In the round-up: Sauber team principal Monisha Kaltenborn says the financial problems teams continue to struggle with is evidence of fundamental problems in Formula One.
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Kaltenborn: Something fundamentally wrong in F1 (Crash)
"If you try to explain to people out there the kind of income the sport generates – and it has, year by year, gone up if you look at the last few years – yet so many teams are having issues, this can't be right. Something is fundamentally wrong in the sport."
Nasr fears Sauber's woes will continue (Autosport)
"We had no time to shake it down, the roll-out was FP1, but we could not get everything in the background to set it up 100 per cent."
F1 'too afraid' to commit to full canopy - di Grassi (Motorsport)
"I saw so much of this in F1, like with the bigger front wing in 2009 that you can adjust, that was a crappy solution."
Technical focus: 2016 F1 power units (F1i)
"Why did Ferrari’s engine engineers elect to go for such a sophisticated layout? Having the intercooler in between the two cylinder banks was undeniably ideal to obtain a tight package, but this set-up did not allow for the variable inlet trumpets seen on all other V6 turbos last year."
There is only one... Nico Rosberg (F1)
"If you could pick just one F1 era to race in... NR: The 80s with the turbo engines and big rear tyres."
Life Through a Lens: The Alonso crash (ESPN)
"You have to plan to try and cover every eventuality - you've got to think about who will be there to get the start shot, who will stay down at a place like turn three or four where we have seen plenty of incident in years gone by."
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Had a wander in Albert Park earlier. Alonso left his mark and there are a few more hazards now… #F1 pic.twitter.com/j8qrRaCBhx
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A sign of things to come at #BahrainGP? Expect the unexpected? ⛈🇧🇭 #F1 pic.twitter.com/YIQh8wjHAy
— Red Bull Racing (@redbullracing) March 28, 2016
An interesting addition to the 'Halo' debate: #IndyCar looking at prevention while #F1 targets a cure?https://t.co/i3hk5l9Mh3
— F1 Fanatic (@f1fanatic_co_uk) March 28, 2016
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— F1 Fanatic (@f1fanatic_co_uk) March 28, 2016
Hi Matt, thats a question for Alan Gow but I can’t imagine he would kick the fans in the nuts like F1 has. @gilera @DunlopBTCC
— Jason Plato (@jasonplato) March 28, 2016
All this talk abt "F1 sale agreed", then BCE says "It's a question of whether CVC wants to sell" – so an offer has been made, not "agreed"?
— Fritz-Dieter Rencken (@RacingLines) March 28, 2016
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Comment of the day
Is the frustration commonly targeted at Bernie Ecclestone directed the wrong way?
Ecclestone is simply a figure-head these days, offered up by CVC for the fans to turn their guns on. The real guilty parties are Donald McKenzie and the CVC shareholders. They’re the ones directing traffic. They’re a hedge fund and they exist solely to make money for themselves.
Of course, Ecclestone isn’t whiter than white in all this, but for all intents and purposes, he’s just they’re stoolie.
You could get rid of Ecclestone, but that doesn’t solve the root of the problem. CVC would just replace him with someone else. Getting rid of CVC, that solves the problem.
F1 needs a group who is prepared to invest money IN the sport, not just keep withdrawing money out, then Bernie wouldn’t have to go around the sport, effectively holding the sport to ransom, at CVC’s behest.
@TheF1Engineer
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On this day in F1
On this day 35 years ago Carlos Reutemann won a rain-hit Brazilian Grand Prix at Jacarepagua after refusing an order from the Williams pit wall to let team mate Alan Jones past:
Biggsy
29th March 2016, 0:44
I disagree with COTD. F1 is such a mess of bunch of codependent interest groups, with all having dirt on each other and all looking to stab in the back those they are in bed with. And only Bernie knows all the finest details about what connects what and who is connected to whom by which lines of interests.
He knows because he grew with this whole ball of wire and was nursing it all the way. Without him, CVC would just sell it in a day because teams are gonna rip it apart as soon as Bernie is gone. And rip it apart they should! We need a new structure to emerge from the ground, not to put bandaids on this corrupted old one.
mfreire
29th March 2016, 2:47
CVC is the majority shareholder of FOM- they have the most amount of control over what happens in the sport commerically and where they go to race.
ColdFly F1 (@)
29th March 2016, 9:13
I disagree with @TheF1Engineer COTD on this.
