Rival? No. Leaving aside the massive world wide following and it's deep history and legends... What will continue to happen is that F1 will get more and more

Rival? No. Leaving aside the massive world wide following and it's deep history and legends... What will continue to happen is that F1 will get more and more electric over time. The new regs for 2014 are for a smaller engine, supplemented by larger KERS, pushing for fuel efficiency. Long term, I see that trend continuing. Burning up shed loads of fossil fuels to merely race will get more and more difficult while normal car drivers and manufacturers have to deal with efficiency. F1 will evolve in the electric direction. That is not to even begin to suggests FE is a waste of time or anything like that. I'm massively looking forward to it, might even allow the word "excited". Much of it will run in the F1 off season. It can run in any major world city resulting in potentially fantastic visuals. I really like that you can hear the tyres working. All you hear now is engine, and that actually doesn't tell you much about the driver. Hearing the tyres tells us a lot more. For me FE is a fascinating supplement to F1 which could or should help F1 get more electric. Both technology wise, and in the PR battle with olde skool F1 fans. It can prove electric racing works. Equally, there are parts of FE that I don't like, but mostly they are things that will evolve and be solved over time, like the car swap thing, or PR type things like the social media voting for boosts nonsense. But the basic idea of trying to create an electric open wheel racing series is fundamentally right. I really hope it can gain enough traction to keep going. Actually, a final thought. I might be completely wrong... There is a chance that FE, if run and marketed right could be made to appeal to the Need for Speed generation. Run races at night. Bright lights ever where; scenery, under-lighting on the cars and all that glitz. Lots of music, and off track entertainment. Get game/software developers, ICE manufacturers, and the likes of Red Bull involved. Make it all look like a Fast and Furious race night, or X games events. Go heavy youth, apps, social media, and so on. Make sure it's on free TV with cool youth friendly presenters hyping it all up. If it gains a following from the ground up, it could become incredibly popular. So, essentially forget F1 and F1 fans. In fact, I wonder if the mistake is the open wheel F1 look a like thing, which draws unhelpful comparisons. Maybe they'd be better off racing electric cars that at least resemble the kind of cars you can buy? Electric chassis with light bodies resembling current road cars? Dunno. But whatever the case, Im in. I'll probably always watch F1 (not to mention many other racing series) for better or worse, but FE is very much a welcome addition for me.