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A writer skewered the Formula One scene, then her article vanished
- nkurz 3y agoAn archived version of the "vanished" article is linked here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39616465 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39616465
- darwinwhy 3y agoDirect link to the article: https://web.archive.org/web/20240301170542/https://www.roadandtrack.com/car-culture/a46975496/behind-f1-velvet-curtain/ https://web.archive.org/web/20240301170542/https://www.roada...
- marklubi 3y agoIt was a terrible article. Can't believe that Road and Track even let it out the door. It was a bunch of angry ramblings by a self-proclaimed socialist that knows nothing about the sport and hates people for having and spending their money in one of the most expensive sports in the world. Her take on Red Bull's dominance is superficial at best (no comments on the Mercedes dominance over the past decade, or Red Bull's previous dominance, or when Ferrari was the one to beat). Verstappen happens to be a phenom. While Red Bull's dominance definitely has some to do with the car (Adrian Newey is a brilliant engineer), Verstappen is walking away from his teammate in the same vehicle. Does that sort of dominance make some aspects of the race boring? Yeah, but there's so much more to watch and there's tons of action and passing going on throughout the rest of the field. There are some really top-notch racers and teams on track and they're really battling it out.
- josefresco 3y ago> Verstappen happens to be a phenom. Max is great (just like Lewis), but it's generally accepted that Red Bull's "secret sauce" is the car, and their engineering team (specifically "aero").
- indy 3y agoIt's a combination of both, the Red Bull has been the most aerodynamically sophisticated car on the grid for a couple of seasons now, but then again I don't think many drivers would have been as successful as Max was last season
- michaelcampbell 3y ago> generally accepted that Red Bull's "secret sauce" is the car Only partially; Newey is a generational talent at what he does but if it were just that, Checo would be way ahead of where he is. Unless your assertion is that he has a LACK of talent that counteracts the car's advantage?
- abendy 3y agoMax's preference and ability to handle a very pointy front-end allows for more control of the aero across the entire car and is generally regarded as the best (fastest) way to design a car. Checo (as well as many other drivers) do not handle that set up as well. Newey's talent is undeniable, too.
- Solvency 3y agoHere's my problem with it. F1 is a sport for elites + billionaires, but even the racers are all incredibly wealthy/fortunate nepo babies. It's one of the most inaccessible sports in the entire world. It takes an average of $2M+ for a person to enter F1 as a driver. Imagine if every kid in the US alone had the privilege/fortune to race carts/cars since they were children, growing up immersed in the scene. Now imagine the equivalent of the US basketball or football system, where hundreds of thousands of kids start the sport young and are gradually filtered out all the way up to college and then pro leagues, ensuring the absolute best of the best are ultimately selected. The F1 candidate pool represents a rounding error in comparison. Sure, the drivers who make it are great. They started young and they worked hard to get there. But we're fundamentally BARELY penetrating the global potential here. The greatest possible drivers in the world will statistically never enter the sport. They won't even be able to afford a ticket to watch F1 in person.
- obmelvin 3y agoThe reality is that all motorsports are expensive. It's not easy to do karting in the US and work your way into the domestic racing scene. It's going to involve well off parents, parents who sacrifice a huge portion of their time, sponsorship, or some combination of those items. I saw this first hand with someone I went to middle & high school with. He eventually stoped karting because his family couldn't afford it anymore.
- bombcar 3y agoThere's a small-time racetrack near us (I think, theoretically, it is somehow tied to NASCAR, but no idea) and the drivers are small-town locals, usually funded by a few sponsorships that are clearly not "cost effective" in that there's no way they're getting that much in value back but they do it because it's a son of a friend.
- semi-extrinsic 3y agoThere are types of motorsports that are quite cheap. E.g. folkracing in Sweden has a rule where anyone can buy a competitor's car for $800. This means there is no incentive for spending lots of money on making your car better than the competition. No drivers license is necessary, age limit is 14. Yes it still requires sacrificing a lot of time and some money, but not worse than many regular sports.