Bernie did not start his evil ways when CVC invested (2006). This is just in his genes.
But more importantly: a PE club only invests to make money out of its investment, with typically an exit strategy after 5 years or so (although CVC says it can be as long as 12 years). And yes they have done extremely well by selling off half their shareholdings at roughly 4x its cost price and have been paid huge dividends. CVC has made its money many times over (the Guardian reckons it could even be 1000% or 11x)
For them they now really want to get out and make as much money as possible from the last ‘bang’. Therefore, don’t expect them to solve the sport strategically by coming up with a long term plan. But at the same time they must now be less than pleased with BE who is talking the sport down and with it the 35% share CVC still owns.
his_majesty
29th March 2016, 0:48
Best F1 era: early 90’s. I’d rather date some of those cars, than some of the girls I did at that time.
gpfan (@gpfan)
29th March 2016, 1:25
1960’s. Beginning of the 3 litre formula.
Fast
29th March 2016, 1:49
Right now is the best. the cars are awesome engineered cocoons, the pit-wall tells you how to drive, only two-pedals, almost automatic transmissions, no effort power steering so you won’t break a sweat and your hair will look great on the podium, super-quiet engines, no need for ear-plugs. Tyres that crumble away when you push them. Potential halo systems. Oh I could go on and on but isn’t the 21st century stupendous!
anon
29th March 2016, 16:35
Well, if you want to complain about driver assists, what about the suite of driver aids that made their way onto the cars in the 1990’s, when Prost called his car the “little Airbus” because it was so heavily laden with electronic driver assistance systems?
Fully automatic gearboxes were fully legal in that era, not to mention traction control and active suspension systems through to active aerodynamics, whilst the teams didn’t have to tell the drivers what to do because two way telemetry systems meant they could remotely change parameters on the car on the drivers behalf. Power steering has been around for even longer (since the 1980’s at least, and possibly in the 1970’s – I know Chapman was experimenting with the technology in that era), whilst semi automatic gearboxes were trialled in the sport in the 1950’s. The biggest problem doesn’t seem to be the existence of this technology – rather, it seems to be the fact that people have suddenly realised it exists.
grat
29th March 2016, 17:57
Pssst… Anon… Be careful. You’re introducing facts into a nostalgia-fueled rage session.
F1 is the only sport I know of where people are insisting on making things worse as a valid way forward.
For everyone ranting about making the cars faster, and add closer racing? Add active suspension. It was originally banned because of the expense war, but these days, you can get a $60k Corvette that has better active suspension than an F1 car. The cars would also be safer.
But technology is evil, so you can’t have any in your most technologically advanced racing series, because it might make life for the drivers a little easier.
mfreire
29th March 2016, 2:51
The era when F1 was at its best was IMO from 1979-1997- but the era when F1 was its absolute peak was 1983 to 1991.
Boomerang
29th March 2016, 8:41
I couldn’t agree more.
Velocityboy (@velocityboy)
29th March 2016, 0:49
Personally I’m way beyond tired of hearing/reading about Monisha complaining about the distribution of funds in F1. The teams are their own worse enemies and rather than unifying and speaking with one voice they all look out for their own interests and Bernie easily divides and conquers.
Perhaps she should look into how Peter Sauber ran the team and managed to pay his staff and suppliers and replicate that model. Or look at what Haas have done, learn from it and try to use a similar business model. Continually complaining about the distribution of funds is not getting her anything or improving the teams situation so she should focus on making the current situation work as best it can.
Sauber (@mumito)
29th March 2016, 3:38
Lets put some dots over the “i”. Peter Sauber decided to enter the F1 and did great. So well BMW bought him. Once BMW pulled out he took an offer he could not refuse from Bernie. But dont be fooled…this Sauber is not “old Sauber”. Secondly…Haas understands the business. He is not in F1 to be WCC. He will never be using another engine (under current specs). But he will sell a lot of tools with Haas brand exposure. Nor Williams or Mc Laren (garagistas) can aim for a WCC. What do you expect from Sauber? I think that surviving in current conditions is a win for Sauber. Force India and Manor are in the same boat. But all the garagistas are suffering. Monisha is right.
