- Snacks (several bars of chocolate and a flapjack) ready

- Support gear (Fisichella/Force India T-shirt, Force India wristband, Jordan hat, Force India/Jordan lanyard) on

- Reading material (lots of it...) to hand

- Drink (litre of orange squash) next to my computer

- White earphones applied to speaker and ears

- Computer activated

- Unnecessary software turned off

- Paint activated in case anything screenshot-worthy happens 

- Main browser open with 2 instances of Twitter, 2 instances of Fisichella Forum, LCMB, Radio Le Mans, translation software and a few spare browser windows

- Secondary browser open with 2 instances of Grand-Am (defaulting to live timing)

- Comfy chair with cushion found

- Cleaning cloth ready

- Me ready for 24 hours of fun 

Here is a primer for the 24 at Daytona this weekend (also known as the Rolex 24 Daytona in deference to the provider of the traditional* prize of a watch to class winners).

Where can I watch/listen to it?

Motors TV and Speed have TV coverage for Europe and the USA respectively. Magnus Racing (one of the GT teams, running car #4) will have an on-board camera accessible via the internet all race. Please consult your TV listings if you live elsewhere and post if you are in a position to augment or correct my information.

Where is it?

The race is held at a tri-oval with infield section called the Daytona International Speedway, in Florida, USA. It is 5 hours behind GMT. The track is 3.56 miles long, with very fast corners (aided by the 31-degree banking) and somewhat trickier (but still fast) final sector.

How old is it?

The 24 at Daytona celebrates its 50th birthday this year, having run a race every year since 1962. It has "only" been 24 hours long since 1967, which is still long enough to be considered one of the three races in the Triple Crown of endurance racing (albeit Petit Le Mans is sometimes substituted for it).

Points situation?

It's the first race of the Grand-Am season, so nobody has any points at the moment. Many of the entries have no intention of completing the whole season, but some will complete the 13-race calendar. For those doing so, the points on offer go from 35 for the winner to 1 for 30th place. Only finishing positions score points.

Who and what is in it?

The entry list is divided into prototypes (which are all a Grand-Am specific class called Daytona Prototypes) and GT cars (which are also a Grand-Am specific class, similar to GT3s in performance level). It's a very long list, so I will simply provide a link to the full list and highlight some names who may do well.

Prototypes

#01 Chip Ganassi Racing with Felix Sabates, BMW-Riley (Hand, Pruett, Rahal, Rojas)
#02 Chip Ganassi Racing with Felix Sabates, BMW-Riley (Dixon, D Franchitti, McMurray, Montoya)

Chip Ganassi has raced at Daytona for 7 years, with Scott Pruett having been there since the beginning. It won the 24-hour race last year as well as in 2007 and has three championships under its belt in this series. It is difficult to find any weak link in this team, though Corvette is providing strong competition.

#2 Starworks Motorsport, Ford-Riley (Hunter-Reay, Kanaan, M Potolicchio, Scala, Viso)
#8 Starworks Motorsport, Ford-Riley (Dalziel, Luhr, McNish, Popow, E Potolicchio)

Starworks is running a pair of grandfathered cars this year, in contrast to the likes of SunTrust (car #10) who have a 2012-spec car. In testing, the #2 had the fastest grandfathered car in the "Roar Before the 24" test. Allan McNish of Audi is in #8, while the #2 car is full of Indycar stars.

Sadly the #2 StarWorks has since been withdrawn.

#10 SunTrust, Corvette DP (Taylor, Angelelli, Briscoe)

By some margin the fastest prototype overall (though not the holder of its fastest lap), SunTrust has clearly learned the Daytona circuit well. Keep a close eye on SunTrust as it is arguably the strongest contender for the overall win.

#60 Michael Shank Racing with Curb-Agajanian, Ford-Riley (Allmedinger, Negri, Pew, Wilson)

Like the #2 Starworks, this car is full of Indycar experts. Michael Shank Racing has previously qualified on pole in Daytona, back in 2008.

#76 Krohn Racing, Ford-Lola (Braun, Jonsson, T Krohn, Zonta)

Nic Jonsson turned the fastest lap of the "Roar Before the 24" test, suggesting that Krohn will be extremely quick in qualifying. He and Tracy Krohn teamed up to great effect in the GTE-Am class of ILMC last year, while Ricardo Zonta is an ex-F1 driver.