- obmelvin 3y agoI know that F1 gets a lot of flack for the cycle's of team dominance due to large differences in the cars, but it's something that I quite like about the sport. I find it interesting to learn about pull rod vs push rod suspension, how air is routed for cooling the brake ducts, and other tiny bits of the car. The official tech talk videos on the F1 YouTube channel are also great. Sure, the cars are so wide and long that it's nearly impossible to pass on some courses (i.e. Monaco). Sure, some cars are much faster than others and you know it's very unlikely that a team like Haas will finish on the podium or even in the points. But, with the current financial regulations teams can't just spend $200m more than someone else. And if you look at the lap time differentials, the spread isn't as big as you might think. There's always NASCAR and IndyCar if you want to watch a more 'fair' motorsport where people are driving much more similar cars. But I think there's totally a place for a sport where teams aren't on as equal of footing and there's more room for engineering creativity.
- RavingGoat 3y agoThe problem with F1 currently is the cost cap. No team can afford to make changes to the car to catch Redbull because the cost cap won't allow it.
- obmelvin 3y agoWho would actually spend that much money though? Mercedes and maybe Ferrari*? Everyone else would just fall further and further behind. To me this seems like a necessary transition period. Once new engines and regulations come into play, some of the previous engineering work will become less relevant. Also, some of Red Bulls current dominance is certainly due to Adrian Newey and his experience with ground effect cars. * quick google search seems to indicate that Ferrari has roughly 1.3B in cash and Mercedes 26B. So not even a team like Ferrari, who's entire raison d'être is racing, can necessarily afford to spend hundreds of millions of dollars for years on end.
- amflare 3y agoIf there wasn't a costcap, no team could afford to make changes to the car to catch Redbull because Redbull would just outspend them. The only exceptions is possibly Mercedes.
- brodouevencode 3y agoExactly. I'd speculate that the article was removed because there is so much wrong with it - things that even I know to be untrue/exaggerated, especially about Ratcliffe - and R&T was threatened with lawsuits.
- jwozn 3y agoWhat parts specifically are untrue/exaggerated? Asking because I am not in the know.
- navane 3y agoYou read angry ramblings, I read a perplexed, what even is this, honest account of visiting a car theatre, put in the context of the kind of people who stage such a theatre.
- bombcar 3y agoWhich might be a great article for New Yorker or any number of other periodicals, probably not what the readers of a magazine dedicated to the sport is looking for.
- bombcar 3y agoIt sounds like it might have been an interesting article for someone outside the fandom - but that's not the kind of article Road and Track would write. People would be absolutely boggled by how much money is involved in so many aspects of life, and what that entails. If you make $100k a year, you might pick up a dollar you see on the ground but might ignore a penny - you won't really care about that dollar or spending it. At Red Bull's $181 million, that dollar is about $1k or more. Just not even considered.
- marklubi 3y agoThe amount of effort (and money) involved in just producing an F1 car is astounding. I think The Life of a Bolt video does a really good job of illustrating just how far these teams will go for safety, performance, and reliability. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iptAkpqjtMQ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iptAkpqjtMQ
- MarkusWandel 3y agoI liked the article. As a male and engineer, it left me thirsty for details that she glossed over, but it was a great fish-out-of-water story. The real shame is that an article can be vanished like that. Not so long ago, once it was printed it was printed and if you had the magazine in your possession nobody could retract its contents, as far as you're concerned.
- gear54rus 3y agowell thank cthulhu for internet archive its power is not limitless though (yet) so you can't save every article
- sunshowers 3y agoWell, it can't, right? Even if the Internet Archive takes it down after the publisher asks, there are other archive sites that thumb their noses at such requests.
- kmeisthax 3y agoIt depends. If you're Road and Track you can at least make it very difficult for anyone to find the damned thing and very legally perilous for people to say what sketchy archive site has a true and correct copy of the article.
- xmonkee 3y ago> As a male huh?
- MarkusWandel 3y agoOK, stereotypical male, then. Who hungers for a more detailed description of the stripped-down (no fairings) race car, and is more mildly interested in descriptions of showing up at a gala dinner in a thrift store outfit (though that was still entertaining).
- mitchbob 3y agohttps://archive.ph/2024.03.06-154359/https://www.washingtonpost.com/style/media/2024/03/05/formula-one-road-track-kate-wagner/ https://archive.ph/2024.03.06-154359/https://www.washingtonp...
- NelsonMinar 3y agoI'm curious about the editorial process that led to it being published and then pulled. In a traditional journalism outfit at least two editors would have worked on this story and approved it over days or weeks. Maybe that process is streamlined for the Internet era but I don't think of Road & Track being a clickbait publish anything outfit. Who approved the article, then pulled it without even leaving a comment?
