Shanghai F1

[chengdude]

After all the frenzied hype and histrionics (Mercedes Racing Director Norbert Haug declaring it to be "the most important race in motorsports history"), the Shanghai F1 race went off today and looked damned good in the process. Congratulations are in order to the organizers...and their bankrollers. It sure was nice to watch an F1 race live and on free TV, at least in contrast to the wretched SpeedVision in the U.S.. Never mind that the near future for F1 looks pretty dismal with Ford putting Jaguar Racing and Cosworth Engineering up for sale and only 5 teams with the wherewithal to actually compete in the series, China has another sporting jewel for its crown. Now if they could find a poor farmer's son from Anhui to groom as the next Jensen Button, the fairy tale would have its ending.

[bmw_f1_power]

Hey chengdude, I'm glad you liked the race. I'm a big F1 fan myself (it's even in my name, hehe), and I really enjoyed seeing F1 come to China. Yeah I watched in on Speed Channel, my only option, and b/c I live in the Washington, DC area the race was on from 1:30 to 4:00 AM (I had to see it live, you know). Shanghai really did an amazing job with this event, the facilities were unbelievable and the track permitted a lot of action.

I'm waiting to find out the tv ratings for the event when they become available, possibly the most-watched motor race ever.

[Quest]

You can watch it online here:

http://news.xinhuanet.com/video/2004-09/25/content_2020399.htm

[madizi]

Hm, must be wrong link. I only saw report on 乒乓球 (pingpang qiu). But it was interesting too...

[Quest]

sorry, i changed it.

[woodcutter]

Well, hoorah for China, but a big finger to Formula 1. It's boring (the same man or his team always wins) its over-commercial, and it's an old fashioned gas guzzling abomination that ought to be wound down, not exported to China.

[chengdude]

Hey chengdude, I'm glad you liked the race. I'm a big F1 fan myself

I can't really say that I'm a big fan; the last I closely followed the sport was during the Prost/Senna Wars, which combined with my nostalgia for drivers like Piquet, Villeneuve (dad), Jones, Rosberg, Lauda, and Reutemann, should be a depressing giveaway of my age.

The NYT here:

http://www.nytimes.com/2004/09/26/international/asia/26shanghai.html

included some of the histrionics and polemics that interest me more:

"China needs F1," Yu Zhifei, vice president of the Shanghai International Circuit, told Southern Breeze magazine. "Pursuing dreams can produce miracles. The miracle of F1 is first capturing billions of people's attention. Then comes the push to a country and to a region's economy or world influence. All of these come from the power of the F1 dream."

"On the one hand, many poor children have no money to go to school and hope for help," the author wrote, citing the money allocated to the project. "The central government only allocated $60 million for Sichuan's flood - is that fair?"

The current issue of Shanghai Star, as might be expected, tries to cover all the economic/preparation/party/organization angles and manages to include just a whiff of criticism...my favorite quote:

"I can not answer this question."

which was Yu Zhifei again, replying to the question, "Who is paying for all this?" in an online forum.

[bmw_f1_power]

Well, hoorah for China, but a big finger to Formula 1. It's boring (the same man or his team always wins) its over-commercial, and it's an old fashioned gas guzzling abomination that ought to be wound down, not exported to China.

Well, that's your opinion now, isn't it?

True Michael Schumacher and Ferrari have been winning a lot, but there have been other winning drivers & teams this year: Barrichello twice, Jarno Trulli in Monaco, Kimi Raikkonen in Belgium. Also some of the races Schumacher were not so easy for him, so I found them exciting to watch. I'm not going to argue that some of the races were a bit lacking of action, but on the whole I love watching those extremely high-performing cars loaded with advanced technology zooming down the straights and gliding through corners.

About the "gas guzzling abomination" part, there are 20 cars in each F1 race and most teams have 2 extra test cars. True the mileage is quite low, but even with all the miles the teams run in testing each year, F1 consumes far less gas and does far less damage to the environment than the gigantic SUVs (sport utility vehicles) that people in my country (USA) go crazy over.

And about the commercial part, look at any other sport and you will see the same commercialism, like all those ads at the football stadium, and on tv. Well like I said I'm in the US, so surely it's a lot worse here than in the UK where you are.

[badboy]

I agree with woodcutter...there's not enough passing in F1 to make it interesting from a spectator point of view. Schumacher gets out in front, and that's the race.

NASCAR racing is much better to watch, especially on the bigger tracks like Talladega, with lots of lead changes. And the cars don't fall apart from a little bump either, like F1 cars do.

[woodcutter]

Since SUVs were mentioned, apparently if all Americans drove little Euro sized cars, then the amount of oil saved would be enough to do without the supply from Iraq. So maybe we could have avoided that rather unfortunate war..........