GT cars

#03 Extreme Speed Motorsports Ferrari 458 (Brown, Cosmo, Sharp, van Overbeek)

It's the first time the Ferrari 458 has been used at Daytona and it is proving to be a very quick car in Daytona configuration. Ed Cosmo produced the fastest GT lap of the final day. Extreme Speed hasn't done Daytona before but it is already a very strong prospect.

#45 Flying Lizard Motorsports with Wright Motorsports, Porsche GT3 (Bergmeister, P Long, Neiman, Rockenfeller)

Last year, Flying Lizard took overall pole and second place in the race with a prototype. In GT they will be with a car they are even more familiar with, making them a big threat for the top positions. Mike Rockenfeller will be familiar to most sportscar fans from his work at Audi. His talents will be complemented by Joerg Bergmeister and Patrick Long, who drove commendably for Flying Lizard in ILMC last year. The weak link is likely to be Seth Neiman, but even so, car #45 should not be lightly discounted.

#48 Paul Miller Racing, Porsche GT3 (Bell, Maarsen, Miller, Wilkins)

Rob Bell impressed enormously at JMW last year and his addition to the squad will help it a lot. The others are experienced at Daytona. Expect car #48 to run quietly under the radar and surprise with a good result at the end of the race.

#51 APR Motorsport, Audi R8 Grand-Am (Baas, Canache, Norman, Pirro, Moltke)

APR Motorsport has two things in its favour; the Audi R8 (as a new car to this category, a surprise could be sprung) and the evergreen skill of Emanuele Pirro. The car will probably run in the back half of the grid most of the time but have some spectacular stints from Pirro to enliven the race.

#55 AF Waltrip, Ferrari 458 (Augas, Kauffman, Pastrana, Waltrip)

European powerhouse AF Corse and Michael Waltrip team up with 24H Le Mans team-mate Rob Kauffman. Expect Rui Augas, who raced well in GTE-Am ILMC last year, to be quick. It is not yet clear how fast Travis Pastrana will be, but this year is mostly a learning experience for the AF Waltrip alliance.

#59 Brumos Racing, Porsche GT3 (Davis, Haywood, Keen, Lieb)

Brumos is a highly experienced squad, with all four of its drivers having done the race in its car last year. They carry the confidence born of winning the Grand-Am championship last year. Marc Lieb is one of the fastest GT drivers in ILMC and Leh Keen is doing very well in GTC. Hurley Haywood is doing his 40th and final Daytona, so it would be good to see him and his team-mates have a great race to remember.

#62 Risi Competizione, Ferrari 458 (Bruni, Fisichella, Matos)
#63 Risi Competizione, Ferrari 458 (Beretta, Bertolini, Vilander)

Risi Competizione hasn't visited Daytona in over a decade, not that anyone would have known from looking from the timesheets. Toni Vilander produced the fastest GT lap of the entire test. The Risis have been slightly inconsistent, but much of this is due to three of its six drivers having never driven in a Daytona race before. By race day, expect both cars to be up there with the best. Each car is only going to use three drivers in a race that normally uses four, but everyone in the squad is experienced either with Daytona or Le Mans' 24-hour races, so fatigue shouldn't pose a significant problem.

#64 TRG, Porsche GT3 (Ardagna, Costobal, Da Guida, Orjuela, Salazar)
#66 TRG, Porsche GT3 (Farnbacher, Keating, Pilet, Simonsen)
#67 TRG, Porsche GT3 (Bertheau, Bleekemolen, Goosens, Henzler, Pumpelly)

The record of TRG is excellent at Daytona. They've put 5 cars into the race, 3 of which are likely to be of particular interest. The #66 TRG has got the core of the old Spyker GT2 team in its driving squad, plus Patrick Pilet from the IMSA Performance Matmut team. This balanced squad should help it do well in the race. The #67 TRG also has a high-quality driver line-up, ranging from Jeroen Bleekemolen (one of the stand-out talents in GTC last year) to Wolf Henzler, who was in a huge variety of GT races last year and did respectably well in all of them. While the #64 TRG probably won't be as quick as either, it does feature ex-F1 racer Eliseo Salazar.