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- nkurz 3y agoFor the second half of your question, here's the editor of Road and Track trying to explain why he pulled the article: The story was taken down because I felt it was the wrong story for our publication. No one from the brands or organizations mentioned in the story put any sort of pressure on me or anyone else. In fact, I heard nothing at all from anyone on the story. No contact whatsoever. It was unfortunate and I can understand how people might jump to the conclusion that pressure of some sort was brought to bear. It wasn’t. Truth is, when the story was assigned, written and edited I was Executive Editor of Road & Track, not EIC. I was dealing almost exclusively with the print magazine. The story had been assigned and edited by the digital team. Had I been aware of the story I would have put a stop to it long before it ever posted. I’m afraid this is a much more mundane situation than you might have imagined. https://defector.com/road-track-eic-tries-to-explain-why-he-deleted-an-article-about-formula-1-power-dynamics https://defector.com/road-track-eic-tries-to-explain-why-he-...
- piombisallow 3y ago[flagged]
- sunshowers 3y agoThat is literally the opposite of what the article says. > Watching [Hamilton], I understood what was so interesting about this sport, even though I was watching it in its most bare-bones form—cars going around in circles. The driver is the apotheosis of quick-moving prowess, total focus and control. The car is both the most studied piece of human engineering, tuned and devised in lab-like environments and at the same time a variable entity, something that must be wrestled with and pushed. The numbers are crunched, the forms wind-tunneled. And yet some spirit escapes their control, and that spirit is known only by the driver. Yes, we watch this perfect blend of man and machine, but we speak of the machine as though it were not of human origin, as though the machine, being born from science could—eventually, through its iterative processes—sublimate human flaws. It is a great read. https://web.archive.org/web/20240301170542/https://www.roadandtrack.com/car-culture/a46975496/behind-f1-velvet-curtain/ https://web.archive.org/web/20240301170542/https://www.roada...
- cafard 3y agoPursuit of perfection or purchase of the spiffy? The snark level distinctly dropped off when she discussed the actual driving.
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- velcrovan 3y agoI learned of the article via Rusty Foster’s “Today in Tabs” a couple days ago. His summary of the situation is really great and concise. https://www.todayintabs.com/p/turn-around-over-here https://www.todayintabs.com/p/turn-around-over-here (starts a few paragraphs down, but Rusty’s a great writer so maybe just read from the top)
- jwozn 3y agoWhat's up with all the links on the page? None of them work for me.
- HeyLaughingBoy 3y ago[flagged]
- breaker-kind 3y agowhy did you choose to only omit the word "socialist" from your cut and paste of the article's title?
- aerostable_slug 3y agoI'm not OP, but had I seen that I would have skipped this entire thread. I have nearly zero interest in what a socialist critic who normally covers cycling thinks about F1, its sponsors, or anyone else involved with the sport (or their thoughts on equestrian sports, sailing, offshore powerboat racing, air racing, or polo for that matter). The magazine's EIC was right: the article had no place in an enthusiast's magazine, well-written or not. Mother Jones or similar would be an ideal place for it. I wonder if the online editors who approved it were trying to move towards a politicized editorial tone more typified by Jalopnik [0] than Road & Track. [0] https://jalopnik.com/cash-strapped-donald-trump-wants-the-money-elon-musk-cl-1851311844 https://jalopnik.com/cash-strapped-donald-trump-wants-the-mo...
- hettygreen 3y agoThis article is like nothing I've ever read before. In a time of algorithms and social media bubbles, something like this is a breath of goddamn fresh air to be honest. I've been an F1 fan for years, but also someone who presumably cares about the environment and has concerns over the growing wealth-gap. Those things are hard to reconcile just to be entertained.
- HeyLaughingBoy 3y agoThis is one of the best articles I've read in far too long. She's an amazing writer.
- rokkitmensch 3y agoI don't usually recommend reddit, but in this case I will recommend r/formuladank.
- xmonkee 3y agoAbsolutely a joy to read. Reminds me of "Consider the Lobster" by David Foster Wallace. She also covers cycling, and let me tell you that skewering teams and sponsors is the norm in cycling journalist, so I'm not sure why people have to be so deferential in motorsport. Actually I do know. It's cause they are rich ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
- rokkitmensch 3y agoThat, and all of the writers are angling for a gig at one of the magazines that exists only to get test drives and publish glowing reviews of those test drives. A gig you won't get skewering manufacturers.