Why do we love F1?

©Pirelli

©Pirelli

ERIC SILBERMANN

There were times in 2016 when I went to bed at night wondering if the sun would rise in the east in the morning, so cataclysmic were the changes taking place in the world. Now the year is coming to a close it’s obvious that when the alien being that is David Bowie died in January, he was simply passing through a portal to a parallel universe and taking lots of other like-minded humans with him, the last in a long line being Princess Leia, whose experience in other galaxies would no doubt be invaluable.

Formula One and its galaxy of stars has always operated in a parallel universe and therefore the momentous world events of the past year generally passed us by unnoticed. However, our own sport is not immune to the howling winds of change and 2017 is set to be an important moment for Grand Prix racing. Formula 1 continued to be a niche sport in 2016, unintelligible to most people, who turned on the TV/tablet/website on a Sunday afternoon to see a big crash, indulge in some B-list celebrity spotting on the grid and cheer on their favourite driver. I can think of no other sport where spectators/viewers and even die hard fans have so little understanding of what is actually involved in taking part or winning a race.

That’s the way it has always been (and that’s the way we old codgers like it), but the spectacle of drivers doing dangerous things in very fast cars has been good enough to ensure its popularity over the past 60 years or so. And if the sport is only as good as its last race, then you could say F1 is in great shape going into 2017 off the back of an Abu Dhabi GP where even the most casual viewer could understand the tactical game being played by the championship contenders. It was a nail-biting thriller, as in fact was the previous round, that amazing wet race in Brazil. What made that Sao Paulo Sunday so exciting? The fact that the conditions meant the cars had too much power for the available level of grip. It’s such an easy recipe to understand and yet, for 2017 and for no logical reason, we are going the other way and we will be watching faster cars with even more downforce. It’s a nonsensical change that was not researched scientifically, although I have to say the new wider cars with those old-skool tyres look fantastic.

In recent days, Liberty Media has spoken of its plans to modernise the sport and its unnamed spokesman, talking to the Financial Times, seems to have a good grasp of what is required: “We need to build the rivalries and enable people to understand the technology that goes into the sport,” he said. He also talked of increasing the sport’s presence in Europe and the USA and made the telling comment that the sport “feels like it did 15 years ago.”

These are encouraging words in terms of how the sport is promoted and sold – it almost sounds as though Liberty know what they are doing. Now what we need is for that level of professionalism to be seen on the technical side of the sport and applied to how the regulations are defined. In the meantime, my most fervent hope for 2017 is that the new rules do not have their usual effect of increasing the gaps between the richest and poorest teams, just as they were closing up nicely last year. Despite all its faults, Formula 1 is still a crowd pleaser and with the younger drivers coming to the forefront of the sport, we should be in for some exciting Sundays; so exciting that maybe Max Verstappen won’t win every bloody “Driver of the day” award.