I watched my first
formula one race back in 2007, it was the Australian Grand Prix, and the much
anticipated Lewis Hamilton was making his debut in the silver and rocket red
McLaren.
I hadn’t really watched
F1 before, only catching glimpses of it when I stayed over my Nan and Grandads
house on a weekend, but other than that hadn’t really paid much attention to
it. So here I was at the age of 11 sitting in front of the tiny TV I had in my
room at the time ready to watch the race around Albert Park.
Pure excitement was the
main feeling that stayed with me throughout the whole race. I loved it! I loved
it more than I ever thought I would, and began to watch more and more. Come 2008
I was hooked! My support for Lewis Hamilton stood firm, and my love for the
sport continued to grow in bucket loads.
Bring us to 2016, and
you know what I still love this sport, possibly more than I ever have done. I live
and breathe everything Formula One. It’s an obsession that I’m so happy to have,
and one that I hope never leaves me.
Im one of these fans
that will get up at 1:30am to watch FP1 in Australia, and even if it’s raining
will stay awake the whole session just to see one car on track. I will stick
with a race through a 2 hour red flag stoppage like we had in Canada in 2011,
and wouldn’t even consider of moving from the sofa. I’ll get up at 3am in the morning
to travel to Silverstone for the grand prix, and not be able to sleep for the
whole weekend due to excitement, and I support both my chosen team (McLaren)
and driver (Hamilton) whole heartedly, because as they always say ‘We win and
lose together’.
As much as I love
formula one however, I can’t ignore what’s going on at the minute – I don’t think
any F1 fan can. Its everywhere you look! TV, magazines, and as much as I think
its helped the sport, social media.
When I, and millions of
other fans tuned in to Sky Sports F1 last Sunday to see the first race of the
season, almost immediately we were greeted with a discussion on the failure of
qualifying the day before, and this continued throughout the whole show. Was it
necessary? I honestly don’t believe so. Yes, qualifying needed to be talked
about, but to keep bringing it up just continued to show the sport in a really
bad light, and more than that, it’s something that shouldn’t have been changed
in the first place! I have to think that if I was a new fan watching the sport
for the first time I’d have probably switched off.
There are so many
issues raised, so many changes, and above all so much politics in recent years
that the sport seems to have forgotten what its main focus should be – bringing
that feeling of excitement to fans all over the world. Really it shouldn’t be
that difficult! I’ve only started to notice a difference in the last few years,
and maybe social media hasn’t helped because whereas before the only news
update you got was when you watched coverage at the weekend or read magazines
once a week; now you have updates every minute of every day, and fans of the sport
are so much more aware of what’s going on because of this.
In only the last few
weeks we’ve had changes to qualifying which is now set to be altered again for
Bahrain but no one seems to know what’s going on. There have been discussions
regarding 2017 rule changes which you have to say will confuse fans even
further, and add to that in the last few days the announcement that Formula One
will no longer be shown on free to air TV come 2019, and the alienation of fans
just gets worse.
There is evidence in viewing
figures that formula ones fan base is reducing, and the changes in television
rights will only aid this even further. It’s a real shame because some simply can’t
afford to pay the subscription fees, and some just can’t justify it.
It’s clear now more
than ever that something needs to be done. The Grand Prix Driver’s Association
have made a statement that they want an input into the decisions made going
forward, mentioning that the sport is “ill structured”, but will this really be
listened to by those with the power to do anything? Only time will tell.
I think we all know
that the time has come to make the sport we love great again.
