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F1’s High Ticket Prices Effecting Crowd Sizes

jemela — Tue, 09 Jun 2009 12:56:23 +0000

Leading Formula 1 figures say the sport has to be careful not to price fans out of going to grands prix after poor attendance figures throughout the Turkish Grand Prix weekend.

While the Istanbul Park circuit itself has been lauded as the best modern track on the calendar since it was opened in 2005, the F1 fraternity has complained about a lack of atmosphere at the venue due to poor spectator numbers.

Those problems continued for this year’s event, the majority of grandstands empty for Sunday’s race and some covered with black netting.

The lack of local fans didn’t escape the notice of leading drivers and team figures, all of whom agreed that something has to be done about ticket prices at venues that struggled with attendances.

But although Turkey in particular experiences problems in attracting fans to its race, Ferrari’s Felipe Massa believes there is enough local F1 interest for the grandstands to be filled if the tickets were priced at more affordable levels.

“I think when you come here and you go in the city and see there are massive [amounts of] fans around and then you come here and have nobody, it means that it is too expensive,” he said.

“It means that we need to make it cheaper. We prefer to race in a circuit with cheaper tickets and a lot of people inside because I’m sure that if you put down the price of tickets it would be full.

“That’s also one of the issues that we have – it’s too expensive. If you go in normal families, if you need to spend 1000 Euro for you and your two kids you think about what to do.

“You say, ‘no I prefer to watch on the television’, so for me it’s clear.”

Having been outspoken about the demise of more traditional F1 venues such as Silverstone on Thursday, Mark Webber was another driver to express concern about the dearth of spectators for Sunday’s race.

Given organisers knew ticket sales were struggling, the Red Bull driver reckons people should have been let in for free for the race – a move which he believes would have had positive benefits for the sport.

“There was no atmosphere in Turkey,” Webber said after finishing second in the race.

“I think that there were a lot of people that tried to come in today but obviously it’s not that cheap and things like that but we should have let them in for free at the end.

“It would have been nice for the show to let people in.

“I’m sure there’s a lot of people that would want to come to the Turkish Grand Prix but can’t afford to because it’s very expensive.

“Jenson [Button] and I spoke about this on the parade lap that on the day maybe we should have made an announcement yesterday or even this morning to get some more people in here to let them experience our sport and that’s a shame that it didn’t happen today.”

Although Formula 1 has successfully expanded into new markets in the Far East and Middle East over the past decade, many of the new venues have struggled to build consistently strong fan bases at the circuit compared to some of the more traditional races in Europe.

Ferrari team boss Stefano Domenicali admits such issues have been lost amid the current atmosphere of political infighting within Formula 1 – but says it is something that must be urgently addressed.

“I think this is one problem that we need to solve for sure,” Domenicali told reporters.

“Now we are concentrated too much on other things and it seems that we don’t care about the public, about the show and about what’s going on around us.

“I know that media and television is very important, but it’s like being in a football stadium that is totally empty.

“All the stakeholders in Formula 1 realise this is an issue, but we need to solve altogether – teams, commercial rights holder, FIA, promoter, organiser. This is for sure one point that has to be put on the first priority on the table between all of us.”

Toyota’s team president, and FOTA vice-chairman, John Howett says it is his understanding that Turkish GP chiefs were keen to do something about the poor attendances, but “weren’t encouraged to do so”.

However, he stressed that Formula 1’s worldwide TV viewing figures proved the sport had strong popular support.

“I didn’t speak to the [race] promoter, but I think the promoter told Flavio [Briatore] that they had been willing to do some fairly serious activities to actually increase the traffic and that they weren’t encouraged to do so.

“I think that we have to realise that we are in an economic situation where entry prices to the tracks is important to the customers, but if you look at the viewing figures, that we receive anyway at Toyota, they are encouraging.

“Our sport is as strong, if not stronger, than it has ever been.”

But asked whether poor circuit attendances were nevertheless not good for the sport in the long term, he added: “I do recognise that, but it is a situation partially beyond our [the teams’] control.

“One has to say that if you look at the viewing figures it indicates that the product is very strong, you have to question whether potentially the price of entry is too high or what we need to do to improve that.