Sonics (@sonicslv)
29th March 2016, 16:11
@mumito Except McLaren is always aiming for the WDC and WCC. That’s why they jumping ship to Honda when they have the advantage of using Mercedes engine back in 2014. As long as Ron still lives, I doubt McLaren will satisfied to be just an entrant in F1. As for Sauber, Kaltenborn is simply one of the worst team boss. Maybe she would like to learn from Williams, Force India, and Peter Sauber himself how to not overrun your budget. Sauber itself has a good record as midfield before her reign.
BasCB (@bascb)
29th March 2016, 7:03
well, well @velocityboy. It’s a fact by now that in the current environment small teams “have” to borrow money (or ask for advances) to get through this phase of the season. FI, Sauber, and the backmarkers have been doing so for the last 3-4 years at least. Ever since Sauber took the team back from BMW Peter did it, and Monisha is doing the same.
You might not like her, but she is right that the whole thing stinks.
Earlier times were different, teams had far more sponsors in the mid 2000s, it was a different world. The Haas Business model – being rich and spending your own money (sure, it could work to boost his company) to buy a top notch Ferrari developed car – is a.) not possibly if you do not have as much money available yourself (or from your own company) and b.) we still have to see how sustainable that model will turn out to be for Haas.
Velocityboy (@velocityboy)
29th March 2016, 13:45
@bascb I don’t hate Monisha, I have no feelings about her one way or the other. But constantly whining about the current situation isn’t going to change anything as a fairy godmother isn’t going to wave a wand and make everything alright. If she wants things to change she’ll have to do more than complain to the media or try to get governments involved. There are teams in a similar situation and with similar needs to Sauber and if they are unwilling to work together and suffer some pain, then she doesn’t have a chance of things changing.
Mick Harrold (@mickharrold)
29th March 2016, 7:35
Why does everyone dislike Monisha so much? Every time she says something, everyone trashes her regardles of whether it makes sense or not. OK, last year she signed 4 drivers for 2 seats, but there was obviously much more to it than that. It always seemed to me like she was between a rock and a hard place. Sauber took pay drivers to pay the bills and keep the team going. Yeah, 2 drivers (who weren’t that good) missed out on seats that they thought they had. That’s F1, deliver or you are gone. On the other hand, she could have tried to go on with the original drivers and ended up trashing the entire team. A hard choice and one where there are no winners, only losers.
What she says is right. You can’t compare her to Peter Sauber either. Peter did an excellent job, but he never faced the money problems she is faced with. Half of the field that started the 2011 season is now either gone, or in dire financial distress. All this despite rising incomes for FOM. The rise in FOM income is because everything is going behind the pay wall which has had the effect of raising revenue, but lowering the viewing audience. The lower viewing audience means the teams can’t get as much money for sponsorship spots on their cars which is something not often spoken about.
HAAS may also be respectable (for now), but is it really a model we want. B teams of the big teams a la Torro Rosso. The sport is better served by another Sauber, Force India, Williams and so on than another B team for one of the big teams.
I feel that Sauber, Force India and Williams are the litmus tests of F1. If they succeed, (albeit not at the top) F1 is in a good place. If they fail, then that is a sign that F1 is failing. They are all teams with good history and in the case of Sauber and Williams, a long history. If they can’t make a go of it, then no decent team can.
One last note, I have a bit of fear that McLaren may end up being the next Williams. Mid field at best this year and next year may deliver not much more. It would be hard to see them challenging for wins in 2017. At what point do they run out of money and have to cut their budget to Williams like levels. I find it very sad to see Williams where they are right now. It will be sadder again if McLaren end up there as well, but it is possible. That would leave Ferrari as the only real F1 team left fighting for wins. But hey, we don’t need the German, French and Italian grand prix, so why do we need real F1 teams. Car manufacturers who stick around for a decade at most and a few fizzy drink companies should do it hey!
Keith Collantine (@keithcollantine)
29th March 2016, 7:35
@velocityboy
This presumes that all the teams have the same interest, when they don’t. That’s why Red Bull and Ferrari left FOTA and fatally weakened the team’s attempts to bargain collectively with Ecclestone. You can’t blame Kaltenborn for that.
Mick Harrold (@mickharrold)
29th March 2016, 9:44
No you can’t blame her for that. The ones with money want one thing. The ones aligned with the teams with money want something similar even if they really don’t want that. The rest are hung out to dry.
I am confused about this whole situation. The solution is never ever simple. So, you try to do the right thing and then fail a bit. Then you tweak, get a little better, but still fail. And so on. So why doesn’t F1 even try to do the right thing here. We seem to just fail and then fail some more.
