“Racing has never made sense from a cost-investment perspective” absolutely not true, otherwise no one would invest the money... except the rich hobby racers. even the craziest racing budgets are dwarfed by the existing R&D budgets. “tens of millions” is nothing to BMW. the return though, is what matters - whether it…

nascar has been so creative at suiciding itself its remarkable. lets think of another way to diminish the product? brilliant!

and the current prohibitions and drug war are not?

thanks brad

i suspect a few things here brownley. 1- the hypercars will be faster than we think. every category always is. 2- we are likely looking at an LMP2 overhaul in the next few years. even if the FIA WEC doesn’t want to admit it, and costs will take a hit, I think it makes more sense to restructure it as a a kind of…

thoughts:

i actually think the prediction graphics take something away. it was particularly apparent at the usgp last week. based on how we know the tires are working this year + how the graphics basically tell you whats going to happen and when - we basically knew bottas was going to take back the lead, then he did. it s…

not sure what youre talking about the series is going strong. its also awesome racing

thats not the GT4 supra. it’s actually a concept that upon closer look can be identified as a GTE model (based on the wec leader lights system) it was rumored to be an idea that was ultimately ruled out by toyota. point being, the gte, much like the nascar version, has little in common with the road car as well. many…

nascar has had several iterations of cars since the 60s. so has sportscars. they both still exist. nascars isnt any more successful just because they didnt have different names for them. 

I think it depends what your time / energy is worth (both is dollars and to you intrinsically). Owning a car (negotiating the purchase/eventual sale, long term maintenance, breakdown anxiety, etc) involves more time and energy from you. Some people’s time is literally worth more than what they would save buying, some…

yeah i do think they did a nice job with it, but at the end of the day its just another modern F1 track - devoid of much character or atmosphere. I think I remember Nico Rosberg saying that the F1 calendar was kind of boring to him because when you’re at the track you have no idea what country you’re in - the track,…

sure, if COTA survives a few decades then yeah why wouldn’t it be right there with any other racing circuit town in the world, but that takes time, and it seems 50/50 if thats actually gonna happen. Writing on the wall is starting to emerge with regards to the finances of the event, and I think F1 itself isn’t that…

yeah what? have you ever been to a race? even the least competitive ones are some of the least boring things you can ever witness. Its television that dulls it down 10-fold for me. doesn’t do justice to the raw spectacle and perspective required to appreciate just how nuts racing is in real life. 

• most tracks were “holes” when watkins glen was a grand prix. the layout is sick and i’d love to see them come back (if they can ever fix the cars so they can actually race on aero tracks).

LMP1 Hybrid was approaching the same level of spending at its peak, which makes sense as the take was as sophisticated or more than F1. I think the difference is there wasn’t nearly the same ROI. Far less eyes on your sponsor’s stickers and virtually $0.00 in race winnings. So yeah I’d say its a toss up

“All told, F1 prize money, sponsorship and cash thrown in by Daimler AG hit £338.4 million in 2018"

they don’t race for free, they do get a lot of sponsorship $ but a ton still comes from the parent company budget. That doesn’t count as sponsorship money in my book

I think it was perhaps a bit easier to pass, even if there wasn’t a whole heck of a lot of it then either, but more so, Ferrari’s rivals had the ability to actually develop their engines without penalty. The hybrid formula is just insanely complicated and expensive to figure out. Even Merc with their dominant engine…

“Bringing the carousel back didn’t magically make this year NASCAR’s best at Sonoma, considering the only cautions were for stage breaks and that the top-two finishers, Martin Truex Jr. and Kyle Busch, had more than 30 seconds on third place.”