Ecclestone should stop being negative about F1 – Todt

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In the round-up: FIA president Jean Todt calls on commercial rights holder Bernie Ecclestone to stop being negative about the sport following claims he recently decribed it as “crap”.

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Todt calls on Ecclestone to be 'more positive' about F1 (F1i)

"I would hope that he will be more positive about the product, because if he has some complaints, which may be right, it’s something we should address internally and not make it public."

F1 does not need big changes - Jean Todt (ESPN)

"I don't think F1 needs big changes. And if it would need big changes, then honestly I need to have some input. I need to know where it (the problem) is, because I don't know where it is."

I hate customer cars, says Todt (Crash)

"I hate customer cars. I think the fascination of F1 that you have the firm ground that everyone participates on. Group A, Group B is fine, but in different categories."

FIA to take action on engine deals (Autosport)

"I take the responsibility of probably not having secured a maximum cost to the customers."

Ecclestone should step down - Jordan (BBC)

"I think he's done a remarkable job but time has played its role and he should go."

Qatar eyes fast track to soft power with Formula One stake (The Guardian)

"One of the most immediate motives for such a move might be to ensure that Qatar had its own F1 race in a calendar that includes events in neighbouring Abu Dhabi and nearby Bahrain."

Sauber's Felipe Nasr insists he isn't a 'pay driver' (Sky)

"I think it is quite stupid that people think that way. It is really a short way of thinking because I think more countries follow this example of supporting their own drivers."

Mercedes worried Ferrari on verge of F1 breakthrough (Motorsport)

"We see every now and then glimpses of performance from Ferrari which shows that they develop."

Twists and turns in Formula E’s trailblazing city centre races (FT - registration required)

"I went to a consultation meeting and everyone booed me as I was introduced."

Ainslie forges links with the F1 fast lane (Reuters)

"The team... has former McLaren Formula One team principal Martin Whitmarsh as chief executive. Red Bull's Adrian Newey, the designer whose cars have won titles with three separate F1 teams, is involved while Prodrive - the engineering company who have won world rally championships and run F1 teams - are also on board."

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Comment of the day

Have teams mastered the variable of Pirelli’s ‘designed to degrade’ tyres so well that they no longer produce exciting races?

The reality is that (a) the tyres are stable enough that after a couple of races teams more or less know what they can expect of them (a huge difference from the past) and (b) they have the simulation tools to know to a relatively large extent how to run them “optimal” during the races.

This together takes away a large part of the unpredictability in the past when there were far larger differences between single sets of tyres, giving a larger degree of uncertainty. Nowadays the only surprises are when we get weather that is very different from what was expected, or when the surface is new and behaves differently from previous years.
@Bascb

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67 comments on “Ecclestone should stop being negative about F1 – Todt”

  1. Re COTD: it should stay that way! this “unpredictable tyres” discourse needs to stop. The performance difference of fresher tires vs. older tires is fine, as is their management, but not knowing when your tire is going to go down is simply stupid, leaves the driver a victim and is not needed at all.

    1. to get this clear, the “unpredictable tyres” was referring to ages past (say 80s or mid 90s) when quality control from the manufacturers was lousy compared to today’s standards @andrewf1

      1. …and the silverstone incident 2 years ago.

        1. Which, it turned out, was caused mostly by teams running the tyres the wrong way round and using ridiculous pressures.

          1. petebaldwin (@)
            26th June 2015, 10:05

            @mazdachris – ….and yet, somehow the blame was still put on Pirelli!

          2. By Redbull! Who conveniently benefitted massively when they were changed.

          3. I don’t see the lack of predictability as the problem. So what if they can predict that the tires will be garbage every race, limiting the drivers from pushing, providing a few hot laps before it’s conservation time, the drivers hating them.

            As to the teams running the tires the wrong way and with the wrong pressures…ya gotta ask why they felt the need to go to such extremes. Answer…because they were that bad. Pirelli’s fault? No. That’s what F1 asked them to do. Make the tires the story of F1.

            I vote for better tires that provide half a stint worth of hot laps before they go off, and better aero regs to start to deal with the dirty air effect. Right now the formula is not working. Fake DRS and fake tires is still providing processions as drivers can barely get within 2 secs of a car without ruining their overall strategy for getting to the end, all the while harming the integrity of the sport. If they must remain addicted to aero, at least get rid of the fake passes and tires which have added nothing and have only taken away from the sport.

