[ds968]

Wow, a couple of seasons where he does not win every single race, lol, and he's bailing out of Red Bull. Wimp ;-) . Just kidding, but he's very secretive as to where he's going in 2015. Speculation is maybe to some other circuit all together , maybe following Weber just so he can beat him there as well, maybe Indy , or hey.. NASCAR !! , lmao ..

Partial Post: Please Login or Register to read the full post.

[ds968]

What , no opinions on the topic ? Even with the prevailing rumor that he will be the highest paid sports figure in the world by going to Ferrari next year for a $ 80 million annual salary ( and that's before any endorsements income which has been estimated at an additional $ 100 mil ++ ) ? Sheesh .. Life is good; these guys are not solving world hunger, or brokering global peace , or saving the environment or coming up with cures for cancer, but in return for entertaining a few of us who watch them race around a track, or play football , or basketball, or box, or whatever other form of entertainment floats our boat , they rake in millions, and millions ..

Partial Post: Please Login or Register to read the full post.

[Bulti]

Maybe nobody's chiming in because it's probably the most boring sport ever? Ok, it's probably bested by golf or cricket, but still...



(If this doesn't stirr things up, I'll add baseball, Nascar and the wimpy version of rugby :-)) )

Partial Post: Please Login or Register to read the full post.

[Chris Vais]

I guess in a way I'm sort of bored with F1. More often than not the guy who wins the pole wins the race. It seems that the only teams that win the pole and therefore the race, are the best financed teams. Sedastion has had everything to himself for the 4 years prior to this one. He gets a new car (along with everyone else) and a new team mate, who might even be more competitive and dare I say better driver than he is and he is having a mediocre season. Why not move on, Ferrari has been out of the running for a while now, even with Alonso on board. Alonso is a brilliant driver, but Ferrari has produced a chassis and engine combo capable of winning. No of the other Ferrari powered cars are doing any better.



Ferrari will pay him a boatload and half of money but it won't make the car better or the engine produce more horsepower.

Partial Post: Please Login or Register to read the full post.

[ds968]

Sigh, I can't argue with the fact that on many courses the race turns into little more than a " follow the leader " run and ends roughly in the same order as it starts.. It's losing some appeal for me as well , I fast forward through much of the recorded races nowadays . Still the sport must have an immense following, given the crazy money paid to drivers , investments made in cars, etc.. I read somewhere that after football ( real football , as in " soccer " ) F1 is the second ( albeit a much distant second ) most followed sport world-wide . I found that very difficult to believe, but not sure what else would fit in that second spot - certainly not American football , or basketball, or rugby, or tennis, or baseball, or any other sport that comes to mind..

Partial Post: Please Login or Register to read the full post.

[Bulti]

Well, according to this:



http://sporteology.com/top-10-popular-sports-world/



The number 2 is quite a (boring) surprise, altough with "2-3 billion fans" the margin of error is quite enormous.

Partial Post: Please Login or Register to read the full post.

[ds968]

yeah, but a flawed criteria IMO - just because the two most populous countries happen to have a favorite national sport ( cricket or table tennis ) simply taking the number of fans in that ethnic minority-majority, lol, into account is not a factor that should be used in the ranking; rather, it should be the number of fans of any given sport in ALL the countries world-wide. that's my criteria and it should be the law ! <img src="/forum/images/smilies/968/tongue.png" class="smilie" alt="" />

Partial Post: Please Login or Register to read the full post.

[Bulti]

A very recent, also with the regional popularity mentioned: http://www.topendsports.com/world/lists/...t/fans.htm

Partial Post: Please Login or Register to read the full post.

[ds968]

Wow, field hockey more popular than tennis ?! And as if that wasn't odd enough, it's by a 2-1 margin ! Regional population numbers or not , that just surprises me.

Partial Post: Please Login or Register to read the full post.

[Bulti]

The Dutch play it a lot, at least that's what I've heard. Maybe they switched sport after getting whooped by Iceland just now, hehe.





Sorry, I know.

Partial Post: Please Login or Register to read the full post.

[ds968]

[quote name='Bulti' timestamp='1413389575' post='163049']

The Dutch play it a lot, at least that's what I've heard. Maybe they switched sport after getting whooped by Iceland just now, hehe.

Sorry, I know.

[/quote]

<img src="/forum/images/smilies/968/laugh.png" class="smilie" alt="" />

maybe the field was icy .. of course there was a full moon all around , Poland beat Germany 2-0 ( payback for 1939 ? <img src="/forum/images/smilies/968/icon_lol1.gif" class="smilie" alt="" /> )

Partial Post: Please Login or Register to read the full post.

[ds968]

So after watching the Bahrain GP with yet another win by the pole position leader I pulled up some stats on the topic - to date, the number 1 qualifiers have won 49 % of the races. That's a remarkably high percentage, considering the margins between the top few spots are often hundreds of one second apart.

I don't have the patience to research this on a track by track scenario, but I presume those stats are heavily skewed by venue; on narrow street course tracks like Monaco I would imagine the pole sitter takes the race 90% of the time ( absent some malfunction with the car...) while on courses which have long straightaways or turns with three cars deep space that statistic may drop significantly. I'm watching the Long Beach GP Indy cars race right now, and talk about following the leader ...you can't even squeeze a motorcycle next to one car at any point on that entire track, lol..

Partial Post: Please Login or Register to read the full post.

[PorscheDude]

Poor Alonso.... Maybe nest year the Honda will be a contender?

Partial Post: Please Login or Register to read the full post.

[ds968]

yeah, he's not a happy camper at the moment .  

Partial Post: Please Login or Register to read the full post.