#70 Speedsource, Mazda RX-8 (Bomarito, M Franchitti, Hinchcliffe, Tremblay)

Marino Franchitti knows sportscars well and will be the key to this car's speed. Promising Indycar driver Jamie Hinchcliffe has joined in and the other two drivers are experienced with the Mazda RX-8. They've looked pretty good throughout the "Roar Before the 24" test.

#88 Autohaus Motorsports, Camaro GT.R (Edwards, Marsh, Milner, Taylor)

Autohaus is a strong team that came 2nd in the Grand-Am championship last year. The only car out of those I've highlighted to be using the Camaro GT.R, the balanced line-up is likely to be strong.

#93 Turner Motorsport BMW GT3 (Auberlen, Dalla Lana, Marsal, D Muller, J Muller)
#94 Turner Motorsport BMW GT3 (Auberlen, Dalla Lana, Johnson, Said, Werner)

While there are BMWs in the prototype race, this is the place to look for the drivers who previously competed in the ILMC and ALMS series. There is a lot of talent here. Granted, many of the drivers don't have Daytona experience, but they are all likely to learn the ropes quickly. Also, the Auberlen and Dalla Lana mentions are not typos; in Grand-Am, drivers are allowed to swap cars if entered for both, provided drivers doing so only take points for the first car they drove out of those listed.

* - I say "traditional" but it's only been awarded since 1991, the point where Rolex began the sponsorship.

Following a rather odd conversation on The Formula 1 Blog with Anonymous, it is becoming increasingly clear that a breakdown of what it would take for Sky to break even is necessary. This is, after all, the main reason why the attempt to transfer the UK rights from free-to-air to pay-TV is likely to have medium-term consequences on non-UK F1 fans. It's a bit rough-and-ready because of the timing, but I will happily tidy up anything that you think needs tidying later.

Wimbledon never fails to get full crowds even though few people in Britain follow tennis otherwise. Silverstone never failed to get full crowds even in years where British F1 figures fell like a stone due to Schumacher dominating. You'd be surprised at how low an audience conversion is needed to fill a stadium, so saying that test cricket grounds are still full doesn't say anything about what's going on with the TV side of things. Attending a cricket match is a special occasion. It does not mean that watching cricket is still bread-and-butter to people. The BARB statistics do not lie and they say that Sky struggles to get a seventh of the audience Radio 4 Longwave does for cricket matches, and that both combined are far lower than cricket got before Sky took over. The numbers end up working for the sport largely because Sky can afford more, but that is reliant on capping the level sports can charge it. That works financially for sports that seriously undervalued themselves (primarily by only considering the BBC pre-Sky, which of course can't run adverts to offset its expenses) but F1 hasn't done that since 1981...

I suppose if one calls 234,000 rugby viewers (2008 League World Cup) with Sky compared to over 2.6 million for the previous version* pre-Sky a success, then rugby might be considered a success. From Sky's perspective, it's a relatively successful sport because the low sanctioning fees means it can make quite a bit from the deal; from the perspective of a rational outsider surveying the effects on the sport's support base, it is a disaster.

The more one looks at the effects of Sky getting involved in sport, the worse it looks for sport. If a sport wants to go from being a majority sport to a minor one, going the pay route's a pretty effective way of doing it. That's been demonstrated time and again.


Advertising is of course part of Sky's arsenal when paying for things. However, Bernie fees are not the only costs it faces, and F1 isn't football. It costs £10 m per year to produce F1 the BBC 2011 way and to do all the extra features Sky has said it'll do, it will need to spend even more than that. ITV couldn't get that much from sponsorship when it had F1 in boom time, so given that Sky isn't having in-race advertising and is operating in a recession, it'll struggle to even meet its production costs through advertising, let alone start tackling marketing, satellite rearrangement fees (yes, making a new channel costs money) and the Bernie fee (which is now four times higher for Sky than the BBC's production fee was). 

Even so, my original calculation of a million new customers being needed assumed, optimistically, that the non-Bernie fees would be entirely covered by advertising. (Before the amount Sky paid was announced, I tended to say "between 0.5 and 0.88 million" when commenting on the internet; I was bargaining on Sky doing some sort of cost calculation prior to purchase). The £40 m from subscriptions prior to F1's arrival has to be ignored on the grounds that they'll have bought other contracts with them. These naturally must be maintained, with the possible exception of programs that directly clash with F1 programming. Other sports may not be as expensive as F1 but they do have acquisition and production fees. Instead, the calculation has to be done from base.

