Americas Cup 37 about to commence

[flaming]

The next contest will be in AC75s, as I understand it, because teams seeking to enter for this event had to agree to that as a term of their entry.

That has no more bearing than a "gentleman's agreement". Nothing that the teams sign is legally enforceable with respect to the next cup, the various rulings of the NY supreme court have been very clear on that. The holder would be risking nothing legally, just reputational damage by ripping that agreement up.

However, given that the challenger of record for this cup has made it to the cup itself, it is a very good bet that AC75s will be the boat of choice for the next cup as between them they are the architects of the rule.

Paradoxically, the closer the racing, the more likely that the winner will seek to make large changes to the rule, or even change it completely. As with any set of design rules, as the cycles go on, the designers learn more and more about what works and what doesn't, and the boats get closer and closer in performance. Therefore the cost for each bit of extra performance ramps up, and the gains become smaller and smaller. If your goal is great, close, racing then this is good. See the TP52 as a classic example here. However the goal of the Americas cup is to win it and never let go. So close racing is very much not in the plan of the defenders when they write the rules. It is no accident at all that after winning in 2007 by the barest of margins the Swiss looked to rip up the IACC rule and start again, initially with fairly broad support. The issue was how they went about it....

If we get really close racing this time, then regardless of who wins it seems quite likely that some previously restricted area of the rule will be opened up to allow the designers fresh fertile ground to find performance. My personal bet would be that the current one design nature of the foil arms would be relaxed, or at least changed fairly dramatically. And that this will definitely happen if INEOS win, as the current foil arm design and cant system is TNZ intellectual property, and I cannot imagine any team going into the cup as defenders with someone else's IP as a key part of the design.

 

[14K478]

^ That’s a really good point.^

 

[dunedin]

The America's Cup boats of earlier eras were very close to, and often a normal example of, the boats that the average big-boat sailor would sail. The earlier AC boats were normally also to the same rules, or similar rules, as many club-racing boats. That no longer applies - there's basically only one boat in the world like an AC75 outside of the AC circuit itself.

From 1893 to about 1935, for example, there were about as many boats that were about as big and fast as an AC boat that never tried to do the AC, as there were AC candidates. Valkyrie II, the AC challenger of 1893, was no bigger or sigificantly faster than Navahoe, Britannia, Calluna or Satanita which hit the water at the same time and just did normal non-AC racing. The same pattern existed from the very first AC right up until the last Deed of Gift challenge; AC boats like Galatea, Cambria, Genesta, Vim, Magic, Mischief and Livonia were just normal club- and regatta-boats that ended up doing the AC events. Shamrock V and the Endeavours fitted into the normal UK regatta First Class fleet. When the 12s were selected there was still recent class racing for the class in the UK and Norway, and several of them were racing regularly in the normal US fleets. When the 12s were racing in the AC there were 12s in the Fastnet, Hobart, Nioularge, SORC, Swiftsure and many of the other "mainstream" events.

That situation no longer exists - there is nothing like an AC boat outside of the AC circuit apart from one much smaller boat doing a few Med events. No AC75 is winning the Fastnet and Hobart like the 12M American Eagle did. No AC75 is winning on the USA's Great Lakes long races like the 12M Heritage did, or taking out wins in the world's biggest fleet like the 12M Newboy (ex-Easterner?) did in the Ensenada race.

Throughout these many decades, there were hundreds of 20-40 foot boats built to the same rules as the AC yachts that were to be found in dozens of club fleets, in the form of Half Raters, One Raters, 2.5 Raters, Three and Five Tonners, R and S Classers, 15 Footers, Six Metres and the like. They formed a very large component of the normal club fleets and they were very similar to (but more advanced than) the AC machines.

Again, that situation no longer exists - there are no fleets of baby AC boats in Cowes, the Clyde, SF or Sydney. The current situation is nothing like what it has been before in AC history.

The Js were not normally race machines - like the 23 Metres that preceded them they were at the time regarded as racer/cruisers and the rules required full accommodation (ie a bathtub for the owner) most of the time.

The number of foilers in small cats and dinghies remains pretty small and isn't actually growing much if at all. The only Olympic foiling boat, the Nacra, is extremely unpopular with only tiny fleets. The A Class foilers are doing OK but the non-foiling side of the same class is doing better. Outside of the UK the Moth fleets are tiny. The much-hyped takeover of the match racing circuit by foiling cats is over. The much-hyped GC32 class circuit is dead. The hyped Flying Phantom foiling cat is out of production. Where is this growth?