“But FOTA has always made it clear it is very open to work with the commercial rights holder to improve this.”

Source - ITV-F1

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Ferrari Surprised By Poor Turkish Pace

jemela — Mon, 08 Jun 2009 08:53:07 +0000

FERRARI FLUMMOXED BY LACK OF SPEED

Monday 8th June 2009

Ferrari team boss Stefano Domenicali admits the Scuderia are rather confused by their lack of race-pace in Sunday’s Turkish GP.

After a solid performance in Monaco, which saw both Kimi Raikkonen and Felipe Massa finish in the points, Ferrari’s first double points-haul of the campaign, the Scuderia appeared to take a step backwards in Turkey.

Despite both drivers starting in the top eight on the grid, only Massa managed to score any points as he brought his F60 home in sixth place.

It was a disappointing outcome for Ferrari with Domenicali admitting the Italian marque just didn’t have the pace needed to finish any higher up the order.

“We definitely expected more from this weekend, especially given what we had seen up to the end of Saturday morning, when our level of competitiveness was pretty good,” he said.

“We have to understand why the performance of our car evolved in a negative fashion over the course of the three days: the race pace we saw Sunday afternoon was not only not up to the level of the best but it was also not as good as many of the others.

“We must continue to work on the development of the car to try and make up ground, by continuing to stay focused and without getting discouraged by this set back.”

Massa echoed his team boss’s sentiments: “I expected to be competitive here. Maybe more competitive than we are. But unfortunately things were a little bit different.

“We were missing a little bit of pace in our car, and if you are missing a bit of pace then you do not have the opportunity to win.”

Source - Planet-f1

Image (c) Bridgestone Corporation

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Turkish GP 2009 - Ferrari Race Day Press Release

jemela — Sun, 07 Jun 2009 21:30:09 +0000

Only thee points picked up by Scuderia Ferrari Marlboro in the Turkish Grand Prix, thanks to a sixth place for Felipe Massa: Kimi Raikkonen finished ninth. The opening lap of the race was the decisive one. After a good start, Felipe was fifth, but then, while trying to pass Trulli at the end of the main straight, he was also passed by Rosberg. The last corners on the track were also the key ones for Kimi, who having run wide at turn 9, was passed by Alonso going into Turn 12 and then after hitting a rear tyre on the Renault the external part of the left hand front wing was damaged and he was then also passed by Kubica. After that, the race pace of the two F60s was not quick enough to regain position and the classification at the end of the first lap stayed the same for the two Ferrari men to the end.

Stefano Domenicali:
“We definitely expected more from this weekend, especially given what we had seen up to the end of Saturday morning, when our level of competitiveness was pretty good. We have to understand why the performance of our car evolved in a negative fashion over the course of the three days: the race pace we saw this afternoon was not only not up to the level of the best but it was also not as good as many of the others. We must continue to work on the development of the car to try and make up ground, by continuing to stay focused and without getting discouraged by this setback.”

Kimi Raikkonen:
“It was definitely not the race we were expecting or the one we wanted. The first lap was decisive for me: I lost valuable places and then it wasn’t possible to get them back because today we weren’t quick enough. Over recent weeks, we have improved our performance a lot, but we are not yet at the level of the best, especially at tracks like this one. It is never easy to catch up, because in the meantime, the others are not exactly stopping their own development. We must not be negative about this after a weekend like this one, but we should continue to concentrate and to push: I am sure we can soon return to fighting for the top places. It won’t be easy but I have confidence in this team.”

Felipe Massa:
“A very difficult day for us. We have to accept the fact that sixth place was the best we could do, because we were not quick enough to fight against those in front of us. We must continue to push on the car development front to make up for what we lack in terms of performance, starting with the race at Silverstone. From Friday it was complicated to find a way to make the tyres work well: for example, today the softs seemed to go better than on previous days, but using them right from the start would have been a risk because the degradation, up to yesterday seemed to be pretty significant.”

Chris Dyer:
“We are very disappointed because we expected to be in the fight for better places. We have to really understand why we lost so much speed from one day to another. Today we weren’t competitive, not just up against Brawn GP and Red Bull but also when compared with Toyota and Williams. On top of that, the way the first lap went cost us dear: it’s not by chance that the classification of our cars at the end of lap 1 was the same as they passed the chequered flag.”

