I think it’s to do with the fact that even the worst teams in the Premier League are guaranteed a certain amount of televised coverage every season, so their sponsors get sufficient exposure no matter what. Whereas in F1, the backmarkers get virtually no coverage whatsoever, so eventually the sponsors get fed up. Also, if a football team runs into financial trouble it can “simply” sell all its good players and restart from a lower tier (a la Portsmouth, Leeds, etc) - not really an option for F1 teams. For that reason, F1 is even more of a “closed shop” than the Premier League. When was the last time an F1 team gained success having started from scratch? I suppose BAR winning the title via Jenson Button is probably it, but even that was formed from the ashes of a previous team wasn’t it?
I suppose it depends on what you mean by “from scratch”. Almost every new team is partly comprised of the assets of recently defunct teams. BAR was really just a takeover of the old Tyrell team (and is still around in a sense, since BAR became Brawn which became Mercedes.)
Red Bull is composed in part of the cadaver of Stewart Racing, which came up the old fashioned way: from F3/F3000. So if you look at it that way Red Bull became a successful team relatively quickly (Stewart F1 began operations in 1998.)
ETA: I think Jordan was the last truly “new” team to come up from a lower tier and have success with its own chassis and such - and that team became Force India. Sauber came in a couple of years earlier but from endurance racing rather than F3x.
Any other Dopers going to be at Circuit of the Americas this weekend to not see Alex Rossi make his F1 debut? What a disappointing year for that fellow, jumping from one sinking ship to the next sinking ship, getting mixed up in whatever happened behind the scenes when Max Chilton almost lost his seat, then being in place to take over for poor Jules, but then the team dies (perhaps not coincidentally).
Supposedly Force India came within a few days of not being able to make this weekend’s race as well, but they finally managed to pay the bill to Mercedes just in time.
That would have been really bad. Caterham and Marussia, despite the latter’s single P9, pretty much never have had signs of being anything but back-markers, FI is consistently in the points and fighting for podiums.
The 18 cars that made it to Austin put on a good show with good fights spread out throughout the field. I was 1 out of about 107,000 there. Nice weather and Lewis got to wear a Stetson on the podium again, which was special (not sure why the podium hats reverted to the plain ball caps after the 1st year). Thankfully the “boycott” amongst the mid-fielders didn’t get away past trial balloon stage. About the only guy who had a “lonely” race was poor Gutierrez who was a class of 1 in terms of competitiveness, though clearly not shockingly off pace like the HRT’s the first year of the COTA race.
Watching a recording of it now, but I’ve already seen the results spolied from Sunday.
Unlike the NASCAR race that happened a little bit north, Sutil didn’t give Perez a punch in the jaw, even if Perez may have deserved it.
It’s been an interesting year. Who’s silly idea was double points for Abu Dhabi?
I hope Hamilton can hang on and avoid any DNFs to end the season.
Where is Alonso going? I’ve not a clue. McLaren is the only open drive, and I can’t imagine they’d want him back.
I’ve seen a rumour that McLaren have told him to make up his mind quickly or they’ll look elsewhere.
time to wrap this baby up.
Overall, glad that Lewis has won a second title. He deserved it. The fact that he has done this with a different team is a big tick in his favour. But then I’ve always thought that he and Alonso are the fastest men on the track and I’ve seen no evidence over the last 6 years to make me rethink that.
Nico was very gracious, he is a fine and fast driver, just not the total “racer” that Hamilton is but no doubt he’ll be pushing all the way again next season.
Ricciardo and Kvyat could be very exciting next season. McLaren and Honda could rekindle the glory years and if I were Alonso I’d probably want Button on my team but that remains to be seen. Vettel in a Ferrari puts him again against a driver a step up in quality from Webber. It will be very interesting to see how he does. Not sure his reputation will stand up to another whupping from a team mate in equal machinery.
What we definitely want is a removal of the stupid “double points” and a levelling of performance across the top 5 (Mercedes, Ferrari, McLaren, Williams and Red Bull), to have ten cars battling it out would obviously make for a better spectacle.
