It's no waste of money, it's advertising, entertainment, bread and circuses. If there was no profit involved, it wouldn't exist. Personally, I think rally or auto-cross with your own vehicle would be more fun.
No, of course we don't "NEED" F1. Nor do we NEED t.v., radios, cell phones, electricity, or cars. Why should we care? It's not coming out of my pocket.
I don't know how you call them in English but in Dutch we call the 'pits pussies'. The girls that hang around in the pits and hold up the name sign of the drivers. They just don't dance. They just stand and be sexy.
If humans can get paid for doing that, goodness knows where that would put the Turing test. Who actually needs F1? The drivers who make a living off it, I suppose?
IMO, World Rally Championship is the finest auto sport and the greatest test of overall driving abilities. Maybe your question is to complicated for my little brain to handle but isn't it obvious that nobody needs F1 or professional sports in general. I mean I enjoy watching professional sports once in a while but I am far from needing it.
Are we paying for F1? (nobody restricted the costs of F1 to research) How is F1 mainly paid for? Advertisements. Who is paying for advertisements? Businesses? Only at first glance. YOU pay for it of course! The costs of advertisements are calculated into the price of your consumer goods. Did you think commercial TV is for free? ha... Nothing is for free in this world. Do taxpayers pay for F1? Taxpayers pay for everything. Also they contribute to F1 because F1 is part of society. So Taxpayers might pay for the extra police needed during a F1 event. Taxpayers pay for the roads and other infrastructure that leads to the F1 circuit and F1 team factories and design studios. There is hardly anything in this world the taxpayer doesn't contribute at least a little bit to. The same thing is the case with football (soccer). The TV rights and player salaries have grown exponentially in the last 20 years or so. People naively think they are not paying for that. Well, I have news for you, even if you don't watch football ort hate it, the chances are high you are still paying for it. Nothing is for free. Even in a free market economy you pay for everything. Except we then don't call it taxes. And then people are happy because they pay less taxes. At least with taxes the chances are higher that the money is actually used for your own good. With free market economy's hidden 'taxes' the money usually goes into the pockets of a few (such as bill gates or bernie ecclestone) and if you are lucky they will set up some foundation that poors some money back into society.
I don't think F-1 is that important as car racing goes. There's only a few manufacturers that can compete in it and of those only a few of them really stand a chance of winning. There's not allot of audiance that watches the event so it isn't very lucrative in payouts. It is more like a millionaires sport as is with many of the car races today. That's why I don't watch it and I don't have cable TV to watch it either. I don't think to many people would care If F-1 were to just fade away just as the Can Am races did.
The importance of F1 depends on your location. It's unimportant in Northern America. In the rest of the world it is seen as the king of car sports. (i think it has become a complete bore to be honest)
Who needs Formula One? I used to like it - back in the '80s and early '90s... Mansell, Senna, Burger, Prost, then Senna was killed in an incident - and then... it went Damon Hill and that "Ooh I've got to be unsportsman-like, and ram others off the track" Michael Schumacher... I used to be hooked to F1, probably back in my school days - but its now become more of a dictatorship lead by Ecclestone, Schumacher and alike, thanks to extreme saftey revisions Schumacher inflicted on the sport in allowing all the drivers since (especially himself), to act out more kamikaze manoevers in racing. Thus, making it not a sport of skill. And then there's the issue of aerodynamics that disturb the cars so much that competitors find it hard to overtake each other (hi-tec irony), and the stupid rules to make it even more "safe" ie. no slick tyres there then but grooves instead... Yeah - I don't need F1, it's shit! Money needs F1 and F1 needs money, it's become a business more than a sport (it's a f@cking joke). Please the sponsors - yeah Michael, jump up when on the podium, when you win all the time - yeah Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image! , don't fake it mate, atleast look like you wanted the win! It's a very Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image! uncharismatic sport now, no natural charisma Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image! , just marketed and too pushed... quite the opposite to what the sport was in its legendary heydays.
I'm saving up for my own street legal racecar: Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image! Bugatti Veyron. I need it.
you speak dutch? i thought you were from england? i am living in belgium right now, and they speak dutch....strange language imho.
I think we need more deaths in F-1, you know, something to spice it up a little. Believe me if drivers die horrific deaths in every race most people will develop an interest. Back in the good old days there were no helmets, seat belts, or air bags. None of those fancy safety gadgets. Those were real gentlemen.
Do you think we need the rainforest? I can think of maybe one good thing you get from F1 that you don't with football: research and advances in technology. The teams are constantly competing with one another to make their cars perform better. I've never heard of work being done to make footballs more aerodynamic...
