German GP future “not looking good” – Ecclestone

F1 Fanatic Round-up

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In the round-up: Bernie Ecclestone casts doubts on whether the German Grand Prix will take place this year.

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German race looks unlikely in 2015, says Ecclestone (Reuters)

"It's not looking good...you can say that it (the race) looks unlikely but we are trying to rescue it. I don't want to lose it, for sure."

Symonds cautions against rush to 1000bhp engines (Adam Cooper's F1 Blog)

"I like the idea of 1000bhp engines, I like the idea of spectacular cars. I also like the idea of having a lot more cars on the grid, and that’s what I think should be our prime concern at the moment."

Lessons learned for McLaren (MotorSport)

"Removing its rear bodywork would however reveal what Ron Dennis describes as a jewel-like Honda power unit, with the compressor at the front just like Mercedes, allowing the plumbing to be minimised and keeping those sidepods compact."

Haas F1 2016 aero testing underway (Racecar Engineering)

"A 60% scale model of the new teams 2016 design has already been run in Ferrari’s wind tunnel in Maranello, Italy."

Lotus totally different - Maldonado (Autosport)

"It's looking completely different from what we had last year, in terms of reliability and how the entire package is working. So quite a positive day."

Horner Saluta Vettel sulla Ferrari SF-15T (YouTube)

It's not Christian Horner, but one Red Bull mechanic has a friendly wave for their former driver.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BxkN-SKQj08

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Comment of the day

Two days testing for Ferrari, two times on top of the charts. Should we be worried about more Vettel domination?

Vettel dominating does not make anything boring.

As long as there is some good racing to watch going on then I don’t care who wins or by how much because I pay attention to more than just first place.

Was the same back in the Ferrari era, While the title fight was over early in 2002 there was plenty of good racing going on elsewhere which kept the races entertaining.
PSN-Lee

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On this day in F1

Five years ago we had the intrigue of three new teams entering Formula One. Among them was Virgin – later Marussia – who launched their first F1 car on this day in 2010.

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84 comments on “German GP future “not looking good” – Ecclestone”

  1. “I like the idea of 1000bhp engines, I like the idea of spectacular cars. I also like the idea of having a lot more cars on the grid, and that’s what I think should be our prime concern at the moment.”
    Exactly. Symmonds, you’re a genius.
    By the way @keithcollantine, are Caterham returning?

    1. Yeah, Symonds has a knack for saying these kind of things @cocaine-mackeine.

      As for Caterham (and Marussia/Manor) – almost certainly not

    2. @cocaine-mackeine I wouldn’t put my money on it.

  2. I think it says a lot about F1 and WEC when Nissan reveal their LMP1 in a superbowl advert. Millions of people saw that car be revealed compared to the sponsorless twitter announcements we see these days. I hope a team like Mercedes could reveal their car in the same way next year.

    1. Haas should do it during the Super Bowl next year! what better way to gain american fan exposure

      1. @f1freek @theo-hrp “Haas F1. Americans taking on the world”, although even then, I’m sure a lot of people wouldn’t get it..

    2. ColdFly F1 (@)
      3rd February 2015, 2:13

      Super Bowl? – where can I buy that? ;-)

      1. Does it hold more cereals than a ‘regular’ bowl?

    3. What are you talking about?

    4. @theo-hrp
      That car is full of Nissan stickers, I can’t see lots of sponsors there either.

      Constructors like WEC because it is cheaper and more road relevant than F1, not because it’s more popular on TV…

    5. I don’t think it says much at all. LMP1 regulations allow greater variance, and this Nissan in particular is such a departure that by looking wildly different it is much better suited to being marketed in this way. Also, this car marks a return to the sport rather than just the latest in a line of recent cars, and F1 teams have a new car every year, whereas LMP1s typically do 2 or 3 years at the moment, making a new model more remarkable.

  3. Oh well, so much for that optimism from Toro Rosso.

    1. @george I’m not trying to undermine the expert Darren Heath but Toro Rosso did hire 2 new rookies and this is jerez not Barcelona, I think STR’s focus now is to keep the car running.

