If F1 doesn't adapt and become "relevant" to the manufacturers, eventually you won't have any. You think the fans are pissed now, imagine an era when only 6 cars are on the grid because everyone else left because it wasn't worth it. F1 has to remain relevant to the folks who actually spend the money to put on the show!
Let's face it, these OEM's are
not spending $200-500+ million to make "pretty noises". F1 needs the OEMs. For the last several years the OEM's have been running off to the LeMans and WEC because it's much more relevant to their interests. Nissan, Audi, Toyota, Acura/Honda, Porsche etc.
IMHO, if the WEC cars (World Endurance Championship) had a sprint-race series (by sprint race I mean races under 2 hours like F1) I would be more interested in that than F1. The big problem I have as a fan of WEC/LeMans is that endurance racing is really boring as a fan because rarely the racing is close and even when it is, it doesn't matter because there's still 12 hours to go! Almost never, is the racing close when it counts. When it is, it's very special but that's so rare it doesn't glue me to the TV for each event. I think the duration of the event is a big hurdle for future fan growth in that sport.
My dream series would be WEC cars open the season with 12 hour enduro, run a season of 15-20 sprint races between 1.5-2 hours each with a 6 hour race mid season and end the season at LeMans for the 24 hour. Now that would be awesome! This would do things: Exciting events for fans with close battles to the finish line and long duration events for testing for OEM's and development.
Everyone wins!
