I recall a Harvard Business Review (discussing “core competencies”). It contrasted Honda and Chrysler. Chrysler was a “car assembler” at the time, buying even engines and transmissions sometimes. Honda, by contrast, took their business seriously, and made the key auto components themselves. They also spent a lot on F1 racing, to get real-world demonstrations and tests of their cutting-edge engine technology and other technologies. If you want to see what works, what else but running a device to extremes continuously, pushing the envelope?
Hah. The Nascar fans know where you live, and will be with you shortly. Please do not leave the building.
Let’s shoot for the possible, like cold fusion.
How would we know? It’s not as though the amount of money required to cure cancer is a fixed quantity.
Quite possibly. I was hoping there was, though!
That’s a very interesting story, but I’m not sure how you reach the conclusion that the efforts in winning an F1 race contribute to our world in real time. To the F1 world, I’m sure they do - the faster you can get an improvement out, the faster you start winning races. My world and (presumably) yours? I’m not so sure about that.
Interesting point you raise, and I see where you got that. No doubt that my corn-fed world is miles-away from Ross Brawn’s. One could argue that the argon-filled football mentioned above is equally as far from my world, personally.
I guess I was trying to make a comment on time-to-market, rather than overall value. I was comparing it to gov’t-funded research and development that may be stymied by bureaucratic or monetary hurdles. In contrast, the seemingly-miniscule developments in F1 are implemented each week in an effort to win the next race. I wouldn’t think that the Williams team would have a new widget in their garage ready to go, but Frank would say, “well, I understand how widgetX could get us another .3 seconds through the second sector, but we should wait for the proper funding or political strategy before we use it.” Conversely, F1 teams would implement that shit right away, and resolve any repercussions at a later date. My point was that these designs and technologies are put to test immediately, and are massaged at each event to fine-tune the overall performance. But you are correct… it still takes years before it affects me personally.
That’s exactly the sort of thing I’m looking for, thanks!
I suppose there is a reasonable argument that a lot of NASA-based research has made it into everyday life, almost certainly a lot more than from F1, but I also think you raise a good point about F1 perhaps being less constrained by politics. So long as the money is available, it’ll eventually make it onto a car, and if it can profitably and safely be put onto a road car, it’ll appear there sooner or later.
It keeps me from drinkin’ too much on the late Friday Qually and Saturday Night races. Well, not really, since I got a DVR. Drink up, you sloshy bastard!
Going by salaries is an irrelevance. If Jim Quarterback is paid $50,000 a year instead of $5 million, the extra money is no more or less “wasted.” It’s simply kept by the billionaire owner.
In any event, it’s pretty easy to figure out what sports leagues are bigger by simply figuring out their revenue, which gives you a fairly solid idea of the money spent on the thing:
In truth these numbers are probably low, as teams and leagues have reasons to understate revenues or put revenue on the books of businesses other than the teams.
F1 is somewhere in the range of $1.5 to $2 billion. It’s not remotely as big.
I don’t think you realize how tautological this is. What you are saying is, in effect, that if people enjoyed different things, then they would do those things and would enjoy them. It’s like saying that if I liked chocolate ice cream instead of vanilla, I’d switch to chocolate and would like ice cream.
You cannot simply dismiss the entertainment value of something (what the hell are you getting out of being on the Internet right now, exactly/) as being worth no utility. Entertainment is, in fact, worth something. Human beings need entertainment; they cannot be continuously engaged in work.
What about NASCAR? Surely at least left-turn technology has take a huge leap forward. But seriously…IIRC, NASCAR has rules even more stringent than F-1 in terms of using a production car. What improvements has NASCAR made on production cars?