On the 20th of March the Formula 1 season 2016 started. Ten years ago everybody would have gotten up at 6am on Sunday to watch the first race of the season. But today nobody talks about F1 anymore. The TV ratings have fallen drastically over the last years. But why is that so? Let`s talk about some possible reasons!
An obvious reason is that the two Mercedes drivers Lewis Hamilton and Nico Rosberg have dominated the scenes over the last 2 years. There is no tension over who will win a race or who will be the world champion, because it`s already clear anyway that one of the Mercedes drivers will win.
Another reason is that the F1 has transitioned away from a driver against driver competition to a competition about who has the fastest car and the best engineers. The people want to see wheel banging, impact between drivers, and want the best driver to be world champion and not the team which has the best car.
F1 Boss Bernie Ecclestone has spoken about revolutionizing the sport for the last few years but nothing has happened. The Grand Prix organizers can`t afford Ecclestone`s high financial conditions because there are fewer and fewer people coming to races. If nothing changes many F1 teams will go bankrupt and soon Formula 1 will become extinct.