There are big fleets of foiling boards but it's odd that boat racing, which has so often largely ignored windsurfers and kites, seems to only really count them now that many of them are foiling. And if you are going to get into foiling, with all its positives and negatives, boards are arguably the logical way to do it.

The current status of the AC, as an event in a type that is not like any type normally sailed in local regattas, is unique and out of keeping with the history of the event from 1851 until 2000-something.

But not sure what the point is, or what you think AC should be sailed in today.

Yes AC75s won’t be used as cruising yachts afterwards. But this is very explicitly now positioned as the “Formula 1 of sailing” - and you don’t see many Formula 1 cars being sold on to be used for driving to the shops.

In fact the previous foiling catamaran AC boats have proven to be longer lasting than most AC boats - with them being reused as a class to make the Sail GP series - which is struggling to supply enough boats for the number of teams who now want to compete. So a huge success in terms of sustained AC class - and a super fast foiling one as well. And a class which inspired a lot of interest in foiling for sailing boats, including the adapted Nacra for the Olympics.

Perhaps the TP52s are one of the fastest monohull leadmine type boat these days. But they wouldn’t attract much interest in an Americas Cup raced in TP52s - too dull, and too similar to other existing racing events. Also minimal TV appeal. And can’t see many of them being used as family cruisers after their short racing life expires.

The Open 60s are faster and more dramatic with their semi foiling status. But being optimised for long distance solo / short handed events, they would be unsuitable for Inshore short course match racing.

Personally I am not convinced the current AC75 ballasted monohull foilers are better than the unballasted foiling cats of the previous AC generation - perhaps an open event between the two types should be organised
But I don’t see any point in trying to reverse the clock and going back to slow leadmine monohulls in the modern world.

 

[14K478]

Where’s the ballast? There isn’t any! These are 75ft LOA racing boats weighing six to seven tons.

I don’t, myself, want to watch catamaran match racing. If I did, I could watch Sail GP.

The AC75 rule has gone further than any earlier rule towards making sailing a spectator sport.

I think the real issue now is foil cavitation and once the one design rule for the foils and arms is lifted there will be a sizeable incentive to solve it. That will be interesting…

 

[flaming]

Where’s the ballast? There isn’t any! These are 75ft LOA racing boats weighing six to seven tons.

I don’t, myself, want to watch catamaran match racing. If I did, I could watch Sail GP.

The AC75 rule has gone further than any earlier rule towards making sailing a spectator sport.

I think the real issue now is foil cavitation and once the one design rule for the foils and arms is lifted there will be a sizeable incentive to solve it. That will be interesting…

The foils and arms weigh about a tonne each.

To be clear, the foils are not OD, they are designed by each team, and vary quite a bit, it's the arms and the lifting/lowering mechanism that is OD. There are potential changes that could be made in the rule regarding the weight that they have to be, vs the weight of the foil, that could mean that the foils can get smaller. Or the foil arms could be made lighter, the angle of the arms changed to allow different modes to be used etc etc.

 

[Birdseye]

A pleasant surpise for me is the way that non sailors are fascinated by the Americas Cup and the style of boat involved. They see it as a sort of sailing F1. Any that I have mentioned the AC boats to and who have looked at the TV coverage are gripped by it.

 

[14K478]

A pleasant surpise for me is the way that non sailors are fascinated by the Americas Cup and the style of boat involved. They see it as a sort of sailing F1. Any that I have mentioned the AC boats to and who have looked at the TV coverage are gripped by it.

In that case there is nothing to complain of, and much to thank New Zealand for!

 

[Chris 249]

But not sure what the point is, or what you think AC should be sailed in today.

Yes AC75s won’t be used as cruising yachts afterwards. But this is very explicitly now positioned as the “Formula 1 of sailing” - and you don’t see many Formula 1 cars being sold on to be used for driving to the shops.

In fact the previous foiling catamaran AC boats have proven to be longer lasting than most AC boats - with them being reused as a class to make the Sail GP series - which is struggling to supply enough boats for the number of teams who now want to compete. So a huge success in terms of sustained AC class - and a super fast foiling one as well. And a class which inspired a lot of interest in foiling for sailing boats, including the adapted Nacra for the Olympics.