          4. @mazdachris @petebaldwin Pirelli were to blame, The teams swapping tyres, Going extreme with camber levels etc… is a part of F1 & they have been doing this since the beginning & the tyres should be able to cope with this as they have been up until this Pirelli-era.

            In the past other tyre suppliers built in big safety margins which allowed teams to push the boundaries, Pirelli didn’t do this which is what caused the problems. If they had done then like every other tyre suppliers throughout F1’s history there would have been zero problems.

            Gary Anderson said at the time that while he was at Jordan tyre swapping was commonplace because it allowed them to get more life out of the GoodYear tyres which were prone to blistering under certain conditions in 1997. Didn’t see any of those tyres exploding for no reason.

            Also McLaren said that when Perez had his failure they were running within Pirelli guidelines so clearly there was more than teams pushing the limits going on with the failures.

          5. @robbie

            As to the teams running the tires the wrong way and with the wrong pressures…ya gotta ask why they felt the need to go to such extremes. Answer…because they were that bad.

            Rubbish.

            It *wasn’t* because they were badly designed – the teams deliberately reversed them because it reversed the wear pattern. This meant they could get more life out of fewer tyres, but risked damaging the shoulder because it was operating in both directions for longer than it was designed for.

            They were also dropping the tyre pressures to increase the surface area and deliberately running aggressive camber to further put more rubber down. These methods resulted in the shoulder of the tyre being much lower & exposed.

            To compound this, the drivers were also straight-lining kerbs onto the Wellington Straight, brushing the weakened shoulder/side wall against the inside of the kerbs.

            Basically, as with Spa the year before, the teams were throwing safety out of the window in order to extract a performance advantage. The event after, the FIA issued a firm ruling that all (as then unaltered) tyres should be run as intended and any violation would result in disqualification. No explosions…

            Then the tyre spec was reverted to the ’12 spec (kevlar belt, which changed the heat profile of the tyre) and the rest of the year was a write off.

          6. The 2013 tyres were designed to foil Red Bull I’m pretty sure, with sidewalls that were too soft to take that much downforce and load. Then as @optimaximal says the teams reversed them and ran low pressures, and the car performance was going up generally, and the tyres started separating at the join between the stiff steel belt and the flexi sidewall.

            My memory is the camber issue was separate, at Spa the previous year, with Red Bull fronts, but I’m not sure.

          7. Michael Brown
            26th June 2015, 16:33

            @lockup Spa 2011 was when Red Bull suffered extreme blistering. I’m not sure, but I think they went out of Pirelli’s recommended camber range.

          8. @optimaximal I don’t think it is rubbish at all. The fact that the teams by your admission (it’s just plain fact) were going to these measures to extract a performance advantage makes it clear that the tires were rubbish. As you say they did it knowing that was risking the shoulder which indicates that’s how desperate they were. Roger A points out that this kind of behavior amongst the teams wrt tire swapping and experimenting with pressures and camber/caster has always been commonplace but the tires can normally handle it. Whether or not that is the case is relevant. If this has never been done before then one can reasonably ask why they did it that year. If it is commonplace one can reasonably ask why the tires couldn’t handle it and/or why the teams experiments resulted in such failures when such experiments never did before. Or such extreme experiments were never before necessary. No matter how you look at it, in my eyes the tires were that bad and I don’t blame the teams for experimenting and I blame Pirelli only in a small way for making the tires as they did but all the while we all know this is what they were mandated to do by F1 under conditions of very little testing. They took it too far for that year and had to make mid-season changes. That is not normal. If as you say this was the teams throwing safety out the window in your eyes, then again I have to ask folks to ask the question why they would do that. Do teams normally throw safety out the window? I think not.

            Bottom line for me…describing what the teams were doing with the tires does not convince me the tires were not badly designed. It confirms it.

  2. Todt 2015 “I need to know where it (the problem) is, because I don’t know where it is.”

    I guess that says it all then.

    1. tgu (@thegrapeunwashed)
      26th June 2015, 9:27

      Well, Ecclestone surely doesn’t know, given the ridiculous ideas he’s tried (and unfortunately occasionally succeeded) to force through in recent years. Double points in the last race? Great idea Bernie, that really improved matters. Drivers picking their own numbers, yes that really improved the show. Sparking skid plates? I like them, but I’d prefer close racing.

      Knee-jerk responses to make the show less boring are usually counter-productive, so Todt is right not to rush things. The current formula would be great if Ferrari and Red Bull were on Mercedes’ pace: that’s Formula One’s real problem, one team’s too far ahead. Often, the best way to resolve that is to keep the rules stable to allow the trailing teams time to catch up.

