Formula One hasn't recovered in popularity in this country since the Jordan's became uncompetitive in the early noughties. They later wound up entirely in 2005.
It's not just Ireland where Formula One has declined in popularity. Television ratings and falling attendances have been causing alarm for years.
The Formula One drivers themselves have become so exasperated by the FIA's failure to arrest the decline that last year the Grand Prix Driver's Association (now there's a high-end trade union) went over the heads of the governing body and sought the opinions of the fans themselves by publishing a Global Online Fan Survey.
The conclusion was the cars needed to get faster so as to allow drivers regain their "heroic status." This proposal is rather complicated by the fact that the Formula One drivers' heroic status reached its zenith in the 1960s and 70s when driver deaths were also peaking. The uncomfortable truth is that those two things were surely related.
Last year, Formula One was bought by Liberty Media, a US media company run by Irish-American business executive John Malone.
They bring to the table bold plans to revive a moribund brand. A senior executive told Matthew Garrahan of the Financial Times that they plan to make every Grand Prix "the equivalent of the Super Bowl."
Rather than being mere weekend events, the envision Formula One becoming week long events.
They also intend to bring Grand Prix to big US markets, with New York, Miami and Los Angeles being examined. Whether this will entail extending the season or whether it means the end of the Hungarian Grand Prix is another question.
The incoming management are deeply critical about the quality of marketing undertaken by their predecessors.
There’s no marketing, no research, no data, no digital platforms … This sport has unique global content and hasn’t done enough to take advantage of that. We need to build the rivalries and enable people to understand the technology that goes into the sport.
The sponsorship money brought in by Formula One teams has declined dramatically in the past few years. The combined total raised by teams is down from 950 million in 2011 to 750 million this year.