      1. As @peartree mentions, this is Jerez – where its most important to get mileage on the mechanical components of the car @george.

        James Key said that most of the car is going to change before the end of testing, but teams usually bring aero bits to Barcelona testing

  4. Hard to believe that the German track owners are refusing to let Bernie use their track to stage a Grand Prix no matter how much he is offering to pay them, they must be sensible and understand that Bernie can’t be expected to stage a GP if he is not going to make a lot of money from doing so and he only has the TV rights, trackside advertising, catering etc. to sell, they must be reasonable and see that, oh ! wait a minute, I might have this back to front, anyway they must be reasonable, mustn’t they ?

    1. ColdFly F1 (@)
      3rd February 2015, 2:18

      @hohum – exectly

      BE “we are trying to rescue it.”

      He’s the one who is killing it by charging the ridiculous hosting fees.

      1. Can’t blame Bernie for the mess the former Nurburgring owners got that circuit into. They tried to turn the place into some sort of theme park with a shopping area & none of it was ever used which cost the circuit a fortune & basically bankrupt the place.

        Its since been taken over by the local government who have said a few times that there not really interested in running a racetrack, Thats why the ‘Save the ring’ campaign was started.

        1. That theme park was exactly the sort of thing Bernie was telling the tracks they had to have so they could make money from all the fans that came to watch F1.

      2. Fritz Oosthuizen (@)
        3rd February 2015, 3:27

        True, Ecclestone suffer from godcomplex. I created it so I can destroy it. As Shakespear put it. ‘O greed the fall of men.’

  5. So teams are dying, circuits are dying, f1 is dying!!! When will CVC and cigar smokers!!

    1. Not till the last drop of blood from every stone has been extracted,

      1. That’s optimistic. These are the sort of people who’ll cut open the rocks to find more blood to squeeze well after it’s quite clear there’s nothing left.

  6. Thank goodness we have confirmation that FIndia will be at Melbourne in March, other news from Australia confirms that PM Tony Abbott will lead his party to the elections in 2016.

    1. @hohum A suppository of knowledge, he looks like an Australian Silvio Berlusconi!

      1. @fastiesty

        A suppository of knowledge…

        A marvellous image!

        1. @optimaximal His own words, “;)”

    2. At least there is some good news in there :)

      1. Not on both counts either, @HoHum ,
        as a past one eyed liberal since birth I’m proud to say I’ve gone Atheist on Aussie Politics,

  7. No French GP, no German GP, no Italian GP, no engines or no Bernie ?!

    1. Given how Magny-Cours never put on a decent race (In any category) losing that race unfriendly circuit is no real loss (Same reason I don’t mourn the loss of Imola, Awful circuit from a racing POV).

      Going back to Paul Ricard would be good but its an awful circuit to watch on TV now because of the colored runoff areas. And they never seem to run the full straght without throwing chicanes in which tends to hurt the racing in the races i have seen there.

      1. French GP 2004 – schumi’s brilliant 4 stopper?
        Imola 2005 – alonso holding back for schumi for the last ten laps?

        1. Schumi’s 4 stopper made that race dull because there was no racing going on, There was no battles, No overtaking, No close fights & the battle for the win was separated by 10-20 seconds most of the race due to the fuel strategy.

          Even GP2 didn’t manage to put on good racing there & the 1st-gen car managed to put on great races everywhere else. Its just an awful circuit for racing, Always has been & always will be.

          Imola 2005 & 2006 were great battles, But they were the exception on that circuit & even then there was very little chance for the car behind to overtake because overtaking was next to impossible at the Post 1994 Imola to the point where in 2006 there was only 1 overtake all race.

      2. Paul Ricard ? No way, Bernie would never pay the fees FOM demand, he’s not stupid.

        1. I’m sure he’d cut a deal. He likes looking after those close to him!

      3. Paul Ricard has no spectator infrastructure whatsoever.

  8. So what is the accepted understanding when talking about manufacturer teams’ and customer teams’ engine disparity?

    Do the manufactures have to give them an identical engine or can, Mercedes for example, add upgrades to theirs whilst keeping Lotus and Williams in the dark? How much of an advantage do manufacturer teams wield?

