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Bernie, what are you doing to us?
With much fanfare and publicity, Formula One has today had its first night race at the new Singapore street circuit. Much has been made of the added excitement that night racing brings to the sport, how fantastic the circuit is and what a great day it has been for the sport.
The main force behind getting a night race, and another street circuit, has been F1 supremo Bernie Ecclestone. For some reason of his own - probably something to do with European television rights, as if the man wasn’t rich enough already - Bernie has decided that night races are the way to go. The same thing was tried with the opening race of the MotoGP season this year.
Having watched both the MotoGP and now the F1 race under lights, I find that I have to ask the question “Why?”. I just don’t get what all the fuss is about. After all, it’s not like they’re racing in the dark; there are so many floodlights around the place so that the cars can be seen on TV that they might as well not bother and just hold the race in the daytime.
“Oh, but it makes it more exciting” I hear you cry. Which is a nice idea, but unfortunately isn’t borne out by what actually happened in the race. Singapore is a street circuit, like Monaco. It’s narrow, there are no real straights and there are only about two places where an overtake can be attempted. So, basically, it’s a procession from start to finish. Yes, today’s race was full of incidents and the pole sitter didn’t win - but those incidents were either in the pits (Massa’s fuel rig still being attached as he drove off) or caused by accidents and subsequent safety car sessions (Piquet, Sutil).
F1 has been processional for quite some time, but there are circuits that do at least have some chance of giving us some racing. The street circuits don’t do that. Monaco was under threat not so long ago because it doesn’t make for good racing, and was only saved (I think) because so many of the drivers are based there. But at least it’s pretty to look at. But now we’ve got this new Singapore circuit, which is even worse from a racing point of view and most certainly isn’t pretty to look at - most of the time, it looked like the cars were driving round a multi-storey car park.
Yet, this is apparently what Bernie wants for the sport. He’s also added a new street circuit at Valencia this year (didn’t see that race, but apparently it was no better) and has said he wants more. And he wants more of the long haul races to become night races, too. What he should be trying to do is move the races to proper circuits where cars can overtake each other and we don’t have to rely on incidents and accidents to give us some entertainment.
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