      Long-standing issues, like distribution of money and abandoning traditional races, seem almost entirely down to Ecclestone’s greed. It’s time he got his grubby little fingers out of the sport.

      1. petebaldwin (@)
        26th June 2015, 10:07

        @thegrapeunwashed – I said it yesterday – try and think of a genuine problem with F1 where the root cause isn’t Bernie. Hard isn’t it!

      2. +1 however the rules and formula is so watertight that team like Ferrari and Red Bull are struggling to catch up. I don’t like RBR whining but they have a valid point amongst the piles of crap PR.

        One way to address the issues is to open up the aero and engine rules a little and also allow some more in season testing.

        1. We also need someone to throw under the bus when things are not working. As fans, we complain about degradable tires, DEP and Tilkedromes however, we forget that when we had non degradable tires and no DR’S and no Tilkedromes, we still had crappy years. The Ferrari years were extremely boring because Ferrari was miles ahead in performance as they used to throw millions behind testing and development and ever since development and testing is tightened up, Ferrari is still playing catch up.

          Hence it’s important to lax the rules, not to the previous times on unlimited testing and development but the sport has jumped from one extreme to the other post the economic downturn in 2008-09. That needs to be addressed.

        2. One way to address the issues is to open up the aero and engine rules a little and also allow some more in season testing.

          …and who is paying for all this, because it certain won’t be the FIA or FOM. And we know the works teams will just pass all their development costs onto their customers too.

          1. Im for anything that opens development up and gets the broke teams out of the sport. If you cant spend 200+ million, please dont show up in F1.

  3. Todt to Ecclestone: “Hey man! Hush! Don’t tell everyone F1 is boring and too convoluted and artificial for no reason whatsoever! People must never find out!”

  4. Chris (@tophercheese21)
    26th June 2015, 1:46

    Well, Fred Nasr, you are a pay driver because you wouldn’t be at Sauber if it weren’t for the backing your receive, but being a pay-driver doesn’t mean you’re less talented, because you are one of the more talented rookies in this field, and much more talented than your teammate (King Joffrey).

    1. I think being a pay driver does mean you are less talented. It’s now just very difficult to reconcile talent because we are bench-marking one pay drivers performance against another pay drivers performance.

      The sport has become a sorry joke on many levels, this round up sums up the pathetic state of affairs nicely.

      1. I think being a pay driver does mean you are less talented.

        Niki Lauda was a pay driver as was Michael Schumacher when he made his F1 debut.

        There has also been times where Alonso has taken backing to a team to help pay for his drive, This year for example Honda are paying for Alonso’s seat which kinda makes him a pay driver.

    2. @tophercheese21 Would Sauber have any drivers at all if they didn’t take ones with backing? If F1 is a ‘grid of champions’, it’s fair to class the junior ladder ‘non-champions’ as ‘pay drivers’ – Stevens and Chilton. Nasr has 2 titles – he beat Magnussen in British F3, and Frijns in F. BMW. Not bad opposition..

      1. Chris (@tophercheese21)
        26th June 2015, 2:52

        Would Sauber have any drivers at all if they didn’t take ones with backing?

        No, which is exactly why it’s wrong for Nasr to say he’s not a pay driver, when he clearly is. But he’s not a bad driver by any stretch of the imagination.

        So when @Dim sim says,

        I think being a pay driver does mean you are less talented.

        ,
        it’s a completely false stereotype. Sure, there have been examples of drivers who are not fit to be on an F1 grid, but were only there because their pockets were deep (Chilton, Pic, D’Ambrosio). However, there have been plenty of drivers who bring large sums of money to a team and can also drive the wheels off the thing (Grosjean, Maldonado and Perez for example).

        1. @tophercheese21, indeed, it is worth noting that even quite a few championship winning drivers had to pay their way to get onto the grid – Lauda openly admits that in his autobiography, whilst Ron Dennis has stated that Senna provided funding to Toleman in return for a seat there. Sometimes, it does feel like complaining about a particular driver being a ‘pay driver’ is often more a shorthand for ‘I dislike that driver but don’t want to say so directly’.

        2. @tophercheese21 True, but in my mind the real ‘pay drivers’ are those that wouldn’t be there in the case that all teams were able to choose who they wanted solely based on performance. Nasr would still make that cut, IMO.

          If we are looking for drivers that have never had any backing.. I’m struggling to think of anyone past Button and Raikkonen, the oldest drivers on the grid who are likely to retire soon.

