Can proposed rule changes rescue motorsport's appeal, asks Justin Hynes
Last week, as Michael Schumacher waltzed across the finish line in Imola to make it four wins from the opening four races in the 2004 Formula One championship, the sport itself was beginning to digest a slew of rule changes proposed by the sport's governing body the FIA, to "improve the racing spectacle".
Apart from the delirious tifosi, the fanatical Italian wing of Ferrari support, who greeted Schumacher's latest triumph with howls of approval, few present at the circuit were dissuaded of the notion that Formula One is in trouble.
However, it is not Schumacher's dominance that is the problem. Dominance by one driver or team has always been the case in Formula One. Since the sport's codification in 1950, particular drivers and teams have always held sway. In the 1950s Juan Manuel Fangio won five championship, four of them in sequence. In the 1980s McLaren took seven drivers' titles from eight seasons from 1984 to 1991. In the '90s Williams won titles in 1993, '93, '96 and '97. Now it is the turn of Schumacher and Ferrari. Dominance is a fact of life in Formula One, a speed bump it will clear with ease.
Indeed, it's status as an inconvenience is borne out by television figures over recent years. While doomsayers were warning of plummeting audience figures, whilst simultaneously ignoring the falling audience figures for sport globally, the truth is that Formula One's appeal had marginally decreased and in some cases had improved.
According to Sports Marketing Surveys, a global company conducting research into the impact of sports sponsorship, figures for 2002, the year in which Schumacher won his fifth title with 11 wins from 17 races and a crowning by race 11, were down by just 8 per cent, a figure the company judged more than respectable in a year in which audiences of all sport dropped because of the presence of major events such as the Winter Olympics and the soccer World Cup.
Their suggestion is given more weight by the findings of French audience research company Mediametrie, which produces audience data for the Eurodata TV monitoring company. According to the French concern, figures in the UK for 2003 were up by 0.1m on the 'disastrous' 2002, though admittedly down to an average viewing figure of 5.8m from a high of 7m in 2000, the year in which Schumacher scored Ferrari's first world drivers' title in 21 years, a curse-lifting performance that, for Formula One fans, had the same resonance as Manchester United's 31-year wait for European Cup glory had for fans of the Old Trafford club when the side won the 1999 Champions League.
In Germany, F1 figures for 2000 peaked at 13.8m and dropped to 12.3 for 2003, but again were up on the 2002 season by an average of 500,000 viewers per race. In France, it was a similar story, a 2000 high of 7.7m dropped to 6.7m by 2003 but that was up a million on the 2002 season.
The statistics reveal one thing: that a single driver winning the title all the time is of little concern to viewers. What is relevant is competition.
In 2000, Schumacher was pushed all the way to the final race by Mika Hakkinen. In 2003 it was a similar story, with the German being hounded by Colombia's Juan Pablo Montoya and Finland's Kimi Raikkonen until the season-closing race in Japan. By contrast, in 2002, nobody could touch the German's dominance.
It is likely to be a similar outcome this year and after four races and four Schumacher wins, audiences are likely to become jaded. But Formula One has now revealed it is to take steps. And it is competition the body is trying to improve, not effect the dismantling of Ferrari's hegemony.
The rule changes it wishes to ratify by year end 2005 for implementation in 2008 (when Schumacher is likely to sitting at home with his retired feet propped on a coffee table while he watches a grand prix) are not designed to rescue the sport from the German but from its own previous bad decisions.
The 'spectacle' of Formula One, the overtaking and wheel-to-wheel battling, has largely been removed from the sport by a combination of factors that have crept up on the sport but which have gathered increasing momentum over the past decade.
Welcome changes to safety were implemented with ruthless abandon in the wake of Ayrton Senna's 1994 death and have resulted in the emasculation of the sport's legendary circuits and a banality in the design of new circuits such as Malaysia, Bahrain and Shanghai. The increasing dominance of aerodynamic elements in the optimisation of a Formula One's car's performance has reduced overtaking possibilities for any following driver.
The proliferation of electronic driver aids such as traction control, launch control, and automatic gearboxes have robbed the sport of its central concern - the pitting of one driver against another.
The proposed changes, which include an engine formula change as well as a return to manual gearboxes, the elimination of all electronic aids, the use of standard engine management systems and certain other car elements and the use of a single tyre type built to FIA specifications, are designed to do one thing - level the playing field.
A degree of homogeneity in the cars will once again pit driver against driver not machine against machine. Likewise, ridding the sport of all its electronic gizmos will put the driver back in control of the sport.
Of course, it remains to be seen whether the sport's notoriously intransigent motor-manufacturer backed teams, for whom F1 is an exercise in demonstrating technical superiority so it can sell more road cars, will embrace the proposals and the arguments are to be long and frustrating.
But whereas Formula One could be seen in some quarters to be clutching at straws, the truth is that the sport is at last being proactive in its reaction to the dangers facing it.
Other sports, to their detriment, have not done so. Golf has reacted to the domination of big hitters by simply limiting the head size of drivers without addressing the ever decreasing like likelihood of anyone other than a powerhouse player lifting a major trophy. As tennis becomes ever more focused on a power-driven baseline game, the sport's rulers have dithered on rule changes, suggesting limiting racket head size and materials, but not even codifying current standards.
"I think that the sport has lost something," commented John McEnroe to Sports Illustrated on the proliferation of the power game. "It's lost some subtlety, some strategy, some of the nuance." Formula One cannot deny that it has lost similar things in recent times.
But, at least, it is taking steps to redress the balance.