Image (c) Bridgestone Corporation

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Turkish GP 2009 - Bridgestone Sunday Press Release

jemela — Sun, 07 Jun 2009 21:22:26 +0000

Brawn GP driver Jenson Button used a two stop, hard - hard - soft tyre strategy to win a fast paced Turkish Grand Prix in hot and sunny conditions at the Istanbul Park circuit.

Button finished 6.7 seconds ahead of Red Bull Racing driver Mark Webber, who used the same strategy. The final podium position went to Webber’s team-mate Sebastian Vettel, who was the only driver to use a three stop strategy, using the soft tyre for only his final stint.

Bridgestone’s hard tyre proved to be the superior race tyre here, with good consistency. Button set the race’s fastest lap, a 1min 27.579secs, using the hard tyre on lap 40. There was some front tyre graining seen on the soft tyre, however this did not cause any particular issues. Most drivers used a two stop strategy, however Lewis Hamilton (Vodafone McLaren Mercedes) and Sebastien Bourdais (Scuderia Toro Rosso) completed the race distance on a one stop strategy.

Hirohide Hamashima - Bridgestone Director of Motorsport Tyre Development:
“Today was an interesting race in very hot conditions. Congratulations to the Brawn team and Jenson Button who were a very good combination today. I am happy to say we did not have any tyre problems at this very severe circuit, even in the notorious Turn Eight. We continued to see graining on the soft tyre, but this was much less than yesterday so lap times remained reasonably quick. Tyre strategy considerations were quite straight forward as the lap time difference between the two compounds at this circuit was not so big, but the hard was more durable. We did see one stop strategies today, illustrating that even the soft tyre was capable of doing a long stint.”

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Button Takes 6th Win Of 2009

jemela — Sun, 07 Jun 2009 21:11:53 +0000

So from the excitement and joy of Raikkonen’s first 2009 podium at Monaco, back to a dismal and ‘pointless’ race for the Finn in Turkey. Just when we thought things were looking up for our man, we get another disappointing race where everything seemed to go backwards.

Sadly the Turkish GP was a very boring race (unless you are a diehard Button fan of course), with Vettel - Buttons only rival for the race win having a brilliant start but making an early mistake, giving Jenson the chance to gun for victory unchallenged. Kimi had a bad start which pretty much dictated the rest of the race. He was squeezed by Massa (who is turn was avoiding the slow starting Rubens) and then damaging his front wing attempting to move up through the field again. He only really began to find some pace his final stint but by then it was too late.

Sadly the 2007 Drivers Champion never made it back into the points, finishing a disappointing 9th after starting from 6th on the grid with a well fueled car. Not a great result, nor one Kimi or his fans would expect.

Here’s hoping Kimi and Ferrari can get back on form for what could be Silverstone’s last GP for a long time. A podium would be a fantastic result and wonderful way to sat goodbye to the Northamptonshire circuit thats popular with fans and drivers alike.

Jemela Coventry - GoKimi Admin

PROVISIONAL RACE RESULTS

The Turkish Grand Prix
Istanbul, Turkey;
58 laps; 309.396km;
Weather: Sunny.

Classified:

Pos  Driver        Team                      Time
 1.  Button        Brawn GP-Mercedes     (B)  1h26:24.848
 2.  Webber        Red Bull-Renault      (B)  +     6.714
 3.  Vettel        Red Bull-Renault      (B)  +     7.461
 4.  Trulli        Toyota                (B)  +    27.843
 5.  Rosberg       Williams-Toyota       (B)  +    31.539
 6.  Massa         Ferrari               (B)  +    39.996
 7.  Kubica        BMW Sauber            (B)  +    46.247
 8.  Glock         Toyota                (B)  +    46.959
 9.  Raikkonen     Ferrari               (B)  +    50.246
10.  Alonso        Renault               (B)  +  1:02.420
11.  Heidfeld      BMW Sauber            (B)  +  1:04.327
12.  Nakajima      Williams-Toyota       (B)  +  1:06.376
13.  Hamilton      McLaren-Mercedes      (B)  +  1:20.454
14.  Kovalainen    McLaren-Mercedes      (B)  +     1 lap
15.  Buemi         Toro Rosso-Ferrari    (B)  +     1 lap
16.  Piquet        Renault               (B)  +     1 lap
17.  Sutil         Force India-Mercedes  (B)  +     1 lap
18.  Bourdais      Toro Rosso-Ferrari    (B)  +     1 lap