          1. I don’t think Hamilton has ever bought any intrinsic financial backing. McLaren just supported him because he was bloody good and the results have done the talking since.

          2. @optimaximal In this case, Hamilton and Vettel would have ‘significant backing’ from Mercedes/RB Juniors, along with all of the RB juniors. Alonso, Massa etc. have ‘big sponsor backing’, even if it came after their entry to F1. At a stretch, Button was in some Head & Shoulders adverts.. that leaves Kimi? Maybe his Ferrari payoffs mean he has no need for such extra income..

            But that’s the ‘backing’ point taken to an extreme, be it from the teams themselves or personally with sponsors.

    3. Pat Ruadh (@fullcoursecaution)
      26th June 2015, 10:16

      When you’re sitting in your race seat because you brought more money than someone else who was also promised that seat, you can’t turn around and say you we’re hired on merit.

      Hey Felipe, you’re a pay driver.

  5. OmarR-Pepper - Vettel 40 victories!!! (@)
    26th June 2015, 2:19

    hey @keithcollantine you are growing your mean wit on those tweets hahaha!!!
    Maybe for Saturday, when we usually have a more relaxed version of F1Fanatic, you should post a gallery with the best #Arribaveneiseverywhere pics created by Lotus and spread on Twitter too!

  6. The only time the Pirelli tyres were responsible for any excitement it was for entirely the wrong reason, but hey, exploding tyres is only 1 little degree further down the road of artificiality that we have with tyres that go from marshmallow to ice cubes in 1 or 2 laps. What the hell, bring on the sprinklers, we must have unpredictability to make the “show” better, but not for me it wont.

    1. if you get back to our discussion yesterday, you will remember we were comparing times way (with quality control being a great deal less than it is now) past with the current situation, not really pirelli (although the teams playing tricks with the tyres had much the same effect in 2012) @hohum.

      Apart from that, there is not much unpredictable at all about the Pirellis used. When they degrade faster, they do so for all the teams and all the cars. When someone gets the car right on say supersofts, they have a sustainable (slight) advantage on those, etc. That is why the made to degrade does not really work, because everyone knows what to expect, simulate for it and then go with the optimal strategy.

      1. @bascb, and yet they still find themselves in situations, like being stuck behind a car that is slow in corners but fast on the straights, where they suffer much more rapid tyre wear than planned for. It is not so much the fact that the tyres wear-out before a full race distance, but that they punish a driver who pushes on or tries to pass a car of similar performance that makes them anathema to me.

        1. yes, I agree with you on that aspect of the current tyres @hohum. Pirelli made them have degradation more or less coded in in such a way that even sparing them does not really work and running behind another car (and therefore losing DF) really kills them – i.e. running 2+ seconds behind to save tyres.

          Overall, I think the idea that purposely quickly degrading tyres is not really working because its not a variable/unknown, its a given. Combined with their tendency to run out when in traffic, it helps strategies running at the front alone, or pitting to get a car in clear air and lap quicker than battling on track. Instead it would be good if we got races where different cars/drivers could do what they see as optimal, picking either a faster tyre that will mean doing more stops and a slower tyres allowing to run with only one (or none) visits to the box.
          Then you can have a strategy work or not work dependant on what others do and what incidents/weather etc happen in the race.
          Off course it would also help a lot if cars could stay close behind others to push them into mistakes, although it does appear that teams have started to get that working (see how close Vettel-Massa and Verstappen-Maldonado were last race for several laps and also Rosberg being quite close to Hamilton all of Canada) at least circumstantially.

          1. The problem as I see it is ‘optimal’, a word you have used several times, is still sub-par. Optimal use of the tires…optimal strategies…both still equate to drivers limited from pushing themselves and their cars toward something that we can be enthralled at. I defy anybody to name any fan that is drawn to F1 because LH is proudly mastering fuel conservation, all the while finding himself unable to pass NR if he finds himself a few seconds back just as NR has been equally handcuffed when in the same position behind LH. Ie. optimal is still a terrible version of F1 these days.

          2. Sorry @Robbie, if that was not clear already, but I don’t at the least think that those “optimal” race strategies are good for us the fans (not even sure they are good for the teams).
            It is the safest, slowest, lowest risk way of getting in the best position the team expects to get – i.e. boring and largely without any surprises. With not much space for that extra step to get on the podium, to get the pass done, to be that little bit faster etc.

            I was never talking about this as if it is good. It just is the reality that teams want to make their races as predictable and have to take as little risks as they can can using all their knowledge and simulation available.

