posted Dec 10, 2008

What I find very irritating is that Max is going off anout F1 when Rally is in the same state...millions spend just to win Stages....how hypocritical is Mosley?
How about Mosley cutting Rally's Budgets and forcing them to cost cut their budgets as well.
As for teams on a £30 million budget...Mosley is living in a dreamland!

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posted Dec 10, 2008

Next season you will all see how hopelesly inadequate Hamilton is. Renault will be dominant, mark my words.

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posted Dec 10, 2008

>"mark my words."

I don't think I'll bother thanks.

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posted Dec 11, 2008

Part of the problem is that the teams get very little of the commecials from the sport, as most of it goes into BE's Pocket, so if BE gave more to the teams, the sport might be in a better finanical position, and a little more competative.

IMHO the best way to help would be to base the support on where the team finishes in the constructors Championship, eg the teams that finish in the bottom third get 2x the budget of those in the top third, the mid pack gets 1.5x.

To encourage new teams to enter, they get 3x the amount of a top grid team for the first 2 years then they drop down to the standard system.

This would enable and encourage new and strugging teams to compete with the bigger teams, and as they improve they will get more from sponsership deals and thier own commercial sales to fans, thus need less from to help them improve.

Its a vicious circle, the better you do the more sponsership you get, thus the more you can spend, the worse you do the less you get so you cant spend as much, and you drop further back, look at Williams from the early to mid 90's they were one of the top teams, but as they started to drop back on the grid they stopped getting lucrative engine deals (Renault, BMW dropped them) as well as other sponsership, now look at them they're a mid pack team.

On the other hand look at Ferrari, they were mid pack during the same period as williams where a top team, they started to improve and with MS driving for them became a top team.

I think next year it will be a close title with 3-4 teams competing for the title those being (in no order) MM, Ferrari, Renault, and BMW. The dark horses will Redbull, and possibly williams, you may even start to see Force india in top-mid-pack a bit more often rather than being at the Back of the pack.

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posted Dec 11, 2008

I looked back at the last time we were in Global Economic Recession and read the Wikipedia article on the 1991 F1 season

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1991_Formula_One_season

ironically it was at the time when Max and Bernie were getting their feet under the table and looking at the entry list for the 1991 season makes for shocking reading compared to the sterile series that M & B have engineered since that time. A look down the entry list shows 34 cars, lots of choice and competition for chassis manufacturers, engine suppliers, tyres, drivers... you name it. In 1991 during a Global Financial Recession Formula 1 was in a healthy state.

I still have difficulty understanding what Max and Bernie are trying to achieve. The only positive steps they have made were the safety measures introduced in the wake of the events at Imola 1994 when Senna and Ratzenberger died ( if anyone sees other benefits they've bought I bow to their superior knowledge).

Compared to 1991 the 2008 season was very limited in flexibility for the teams. In 1991 there were 18 teams, 2 tyre manufacturers, only 16 races. at least 10 different engines - one team even running different engines in their two cars (Footwork) and Coloni only running a single car! 41 different drivers, 5 different race winners, pre-qualifying. 1991 had everything the racing enthusiast wanted - lots of choice for teams and the viewing public to enjoy - even down in the pack when pre-qualifiers (against all odds) finished in the points.

1991 was the year Mansell gave Senna a lift back to the pits after the most amazing battle at Silverstone ( I was there and ecstatic to see this spectacle). The £95 gate price and sunburn were worth it for the entertainment I got that day.

OK, so that was not the Global Recession of 2008 but my point is that in the intervening years when times were good and the world economy was healthy, Formula One didn't react to the good times - Max and Bernie were greedy and made it difficult (difficult=financially impossible) for new blood to come in to the sport. They made it so only the big car manufacturers could afford to play their game and now some of those players are feeling the pinch 'Max and Paddy' are trying to cut costs in the sport to ensure its survival! It should have been done during the Schumacher years while Ferrari were throwing hundreds of millions of dollars supporting MS and the rest of the (shrinking) paddock were shuffling around trying to compete on equal terms.