Fastest lap: Button, 1:27.579

Not classified/retirements:

Driver        Team                      On lap
Barrichello   Brawn GP-Mercedes     (B)    49
Fisichella    Force India-Mercedes  (B)    5


Image (c) Bridgestone Corporation

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Turkish GP 2009 - Ferrari Saturday Press Release

jemela — Sat, 06 Jun 2009 21:05:25 +0000

It’s fair to say that Scuderia Ferrari Marlboro was hoping to do a bit better than the third and fourth rows of the grid, given the encouraging performance in Monaco a fortnight ago. But, racing is about dealing with the cards you are dealt and so, Kimi Raikkonen and Felipe Massa still plan to aim for a good number of points tomorrow, even starting from sixth and seventh on the grid respectively. As has often been the case, the main problem this afternoon was getting the most out of the tyres over one timed lap.

Sebastian Vettel took his second pole of the season, for Red Bull-Renault, securing the top spot in the closing moments of Q3, after it looked as though championship leader Jenson Button had pulled off another last minute top slot in the Brawn. These two teams monopolised the front two rows, as Rubens Barrichello took third place with Mark Webber fourth. Sharing the third row with Kimi is the fifth placed Toyota of Jarno Trulli, while Felipe shares Row 4 with Fernando Alonso in the Renault.

Strategy will be one of the key elements in tomorrow’s seventh round of the world championship, on a track where two refuelling stops is the norm, although three can sometimes be used, given the short length of the pit lane, the high pit lane speed limit and the fact that its entry cuts out the last corner on the track. Given the high temperatures, the cars will be subjected to extreme conditions. These can also affect the drivers, as the many high speed and long corners, put a strain on the drivers’ neck muscles. This is further aggravated by the fact that the majority of corners are left handed, which is not a common feature on the F1 calendar.

On Friday night, Kimi and Felipe attended an event held against a spectacular backdrop of the Bosphorus, when around 500 guests were invited by the Turkish Ferrari importer to the Les Ottomans Hotel. The two drivers took part in a Question and Answer session, having arrived by helicopter and then boat to get there in time from the race track after their technical briefing sessions.

Kimi Raikkonen - 6th: ”In qualifying the car was better balanced than in free practice but, even on a light fuel load, today we were a bit slower than the best. All weekend we have struggled a bit to get the tyres working at their best on the first lap. For sure, starting from the dirty side of the grid won’t be easy, especially on a track like this, which is hardly ever used for racing, which means the track surface offers little grip off the racing line. We have made progress recently, but the others have also done the same, which is what always happens.”

Felipe Massa - 7th: ”On low fuel, the car was well balanced and had good grip, while once we had the race fuel on board, the situation got worse and we suffered oversteer, mainly on the softer tyre. Honestly, I’d expected to start higher up the grid, especially as we were pretty competitive in Q1 and Q2. Starting from seventh, it becomes tough to aim for the top, so we have to be realistic. However, we mustn’t forget this will be a long race and anything can happen. As usual, I will give it my best shot.”

Stefano Domenicali: ”This was a reasonable qualifying, even if it did not quite come up to our expectations. From what we saw over the course of the day, we can say that we did not get the maximum out of the potential available to us, especially in Q3. Having said that, we can expect a very tough and open race: we have a good strategy and we will try to exploit that to pick up a good result.”

Chris Dyer: ”It was a very close qualifying, especially at the top end of the time sheet. The cars ran trouble free all day: the major difficulty concerned tyre choice. In the end, we opted for the softer compound and all in all, we believe that was the right choice, even if the difference in performance between the two over the first timed lap was not as marked as on other occasions.”

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Turkish GP 2009 - Bridgestone Saturday Press Release

jemela — Sat, 06 Jun 2009 20:55:29 +0000

Bridgestone’s soft tyre provided the grip for Red Bull Racing driver Sebastian Vettel to qualify on his second pole position of the season for tomorrow’s Turkish Grand Prix at Istanbul Park.

