Well don't get too upset Bhaji, I'm approaching my 70s and still can't afford a Rolex, not that I want one, its not important in the scheme of things is it, the supreme value is in your quality of life and raising your family, not watches or cars. You will be remembered for what you are and what and how you did it, not for your collection of hardware. Bernie will be remembered as a very greedy 'little man'
Just been reading an article on the judge13 about Bernie. During his court case Bernie had most of his directorships removed from him by CVC. Plus the F1 strategy group and needing teams to agree to decisions. So Bernie has lost lots of power. So I wonder if his plan is to cause lots of problems so he can say to CVC give me my power back and I will solve everything?
I'm not sure he's done anything good for the sport. People say that he globalized F1, that he brought a global audience and sponsors to F1, but other motor sports have achieved the same without a leach. I can't stress enough how much of a cancer he is in the sport and has been for a long long time. It doesn't take a genius to run F1, it just takes somebody to care for it. Let's face it.. Right now we have teams like McLaren unable to get title sponsor and anyone bellow them lucky if they can get any sponsorship at all, yet Bernie is still making obscene amounts of cash.
He did do a lot of good initially. He brought the power back to the teams from the autocratic leadership of Balestre. However, he has turned into the person he set to remove and since Mosely came to power he took advantage to create the wealth for himself.
I'd say you ask a 15 or 16 year-old kid what they want and "fast cars" would be quite high up there, but maybe that's just me.
Well spotted, Bando! As for what children or teenagers are interested in, surely the answer is all kinds of different things depending on the person, as TomTom suggests. But then that wasn't really the issue. What Bernie made clear was that he'd rather see F1's audience ossify by pursuing "70 year-olds" who have money right now, rather than nurture a future audience of life-long fans. I think that his subsequent outbursts are either because he really doesn't get it or because he can never admit to being wrong, or both; neither makes him look like the right man to be marketing the sport but then he's more interested in marketing luxury products for the super rich. This is a fundamental error: sponsorship is very important to the sport but it has to be secondary because without an audience, there'll be no sponsors. I know that's really obvious but it seems that he can't even see that, that's how out-of-touch he is. Just the fact that he's talking about children with or without Rolexes is so warped it's surreal, as well as being a million miles away from addressing the very real problems in the sport today.
Not strictly related, but quite funny: "Bernie" viewed from the side is represented by this program as... well, see for yourself. http://en.seoi.net/sokumen/?n=Bernie
Very apt. Incidentally, I didn't see him today but I missed the TV build-up. Was he there to defend his double points nonsense?
F1 should be alienating 5 or 6 year olds so that we can finally rid ourselves of the scourge that is the common fan within 60-70 years or so.