F1

[Dominic]

Amusingly no one that I spoke to in China even knew this was on including a few people who were absolutely car daft, and I've been in In the moneyed section of the country.

You would have laughed your ass off watching us trying to describe to the staff at the Hilton what it was we wanted on the giant screen in the bar. How do you describe F12 people who aren't even aware of car racing in general?

Not entirely sure why they bother

Interesting insight.... Bernie and his quest to roll out F1 to new countries (AKA Bernie's quest for world domination [strokes white cat with evil laugh])... yet that is the public awareness in that particular country!

[graeme]

Not really Chris, I felt the same.

Six hours is too long to watch a program for and with the different Classes and vastly different speeds it makes it very hard to follow. I find Le Mans even more so, they are Endurance races and can often have no racing at all due to the gaps/time between cars.

tut

Yeah, you're both wrong. Silverstone was awesome, if a bit cold...

Use the free, excellent WEC timing app on your phone, and listen to radio le mans, and you'll keep up with it easy enough.

There are 4 classes going on at once. There's plenty racing going on, you just have to keep an eye on the right battle at the right time, and the pit stops are more critical then F1, due to the length of time they take to swap drivers. Having different classes on track together makes the feeling of speed that much greater in LMP1. Also, traffic can drastically alter the race (see Hartley in the #1 car crashing out from the lead by hitting a GTAm 911... oops!).

The technologies are more varied than F1 too, so there's the whole technical side to get into.

The pit lane and general feeling of access is much better than F1, unless you're a paddock club millionaire. Most garages were openly working on the cars with no screens/hiding while the public pit-walk was on.

There are a ton of tips and tricks for keeping up with it all, and the length of the race just means you get time to wander round the whole track and watch from every corner. (Not much use on the sofa, I agree). It's much easier to follow when you're there. The TV cameras tend to jump about too much for my liking, and make it harder to keep up. Also, you get no feel from the sofa for who is on the ragged limit and who has a perfect set-up. I noticed that with F1 too... the TV sanitises the visuals, removes tyre squeal, and the sense of how hard drivers are pushing. At the track you can really see the difference in pace and performance.

There are loads and loads of reasons why I love WEC. Plus, who doesn't want an excuse to sit on the sofa for 6/12/24 hours at a time?