F1 had made certain changes to their rules coming into the 2023 season to promote better racing. However, with Red Bull’s Max Verstappen winning 19 of the 22 races, F1 were unable to achieve their objective. As a result, they also suffered a massive dip in their TV ratings. The Race has now warned the FIA that they could face a further dip in ratings if they do not make any amendments to the rules.
Via their official YouTube channel, one of the primary concerns The Race raised was about the effect of the dirty air. Coming into the 2023 campaign, the expectation was that drivers in the dirty air would only lose about 15% of their downforce.
However, with teams finding loopholes, the drivers behind lost approximately 35% of their downforce in dirty air. FIA’s single-seat director Nikolas Tombazis also admitted to the same. He said, “We didn’t manage to close some loopholes soon enough“.
Another common issue that drivers have complained about this season is the thermal degradation of the tires. Tombazis stated that both issues are linked. “It’s a combination. The fact that the wake worsened a bit also goes together with degradation,” added the FIA’s single-seat director.
Since the FIA are not keen to make any changes to the rules going into the 2024 campaign, another one-sided season could be expected. As a result, The Race has suggested that if the FIA do not amend the rules, then the TV ratings are “unlikely to be rectified“.
F1 lost 650,000 of its American audience due to Max Verstappen’s domination
A few months ago, GP Blog put out a report to highlight how F1 lost 650,000 of their American audience due to Max Verstappen’s relentless domination. Their report stated that 25% less of the American audience tuned in to watch the Miami GP, an amount that equates to 650k people.
Now, since the FIA are reluctant to change the rules in the upcoming two seasons, there are major concerns that F1 could lose more of their audiences in 2024 and 2025. Moreover, this would also mean that the 2026 campaign would perhaps be the only hope for F1 to have a chance of keeping their audiences engaged.
