I’m hearing between 50M-70M EUR for DTM, all billed straight to the OEM. For a domestic series with minimal interest outside the country.

A lot of people watch Formula E, more than WEC. Like, in the millions worldwide every race. More Americans watch Formula E on TV than F1.

Define “no one”. More people watch the average Formula E race than the average WEC race, Le Mans is the only WEC race fans (and OEMs) really care about. I love me some sportscar racing, but it just isn’t popular.

I’m unconvinced Halo is the best solution as well. Or at least, that it has gotten sufficient development to be a net benefit for safety.

I don’t think the beam is that big of an issue. The drivers already have antennas there, but stereo vision mostly makes those disappear. Not to mention GT and touring car drivers have much bigger impediments to vision with the giant A-pillars.

Yes, you did:

They’re strong enough to drive under a piece of equipment, at speed, and avoid more or less decapitating the driver?

Though that one never appeared to have threatened the roof of the car. It was the rest of the chassis doing its job to disintigrate and reduce the energy of the crash next to media in a bad spot on the circuit that made that one scary.

There is, though. Helmuth Koinigg was decapitated by a barrier at the US GP in 1974. Before that Chris Bristow was decapitated in the 1960 Belgian GP. Tom Pryce was parially decapitated at Kyalami by a marshal’s fire extinguisher as well.

Since when are safety measures only judged on the prior tragedy? That’s reactive thinking, the sport has needed proactive thinking for years.

After two years of drivers strongly pushing for cockpit protection, the decision felt like it went down in the course of a week.

Massa’s still alive and well, though his head injury was significant. You’re probably thinking of Bianchi.

The important thing is that running Jolyon in the test would be a waste if they’re planning to drop him after the season anyway. Even if Kubica isn’t their driver for next year, they’re still turning an otherwise worthless test into great publicity.

I don’t see how that changes anything. The ACO could rework their top class to no longer depend on OEMs (or be absurdly expensive) without the OEMs going away. If anything, OEM competition tends to be beneficial more often than detrimental (just look at the GT classes, or DPi to bring it back on topic).

1) That’s actually harder to balance than giving them a fuel flow and letting them build whatever solution they prefer.

Maybe it’s a distinction without a difference, but I’d argue a purist understands the actual essence of the thing they’re arguing for, while a traditionalist just argues “but we’ve always done it this way”. Open cockpit and open wheel were never defined fundamentals of F1, single seat is. Purists fight to keep F1 what…

No, it’s mostly the drivetrains that boosted their speed. Sure, they’re still making gains on aero (even as the ACO tries to slow them down), but the absolutely absurd acceleration from the hybrids are what has caused laptimes to drop while top speeds stay mostly constant.

A competent LMP1 program costs hundreds of millions per year, no matter what technology you build it off of. If they don’t spend it on a hybrid system, they’ll spend it on something else.

LMP2 requires an ‘amateur’ driver. Ideally these are people who have made a lot of money elsewhere and want to spend money to race sports cars against other non-professionals paying for their own teams. For example:

There really isn’t much commercial sponsorship in LMP2, apart from something like Rebellion who moved down from LMP1. It’s almost exclusively rich guys peying to live out their sportscar racing fantasy.