There are two ways of getting Sky F1 - one using the HD pack and the other using Sky Sports. The Entertainment pack cost (common to both routes) has to be ignored because the channels on the pack are funded by it, along with all their programming. Much like the BBC, each Sky channel is funded separately. Terra Nova, for example, is not a free show. Even through the HD route, the HD money is not free because all the programming on Sky has to be converted to HD. If Entertainment and Sports are priced in relation to their values to Sky, then only half the HD top-up can be assumed to be available for F1.

Let's assume that the only sport that the people are interested in is F1 and that HD buyers don't buy any other packages (if we don't, again, the figures look even worse for Sky, as that person's subscription fee would then need to be shared among however many additional contracts corresponded to that individual's customised viewing habits). The cost of Sky Sports 1 and 2 on top of that package is £20 and this is the maximum amount Sky can take in per customer per month with regard to F1. HD, once the half for Entertainment package upgrading is removed, only contributes £6.125 per customer. Only new-to-Sky customers can be assumed to be taking the package for the full 12 months, so only the 7 months where Sky has an exclusive race can be safely counted for Sky's revenue (let's assume for now that Bahrain goes ahead).

I am also going to assume that everyone who watches F1 is a singleton who never has the TV on when entertaining and doesn't have lodgers or other unrelated co-residents similar sneakily "borrowing" a chair during races. Otherwise, each viewer is only contributing part of the subscription payment. I'm also assuming none of these people are bar, pub or club owners because then every patron of the bar/pub/club is contributing towards the subscription.

Remember that the Bernie escalator ensures that prices go up at least 10% every year (that fee quoted for Sky's acquisition will be the first-year price; Bernie rules ensure it goes up and up after that). The £40 m initial annual price becomes £77.95 m by the end of the contract Sky has. If that sounds high, the fee the BBC paid went from £25 m to £40 m a year from one end of its contract to the other (projected but never reached due to renegotiation) end; if it hadn't it probably wouldn't have needed to let F1 go. That's compounding for you.

At the moment, 30% of Sky customers are on HD (therefore using the cheap route) and 70% on SD (therefore would need the expensive route). Being optimistic and assuming this proportion does not move any further towards HD despite more HD subscribers being in Sky's overall business plan, Sky needs 0.95 million new subscribers (rounds up to 1 million to the nearest 100,000 subscribers) that didn't care for any Sky-carried sport bar F1. To break even. Compounding means it doesn't have to get them all immediately - a 2012 figure of 0.53 million is enough for that specific year - but Sky's sales definitely aren't going up by the 10% per year needed simply to keep up with Bernie (they only increased by 3% per year for the last 2 years - it's pretty consistent at the moment). 

Even 0.53 million is over twice as many viewers than Sky gets for any part of its non-football programming. It is unlikely Sky will get the figures it needs because past and present data demonstrates it. This is before considering that every assumption I've just detailed here - advertising revenue, house occupancy, HD, caring about other Sky sports, Bahrain, the extent of Bernie escalator - is more likely to go against Sky than in its favour with regard to making F1 pay, and therefore require even more people to sign.

(For the curious, on the assumptions made in this item, it would take 2.08 m cumulative new customers for Sky to be able to justify taking all 20 races in the first year of the next broadcasting contract of 2018, assuming the minimum number of new customers were signed up as needed to let it break even in each previous year, that no additional fee was made for exclusivity and assuming Sky merely wished to break even with F1 due to its high profile).

Japan F1 is mostly free Fuji TV. There is a pay option (Next) but it gets 1/6 of the audience the free version does (helped by the fact the same provider on the same platform shows the free and pay options - not the case in the UK). Brazil is primarily covered by GloboTV, which is free-to-air and easily beats the pay option for popularity. Italy and Germany used to have pay TV options (through Sky) but they've folded due to lack of interest. Some other countries with smaller audiences have pay-only, and their audiences went through the floor. This has left some channels dropping F1 altogether and others putting it on progressively higher-cost options. That's what always happens with pay TV concerning sports that were previously shown just fine on free-to-air**. The audiences shrink and so the pay TV provider has to rely on cheap rates to keep the option alive. Here's a hint: Bernie will never, ever, provide cheap rates.