          3. @bascb Certainly no need to apologize and I didn’t really think you thought today’s F1 is optimal. Who does? I don’t see them going back and unlearning what they have about tires, back to where one set of tires behaves differently than the next, thus providing unpredictability in the way you have described. I would think that no matter the era or the year, the teams generally do get a pretty good handle on at least the general characteristics of the tires each season, and any curve balls thrown at them from one set of tires to the next would be fairly rare and not that extreme. Have it happen to them a few times and they would no doubt adjust for a bit of newly acquired knowledge of potential unpredictability from one set to the next.

            So I’m not convinced they can or should unlearn tire technology to make one set behave differently from the next, thus creating unpredictability, as I see that as just as gadgety as tires that have only a few hot laps in them and can’t handle the dirty air effect.

            I would rather see unpredictability come from tires that allow drivers to push themselves and their cars to the limits for at least half the laps per stint or race, not just a handful, thus creating the show by being able to show us their talents. And reduced aero such that we don’t have processions due to dirty air, and can actually get back to driver vs. driver combat and the unpredictability coming from seeing what drivers can do vs. each other while being mentally and physically taxed.

  7. if he has some complaints, which may be right, it’s something we should address internally and not make it public

    – oh, like FIFA then…

    I don’t think F1 needs big changes. And if it would need big changes, then honestly I need to have some input. I need to know where it (the problem) is, because I don’t know where it is

    – well that pretty much says it all. Perhaps Bernie isn’t the one that needs to go…

    1. @fletchuk F1 has big problems and I think Bernie is the problem. Get rid of him and it’s okay. I think Todt is trying to be positive about Formula One.

      The problem is F1 is in a state where people spend most of the time talking about how bad it actually is, rather than sorting it all out. They talk publicly and the result is they are trying to sell a sport to people who cannot respect it, because it doesn’t respect itself.

      1. +1!! Well said!

      2. It’s not Bernie, it’s the culture. The FIA are principally to blame for most of this mess, since they are the authority so far as rules and regulations in F1 are concerned. The real problems in F1 are not talked about by the commentators, because you don’t keep your job by airing stinky laundry. Mercedes are winning because they have half of the strategy group in their back pocket. The rules are the key determinant in defining winners and losers in F1, not the technology people ‘love’ to talk about.

        1. Bovine excrement !

  8. Yeah we get it Giedo, now you’re just making yourself look like an idiot.
    And when can we do another Jean Todt approval rating poll?

  9. Todt has been absolutely nonpresent in regards to F1 outside his own political interests during his tenure, so why open his mouth now?

    All that Qatar money possibly pouring into the sport surely has nothing to do with it? It does seems to have the peculiar trait of accumulating in the top pockets of those in charge…

  10. ColdFly F1 (@)
    26th June 2015, 8:57

    @bascb, congrats with your COTD.

    Nowadays the only surprises are when we get weather that is very different from what was expected

    cue – bring on the sprinklers!

    1. no, that would be too predictable too!

    2. @coldfly
      How about fan activated sprinklers ?
      Whichever driver gets the most Tweets up to the 1st pit stop gets the sprinklers activated as they pit, forcing everyone else to pit straight after them.
      The popular driver gets to know so they can put some Inters on, then gets track advantage as everyone else has to pit…
      (I hope Bernie doesn’t read this and take it seriously)

      1. FanSploosh

        1. @beneboy FanSplash, F1’s answer to Formula E’s FanBoost!

          1. Also, being F1, you would have to pay to vote, hence, ‘splash’ refers to the rain as well as the cash…

  11. I think using tires as a way to high degradation tyres as a way to improve racing is another artificial gimmick that will not work or at least will not quench the desire fans have of seeing a proper race take place. The only way I see forward is to open up engine rules and let teams like Renault and Ferrari correct their respective mistakes so that they can catch up to Mercedes. I feel that the current format of homolgation and use of limited tokens means that a manufacturer that had it wrong in 2014 has no way of recovering or catching up in until the next wave of engine rule changes. Equalize the field by given engines suppliers the chance to recover.
    I’ m not advocating for Mercedes to loose their engine, but every year, the FIA should open up the the rulebook and allow teams to make whatever changes they feel will get them up to Mercedes.

  12. Is Toto trying to start a second career as a comedian? They have one of the most dominant cars in F1 history, and he is worried that Ferrari, which in best case struggles to get P3 and P4, will somehow have a magical “breakthrough”, so huge that they “won’t be able to win anymore”?

    We all know that only with a change in regulations someone will be closer in 2016, and that’s what he is trying to prevent.