    1. ColdFly F1 (@)
      3rd February 2015, 2:21

      my understanding (and reading of the regulations) is ‘not allowed’. All teams must use the same/single spec.

      But there might be option for special dispensation (not sure if Caterham got one on the PU when being allowed to use 2014 car this year).

    2. @frankjaeger Given that the Williams was faster than the Merc in a straight line last season we can be pretty much 100% sure that they had the same power in 2014.
      In terms of other contractual clauses, there seems to be nothing that puts their customers at a disadvantage:
      http://www1.skysports.com/f1/news/12476/9696401/williams-aim-to-take-the-next-step-from-podiums-to-wins-with-fw37-in-2015-season

      Asked by Sky Sports News HQ whether there was any truth to claims that their contract with the German manufacturer stipulated they couldn’t release the full power of the engine when in combat with a Mercedes works car, Symonds replied: “There’s absolutely nothing in the contract that goes to anywhere near that sort of level of detail.

      “They had a really good car last year and that’s what we aspire to.”

      The main advantages of having a works engine instead of a customer one is that it can enable much better integration of the chassis and engine, plus the positioning of certain parts of the engine may be altered to suit the works team’s needs in order for aerodynamic benefits. Also, the works team may have more notice to design the chassis around the engine (since they will likely have an idea of the direction the power unit is taking earlier).

      In terms of the engine itself, as @coldfly has said I’m 99% sure that Mercedes will have to upgrade all of its customer’s engines at the same time as its works engine so that they are all the same.

      From what I have heard, this means that Merc may take longer than Renault/Ferrari/Honda to bring engine upgrades to the races as they have to produce 8 upgraded engines (for 4 teams) rather than 4 engines for Ferrari/Renault or only 2 for Honda. Though of course having more customers means more mileage to learn about the engine.

      1. But those 8 engines will already be built, all that will be needed is to swap out the original part(s) for the upgraded part(S) or re-program the chip.

  9. I think the problem with the German Gp is that both circuits have been badly mismanaged over the past 10 years & it also seems that the German public have lost interest in not just F1 but Motorsport in gereral post Schumacher as both TV & track attendance is down for not just F1 but also other categories such as DTM which used to have a strong following.

    Nurbrurgring has been in trouble since it was brought some years back by some people who basically bankrupt the place trying to turn the place into some sort of theme park & shopping center. Those people are no longer in charge of the facility but the local government have been talking about selling the place & even demolishing it ever since (Hence why the save the ring campaign was started).

    And as I say TV figures have been in steep decline since 2011 & unlike other country’s you don’t have the ‘well its gone to pay tv’ excuse because the tv broadcasting in Germany is the same as its been for about 15 years. Every quali/race live for free on RTL with a pay TV option for those who want enhanced/interactive coverage via what is now Sky Germany (Was known as DSF:+ & then Premiere beforehand).

  10. What do you all think about the fact haas is already in the windtunnel doing tests? I think it sounds great and they might be the first true new f1 teams in along time. They seem to be doing it right. I just hate how so many people say they will never race. Being in the tunnel a year before the season seems to be on it to me. I’m excited

    1. Didn’t they basically just buy an off-the-shelf Marussia 60% model? Not hard to just put that in the tunnel and claim ‘look at what we’re doing’. Given the 2016 regs aren’t yet set in stone, it’s basically pointless at this stage.

      1. @optimaximal Getting more base knowledge and studying the airflow can only be beneficial to them. At least it could give something (a basic idea) to go from to develop, and it’s worth noting that the Marussia’s aerodynamics weren’t as bad as everybody thinks. With a Renault or Mercedes engine they could well have scored several more points last year.

        One thing that does worry me is the use of Ferrari’s wind tunnel. It is well known that they have had problems in the past, so we can’t be too sure that it is completely reliable, no matter what Ferrari claim.

        1. @strontium There’s nothing wrong with Ferrari’s new wind-tunnel. The problem was the disconnect of ideologies between the engine and chassis teams and the blame culture around the team that resulted in mediocrity rather than progress.

