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As everyone by now has probably heard Bruno Senna has admitted that he did not enjoy F1 because of the politics surrounding it. Nearly 20 years ago now(god time flew) his uncle Ayrton had the same problem in the sport.
I was just wondering how many people have been forced out and how much influence something that should be kept seperate from racing has on racing?

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Don't be quick to judge or the verdict might come back to you.

Sport will always have politics involved. There will always be a business element to it which if you work you will know exists everywhere.

You have to be a business man too. You can't expect everything to be easy. You just have to be better than them. That's life. That's the kind Of naivety kids have when entering the workplace. He should have known this by now.

this is true of any professional sport, it is the business side that supports it - that's why it's called professional - as opposed to amateur!

I just mean the amount of politics in racing is too much and it is not proportional to what it should be

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Don't be quick to judge or the verdict might come back to you.

if you mean solely in F1 - then because it is such a small group (of teams) then yes, the politics may be too much for some - but I think it is the same in all professional sport, because various bodies and corporations try and milk the 'sport' for their own gain rather than for the 'sport' itself.....Even in F1, the teams and manufacturers are there to gain 'something', even if it is only 'prestige' - they really don't do it for love!
So, when these kind of budgets are being spent, the power struggles behind the scenes to try and gain a slight advantage are immense - even moreso when you think that many teams simply could not survive without the subsequent winnings 'payout'.......

When there is only 22 racing seats for all the drivers in the world it is very much an employers market and there is always going to be a lot of politics. Personally as a fan of the sport I enjoy the politics almost as much as the racing but I am well aware its not for everybody.

Thats pretty cool but personally I believe that the drivers at the front of the grid are not the best they could be.
NOT TO TAKE ANYTHING AWAY FROM THEM BEFORE PEOPLE ON THIS FORUM START TELLING ME IM STUPID.
I know they are great drivers but i feel that the top are the racers who can play politics the best.
In my humble personal opinion racing is racing and as both Senna's have said "Pure racing" only happens when there is no politics.
Maybe it is because I am from America and we despise and don't believe our politicians but I feel that Formula 1 in general would be better without the politics.
That being said just got struck by a funny idea to become the only team who does it out of the love of the sport, I know it will never happen but it is cool to dream about.

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Don't be quick to judge or the verdict might come back to you.

Lets face it politics have always been rife, Bruno was probably fed up with it like Maldonado's ridiculous amount money probably did get him preferential treatment the rumors were that development wise they focussed fully on Maldonado and made sure the car and sim were suited to him and that it took until Hungary before they even started to look at sennas issues with the car. By that time they looked into that they had brought updates that adversely effected the rest of the cars aero and then focused on a fix rather than sennas issues again. Couple that with knowing you are making room for someone that hasn't even competed in gp2 yet (lets face it most come through gp2 now and had Wolff not been a share holder/ exec director bottas would have had too as well.) but he looks good and probably wanted a season now to get experience before 2014 when they have a chance to push for the front with rule changes. Senna probably felt the team weren't really there for him which to an extent was probably true but he must have known it before he went there.

politics are rife in f1 i mean Bernie leans on teams to take drivers he want to keep around, teams which supply engines lean on teams to take drivers, or to favour them in races eg moving aside for said team. Racing hasn't just been racing for decades.

Aristotle defined the human being as "zoon politikon", this is, "political animal". Politics, understood as the game of power and how the other people deal with it, are an integral part of any human activity. And more so in a multi-million dollar game with only a handful of players around, like Formula 1.

Off-track drama is, has always been and will always be every bit as fascinating as on-track action. The day this sport will merely be 20 cars lapping a circuit, without all his stabs in the back, without its flashing personalities that you may like or hate depending on the day, without its convoluted agreements, without its characters that rise and fall and without its obvious struggle for power, I will stop following.

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I'm a racing driver. Always was, always will be.

I just feel that as it becomes more and more ridiculous the sport will lose its old school fans who watch and live for a driver battle without the artificial passing zones and etc

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Don't be quick to judge or the verdict might come back to you.

Politics absolutely takes away from the sport and we are obviously not seeing the best talent on the grid. Unfortunately this is the world we live in. If we cared about showcasing our best we wouldn't have political figures running our countries and we wouldn't have poverty. Humans have too much compassion to stand for mediocrity but we are also too lazy to change things. If every single F1 fan stopped watching until all the politics disappeared, then all the politics would disappear. The world doesn't work this way and politics is an evil vine entrenched into every facet of our everyday lives. Enjoy the rest of your day.

If there is no politics in F1, i wouldn't watch it

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I'm wondering if its really much worse in F1 today than in the past, or if its there are so many more outlets, social media, coverage, etc that the complaints register more.

Maybe it was worse for Bruno than elsewhere, and his complaints deserve more weight, but at the same time, it also strikes me as the common lament of every #2 driver for as long as I can remember, especially when such driver finds himself without that seat.

I agree that it's always been there, maybe worse than now in fact, but the second part of your post says it all Bruno wasn't #2 they were meant to be equal according to Williams I personally don't know many equal status drivers with one giving up 15 fp1's

For me, I just don't really believe there are many teams without an order whether they will say it or not, or even protest it vehemently. In some cases, its more like #1 and #1A, than #1 and #2. But for whatever reasons, be it backing, seniority or tenure with a team, results, etc, once the racing starts there is an order, even if its not taken to the extremes of telling a driver to give up his position, to back off, or worse. (Though I do believe its possible with some teams that the pecking order can be reversed without the lead driver being sidelined and removed from the WDC race, based on superior results. While others it seems the order is set in stone.)

And I think most drivers in F1, have to know that regardless of what sweet nothings someone from the team whispers in their ear. I can't imagine Bruno could be around F1 as long as he has and not figure out that he would be either #1A or #2 until he dislodged Maldonado from #1 on the team, and when Pastor won in Barcelona, that became very difficult and unlikely. He might have won the team over if there had been a couple podiums to go along with better consistency than his teammate. But it seems that with the inconsistency, there was also higher peaks potentially with Pastor.

Either way, I think Bruno Senna's name could be replaced by any number of other drivers in the story and the details and complaints wouldn't be much different.

Business is never fair, and although F1 is a sport its also a business and that's just how it is. The sport nor the business could survive without the politics. Life is unfair that way, but you don't have to participate in something you don't like - so move elsewhere or make up your mind not to let the parts you don't like influence you.

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Your going to have politics in any sport but in F1 you most probably have it more. You have to be better than what your team mate is at it. You get engineers and maybe one or team bosses on your side well pretty much ever thing team focus wise will go your way.

You have politics in your grass roots motor clubs. Why should F1 be any different?

It's just the same only everythings bigger.

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Disclaimer: The above post maybe tongue in cheek.

"I thought I'd get your theories, mock them, then embrace my own. The usual."