How do you think drivers have changed?

[DaveKillens]

Thanks 747.

I do believe that right now the presence of big money dictates almost every action and decision.

And I see the same behavior in other sports, where the love of the game is supplanted by the need to obtain results. I see it almost every soccer game, where players are willing to use their magnificent talents not to assist their team, but instead to draw penalties.

[Ciro Pabón]

Where is my lash? Oh... here. Let me get a grip. All right. Ready?

Another driver thread? Sheesh, we're going to drown in non-technical chat. I find even more aggravating the fact that new members don't realize that.

Some people is even happy that this thread doesn't lead to "lashing and bashing". How naive.

Let's put this in english:

Schumacher has always been like that, people. We all know what he's capable of doing to be the "best": that is, to be the worst. Period. How arguing about that won't take this thread into the abyss of heated argument escapes me.

Now, PLEASE, could you post something even remotely related to technical issues? Pretty please? In F1 there are cars and engines and tracks and times and remote sensing and... you know: engineering related stuff. You might be interested in it. If you are specially interested in fan chat, well, there are plenty of sites for that. There is ONLY one F1Technical.

What about some analysis of the move? What about comparing incidents in the past with incidents today? And I'm not talking about "yeah, I remember that in 1969 Benedetti, the japanese driver of fame, was driving that Lola-Ferrari, you know, the purple one..." but some NUMBERS.

After all, this forum is you, not me. However, it is becoming pretty boring for people like me. Believe me, old members write to me almost every day, complaining about the emptiness and simplicity of these kind of threads... but you like them.

We have a word in spanish for that: facilismo. The best translation I can find is "easy-ism".

Sigh. I feel very lonely today.... but imbued with a sense of destiny.

[strad]

Two top notch posts. =D>

[xpensive]

Indeed, I still believe that to open a new thread should be applied for, but I don't think this is the worst xample.

Far from it.

[mep]

Hmmm sad to see your critique Ciro Pabon.
I though this threat is going well and people start to think a bit how things might have changed.
This treat has nothing to do with the Schumacher/Barrichelo maneuver.
It was just a starting point I could have chosen every other one as well.
Like drivers (Alonso) who whine every race about something.
I am even so naive to be happy that there was no bashing.
This topic is not as simple as you might think because it is not only the drivers who have changed. Of course it touches technical issues just on the edge but it’s a very philosophical treat and that’s why it belongs to this place. You can’t discuss these things with people who don’t think much about their surrounding world. People and engineers who can think about technical issues should also be able to think about social things. You know Ciro engineers can develop nuclear bombs but they should also be aware of the consequences. There is always more than just the technics. I am curious to see your next post. This should be a playground for a guy like you.


Our whole community has changed.

- The media
- the fans have changed, and their opinion about drivers, maneuvers, , safety, fairness
- the sponsors (we had petrol companies, tobacco, whiskey and beer now there are banks and assurances. Can you imagine Allianz agent will act like Marlboro man?)
- the teams, no private teams, only big companies who want a clean representation of their image
- the money in the sport has changed
- FIA
- the common behavior to solve issues on court
- the drivers, what they are allowed to do yea even what they are allowed to say during interviews (nothing)
- the drivers age (Alonso, Vettel youngest drivers a few years ago and now 16 year old tests for Lotus)

technical things:
-the cars safety has changed
- the track safety has changed


The minds of the people
I can’t say for sure but something must have changed over the years. Everybody has safety in his mind now. Safety is strongest argument these days when you want to blame anybody. In fact almost nobody who grew up in Europe (can’t know for other regions) these days ever experienced real danger to his life. There simply is nothing dangerous (apart from own stupidity maybe). We don’t have volcanoes, heavy earthquakes, tsunamis, hurricanes or strong tornadoes. There are no criminal gangs who will shot you on street. We don’t even have dangerous animals in our forests. Not even poisonous snakes (some in the south). Despite this people start to see danger all over the place.