For the sake of the narrative, I’m very happy that Lewis won. It seems like the happy ending, and I think most racing fans were backing him (although I could be biased by getting my F1 news from the BBC :p). Had Nico snatched it, he would have come out looking like the “bad guy”, I think. Maybe that wouldn’t have mattered to him, but at least now he can go on next season and go for the title without that being an issue. Even if he’s up against Lewis again for the title next year, I think most people will be happy with Nico getting his turn at that point.
Also, big thanks to Nico for pushing Lewis throughout the year, and taking the fight to the final race. With a less competitive driver in that second Mercedes, this would have been one boring season.
Fortunately, the only thing that double points did this year was move Perez above K-Mag and Kimi. Based on reporting this week, it seems like it’s going to be dropped for next year.
It was nice to see Massa up there on the podium, I think it’s great that getting fired from Ferrari put him into arguably the 2nd most competitive car. The battles between Red Bull, McClaren, Williams, Ferrari (one of them at least), and (sometimes) Force India have made this season pretty darn watchable. Can’t wait for next year.
I agree with all of this except, as a Hamilton fan, the last sentence. Naturally, I would, but I also want to see the title won on talent. If you have the talent (in terms of driving skill and a decent car, where the talent in the case of the latter is chiefly that of the designer), then you should win the title. You should not win on luck (which, had Hamilton’s car suffered the problem that Rosberg’s did yesterday, would have been the case, with Hamilton having far more retirements than Rosberg in that scenario), or skullduggery (e.g. Schumacher’s horrible, botched manoeuvre on Villeneuve in 1997 - I can just about forgive his move in 1994 on the basis he was still battling for the race lead when making contact with Hill, but most British F1 fans would disagree with me). If Rosberg improves slightly next year, and Hamilton doesn’t, and Mercedes are still out in front, then Rosberg will deserve the title. If not, then he won’t, simple as that. Hamilton has shown himself to be the more complete racer this year.
And I agree it was a good season, the best for some time in fact.
I’m a Hamilton fan but I don’t think he really gets to complain about luck. He didn’t suffer a mechanical retirement until something like his fourth season.
Hamilton did indeed drive like a champion this year. His save in Brazil was fantastic and put him firmly on the road to win the crown. I’m not a fan of his, but that boy can drive. I was hoping for the Williams team to do well this year and it was good to see. I hope they have learned enough from those trips to the podium to keep next season exciting, too.
Did Red Bull have a team this year? Oh that’s right… Ricciardo showed us that there are still some wings on that bull.
Concerning the double-points, I agree that it’s silly to make it the last race of the year. But I also think that 1 or 2 double-point rounds scattered throughout the season might bring some interest.
In closing, I’d like to wish Bianchi & his family much peace & love. Godspeed, Jules.
Please, no. All that would do is make the championship more random. No doubt Bernie would like that in years such as this where one team is dominant, on the basis that it would shake things up a bit. But it just increases the chance of the championship being decided on luck rather than skill.
On the BBC post race forum Eddie Jordan strongly hinted that Ross Brawn would be back in F1 in 2017 with a Volkswagen Audi Group, VAG, team now that would be fun.
Lewis, bloody superb, proud of you mate, very proud.
Peter
Would love to see a VW out there lapping those McLaurens!
Well yea, but. There’s always luck involved in this stuff. But I smell what you’re cooking, DeadCat. This is F1 and the best should be the best. There’s still a good amount of luck to go around, though.
I realize that the most benefit from a double-points round comes in a series where every team doesn’t race every round. The guys make the races they can and the double points gives them another option for strategy within the season. It has the added benefit to the promoter of boosting attendance (teams and spectators), too. F1 has none of that amateur crap, so the double points really isn’t necessary. I get that. But I’d be willing to sit on the fence while we give it a go and see how it plays for a season or 2. Heck, they took our V-10s away, but I’m still with them 
I really didn’t like that, by it being 2x points the last round only, there was no chance of “recovery” from any apparent penalty of scoring few or zero points. I guess there was a chance that one of Bernie’s “Cinderella Stories” could have come from a more-diversely populated (championship) leader board at the end of the season, but that ship sailed back around July. Though again, it would have been based on a lucky show in one round so its value could have come into question.
TLDR, even though superfluous, I’d like to see 2x points round(s) within the season, but not the last round. Oh, and go VW !