  11. I just read an interesting artical about pay view and free for all view. Team are getting more money throw the pay view then they are getting throw free for all view, but i really wanted to comment on race track and what they get charges. My feeling is that F1 is a TV sport and not a live next to the track sport. Firstly every one here forgets that the more money Ecclestone makes the more money the teams get. The teams get around 63% of all the money generated by F1. So the more money he makes the more money the teams make it. So if a countrey is willing to pay more to host a race then it is good for the teams. So Ecclestone is not only doing what is right for him self but also for the teams. Secondly it is not Ecclestone fault if your country does not want to help for the race then it not his fault but your country. Sponsorship is going down for all sports and Ecclestone found a new way to generate money for the teams and him self. If it was not for Ecclestone the sport would have been in a lot more trouble then it is now.

    1. If it was not for Ecclestone the sport would have been in a lot more trouble then it is now.

      I have to disagree with you there @koosoos.

      Yeah, Bernie did build up F1 in the 1980s and even 1990s. But a “promotor” who doesn’t do any promoting of the sport and instead just racks up the money on tracks to suck them dry is not good for the sport. On top of that, and especially compared to other big sports, an incredibly large portion of the money generated by the sport flows out instead of being reinvested in it.
      And to top it all off, the model of distribution between teams makes those that are not in the top 5-6 dwindle as they have to compete against budgets that are a multifold of their own.

      Just look at tracks – staging an F1 race barely breaks even for the best visited races like Silverstone as the only thing they get from it is the ticket money. For everyone else its a big loss. That is not healthy and even less is it a sustainable business model.

      1. @BAsCD

        “money on tracks to suck them dry is not good for the sport”
        He is not other countrys are willing to back the race tracks so they are not only get money from the ticket sales but from there governments. But in Europe the governments do not back the races and that is way the tracks are having a bad time.
        “an incredibly large portion of the money generated by the sport flows out instead of being reinvested in it.”
        They are reinvesting 63% of the money they make back to the teams so i can not see how you can say they are not reinvesting back in to the sport.
        “top 5-6 dwindle as they have to compete against budgets that are a multifold of their own.”
        Take a look a Williams. Year after Year they show a profits even if they have a bad year. They do now how to stick to a budget. Secondly in every professional sport there are always teams that has bigger budgets then other sport. In any case if you going to distribute the money more equle then the sport is only going to get more expensive then it is now. The big teams will have to even spend more money to be at the top. The problem with the big teams are they will spend almost any amount to win the rewards for winning is so great that it the amount does not matter to a point.

        1. It should be 100% being reinvested. The teams should get it all it is their show. Bernie and CVC are irrelevant leeches sucking the sport dry.

      2. ColdFly F1 (@)
        3rd February 2015, 9:16

        Agree with @BAsCD (@koosoos).

        F1 under better management would have been worth a lot more than it is today.

        You will not hear Bernie or CVC complain as all the value sits with them (at some point up to $7B) rather than with the teams.

        Other sports – football/NBA/NFL – are worth a lot more (mostly in/from one country). The difference though is that the value sits with the teams (who oftentimes jointly own the league), whereas the FOM is separate from the teams and only works for itself.

        1. Thats where you are wrong. You can not compare F1 with other sports. A F1 ones team worth is not in how much money you make but he amount you get in adverts and i do not mean sponsor money. Take Merc, Red Bull and even Haas F1. Why are they willing to spend billions in the teams live span even tow they know they will never make a profit from it. The money they save on sponsoring there own product is much more then they have to pay if they had to hire some one to do the adverts for them. By the way Ferrari e Red Bull and Merc is all valued over 1.5 bilj just for the teams. F1 on its own with out its teams are worth over 7Bilj.

          1. Compared to other efforts of marketing I am sure that F1 is the better option currently for Mercedes, for Ferrari and for Red Bull. Yes, they do get a huge advertizing value out of it. But lets not forget that these teams also get more than the complete budget of STR, Sauber, FI, Lotus from FOM. And Red Bull gets a big chunk from Nissan/Infinity as well.

