Stuart Codling Editor
There’s a certain well-worn maxim that “if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it”. While serviceable enough in most contexts, it sits uneasily upon the shoulders of Formula 1 as we contemplate a 2024 season of almost no change – and a To-Be-Confirmed future ruleset arriving in 2026 under which not a lot will change. Late capitalism dictates a trajectory of eternal growth and it appears F1’s stakeholders have bought unquestioningly into an immediate and distant future in which the rapid growth curve (in both audience reach and commercial revenues) seen in recent years is extrapolated onwards to the stratosphere. Strap yourselves in – billion-dollar franchise values here we come!
And yet there is evidence to suggest the froth is blowing off. We’ll skirt past last year’s survey which majored on F1 social media interactions being in sharp decline; the commercial rights holder disputes the numbers and, indeed, the source was one of those PR-guff-dressed-up-as-news emails that sensible folk delete straight away (unless it’s a slow news day). Let’s consider, instead, the hard facts of audience fatigue: flattening TV ratings, plus indifferent ticket sales at many venues.
That’s why we’ve taken the opportunity this month to muse over whether doing nothing is the right course of action. While F1 may not be in need of an intervention so substantial as to merit the term ‘fix’, there are tweaks and corrections which would improve the spectacle. Our main aim in composing this shopping list was to avoid ill-considered sticking-plaster solutions which have arrived freighted with unforeseen consequences over the past few years. We are, after all, still living through an era where tyre performance is essentially defined b