Vettel set a time of 1min 28.316secs, a tenth faster than Brawn GP Formula 1 Team driver Jenson Button, who also used the soft Bridgestone. Rubens Barrichello (Brawn GP Formula 1 Team) went third fastest, using the hard compound.

Scuderia Ferrari Marlboro driver Felipe Massa used the hard tyre to go fastest in the morning practice session with a time of 1min 27.983secs. Illustrating the close performance today, a second covered the top 16 cars in the Q1 session and half a second covered the top ten in Q2.

Q&A with Hirohide Hamashima - Bridgestone Director of Motorsport Tyre Development

What was significant about today’s running?
“Today we saw a very close and exciting qualifying session. Deciding which compound to use and getting the correct set-up was the biggest task. The track condition was improved from yesterday and it was hotter and there was less wind. This meant that several factors had changed, so competitors faced a big challenge. The soft Bridgestone proved faster than the hard compound, but the difference was only slight. The soft tyre still shows more graining than the hard and this was a factor today.”

What are the tyre strategy considerations for tomorrow’s race?
“Management of the soft Bridgestone will be the primary consideration for many. The hard compound looks to deliver good consistent performance and the lap time difference between it and the softer tyre is not as much as we have seen for most of the races so far this year. So far our data regarding Turn Eight has not highlighted any problems, however tomorrow will see race stints with heavier fuel loads so we remain vigilant.”

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Vettel Pips Button To Pole, Raikkonen Well Fueled In Sixth

jemela — Sat, 06 Jun 2009 20:43:53 +0000

Fuel report to follow later…

Pos Driver Team Q1 Q2 Q3

1. Vettel Red Bull-Renault (B) 1:27.330 1:27.016 1:28.316

2. Button Brawn-Mercedes (B) 1:27.355 1:27.230 1:28.421

3. Barrichello Brawn-Mercedes (B) 1:27.371 1:27.418 1:28.579

4. Webber Red Bull-Renault (B) 1:27.466 1:27.416 1:28.613

5. Trulli Toyota (B) 1:27.529 1:27.195 1:28.666

6. Raikkonen Ferrari (B) 1:27.556 1:27.387 1:28.815

7. Massa Ferrari (B) 1:27.508 1:27.349 1:28.858

8. Alonso Renault (B) 1:27.988 1:27.473 1:29.075

9. Rosberg Williams-Toyota (B) 1:27.517 1:27.418 1:29.191

10. Kubica BMW-Sauber (B) 1:27.788 1:27.455 1:29.357

11. Heidfeld BMW-Sauber (B) 1:27.795 1:27.521

12. Nakajima Williams-Toyota (B) 1:27.691 1:27.629

13. Glock Toyota (B) 1:28.160 1:27.795

14. Kovalainen McLaren-Mercedes (B) 1:28.199 1:28.207

15. Sutil Force India-Mercedes (B) 1:28.278 1:28.391

16. Hamilton McLaren-Mercedes (B) 1:28.318

17. Piquet Renault (B) 1:28.582

18. Buemi Toro Rosso-Ferrari (B) 1:28.708

19. Fisichella Force India-Mercedes (B) 1:28.717

20. Bourdais Toro Rosso-Ferrari (B) 1:28.918

All Timing Unofficial

Fuel Loads and First Pit Stop Predictions

Qualifying	Name	Weight	Fuel (kg)	First stint (laps)
1	Sebastian Vettel	649.5	44.5	15
2	Jenson Button	655.5	50.5	17
3	Rubens Barrichello	652.5	47.5	16
4	Mark Webber	656	51	18
5	Jarno Trulli	652	47	16
6	Kimi Raikkonen	658	53	18
7	Felipe Massa	654	49	17
8	Fernando Alonso	644.5	39.5	13
9	Nico Rosberg	660	55	19
10	Robert Kubica	664	59	21
11	Nick Heidfeld	681.5	76.5	27
12	Kazuki Nakajima	680.4	75.4	27
13	Timo Glock	689	84	30
14	Heikki Kovalainen	665	60	21
15	Adrian Sutil	668.5	63.5	22
16	Lewis Hamilton	696.5	91.5	33
17	Nelson Piquet Jnr	689.6	84.6	30
18	Sebastien Buemi	686.5	81.5	29
19	Giancarlo Fisichella	688.5	83.5	30
20	Sebastien Bourdais	701	96	35

