There ya’ go. Challenge laid down, and I sincerely hope, accepted. Which of the world’s two premier single seater motor racing series (that would be Formula 1 and IndyCars) do you prefer to watch – and, generally speaking – prefer to support at the moment?
In the one corner is the looooooong time incumbent, F1 (or Formula 1 if you want to be pedantic); in the other (corner), IndyCars.
I was prompted to piece together this ‘which is currently the best/which do I/you prefer?’ Column about Formula 1 and IndyCar after catching snatches of what went down at the latest rounds of both, last weekend.
I was covering the second round of our own SAS Autoparts MSC NZ F5000 Tasman Cup Revival Series taking place at the re-scheduled Skope Classic meeting at Christchurch’s Mike Pero Motorsport Park – Ruapuna over the very same Sat-Sun April 9 & 10 weekend, you see; so, spent what downtime I had checking out the action from the F1 Aussie GP meeting in Melbourne, and from the IndyCar Series race at Long Beach in the US.
With no official (i.e., paid) link either to SkyTV (NTT IndyCar Series) or Spak Sport (F1) was all fairly hit’n miss’. Until within a couple of hours of the race finishing, staff at the Formula 1 organisation’s own dedicated media unit had edited AND loaded to the official Formula 1 YouTube channel an excellent little 7.09 minute Race Highlights video.
The first thing you need to know about Formula 1’s YouTube channel is that it is really rather good. The second (thing you need to know about it) is that it has 7.41M (and that would be ‘M’ for million) subscribers. Not only that – but as I write this just 4 days after it was first posted the video had been viewed 8.2M times.
OK, that’s still not quite up there with energy drink sponsor and content creator Red Bull’s 10.4M subscribers but it certainly is in another league altogether when you compare it to the NTT IndyCar Series,’ er, 321K (K meaning thousand not million). Or even NASCAR’s 858K.
And therein, I believe, lies the key difference between the two series – numbers!
For instance, the NTT IndyCar media unit also produced a nice, slickly edited 5-minute (4.59) highlights package of the (to give it its official name) 2022 Acura Grand Prix of Long Beach and – like the F1 media people had it uploaded to the NTT IndyCar Series’ YouTube channel scant hours after the chequered flags (there were 2) had been waved. And which you can watch here…..
Their reward? After just three days the video had been viewed 98,000 times.
Sure, you don’t get to see every attempted pass and/or every botched pitstop as if you were either there in person or paying to watch a live stream of the whole race in real time via an old-skool provider like our own Sky TV or Spark Sport.
However, if ‘being there’ is not as important to you as it once might have been, and/or in all honesty all you really want to know is – let’s see; Who won? ‘How’ did they win? And what is the championship leader board looking like at the moment? – then foregoing the actual race but then catching a short, sharply edited race highlights video just hours afterwards, at absolutely zero cost, has got to hold quite some appeal for impecunious – or even just time poor – Kiwi race fans like my good self.
Speaking of which this year would definitely be a good one – for a fan like me to get back into actively supporting either (or perhaps even both) categories.
Certainly, the wholesale changes to the design of the 2022 F1 car/s have produced a field of far better looking – better balanced – cars which, from the evidence of the first three of a total of 23 rounds of this year’s title chase suggests that Ferrari has replaced Mercedes-Benz as the form team but equally that M-B made the correct decision replacing their #2 driver Valtteri Bottas with quick young Brit George Russell.
After two wins from three starts so far this year, Ferrari #1 Charles LeClerc has already established a healthy 37-point lead over Mercedes AMG F1 #2 George Russell who in turn has a further four-point buffer over Scuderia Ferrari #2 Carlos Sainz Jnr.
With seven-time former World F1 champion Lewis Hamilton back in fifth place on 28 points and reigning World Campion, the feckless Max Verstappen, in sixth with just 25 points despite a win over LeClerc at the second round in Saudi Arabia we are obviously in for an F1 season like no other (in recent times anyway).
Sure, I’d love to watch at least 5 or 6 of the upcoming F1 rounds live (But that ain’t gunna’ happen any time soon, is it?) or at the very least in real time on a large format TV screen.
The silly thing with my life at the moment, however, is that I simply do not have the time, the money or in fact, the inclination to set myself up to sit for up to three hours as a race unfolds.
Give me a short, sharp, race or (even better a slightly wider) ‘event’ wrap (or ‘reel’ as I believe the people who make ‘em, call ‘em), after the fact, however, and it’s a case of ‘now you’re talking!
Back in the day, of course, I used to be a real ‘armchair F1 aficionado,’ so proud of the ‘premium’ I was paying to watch the races ‘live’ I would have happily run a sticker on my car to advertise the fact- had they ever thought to produce one.
All I’ve ever wanted, for instance, from my pay-tv operator, is a dedicated – and decently curated – ‘Motorsport channel’ with ALL the biggies (you know, F1, IndyCar, NASCAR, the BTCC, Formula Drift as well as the Valvoline D1NZ National Drifting Championship series, the Repco Australian Supercars, WRC, WEC, MotoGP, WSB, World of Outlaws Speedway and premier NHRA Drag Racing from the US plus a bunch of filler stuff like annual coverage of iconic US off-road events like the Baja 1000 and King of The Hammers, as well as two-wheel odysseys like the Red Bull-backed Romaniacs, and Erzberg Rodeo (Iron Mountain) hard enduros.
So, each time I’d get one of their ‘special one-time only’ offers from their local (to Delhi!!!) call centre to re-subscribe I’d readily agree IF but ONLY IF it was to a motorsport-only subchannel.
Eventually, of course, after having my bit of fun at the hapless call centre workers and their many and varied ‘managers’ (because he or she would inevitably refer my enquiry ‘up-the-line’) expense, I’d capitulate and sign up for another 12-month sub, more often than not paying ‘just a few dollars more’ for less than I actually wanted.
Dollar-to-content-wise it was barely tolerable when my son Andrew was developing a professional interest in Basketball, and my daughter Kate and wife Delia were similarly caught up with Netball. But when both kids moved on and it was really only me spending long hours on the couch watching ‘cars going round and round in circles’ it was easy to say, ‘thank you but no thanks’ when the inevitable call came in from Sky’s off-shore call-centre offering to ‘roll my sub over for another year…“And it will only be costing you a few dollars more.”
In Pt 2 of this column next week, I will look closer at the cars and drivers in each category.
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