            But that doesn’t solve any issues for the less well off. Williams can hang on, because they too receive some “sign up and play along” money from FOM.

            The biggest difference with the other sports mentioned by @coldfly here is that in those sports the promotor/organisation actually does something to promote the sport amongst viewers and they do that job for a share of between 2-15% of the revenue. FOM takes 37%, which is an enormous amount of money.

            Its all nice and well that some governments want to windowdress and lure sports in. But overall its doing more harm for the longterm health of those sports than it brings in in money now.
            And then there is the huge issue of a country spending some 40-60 million a year for an F1 race, where 37% goed directly into the hands of a financier instead of investing that money in something durable for their people. However much I love F1, i would easily be not supportive of my country, or the one I live in if it struck such a deal.

            The teams might be worth a lot on paper or when Mallya needs to offset some debt etc. But the real value of a team can be seen at Sauber, at Lotus, at FI or at STR – nobody is interested in buying them, because they are a bigger burden than an asset to their owners. Indeed, that is the reason why Caterham and Marussia demised.

    2. @koosoos I’d be interested to see this article you mention. I’d be even more interested to see if it says the things you say and it isn’t the work of Christian Sylt or one of the Formula Money lot.

      1. ok i will post the link to it when i get home so in an hour or so.

          1. Pitpass is Christian Sylt’s home. We all know who road that.

  12. That motorsport article about “lessons learned” by McLaren is a really good read.

    1. @bascb Agreed. One thing that struck me was the comment about them being down on HP vs the works Merc PU due to running fuel it wasn’t designed for. That’s something I don’t recall anyone talking about last year. Makes me wonder if that is simply a contractual thing…Mac doesn’t run the same brand of fuel as Merc…or is it a secret Merc is allowed to keep as to the exact formula they use fuel-wise which gives them an edge as the ‘inventor’ of their own PU.

      1. So further to that, Honda will know the exact formula for the fuel their PU likes to drink.

      2. I know it was mentioned early in the year @robbie. I even remember seeing some quote from Mallya where he mentioned that its not just the engine being expensive, but also now having to buy premium Petronas fuel to get the exta HP it helps get (FI, Williams and now also Lotus use Petronas fuel as well)
        McLaren had their long term partner Mobil, not sure Mercedes/Petronas did not want to supply McLaren or if the team itself chose not to. But it certainly did give them a disadvantage.

        1. @bascb I don’t think anyone expected the fuel to be such a differentiating factor… There was definitely a drive for performance via Total & Shell in the engines they supply.

          1. @bascb and @optimaximal Interesting stuff. I do recall reading some time ago that fuel is nearly the same amongst teams and not far off what we use in our domestic cars but that there are subtle differences…ie. not drastic differences, such are the regs. So it’s interesting that subtle differences can make such a big difference amongst cars/pu’s. Wonder if that is new to this new gen of PUs.

          2. @robbie it’s based on pump fuel with a percentage of biofuel added to keep the greens happy. Considering the differences in performance and fuel-system efficiency between typical 87-octane standard unleaded and 90+-octane premium fuel in a standard car, there’s clearly lots of scope for chemical changes that are way beyond our comprehension.

          3. I must say that the numbers of up to 40 hp or even more coming from optimizing fuel by Total from the abysmal start until about 2/3rds into the season certainly surprised my @optimaximal, and I would think not even Total themselves (nor McLaren and Mobil and possibly even Shell) would have expected that – surely otherwise they would have made those changes up front!

        2. IIRC, once upon a time in lands not far far away F1 cars had to run on standard motor fuel as available at service stations and occasionally teams would be sanctioned when the FIA found their fuel to be superior/different to that sold to the public, when did this change ?

  13. Re- German GP.
    It appears Bernie has the opposite problem to normal. Usually we hear that there are too many venues and not enough events, allowing FOM to charge their silly fees. But in Germany they have 2 tracks capable of holding a GP yet neither one wants it. This same issue led to the Nurbergring getting a free-bee not so long ago.