I don’t want to be a BE of F1 hater. There are plenty in the world without me. BE is in a hard position and I still love F1. I own a large business and as a result, I do understand that the decisions that people make are often complicated. i.e. Monisha signing 4 drivers. However, I can look at that situation and see some reasons why it happened. I can also look at the new qualifying rules and see why it happened. I can even see why putting viewing behind the paywall works even if it loses viewers. I can also understand how BE says he doesn’t need the Italian or German GPs. I may not like these decisions, but I can understand them….
What I can’t understand is how it makes sense to lose proper teams from F1. Surely F1 is underpinned by teams with money and teams who solely live and die by their F1 team. The Mercedes, RBR and Renaults of the world need to win otherwise they have other business interests that they can pursue. McLaren, Williams, Sauber and so on live and die by their F1 performance. Mercedes and RB may be gone in 5 years and it won’t make a lick of difference to their own core business. F1 is secondary to them. Sauber, McLaren, Williams and so on can’t just leave. It is their sole focus, not some side scheme to drive more sales. Even HAAS is here for marketing purposes (although I am happy to see them try).
When all these marketing companies are gone, F1 needs the proper F1 teams. You can’t have 10 Mercedes, RB and Renault teams. Can you imagine these teams doing a Sauber and being happy to try and just get a point during the season? Not going to happen ever. They would be long gone before that happened. You can support 4 big teams with big dollars, but you need the rest of the real F1 teams to make up the numbers.
Williams is my point here. World champions to nothing in 10 years. And then back again to mid runners. RBR, Merc, Renault, Honda, Toyota, BMW, and so on would never have done that. Only a true F1 team would stick around that long and suffer those results.
ColdFly F1 (@)
29th March 2016, 11:32
It’s almost like somebody is trying to play these teams out against each other ;-)
Velocityboy (@velocityboy)
29th March 2016, 13:41
@keithcollantine I don’t blame Monisha for the teams not having the same interest, but her constant whining about it is not going to change the situation. If she wants things to change she needs to do more than whine about the current situation.
Mick Harrold (@mickharrold)
29th March 2016, 14:02
What can she do? No-one is listening at the top. The best she can do is appeal to the fans and media and hope for change. That is the same reason why the drivers had to format their own letter to ask for change. Their letter will do nothing also unfortunately.
JCost (@jcost)
29th March 2016, 9:36
Monisha is right. F1 needs better money distribution. It makes absolute nonsense FOM making healthy profits from a sport where half the teams are struggling to make ends meet. It’s almost like slavery where the patron runs a profitable plantation while his workers are suffering, it’s just wrong.
I do think FOM/CVC deserve to profit from their investment but they cannot be insensible to small teams troubles, even though well founded top teams are the stars of F1, the sport needs smaller teams to add that extra spice and occasional and always welcomed upset.
Jason Miller (@flatdarkmars)
29th March 2016, 0:52
Kaltenborn is right about F1’s prize money distribution, but she forfeited any sympathy I might have had for her during last year’s driver contract fiasco. A tight financial spot doesn’t justify reneging on one’s own commitments, and in the end, the settlement with van der Garde ended up costing the team more of the money they so desperately needed.
Sauber (@mumito)
29th March 2016, 3:40
Things are not as you think. Do you really think VDG wouldn’t be driving a Manor right now with that money? Surviving in this era is a championship. If not ask Williams or Mc Laren.
favomodo (@favomodo)
29th March 2016, 9:28
Well, he is right about VDG: he (or his sponsor) walked away with more money then was invested. I saw this being confirmed on dutch TV recently. Afterwards VDG took some time to deal with all this, and concluded that F1 was not his big love anymore…
BasCB (@bascb)
30th March 2016, 6:07
I understand that Ecclestone helped broker a settlement, but part of that “deal” was that Giedo would never show his face in the F1 paddock again @favomodo …
Sonics (@sonicslv)
29th March 2016, 1:34
@keithcollantine I don’t get what you mean with IndyCar comparison? F1 already use wheel tether since years ago, and I doubt adding tethers to frontwing. rearwing, and sidepods like IndyCar planned to add is beneficial when those carbon fibres normally shattered into pieces on accident. For example in Alonso crash, even after that there are no piece big enough or complete enough that any extra tether will make any difference.
