Feedback: your letters
The aerial displays before a GP are laid on at great expense and are hugely enjoyable for the public at the track, while we at home on the TV rarely get a glimpse
Sky’s missing a trick – just look to the skies
Whether it’s petrol, diesel, kerosene, gas or even electricity, any motor racing fan is, let’s face it, a petrolhead. We all love grand prix weekends around the world, and when you can’t travel to far off locations TV is the next best thing.
Sky F1 does a great job. But it misses one thing – the aerial displays before a GP. These are laid on at great expense and are hugely enjoyable for the public at the track, while we at home on the TV rarely get a glimpse. How fantastic would it be to have a few cameras on the ground and in the air to record these moments – Red Arrows at Silverstone, Dietrich Mateschitz’s aircraft collection in Austria, and the F18 and 747 at Melbourne to mention just three – there are plenty of others.
I used to film F1 in the 1970s, we had film cameras on the aircraft then, even on the old Goodyear blimp. It’s not that difficult and certainly an awful lot easier now with tiny digital cameras. To see a F18 at treetop height travelling at around 400mph and a 747 doing ‘wheelies’ around the circuit is something else.
Harvey Harrison
Wimbledon, London
Left cold by development freezes
While they may save money, development freezes stifle competition by preventing teams improving, and ultimately removes any interest in the championship beyond the first two or three races.
With the carry-over of last year’s cars and little development allowed, we already know that Mercedes will win the 2021 championship, the only possible wild card being that the Mclaren chassis was already worldbeating and only held back by its Renault engine.
And while the chassis issue may be reset for 2022, with the engine freeze now agreed, whichever manufacturer has the best engine at the start of next season is more or less guaranteed to win the championship for the following three years, challenged only by teams it supplies, but not by anyone else who will be unable to develop their engine to become competitive. This is not the way to make F1 more competitive, or more interesting to fans or TV viewers. Bruce Carlin
By email
Is Hamilton paving the way to spectacular new era?
With just a one-year contract, clearly Lewis Hamilton has other plans than to share his career-concluding destiny with Mercedes. The mighty company has nothing left to prove in grand prix racing and has already reduced its equity in the race team. Lewis’s one year contract also reduces its outlay from a multi-year deal, though the chances are that it will bag a record eight constructors’ titles while Lewis bags his number eight.
Then I see a Michael Schumacher-style move to Ferrari (with Mercedes technicians making the move with all their race-winning knowledge), so Lewis can emulate the plans of Ayrton Senna, his hero who hoped to conclude his career at Ferrari. All of Italy will fall at his feet as another Schumacher/ Ferrari-style era dawns with Hamilton its shining star.
Pat Doyle
By email