    I comes to something when obscure places are lining up with sacks of booty to pay for a race yet in the historic European heartland of F1 we have 2 classic tracks saying they just can’t make the numbers work for them. All this with a German based constructors champion and 3 good German registered Drivers on the grid. It’s a very sad state of affairs.

    1. ColdFly F1 (@)
      3rd February 2015, 9:20

      Probably a bit of a slip up by Bernie. (@thebullwhipper)
      He prefers to get these messages out before the season to then sell the spot on the calendar to the highest bidder.

      But who knows Qatar might put the World Cup preparation on hold and fill Germany’s spot this year!

    2. @thebullwhipper Spot on.

      It is worth noting that

      in Germany they have 2 tracks capable of holding a GP yet neither one wants it.

      The reason they both don’t want it is because of how expensive Bernie’s hosting fee is!

  14. To the COTD. (This harks back to what we discussed yesterday in the F1 Fanatic Live session.)

    I, personally, have no problem with another Vettel domination either. Gone are the days when I disliked him that much due him winning narrowly over Alonso in a much better car.

    But I’m sure the ‘masses’ wouldn’t agree with us. They want great racing not just for 2nd or 3rd place as it was in 2013 and 2014, but for the win. So ‘product’-wise, F1 should fear one-team or one-driver dominations by its very nature of being more than a motorsport series, an extremely popular entertainment option.

  15. “Button and Bottas both summoned for random drug tests this evening.

    A classic Oxymoron!

      1. A contradiction in the same sentence. If you know when the blood test is, it’s hardly “random.”

        A proper “random” test would be without warning….

        1. @baron I don’t think they knew they had a drug test that evening. It is more of a wording used for the report.

          It is random if they don’t know it in advance. Need not be random when it is being reported.

  16. I would bet my bottom $ that Haas proves to be nothing more than a pipe dream….16 car grid next season i predict.

    1. I do have a slight amount of confidence with Haas. They seem like serious business in F1, and Haas is clearly going for a completely different strategy to enter compared to Caterham, Marussia, and HRT.

      Who knows if it the right one – time will tell – but at the very least it is a different, fresh approach.

    2. Haas has the astronomical budget, which is what you basically need to survive in F1.

  17. “A 60% scale model of the new teams 2016 design has already been run in Ferrari’s wind tunnel in Maranello, Italy.”

    Does Ferrari not have one of the worst wind tunnels in F1?

    1. And wasn’t one of Haas’ big plus points that he has one of the best wind tunnels in the world? Colour me confused.

      1. The wind tunnel actually belongs to Windshear, a wholly owned subsidiary of Haas Automation. It is a Full Scale Rolling Road type and relies on a full scale car tied down on a travelling twin beltway. So firstly, they do not have a full scale model yet and secondly Dallara is in Italy so handy for initial testing. But here’s the rub: Teams are only permitted the use of a single wind tunnel test facility in a season, so I imagine that the initial work will be done this year on scale models and then once the design has been extrapolated to a full scale model, in-season testing (such is allowed) will take place with the actual car on Haas’s own facility. This is only my guess though..

        1. From what I have read, it appears they are not buying a Dallara chassis. The design will be in-house and it also appears they are using an old marussia as a template to get started.

    2. Yes, and although they claim to have fixed the correlation issues now, we can’t be too sure until we give it some time. It definitely seems like an odd one, especially with what @jimg has said.

      1. THe point is off course that Haas has a 100% scale windtunnel. But the engineers are in Italy. Sure enough Haas’ own tunnel will be used as well to correlate the numbers (it has for many F1 teams already).
        Not sure how far Haas is held to limits on testing with more than 60% scale models that go for the current grid, but it might be that is the reason they use models @strontium, @jimg

    3. Ferrari built a new wind-tunnel 2-3 years ago. It’s good, but the stuff they were putting in it was crap.

  18. Wake up Bernie, wake up FOM and wake up FIA, F1 is no longer considered the pinnacle of Motorsport anywhere outside a select few European countries. Those same countries you are no abandoning for the almighty Middle East/Russian oil money. Teams have no sponsors because no one they want to reach watches F1 anymore. Change things fast or F1 will be a support series to the WEC in 10 years.

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