Bob Barnard Track Engineering

Monetise, what an interesting word. George Lopez followed up on Martin Whitmarsh's comment the other week about F1 doing a better job to promote itself. Speaking to Autosport Lopez said, "Formula 1 does need to promote itself better as it is a global sport," Lopez told AUTOSPORT. "It probably also needs to monetise better, which is a different thing. Promoting means putting money into something and hoping you get known, monetising means making money."

So, what he wants is more money, not necessarily more fans. He goes on to talk about exploiting the Internet, "Lopez believes there are many other avenues on the Internet that can be pursued that would raise good finance for the sport.

"There is all the historic video content for example - and people would pay," he said. "I would, for example, love to really look at the Ayrton Senna/Alain Prost Suzuka accident, and I would pay to have monthly access to any race I wanted to watch." Well he may pay, but what he is really saying is that we can make money from existing fans by charging them to watch the good old days. Aren't existing fans getting soaked enough by high track entry fees? And didn't Bernie try to get us to pay for HD? That failed badly, one of Bernie's only missteps.

He has lots of other good ideas such as on-course betting. Again, getting money from those already at the race. His idea for new fans? Letting his drivers walk to the paddock without minders.

But maybe George has it correct. We had the Goodwood Revival race meeting over the weekend, a sell out, watching the old stars, both the cars and the drivers, so perhaps watching old races will pay? Perhaps returning racing to these good old days might also increase the audience.

Martin Whitmarsh had another interesting pronouncement the other day on Team Orders from a different perspective. He made the point that motor racing is dangerous, potentially lethal, and no driver should be asked to take that risk just to support his team mate. Good point.

The discussion continues on LinkedIn on spectator decline. A post today from David Harris, who presumably works for SPEED, tells us that viewing figures have grown from 20m when it was Speedvision in 1996, to 80m as SPEED today. Considering most people could not get Speedvision in 1996 I am not surprised. The problem is, are the 80m race fans or motoring soap opera watchers? Pinks, Dangerous Roads, etc. etc. to me do not constitute race fans. As I said yesterday there were great races going on all over the world that we did not see. Now, I do not blame Fox for chasing audience numbers of whatever sort, that is their business, to make money, but there is more to racing than endless NASCAR and "reality" shows.

That is George Lopez's business too, he runs a venture capital group like CVC, who own F1 and are in it for the money. That is great so long as that is not your only objective, all businesses have to make money to survive, but I doubt if you ask Sir Frank Williams, Patrick Head, Peter Sauber, and yes, that epitome of corporate correctness, Ron Dennis, what matters most, they will say the racing. Enzo Ferrari only built road cars to make it possible to go motor racing, not the other way round. Perhaps we have reached the root of the problem? Today's racing is run by "the suits," the grey men who only see the balance sheet, not the timesheet. They have forgotten what made the sport worth investing in in the first place, and will ruin it all.

Finally a mention for someone who does get it and lives it. Garry Dickinson returned to the track that nearly killed him two years ago and rode a couple of laps, virtually his first time back on a bike. Well done Garry, that takes real guts, not some fabricated made for TV BS. Where were SPEED when you did that?