(Photo by Ferrari Press Office via Getty Images)
The 2009 season has brought about quite a few surprises to the previously almost predictable results. Certainly Vettel dominating Monza in 2008 was unforeseen, however over the last few seasons the championship was dominated by two teams, and in the last decade Ferrari was either winning or challenging for the championship.
The absence of a championship winning or even race leading Ferrari, McLaren’s inconsistency, Renault’s failures, and Red Bull’s incredible development and on track speed, and Brawn’s spectacular consistency and superior performance, have been responsible for a growth in Formula 1 fan base.
What Lewis Hamilton’s presence in the sport has done in the last two years has been built on by Brawn GP’s resurgence.
Brawn’s elevation in the championship and the top teams’ demotion has benefited the sport in viewer ship numbers, and because of the support of Ferrari, McLaren, Renault, and Sauber, fans their demotion from the top spots of the F1 grid has not resulted in loss of that particular fan base.
F1s decision to make their cars “clean” by doing away with aerodynamic devices, addition of a snowplough like front wing, and narrow yet tall rear wing, adaptation of common devices, and many other changes in the sport have resulted in the current F1 championship standing.
The championship leaders of this season are different than those of years past, and with each week it becomes absolutely obvious that none of the big three will win the constructor championship. While the leaders are different the situation is a repeat of seasons gone by.
At the time that Ross Brawn, the current Brawn GP team owner, was part of Scuderia Ferrari Marlboro, fans were leaving F1 behind and calling the sport boring simply because of the team’s incredible dominance.
That dominance has yet again been repeated, and what FIA has tried to achieve by introducing new rules and regulations pertaining to car design, has been done away by the rules and regulations of the 2009 season.
F1 has tried to become far more popular, while at the same time becoming far less costly; both can perhaps be achieved in the long run, but the 2009 season is demonstrating that the two ideas do not go hand in hand.
F1 has always been considered the pinnacle of engineering, and in the last few years it has attempted to maintain that position in the racing world while lowering the operating costs. Rules introduced for the 2009 season and proposed for the subsequent seasons were written in to try and start a process of bringing the costs of F1 down.
Among those rules is rule 22.1.b, “no competitor may carry out more than 15,000km of track testing during a calendar year,” and 22.1.c, “no track testing may take place between the start of the week preceding the first Event of the Championship and 31 December of the same year.”
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