Whatever MM & BE do now is a result of their handling of the sport which in 1991 had the world at its feet. Since 1991 the sport has become elitist and controlled by Bernie's franchises, the FIA now want to extend that idea. The sport is now sterile and a world away from the event I shared with 200,000 others at Silverstone during the last recession.

Formula One has become a very expensive joke.

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posted Dec 11, 2008

this discussion in my view misses the point completely.

the problem in f1 is not spending caps. take the example of an universal engine. ferrari and mclaren will still be in front. why? cos they can spend the millions it costs to get that engine much closer to perfection then the other teams.

plus all cars have to negotiate the same laws of physics and again, ferrari and mclaren can spend the millions it cost to get as close to the edge is is possible with the current state of technology.

all this talk about individuals is pointless. these people have nothing to do with this situation.

the problem with f1 is there are 2 teams ahead, spending like there is no tomorrow forcing all other teams to do the same.

cos no matter what changes there are, loads of money will always get you on top of the heap and will force others to try to match that as much as possible.

and thats the financial spiral f1 is in resulting in the costs having exploded the last few year cos of this technical maelstrom. i think i once read it costs 10 million to gain 0.1 sec per lap.

the chance in aero packages might help cos then all these teeny weeny thingies costing gold and only available to really big teams will be gone and maybe some of the advantage there will be gone but it won't solve the main issue.

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posted Dec 11, 2008

Can nobody see anymore?
The only reason that Bernie and co. dont open up the rules is because it would mean that Bernie's beloved Ferrari would walk away from the sport!!!

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posted Dec 11, 2008

CFKane wrote:

"People on here talk about the spirit of F1, well that’s the spirit right there. Pushing and pushing the limits. If you standardise this..they will make an advantage over with that..if to get that means spending money then of course they will. They are in the sport to win. If you want to race and be all jolly hockey sticks, go and enter a Karting race. F1 is for the big boys, its the big leagues, if you can't cut it get out. The sport should be left to regulate it self, adjust and trim cuttings where necessary upon it's own counsel. A standardised sport will not attract future investment; it will not attract the best drivers or technical staff. You are witnessing the death knell of the sport you love. F1 is about the summit, not the base camp."


There's just one thing wrong with your reasoning. If R&D and team running costs continue to increase as they hve done over the last 10 years or so, you're goin to end up with 4 teams and an 8-car grid (or possibly 12 if they allow 3 cars per team)...simple as that. Are you going to be so keen to watch then?

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posted Dec 11, 2008

steev182 wrote:

"dyrewolfe; have you been watching F1 for the last 18 years?! Only 5 different manufacturers have won the championship..."

FYI I have watched F1 for the last 16 years or so. I was vaguely aware that not too many teams had won the driver's and constructor's titles, but I didn't stop to count before I posted, so excuse me.

I know that, for about the last 10 years, its essentially been a 2-horse race (arguably worse than the EPL), which makes it all the more important that ways are found to prevent total domination of the sport by just a couple of teams by teams with virtually unlimited funds.

Winners, by their very nature, will always attract more internal funding and external sponsorship...but we've seen that all that does, without some agressive drivers to liven things up, is turn races into hi-tech processions.

Its all very well saying "If you can't afford it - get out", but its that kind of thinking that really WILL sound the death knell for F1.

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posted Dec 11, 2008

Don't get me wrong - I would rather NOT see cars that are technically identical, as I believe that a team's success should be based on a combination of driver skill and design.

That said, something needs to be done, both to reduce costs (keeping entry into the sport reasonably affordable) and to prevent success being entirely based on how much money you can throw at car development.

Happily, it seems as though the teams have found a way to make this happen (re the news that FOTA have agreed a package of cost-cutting measures with the FIA).

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