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It 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 k

It 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 ago
  It'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 ago
    Max'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 ago
Here'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 ago
  The 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 ago
    There'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 ago
    There 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 ago
I 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 ago
  The 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 ago
    Who 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 ago
    If 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 ago
Exactly. 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 ago
  What parts specifically are untrue/exaggerated? Asking because I am not in the know.
navane 3y ago
You 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 ago
  Which 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 ago
It 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 ago
  The 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

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 ago
It'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 ago
  Max'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 ago

Here'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 ago
The 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 ago
  There'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 ago
  There 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 ago

I 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 ago
The 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 ago
  Who 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 ago
  If 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 ago

Exactly. 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 ago
What parts specifically are untrue/exaggerated? Asking because I am not in the know.

navane 3y ago

You 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 ago
Which 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 ago

It 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 ago
The 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