MotoGP vs F1 : the great motorsport debate...
So another race goes by, brilliantly fought to the very last by some supremely talented riders and I find myself wondering why on earth anyone would choose to watch Formula 1 over this, possibly the greatest motorsport on earth.
I am talking of course, about Moto GP.
In my title for this blog, I suggested that perhaps there was a debate over which of the two high-end motorsports (Moto GP or F1) is the superior, but the fact of the matter is there really is no competition at all. Formula 1 just can't compete on any level.
The arguments obviously are far wider and broad-ranging than the space a mere single blog allows, so let me be brief: let's for the sake of argument, take take a look at competition. In Moto GP at the moment with things as they stand, any one of perhaps four men could genuinely win the championship - Rossi, Stoner, Lorenzo or (at an outside bet), Pedrosa. If we look at the F1 table by stark comparisson we see similarly that there are four men at the top, but take a closer look at the stats and you come to realise that the current championship leader Button, has nearly 50% more points than the second place man, and perhaps more worryingly still, the top 4 are made up of just two teams. Look at the constructors championship and the uncompetative nature of the championship is made even more evident by the fact the third place team Toyota has a third of the points of the second place team. Is this the competative sport Mr Ecclestone would have us believe it is? Of course it isn't. Moto GP by contrast can boast that the top four riders come from three different teams, and in any given race the outcome is not merely decided by what team you happen to drive for.
That's because in Moto GP not only are the manufacturers a lot closer to each other competition-wise, but the balance between skill and technology is such that the skill of riders genuinely has an effect on how their machines perform in the race. Additionally, the range of skills and riding-styles in the Moto GP paddock is such that races can never be predictable or merely dictated by who has the best machine as 'best' is a very loose term in Moto GP... Ok, so there were a few one-sided races a while back when Ducati had an all-conquering rider-bike combination with Casey Stoner and a far superior engine package to the others, but even then there were races when the rider skill of Rossi pulled out results that on paper never should have happened.
If we look back to the Michael Schumacher days of F1, back when he broke his leg and was replaced by Mika Salo for half a season, was Salo (an inferior driver) further back down the grid? No of course he wasn't. He won races and even ended up competing for the championship. This was because by this stage in Schumacher's career, his team Ferrari had finally pulled themselves up to a position where in they were one of only two teams able to genuinely compete for race wins.
There have just been so many cases in formula 1 of 'best car wins' that we've seen too many one-off world champions to count that have been crowned champions more due to the success of their engineers and pit crews, than their own personal skill. Jacques Villneuve seems a fair example to me, as too does Damon Hill. Dare I say also, one certain Mr Hamilton? If Button goes on to win the championship this year, this has certainly been another case in point towards the argument that there is not enough variability in formula 1 to make the races anything but a procession with pit-stops thrown in for good measure.
To make matters ever more laughable, the governing powers that be in F1 have known all along that this is the case. If it wasn't for the immense amount of money in the sport do you really honestly think we'd still be bombarded with F1 everywhere we look? Of course not. To be honest if a sport has to fundamentally change its rules every year to try and make itself more interesting then the sport is, at its core, fundamentally flawed.
And it all began with Schumacher.
I say this of course, as a massive Schumacher fan. The fact of the matter was of course, where Schumacher was concerned, he really was just too good. So good in fact that the FIA felt the need to change the rules to try and make the races more interesting and give everyone else a chance. What with the ever-improving racing technologies and the increasing money being invested in the sport, the governing bodies were well aware that the sport was becoming processional.
Of course you can't blame this on Schumacher, nor indeed would I want to given the high regard I hold him in, for he was at the end of the day one of the greatest F1 drivers of all time and one of a very select few on the grid with the skill to drive beyond the limitations of his car. Hakkinen was another. If anything the Hakkinen-Schumacher years will probably go down as the sport's peak. The problem now is that the money has grown out of control, the drivers are all much of a muchness and there is little a fairly standard F1 driver can do to drive above his allotted station on the grid. As things stand at present, if you are on a Brawn or Red Bull car, you can pretty much guarentee you will be in the top 6 and you have a good chance to win the race. Unfortunately, this has always been the way with F1, and will probably always be - it just amazes me there are still any F1 fans at all.
I'm really sorry to say this, but Formula 1's days are over. The sport effectively died when Michael Schumacher retired, and with his retirement so left the last real character on the F1 grid. Sure he was a bit of a robot at times, but then he was an awesome driver and added a spark to F1 that it has been sorely lacking in since. With no characters on the grid, internal rivalries perhaps worse than ever before, and the threat of a break away league I find myself secretly hoping the sport will just die and take its boring races with it.
You know I've been following Moto GP for three or four years now (ever since my F1 disillusionment began) and have to say since day 1 I have never seen a boring race.
Let's take today's race as an example: Rossi and Lorenzo had yet another amazingly close finish (0.099 seconds between p1 and p2 at the end!), Pedrosa qualified 8th to finish 3rd and Tony Elias (riding a Ducati customer bike) started in 17th to finish in the top 10. Never at any stage was there a predictable outcome to the race, and the race went right to the wire with Rossi pipping Lorenzo to the win on the last lap in another fantastically close finish.
To add even more to my point regarding the greatness of the Moto GP spectacle, only a few races back now we had what was arguably the greatest Moto GP race of all time at Catalunya with another incredible Lorenzo-Rossi battle that went right down to the last corner. You just don't see this kind of stuff with 4 wheels.
And that perhaps, is one of the biggest factors holding F1 back. When it comes to racing, four wheels just aren't as exciting as two. On the most basic, fundamental level, you can fit more bikes side by side on a race track than you can cars. Bikes also allow to a far greater degree the 'rider factor' to have an influence over the race outcome. To overtake in F1 your car has to be significantly faster than your opponent in order to overtake and get back on the racing line for the next corner. Races can be ruined by slow drivers holding the pack up as on the tight circuits especially, there just isn't the opportunity for overtaking. Short fueling cars is the only thing small teams can do to put their cars nearer the front of the grid, but even then the better cars will still win as that's the way the sport goes.
It's flawed, plain and simple, and doesn't deserve anywhere near the coverage it receives. This is why all real motorsport fans don't watch F1: they watch Moto GP instead.