Image (c) Bridgestone Corporation

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Turkish GP 2009 - Ferrari’s Friday Press Release

jemela — Fri, 05 Jun 2009 20:08:01 +0000

Felipe Massa - 11th: ”The track surface today was very dirty, as could be seen by the number of off-track excursions. As for us, we concentrated on finding the best set-up for Sunday’s race and it’s difficult to say where we are compared to the rest. On top of that, everyone is very close in performance terms, so I think we’ll have to wait until tomorrow morning to understand something.

“The harder tyres give little grip, as we expected, while the softer ones seems to suffer significant degradation, even though, as the track evolves, that situation should change. The new aerodynamic elements we have here are definitely not worth a second, but they are a small help, which when put all together, improve our performance.”

Kimi Raikkonen - 15th: ”At this track, conditions change very quickly, so it is difficult to judge the performance of the various cars on the basis of today’s results. The track is very dirty and, after making some changes to the set-up, the car seemed to handle a bit strangely, but then it was back to normal for my final run in FP2. There is still work to do on the car but I am confident: I think we will find the right solutions to be competitive tomorrow and on Sunday.”

Stefano Domenicali: ”Today’s results are even more difficult to interpret than they usually are on Fridays. Apart from the normal unknowns relating to fuel loads and tyre useage, the track conditions also played a part, as they changed a lot during the two sessions. Having said that, we are reasonably happy with the work we did today, also taking into account our fuel loads. There is still work to do to improve the handling of the car, but all in all, I think we are going in the right direction.”

Chris Dyer: ”It was a rather complicated day, because of the track conditions, it being dirty and also because of the wind. We got through our programme without the slightest problem, concentrating on tyre choice for the race, finding the best set-up on the car and on evaluating new aerodynamic solutions which are making their track debut today.

“Both the compounds that Bridgestone brought here seem to be pretty critical in terms of grip, at least from what we could see today. But we know the situation will improve bit by bit as the track gets rubbered in. All in all, we are reasonably satisfied with what we’ve seen today. I think that again here in Turkey, we will be able to confirm the progress seen in Spain and Monaco.”

Image (c) Bridgestone Corporation

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Kovi Sets Istanbul Park Friday Pace

jemela — Fri, 05 Jun 2009 19:59:21 +0000

Report to follow…

Pos Driver Team Time Laps

1. Kovalainen McLaren-Mercedes (B) 1:28.841 37

2. Alonso Renault (B) 1:28.847 + 0.006 35

3. Kubica BMW-Sauber (B) 1:29.056 + 0.215 35

4. Nakajima Williams-Toyota (B) 1:29.091 + 0.250 37

5. Vettel Red Bull-Renault (B) 1:29.202 + 0.361 4

6. Trulli Toyota (B) 1:29.207 + 0.366 40

7. Rosberg Williams-Toyota (B) 1:29.257 + 0.416 40

8. Barrichello Brawn-Mercedes (B) 1:29.305 + 0.464 34

9. Webber Red Bull-Renault (B) 1:29.383 + 0.542 39

10. Piquet Renault (B) 1:29.401 + 0.560 38

11. Massa Ferrari (B) 1:29.416 + 0.575 37

12. Button Brawn-Mercedes (B) 1:29.430 + 0.589 32

13. Hamilton McLaren-Mercedes (B) 1:29.435 + 0.594 31

14. Glock Toyota (B) 1:29.518 + 0.677 40

15. Raikkonen Ferrari (B) 1:29.520 + 0.679 33

16. Heidfeld BMW-Sauber (B) 1:29.550 + 0.709 40

17. Sutil Force India-Mercedes (B) 1:30.081 + 1.240 32

18. Fisichella Force India-Mercedes (B) 1:30.091 + 1.250 37

19. Bourdais Toro Rosso-Ferrari (B) 1:30.295 + 1.454 39

20. Buemi Toro Rosso-Ferrari (B) 1:30.629 + 1.788 36

All Timing Unofficial

Image (c) Bridgestone Corporation

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