Time For Change

I watched my first formula one race back in 2007, it was the Australian Grand Prix, and the much anticipated Lewis Hamilton was making his debut in the silver and rocket red McLaren.

I hadn’t really watched F1 before, only catching glimpses of it when I stayed over my Nan and Grandads house on a weekend, but other than that hadn’t really paid much attention to it. So here I was at the age of 11 sitting in front of the tiny TV I had in my room at the time ready to watch the race around Albert Park.

Pure excitement was the main feeling that stayed with me throughout the whole race. I loved it! I loved it more than I ever thought I would, and began to watch more and more. Come 2008 I was hooked! My support for Lewis Hamilton stood firm, and my love for the sport continued to grow in bucket loads.

Bring us to 2016, and you know what I still love this sport, possibly more than I ever have done. I live and breathe everything Formula One. It’s an obsession that I’m so happy to have, and one that I hope never leaves me.

Im one of these fans that will get up at 1:30am to watch FP1 in Australia, and even if it’s raining will stay awake the whole session just to see one car on track. I will stick with a race through a 2 hour red flag stoppage like we had in Canada in 2011, and wouldn’t even consider of moving from the sofa. I’ll get up at 3am in the morning to travel to Silverstone for the grand prix, and not be able to sleep for the whole weekend due to excitement, and I support both my chosen team (McLaren) and driver (Hamilton) whole heartedly, because as they always say ‘We win and lose together’.

As much as I love formula one however, I can’t ignore what’s going on at the minute – I don’t think any F1 fan can. Its everywhere you look! TV, magazines, and as much as I think its helped the sport, social media.

When I, and millions of other fans tuned in to Sky Sports F1 last Sunday to see the first race of the season, almost immediately we were greeted with a discussion on the failure of qualifying the day before, and this continued throughout the whole show. Was it necessary? I honestly don’t believe so. Yes, qualifying needed to be talked about, but to keep bringing it up just continued to show the sport in a really bad light, and more than that, it’s something that shouldn’t have been changed in the first place! I have to think that if I was a new fan watching the sport for the first time I’d have probably switched off.

There are so many issues raised, so many changes, and above all so much politics in recent years that the sport seems to have forgotten what its main focus should be – bringing that feeling of excitement to fans all over the world. Really it shouldn’t be that difficult! I’ve only started to notice a difference in the last few years, and maybe social media hasn’t helped because whereas before the only news update you got was when you watched coverage at the weekend or read magazines once a week; now you have updates every minute of every day, and fans of the sport are so much more aware of what’s going on because of this.

In only the last few weeks we’ve had changes to qualifying which is now set to be altered again for Bahrain but no one seems to know what’s going on. There have been discussions regarding 2017 rule changes which you have to say will confuse fans even further, and add to that in the last few days the announcement that Formula One will no longer be shown on free to air TV come 2019, and the alienation of fans just gets worse.

There is evidence in viewing figures that formula ones fan base is reducing, and the changes in television rights will only aid this even further. It’s a real shame because some simply can’t afford to pay the subscription fees, and some just can’t justify it.

It’s clear now more than ever that something needs to be done. The Grand Prix Driver’s Association have made a statement that they want an input into the decisions made going forward, mentioning that the sport is “ill structured”, but will this really be listened to by those with the power to do anything? Only time will tell.

I think we all know that the time has come to make the sport we love great again.