Perhaps the TP52s are one of the fastest monohull leadmine type boat these days. But they wouldn’t attract much interest in an Americas Cup raced in TP52s - too dull, and too similar to other existing racing events. Also minimal TV appeal. And can’t see many of them being used as family cruisers after their short racing life expires.

The Open 60s are faster and more dramatic with their semi foiling status. But being optimised for long distance solo / short handed events, they would be unsuitable for Inshore short course match racing.

Personally I am not convinced the current AC75 ballasted monohull foilers are better than the unballasted foiling cats of the previous AC generation - perhaps an open event between the two types should be organised
But I don’t see any point in trying to reverse the clock and going back to slow leadmine monohulls in the modern world.

My point was that the claim "The Americas Cup boats have never been anything that the average boater would sail - the J Class was a dedicated race boat for the super wealthy, so nothing new" is untrue.

The fact that the AC is marketed as "the F1 of sailing" now isn't relevant to what the AC was for most of its history. Facts don't change because of slogans.

It's not true that the previous foiling cats have proven to be longer lasting than most AC boats. The AC45 class they came from is 12 years old. Most of the previous AC classes lasted much longer than that, as did many of the individual AC boats. AC boats as old as Vim (built in the 1930s and second in the defence trials for the first 12 Metre AC) and the '50s and '60s built American Eagle, Sceptre, Columbia, Weatherly, Gretel, Soveriegn, Kurrewa etc and many others are still sailing and racing at 60 years of age or more. Many of the last group of 12s are also still racing. Shamrock V and Endeavour are now 94 and 90 years old. The schooner Columbia was over 50 when she was lost; Sappho was 20; Galatea was 26 years old when scrapped; Thistle made it to 34; Mischief was 48 when finally sunk; America survived for almost 90 years.

Any claim that the AC45/50 boats are longer lasting than earlier AC classes appears to be extremely dubious, to say the least. The AC45/50 is clearly NOT a "sustained AC class" since it was only in the AC once.

To say that TP52 style boats are boring is merely a personal judgement, and one that plenty of people disagree with.

There is no evidence that there is anything wrong with having a premier sporting event run under the same rule and using the same style of kit as normal events; in fact that's what normally happens. The World Cup uses the same rules as local league football; the Olympic marathon uses the same sort of kit as local park runs; the Tour de France uses the same UCI-ruled bikes as a local cycling club races.

It's arguably a bad thing for a sport to try to publicise itself by showing off an extraordinarily expensive, extreme and innaccessible event - especially when that sport is already normally considered to be too expensive, elitist and hard to get into like sailing is. The fact that non-sailors may be interested in AC75s isn't particularly valuable in terms of making the sport more popular because (as the studies by by people like Wladimir Andreffj of the Sorbonne have shown) there's very little connection between the sports people like to do, and the ones they like to watch. Motor racing shows that clearly because it gets plenty of spectators, but not too many competitors. The former head of UK Motorsport told Parliament that F1 is actually a problem for motorsport because it means that when people (and sponsors) think of motor racing, they think of it as something they cannot do.

In the '60s, for example, the attitude was so different that even though the 12s were comparatively cheap and close to the sort of boat the normal yachtie sailed, many sailors thought they were too elitist and sent the wrong message about the sport. In the era when people were concerned about such things, our sport boomed as never before and never since. For the past couple of decades the sport has been obsessed with promoting the elitist high-performance end, and it's doing badly.

 

[Chris 249]

I don't think it's possible to put the foiling genie back in the bottle now. Nor is it especially desirable that we do.

There clearly will continue to be development in foiling, but I agree that it's unlikely to become mainstream.

What it is is pretty exciting to watch....

It doesn't have to be put back in the bottle, but it also doesn't have to be seen as the best way to promote the sport or the format for most of the top events. As an analogy, streamlined recument bicycles are about 40% quicker than the standard racing bike, but they don't use the streamliners in the Tour de France or the Olympics, and cycling magazines don't normally cover 'bents. The Olympic shooting events use small rifles and air guns although machine guns and anti-tank rockets would do a better job on the target. Lots of people watch and play football even though it's slower than lower-scoring than other ball sports. In swimming it's often faster to stay underwater (which is why it's banned) but that doesn't detract from the fact that normal swimming on top of the briny is a big spectator and participation sport. So there's lots of evidence that the popularity of a sporting event isn't effected by the other rulesets and events allow faster movement and faster gear; you wouldn't make the World Cup more popular by making the goalpost wider and allowing people to hold onto the ball even if that would create more goals.

