeo). If you want more equality, than you have to copy the Indy car format: 1 chassis with 2 different engine manufacturers.
Strong points especially the last one, it'd be more equal yet more boring if there was something akin to Indy Car.
Ideally it'd be possible to have more equity while retaining diversity, but all things being equal, most newcomers would be more engaged by the competition being more about the people than the machines, no?
Do we think Indy Car shows there really isn't so much difference between drivers if the equipment is more similar? I thought that's what I read in at least one article.