Formula One's Image
Since the finishes at Austria and Indy, the talk has been flying about how Formula One is loosing popularity because the finishes are decided before hand and Ferrari is dominating the sport. I think this is part of the reason why F1 is not as popular as it could be in the United States. Here, we are a little more used to seeing Cart or to a lesser extent, IRL (or dare I say, even Nascar) have several different winners in a season. Formula one is dominated by Ferrari, Williams, and McLaren. Ferrai sealed up the championship for Schumacher even earlier this year than last year. It can almost be expected that Ferrari will win in nearly every race. I think that the people wo do watch Formula 1 on a regular basis are more interested in seeing if Ferrari won't win, and how they will finish behind the top three teams. So, the lack of major competition is a big part of the F1 image problem, but another part may be the lack of American involvement. This has been said before by automotive journalists, and they are probably right. (as for me, I really don't care) There has been talk of Dan Gurney and Phill Hill starting an all American F1 team. That could help significantly, but it would have to be a pretty decent operation to make things interesting. I have my doubts that it could be competitive against the likes of Ferrari, Mclaren, and Williams. I think that a major formula change could be a big help in getting all the teams on a more equal footing. Perhaps limit number of restrictions on the engines and bodywork to let teams play around a little bit more. I would not mind seeing a return to turbos where companies like BMW develop 1000+ hp four cylinders. Oh well, I guess it's all up to Bernie and the FIA.