Just as example:
Whenever a little part is lose on a car or comes of a big discussion about safety starts resulting in punishments for the teams.
Don’t get me wrong I don’t want the times back when you must worry about a driver when there was an accident. I think it’s good that the cars are so save today. I just want people to stay on the ground. We don’t need to make a big hype when a small part comes of a car. I am sure the teams don’t throw around parts by will. Of course it can be dangerous but it’s also destiny when something really happens. You always have it when you do things.

There are still many things to say in this treat. I could go on with more things like how we think about fairness in F1 today. Meanwhile motorsport is no fair sport at all. Simply because a part of the car can fail and this is just bad luck and never will be fair.

Other things to think about is that green parties start to get more and more accepted and want motorsport to die. They already affected F1 just think about refueling ban or the old Hockenheim track. They were forced to plant trees on the old track in order to get the allowance to build the new one.

Now lets calm down a bit and keep a few things for later. As Ciro suggested I post a few videos. There are many things to spot on the cars, the tracks and how people react.

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9SmrV-FF ... re=related[/youtube]
Lucky Villeneuve his wing finally came off so he had free view again. Can you imagine this today?

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cnpf_9bA ... re=related[/youtube]
Interesting as well. He keeps pushing his car on two wheels and nobody thinks about danger just how passionate driver he is. Some will call it stupid because he ripped away his whole rear suspension by this but does it care? Ferrari has enough money and a suspension is noting for them. By the way F1 drivers need some stupidity otherwise they would not take a seat in aluminum coffin.

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v41YR37RYtA[/youtube]
Hehehe James Hunt, first he almost knocks out the marshal then he stands in the middle of the track to give the driver some signals and finally he crosses the track.
What punishment you get today for showing the finger or crossing the track?

And what is not mentioned yet, the law took a different perspective on threats and assaults. More often than not, if a driver did something dumb and dangerous, he was probably going to get his lights punched out very soon by either an angry driver or his pit crew. Basically, the drivers policed themselves.

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fG6ZGWA_ ... re=related[/youtube]
Nice example of police themselves.
Unthinkable today. Just remember the Trulli Sutil crash last year. They did not even fight just had a small talk to each other but still one of them received a harsh fine for this little chat among two guys.


[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wqtA0rnqssQ[/youtube]
Yea give him his cigarette and relax. Today he would end up in court with this comment.
How it would happen?
First it would be written in a newspaper. Then some person who has never seen a F1 race before and don’t even know Hunt but hates tobacco would be personally offended and walk to the lawyer.

[Dragonfly]

I am new here in the sense of participation and post count, but I think this is a worthy thread with an interesting and non-standard subject. What's more, driver changes are a fact, not fiction. Every generation differs from the other to a larger or lesser extent. And fans' perceptions about the sport change also.
The thread is not technical indeed, but aren't technological advances influencing driver mentality and behavior?

--------------
I apologize if my comments are out of place, but this preface IMHO justifies them.

General chat
Post here all non technical related topics about Formula One. This includes race results, discussions, testing analysis etc. TV coverage and other personal questions should be in Off topic chat.

[747heavy]

Hola Ciro, como estas?

I´m new here as well, and I´m sorry if you are offended by this thread.
I would be sad to see it go, as I think it is a very interesting and relevant topic. It is also one of the most cultivated and even handed discussions I have seen in a long time.

It´s your house Ciro and you make the rules - fair enough, no problem.
But by this logic you would need to close over 50% of all the threads here, as they are non technical (strictly speaking), and why you even have areas for "general chat" and "F1 races" then?

If you decide to close it down, may let´s start one with:
"How has the evolution of technology in F1 changed the requirements to be a top driver"
But as mep correctly stated, this may jumps a little bit short, and only covers one fraction of the changes involved.

Have a nice day

[strad]

Nice post mep..things sure have changed and much of has changed because drivers have nothing to fear.

[mr moda]

Hello Ciro.

I thought the general chat section was for this kind of thread?

GENERAL CHAT:
Post here all non technical related topics about Formula One. This includes race results, discussions, testing analysis etc. TV coverage and other personal questions should be in Off topic chat.

[andrew]

To be honest and quite blunt, there is nothing to stop those who want more technical threads from opening the threads that they feel should be on here.