So why are the likes of rugby and cricket succeeding despite their TV mistakes? Because other avenues of revenue exploded in the last decade or two. Sponsorship, once quite rare for a series, has become huge money, especially for drinks companies who would struggle to advertise in certain international markets through the standard methods. Ticket prices skyrocketed, turning the weekly patronage of a favourite sport to an occasional treat for the poor without turning away the rich (in fact, with more focus on rich clients as seen in the past decade, the rich are pouring in as they spy networking and hob-nobbing opportunities). The sponsorship alone accounts for why there's more money in disability swimming than ever despite it having no media profile worthy of the name and free tickets to nearly all events. The latter is why the Paddock Club in F1 is worth over 10% of the total income of F1 despite serving a maximum of 5000 people per race.

After all is calculated, Sky's chances of making F1 break even are remote. The chances of Sky keeping a sport that doesn't break even is even remoter. The chances of Bernie finding anyone willing to pay more than Sky pay him now in those circumstances is nil. That means Britain's fees will drop. It's not clear who'd pick up the rights then - it depends who has most to spare at that moment out of the not-recently-"burned" parties. What is clear is that it would cause a domino effect. Other countries would see that pay TV does not work and be able to call Bernie's bluff by not engaging in bidding wars with such channels. It would mean the prices paid by channels would fall through the floor. So would F1's revenues.

F1 would have to either seriously tighten its belt (and hope it's no longer up to the neck in debt) or die.

Quite how not want F1 to kill itself counts as "not loving F1", as Anonymous alleged, remains a mystery.  

* - In case you're wondering, rugby union suffered even worse. The Heineken Cup final, for example went from 9 million in 2005 to below 185,000 in 2007. The only reason it's still on Sky is because the Heineken Cup charges much, much less for its tournament broadcast rights than Bernie does and the BBC is currently trying to sell sports rights rather than buy them.

** - Football, in case you're wondering, was not shown fine free-to-air before Sky got the rights; the BBC could typically only show one match a day - and hardly ever in primetime - due to broadcasting balance requirements, whereas Sky was able to show multiple ones, at any time of day, almost immediately. Being able to see twice as many matches means twice as many people are going to be interested, so it matters less if no single match gets much in the way of viewing figures compared to free-to-air - the sheer number of matches viewable through the multi-channel, more specialised pay TV system meant that many small parts became a bigger sum than the BBC could achieve. Also, people can't advertise on the BBC, so when Britain's favourite sport went to the advertisable platform, advertisers naturally paid top dollar to be associated with the sport. Football is, economically speaking, pay TV's one big sporting success.

This is a short plug. I've helped Kate Walker write a post about second practise at the Korean Grand Prix. It's been a pleasure to work with Kate, who is a talented journalist with a good sense of humour. 

...and what to do about it

Yesterday, we saw Force India choose to not run in Q3 at Singapore. This is the second time this season they have taken this option. In DRStrategy, this was recommended as the solution for a team which cannot seriously compete for pole in Q3. There was no possibility of Force India managing a much higher position if it ran than if it didn't, so it was sensible to save a set of tyres to preserve strategy and perhaps pass the more profligate Mercedes team through strategy.

This may seem a rather mercenary attitude, but remember Force India is in a battle between Renault and Sauber over 5th place in the championship. Sauber is very close behind Force India, so it needs points. In addition, Renault is having a lousy weekend in Singapore, making this the best opportunity Force India is likely to have to close the gap between the two. Logically, Force India has to prioritise racing well to qualifying well.

So all is well? Not to judge from the large number of disappointed fans. The best I've seen of their reaction came from @LewisBarthaud:

something needs to be done, this 3 phase format came about to improve the show, you can't call it the "top 10 shootout" with only 7

 

You can't argue with that logic. Also, there's an emotional argument which presumably wouldn't condense into the remaining characters.

There is a massive visceral pleasure in seeing a racing car on track. When there are many racing cars doing likewise and competing powerfully with one another, the pleasure is multiplied. So to take it in reverse, removing 30% of the expected competitors will take out an average of well over 30% of the excitement (exact percentage depending on exactly who "forfeited" the session and who's watching).