For most of the 12 Metre era, the offshore multis and maxis were faster than the 12s but the America's Cup regularly attracted more teams and got a lot of publicity, as scanning through old papers and checks of the spectator fleet will show - there were a claimed 2,500 spectator boats at the 1962 challenge, for example.

So sailing can run a major event in conventional monos, just as Olympic singlehanding used to be in 12 Footers, O-Jolle and Finns although International Canoes were far faster and just as bicycles, javelins, guns, swimsuits and other sports equipment used in premier events are restricted in design and performance.

I've got a foiler, fast cat, Int. Canoe etc so I'm not biased against them - it's just that major events don't need the fastest gear, and promoting faster gear can put many people off for a sport for very good reasons.

 

[14K478]

There are people I know who contend that the International Canoe is a much better Olympic singlehander because it is less sensitive to crew size and weight.

They are of course IC owners, but they may have a point…

 

[oldbloke]

Chris gives a well reasoned and researched opinion but I think it is better aimed at his usual bets noires the Olympics, the ISAF and the national bodies. The Americas Cup, certainly from 1900s onwards has been rich blokes waving willies to see whose is the biggest. Any relevance to promoting sailing is totally coincidental, even if the current lot pretend it isn't. The recent boats have been breathtakingly glorious and impressive and I don't give a flying wotsit if they are of no relevance to the "average sailor" . Sometimes you just have to be amazed and enjoy the spectacle.
PS I still can't really explain how 25kts downwind in a 6kt zephyr really works, and I have raced cats and 49ers

 

[Chiara’s slave]

There are people I know who contend that the International Canoe is a much better Olympic singlehander because it is less sensitive to crew size and weight.

They are of course IC owners, but they may have a point…

Given that the Laser is the only class to ‘survive’ being made Olympic, you’d think they’d keep quiet. Once your class has Olympic sailors in it, few club level sailors can compete. But they’re a funny lot.

 

[flaming]

It doesn't have to be put back in the bottle, but it also doesn't have to be seen as the best way to promote the sport or the format for most of the top events.

I think your major mistake here is to assume that the Americas cup's reason to exist has anything at all to do with promoting the sport. At its core the Americas cup is a willy waving contest for Billionaires. That they televise it for us to watch is nice, but that's not why it exists.

However, I'd offer the following observation. Last week, whilst the cup was on there was also a live youtube stream of the TP52 world championships. In theory that's far more my style of racing. My boat has a lot more in common with a TP52 than an AC boat. They were also racing in about 6-8 knots of wind.
I lasted about 5 minutes before I got bored and turned it off.

 

[Puffin10032]

I think your major mistake here is to assume that the Americas cup's reason to exist has anything at all to do with promoting the sport. At its core the Americas cup is a willy waving contest for Billionaires. That they televise it for us to watch is nice, but that's not why it exists.

However, I'd offer the following observation. Last week, whilst the cup was on there was also a live youtube stream of the TP52 world championships. In theory that's far more my style of racing. My boat has a lot more in common with a TP52 than an AC boat. They were also racing in about 6-8 knots of wind.
I lasted about 5 minutes before I got bored and turned it off.

Five minutes is pretty good; you're clearly a fan Personally I've never found watching a group of strangers racing particularly interesting. For me sailing is for doing not for watching.

I think your description of the Americas Cup is spot on. I'm struggling to see how its promotion does anything other than reinforce the public perception that sailing is elitist.

 

[dunedin]

For those that like the old style boats you can have the best of both - as there was match racing in J-Class happening just yesterday, complete with pre-start dial-ups etc (though if you didn’t already know this, it shows how little coverage this attracts) - J Class Barcelona Regatta 2024 - Day 2

The J-Class are still the playthings only of billionaires - with enormous very highly paid professional crews. But certainly impressive close up.