    1. Are they (Ferrari) even faster than Williams really? They are so close that I’m not sure…

    2. I agree 100%. In fact I think everyone should start referring to “F1” as “Mercedes F1” from now on to highlight how dominant they are.

  13. I am remarkably in the position of finding myself persuaded by Todt’s position here. F1 has many fundamental, structural flaws in 2015, but it is equally starting to see a pace comparable to the V8 era whilst using 35% less fuel. We also have so much driving talent on our hands that we are seeing a driver as excellent as Jenson Button facing yet another titanic battle to remain on the grid for next season. These are things F1 can be proud of, but also things F1 is taking for granted amid a narrative of pessimism void of truly viable solutions.

    The legislative aim is clear: a reduction in the salience of the resources of the richest teams and a formula that promotes a closer but still meritocratic running order.

    The solution that many has posed is to pine for the late 1980s or early 1990s, however to reverse the inevitability of scientific progress is unrealistic. That said, that does not mean the lessons of the past are not important. Aerodynamic performance is not a new phenomenon and saw cars emerge superior as early as the 1960s, but a cultural focus on aerodynamic performance is very much a product of the modern era. In response to F1’s dialog of woe I would instinctively point out two things:

    1) There is always the next race. The Bahrain bore fest in 2010 provoked many to predict a dull season only to have an egg cracked on their face by the events in Melbourne. Yes, we have had seven dull races of eight rounds in 2015, but the heart of the European season rarely passes without at least one classic.

    2) Between the Mercedes teammates, and in the battle for the best of the rest, 2014 saw some of the best quality wheel-to-wheel racing of the modern era, largely because the effect of the aero wake was at its lowest since the 1990s. It appears to be business as usual in 2015: so why not swap aero grip for mechanical grip? Mechanical solutions, such as GP3’s method of moving the degradation profile further to the rear (a change that saw Tunjo win from ninth on the grid on Sunday) have always been more effective than 2009’s failed attempt to reduce aero dependency. Mosley’s doctrine of cheap mechanical grip rather than excessive aerodynamic grip, whilst imperfectly implemented, appears to represent a seductive logic in the context of 2015.

    1. You got it 100% right mate! Regrettably very few care and even fewer understand it.

      1. F1 fans care about proposals that could improve F1.

    2. @countrygent That was a gripping (!) GP3 race! Moving degradation to the rear would really have an effect in current F1. I could see Perez being very effective under those circumstances, while Hulk etc., like Kirchhoefer/Ocon, would have that initial pace but then struggle to hold on.. sounds like Bahrain 2014!

  14. It’s the fans you should be listening to, Todt, not Bernie.

    1. Fans are just getting on bandwagons or complain when the ones they support aren’t winning like Ms.Horner and many of them are completely uneducated about F1 really.
      Fans can’t agree what day of the month is, just like the F1 teams.

  15. I feel bad for VDG. Move on please!!!!! Buy a seat in Manor or Haas…you have money now!!!!! Everybody spoke about VDG in Australia…..but everybody have forgotten him by Spain. So he needs to post photographs that make him look even more stup…more silly than he is. Move on VDG….F1 does not cry for you!

    1. I agree. Sure he had a right to that seat and Sauber tricked him but his behavior about is ridiculous. His acting like a child now.

  16. It appears that when Tolt retired from Ferrari, he really did want to retire. Cause he’s taking it now. Just go back to the sporting rules before they changed them over the Schum domination, put the spending cap on ONLY the manufactures, let teams test till they get a bit more equality before any locks, and don’t expect the guy who broke it multiple times to fix it.

  17. I don’t like Qatar’s plan.

  18. A public reaction from FIA President at least, but ways too late for me.

    But there is no use complaining, which will impress none of the strategywhingers, in contrary it should be something more effective.

    If its Red Bull or the assemblance of ex-formula 1 people, many of them related to Red Whino Beverages Ltd, or it´s Mr. Ecclestone himself, whose job as a promoter actually should be to promote his product as good as possible and not talking it down in favour of his own hidden agendas….. or would you think any other salesman who calls his product as “crap” would keep his job long term??

    During the era of Todt’s predecessor, Max Mosley, occasional use was made of article 151c of the regulations bringing the sport into disrepute. That rule should be newly-established imo, of course only for cases of long-term-whinging we have currently. Fines or exclusion from competition for a certain time should work out.

    1. Too late opening his mouth? Yes indeed. BUT at least what he says is reasonable unlike all the things we have been hearing from bad losers and Mr. Promoter and childish fans.

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