This is an example of perverse incentives - the regulations, designed to provide excitement and happiness to the multitudes who watch F1 racing, create the exact opposite effect in qualifying if played out to their logical conclusion.

The first thought might be to penalise those who do not run in Q3 on purpose through a grid penalty. However, this ends up creating perverse incentives of its own. One of the main ways people have been able to overcome the zero-sum passing engendered by DRS is by having more sets of unused soft tyres. What this means is that everyone will, barring unforeseen punctures or crashes, everyone will have the same number of sets of soft tyres remaining. By insisting everyone must have the same number of unused sets of soft tyres, the racing will become even more predictable and samey - under the rippled surface of inconsequential passes. Only someone setting their fastest time with hard tyres will be able to break the cycle.

So that method of making a more exciting qualifying would make a rather dull race. However, this is not an insoluable equation. Changing the way tyre allocations work may help.

My proposal works thus:

- 3 "hard" sets given out on Friday. This will encourage race set-up and endurance work, shift tyre comparison work to Saturday, possibly encourage more teams to use unproven drivers. More importantly for the specific problem under discussion, it means a "soft" set can be awarded later in the weekend without making Pirelli bring any extra tyres. You've got to adapt to cost-cutting...

- 1 "soft" and 1 "hard" tyre set given out at the start of Saturday

-  1 "soft" and 1 "hard" tyre given out at the start of Q1. Any of the three sets of softs given out thus far may be used in qualifying.

- 1 "soft" given out at the start of Q2 - but only to drivers who set a time on the soft given out in Q1.

- 1 "soft" given out at the start of Q3 - but only to drivers who set a time on the soft given out in Q2.

- 2 "soft" and 1 "hard" set given out on Sunday - but only to drivers who set a time on the soft given out in Q3 (or Q1/2 if they were eliminated there). Q3 runners will be permitted to use this instead of the tyre they did their time on, should they be eligible to receive such tyres. Teams will hand back 3 "hard" and 2 "soft" sets of their choice, leaving them with the same number of tyres for the race as they have now.

Stewards' discretion will be used for anyone who makes a genuine attempt to qualify but has a technical issue on-track, crashes on their "sighter" Q1 run on hard tyres or during their soft-tyre run. The idea being that genuine accidents would be treated the same as people who were knocked out at the same stage but completed the soft-tyre run. Anyone of whom foul play is suspected (or had such serious problems that they  wouldn't have used up much/any of the soft tyre's longevity) will receive no such privileges and be treated the same as those who never attempted the run.

This would mean qualifying would influence how many tyres on has available in a more sensible way.

• Someone who didn't run in Q1 on soft tyres would have no unused "soft" tyres.
• Someone who chose not to run in Q2 or Q3 on soft tyres would have 1 set of unused "soft" tyres (the one they got for running in Q1 on softs).
• Someone who chose to run soft tyres in all sessions for which they were eligible would get 2 sets of unused "soft" tyres (for running in Q3).

 This should re-align incentives for the race in favour of having both an exciting qualifying and an exciting race.

The one thing this doesn't prevent is a team not running because they don't think they will lose anything, despite the disincentives in place. This is the frustrating position I am in with my other favourite team, AF Corse. It is in Portugul for the Le Mans Series race but due to some terrible luck involving a lorry accident, a broken tail-lift and an hastily-completed new car presenting problems, is apparently comtemplating a deliberate non-finish for its hitherto most competitive and popular car (the #51 driven by Giancarlo Fisichella and Gianmaria Bruni). It's already team champion, with the #51's drivers also confirmed as individual champions, so they not particularly worried about points. The car is in one piece and is very fast when it works, but could break at any moment and the staff all need to be in America as soon as possible because Petit Le Mans, part of an Intercontinental Le Mans Championship that the team hasn't fully secured yet, is next week and everyone on the the team needs to be there for early scrutineering. I can see the logic but am still upset with the idea a team might forefeit a race where it has somehow managed to qualify 2nd. Much as the people watching the logical withdrawal of the Force Indias from Q3 were upset about them "forfeiting" the last bit of qualifying when they were good enough to at least set representative times. 

Intellectually logical, emotionally tough to accept...