By sheer fluke, the only time I have ever sailed in to Falmouth (in 2015) I saw some large black sails as we approached. As we got closer I was amazed to find that they were J-Class yachts out practicing for their regatta later that week. Even more fortunately the only berth we have ever been in Falmouth was allocated right next to the four J-Class and Endevour’s little “tender” Bystander. They were literally our next neighbours, the other side of the main marina walkway (entirely cluttered up with spare sails, spare gear, and lots of support crew in team uniforms).
Next day as we departed they came out with us and started doing more race practice. We couldn’t keep up with them! But we stopped 100m outside their gybe mark to watch them. They made an impressive sight - and with all their modern carbon and dyneema gear, an even more impressive noise - as they gybed their spinnakers round the buoy just beside us. But what was most impressive was the fact that the huge hole in the water they made, was still swirling round 4 or 5 minutes after they had passed.

Quite often see them in cruising mode in Scotland - but rarely with sails hoisted. Generally at anchor awaiting the owners / guests to fly in by helicopter.

The 12m by contrast are now much less impressive. Back in their day when a typical cruising yacht might have been a Silhouette or Caprice, and a 27 foot Vega a “luxury superyacht”, the 70ft LOA / 50ft LWL “12m” was a big fast boat.
Recently used to see the converted 12m Sceptre racing in events like the Scottish Islands Peak Race, and a nice boat still.
But when, as a for example from a recent YM magazine, a couple is choosing a 57ft boat to cruise the Med, the 12m isn’t a big boat any more (even if some of the older ones are “pretty” in a sense - the knuckle nosed, very bumpy hull shapes of the final rule benders probably failed that test).

 

[oldbloke]

The big difference with a J class is that that fat, old billionaire who is paying for it, gets to go on it and enjoy it

 

[Chris 249]

I think your major mistake here is to assume that the Americas cup's reason to exist has anything at all to do with promoting the sport. At its core the Americas cup is a willy waving contest for Billionaires. That they televise it for us to watch is nice, but that's not why it exists.

However, I'd offer the following observation. Last week, whilst the cup was on there was also a live youtube stream of the TP52 world championships. In theory that's far more my style of racing. My boat has a lot more in common with a TP52 than an AC boat. They were also racing in about 6-8 knots of wind.
I lasted about 5 minutes before I got bored and turned it off.

I really respect the posts you make about what's happening in UK IRC racing because you are more across that than I am and I'm interested in learning from you, and similarly I happen to have made sailing history an area of special study and therefore maybe you shouldn't assume that it's me who is making a mistake when we differ. You have provided zero evidence for your claims while mine rest on a lot of actual primary and secondary evidence by those who were there.

As we all know, the Cup largely started out as a contest between two national design schools - the British cutter and the US pilot schooner and shallow centreboard sloop. It was kicked off by a letter from a Brit suggesting that the US show off one of their pilot schooners by racing it against British boats, so from the very start it was seen as being much more than plonker-playing for rich dudes. At the time very large numbers of amateurs, fishermen, pilots and other working seamen still used sails as their normal motive power, deaths were common, and the development of faster and more seaworthy craft was a worthwhile pursuit just like the development of better and safer cars and trucks is today.

As noted by Dixon Kemp, who arranged the first-ever challenge, the Cup was thought by the NYYC to be "an enduring proof of the superiority of yachts of American build" for decades. George L Schuyler, who knows what the Cup was intended for better than we do, wrote that it was intended to be "a test of sea going qualities as well as speed". He also wrote to the NYYC (regarding the twin Beavor Webb challenges) saying that he was pleased that they "evince(d) the desire of a contest for the cup on such terms as will fully and fairly determine the relative merits of the yachts of England and America". General public interest was huge, and a lot of it was explained by interest in the difference between the "battle of the types" between the two differrent design schools. So even almost 40 years after the first race, the Cup was seen by insiders and outsiders to have much wider import than just a rich guys' dick diddle.

The contest between the schools of design went on until the 1890s when they merged, and authorities of the time saw the Cup as being a lot more important to the wider sport than a mere schlong contest. W P Stephens, who as a leading designer, journalist and historian in NY in the late 1800s and early 1900s knew people like Herreshoff better than we do, clearly saw and wrote about a close link between the AC and the health of the sport as a whole. He wrote that the Cup was "the most important racing the world has ever known". Herbert L Stone, writing his history of the Cup 110 years ago, referred to "It has been the incentive for the highest development of yacht design". So although the AC boats weren't cuttijng edge as is often claimed, those who were there during its classic period say it was a lot more than a rich man's doodle-flicking fest.



