12 March 2002 - Current month previous updates: - 02 | 08 | 12 | |

1 - Again, F1 is Quite Dead (Opinion)

F1 2002 (#01) - Rubens Barrichelo tries hard to beat Schum, but - strangely - his engine is always having problems.

F1 2002 (#02) - Raikkonen flies all over the curbs, but the Maclaren insists on being +1 second/lap slower at San Marino.

F1 2002 (#03) - Coulthard is having a hard time.

Again, F1 is Quite Dead

Formula One (F1) is dying. This year's championship features only 20 cars, and there is a huge distance between the top two teams (Ferrari and Williams) and all the others - a distance so abnormal, that their closest rivals (Maclaren and Renault) can hardly finish a race in the same lap of the winner! Such distance is the same that separates a F3000 from a GTA car!

Worst than the abnormal competitive differences, 10% (2 out of 20) of the drivers are now from the Schumacher family. Ralf and Michael Schumacher are schumming all the F1 records, from Alain Prost's number of wins, to Ayrton Senna's numbers of pole positions. In two years time, there won't be a single "number" in Formula 1 to miss the Schumachers' collection of achievements. I find that deeply *unfair*.

Just check F1's history and you'll learn that the most important numbers (#championships, #wins and #pole-positions) were won after very ferocious battles!
For example, Alain Prost scored 51 wins, after impressive fights against three generations of top drivers: Niki Lauda's, Ayrton Senna's and Schumacher's; the same Alain Prost, despite having won 4 world champion titles, lost three world championships to Lauda + Senna, for 0.5 points and for having more points, but less race wins, respectively.

And what about Senna?! He had to battle all his life - except for the year of his death (1994) - against Alain Prost and Nigel Mansell, who made his life the richest you can imagine. Those were the days! The fight was so intense, that one could almost touch the rivalry between Prost and Senna aficionados.

Who rivals the Schumacher(s)? There is Montoya, but he is very much alone and just starting. Bottom line is: the Schums are eating it all, without a fight. F1's history by numbers won't tell the truth.

So F1 has become uninteresting, and these days they even splash a huge "F1" logo on the lower left TV corner, just in case people are extremely retarded to the point of not understanding they are watching F1... on the other hand, you'll need a telescope to read the cars' numbers, but that doesn't seem to bother them...

With such a pressure to find a decent motorsport, I re-discovered Nascar on Eurosport's sunday schedule! What a competition! 50 cars (that is more cars than the ones finishing half of the races on a complete F1 season), speeds near 200 mph (320 kph - something that the F1s only beat on a couple of circuits, like Monza and Hockenheim), and ferocious fights for every spot, from first to last! I just love Nascar, yet I just started watching it!!

Make no mistake: if Montoya, or someone else, can't change F1's current down trend, then F1 should change name to FSchum and broadcast only to Schumland. I won't be a spectator.

F1 2002 (#04) - The other Schum.

F1 2002 (#05) - Toyota is F1 2002's best thing.

F1 2002 (#06) - Villeneuve lost a brilliant career on Bar.