Delayed/Revised Session and Start Times

[Peter Mallett]

Going back to my original post, and I do understand that perhaps the current Concorde Agreement causes problems for any change, I just think this is moving things away from what the sport traditionally set out to be.

The traditional start times were for sporting reasons not TV, yet up to around ten years ago there was no issue; and I would posit that this was because the cars and the whole "show" (for want of a better word) was much more user friendly and indeed maintained that element of "glamour" (read the real definition) in its truest sense. Tradition means a lot to an historic sport like Formula One. Fans and drivers like to follow in footsteps trodden by the greats.

Now, as the rules for car design have evolved and the associated penalties for not being "green" enough to be able to run minimal engines in a season have been implemented, the entire package is just not attractive to racers anymore. Hence the loss of TV audience.

I'd also be interested to see (from a UK perspective) how many copies of Autocourse are sold annually and if the sales have become less over a similar period.