Whether you, I or anyone else personally gets bored with a sport is irrelevant. I'm watching the AC too with mild interest but I know other people (one of them a foiler who has won world titles and coached a Kiwi driver to two Olympic medals, two other racers of fast multis) who are bored by it. We've had three foiling ACs now plus the big-multi DoG match and still there are fewer sponsors and teams than before, so it seems that not enough people are watching to make the modern AC the success its creators said it would be. If the AC75s were going to make the sport more popular then AC72s would have done so. And of course there's very good reason for Brits to be much more interested this time around - you've got a great chance and I hope you win it.

 

[flaming]

With respect, you've provided zero evidence that I'm making a mistake, and I'm prepared to bet, here and now, say 10,000 quid that I have spent a lot more time than you have in researching the history of 19th century yacht racing and the AC. I really respect the posts you make about what's happening in UK IRC racing because you are more across that than I am, and similarly I happen to have made sailing history an area of special study and therefore maybe you shouldn't assume that it's me who is making a mistake when we differ.

The Cup started out as a contrest between two national designs - the British cutter and the US schooner, which then became a broad shallow cenrreoard sloop

George L Schuyler, who knows what the Cup was intended for better than we do, wrote that it was intended to be "a test of sea going qualities as well as speed" and if became a test for inshore boats it would "would essentially detract from the interest" in the event. He also wrote to the NYYC (regarding the twin Beavor Webb challenges) saying that he was pleased that they "evince(d) the desire of a contest for the cup on such terms as will fully and fairly determine the relative merits of the yachts of England


W P Stephens, who as a leading designer, journalist and historian in NY in the late 1800s and early 1900s knew people like Herreshoff better than we do, clearly saw and wrote about a close link between the AC and the health of the sport as a whole. Lt Henn of Genesta was said by witnesses and by his own letters to have been interested in seeing whether the deep British cutters were faster in a breeze than the shallower US boats, and if you have read his letters you'll surely agree that he wasn't waving the flag, his willy, or anything else.

Herbert L Stone, writing his history of the Cup 110 years ago, referred to "It has been the incentive for the highest development of yacht design,

Dixon Kemp, who arranged the first-ever challenge for. , wrote that it was
Whether you, I or anyone else personally gets bored with a sport is irrelevant. I'm watching the AC too but I know other people (one of them a foiler who has won world titles and coached a Kiwi driver to two Olympic medals, two other racers of fast multis) who are bored by it. We've had three foiling ACs now plus the big-multi DoG match and still there are fewer sponsors and teams than before, so it seems that not enough people are watching to make the modern AC the success its creators said it would be.

Your history lesson is great.

It doesn’t have a whole lot to do with what the cup has become in the modern era though.
Look harder at the history of the cup since 2000. Who the players are, who’s bankrolling them, and most particularly WHY those writing the massive cheques are doing so.

They are NOT writing those cheques with any nod to promoting the sport…

 

[14K478]

I enjoy Chris 249’s “history lessons” - you may gather from my earlier posts that I share his interest in, if not his deep knowledge of, yachts and yachting in the 19th and the 20th centuries and I also have a soft spot for the Henns and their “Galatea”. My personal “hero” is Henry Paget, Marquess of Anglesey, who I think bought the £100 cup and gave it to the club that he helped to found.

The mental picture of the commander of the British cavalry at Waterloo:

Paget: “By God! I’ve lost my leg!”
Wellesley: “By God! Sir! So you have!”
(the two were not on speaking terms, because Paget had raced off with Wellesley’s brother’s wife)

…who was also the man who started serious yacht racing in Britain by getting Philip Sainty out of jail to build him the cutter yacht “Pearl”, which he kept for the rest of his long life, with numerous rebuilds to keep her in contention…

peering over the “America”’s taffrail at the post race party, looking for her propeller (!) appeals to me!

 

[14K478]

Your history lesson is great.

It doesn’t have a whole lot to do with what the cup has become in the modern era though.
Look harder at the history of the cup since 2000. Who the players are, who’s bankrolling them, and most particularly WHY those writing the massive cheques are doing so.

They are NOT writing those cheques with any nod to promoting the sport…

I think the advertising slogans on the sails may tell us something, but this is now a competition between Formula One motor racing teams as well.