PaulK (@paulk)
29th March 2016, 4:08
Keith said F1 is looking for a cure while IndyCar is looking for prevention. He didn’t say F1 doesn’t have said prevention mechanism in place. On the contrary, what’s implied by “prevention” and “cure” is that F1 is so ahead that just prevention is not enough anymore, it wants a cure.
Sonics (@sonicslv)
29th March 2016, 5:26
@paulk Well, since @keithcollantine inserting it into Halo debate, so I think it’s safe to assume we talking about danger to driver head struck by something. AFAIK F1 is the first race cars that use tether to prevent wheel from detaching during accident, in fact F1 safety measures goes way beyond that, that even unsecured wheel after pit is ground for retirement and/or black flag. The driver simply cant limp the car to the pit for a simple thing as reattach the tires properly. Also, like I argue there are questionable benefit to add more tethers like IndyCar is planning because those carbon fibre parts most likely disintegrating into little pieces. When the last time you see a common car part detach from the car that big enough to warrant a tether for safety (and a tether will actually efficient for that)?
With that reason above, I can’t agree with the argument “An interesting addition to the ‘Halo’ debate: #IndyCar looking at prevention while #F1 targets a cure?”
BasCB (@bascb)
29th March 2016, 6:22
The funny thing is, one of the reasons that the IndyCar noses are relatively often seen getting off the car is that they insisted on using quick release joints instead of something more sturdy. Maybe instead of tethers they should first look at keeping these parts from flying away.
I do think that adding tethers is probably something they can do far more easily (as in right now) than incorporating something like a halo. But as mentioned above, IndyCArs are still somewhat behind on safety vs. F1 cars despite risking crashes with higher speeds (on ovals)
Sonics (@sonicslv)
29th March 2016, 7:36
@bascb My question is what else you can tether beside wheels? When the last time you saw full front wing detach and flying randomly in F1? What about sidepods, rearwing? AFAIK the usual suspect is either front wing endplate or bargeboards and they are in small piece that tether probably do nothing anyway, especially when the current bargeboard trend is to make it serrated or multi-element one. Look at any big accident in last couple of years and what part do commonly flying around relatively in one piece and complete enough that tether might improve its safety?
BasCB (@bascb)
30th March 2016, 6:02
Again, IndyCars are a bit behind on safety, their noses come off far more easily than F1 (where, indeed, we hardly ever see one coming detatched) etc, so maybe for Indy Car tethers can help (it would be better to just fasten them more securely in the first place) @sonicslv.
For F1 I agree with you that tethers won’t really help with the small bits that get lobbed off in accidents.
Keith Collantine (@keithcollantine)
29th March 2016, 7:38
@sonicslv My point was that F1 doesn’t use tethers for things like nose boxes and wings. Whether it could is the next step in that discussion.
I thought it was significant that given Justin Wilson was struck and killed by a nose assembly which had come off another car, tethering it to the chassis to prevent it coming loose or at least reducing the energy it has if it does break free is a worthwhile preventative step.
praxis (@praxis)
29th March 2016, 8:24
@keithcollantine,
I’d guess that FIA or GIMSS, at some point, must have considered tethering front-nose & wing-assembly with chassis.
Also, the structural differences between F1 & IndyCar(or crash test regulations) are probably a lot. Unfortunately, couldn’t find the details of IndyCar regulations from a quick internet search.
Tethering the nose may solve one problem, but very likely increases the likelihood of further troubles. E.g. short tethering causing the part to go underneath the car & creating further damages, or longer ones causing the loose bodyworks striking their own driver.
Sonics (@sonicslv)
29th March 2016, 10:41
@keithcollantine If there’s a piece that have high chance to detach and still big enough then tethering is make sense, but I don’t think there’s anything in F1 like that as demonstrated by Alonso’s car in Australia. That must be the most devastating car state in recent years, yet I don’t think there’s a debris that big and could be tethered flying out of the car. It could be argued that the reason it never discussed openly before because it wasn’t needed in the first place.
anon
29th March 2016, 21:23
@keithcollantine, on the other hand, the need to use tethers on the IndyCar nosecone is because the DW12 chassis is a rather flawed design to begin with, such that there are inherent issues that are not applicable in F1.
Part of the problem is that, during the development of the DW12, a number of components turned out to be badly overweight (particularly the transmission system), which lead to the car having a static weight distribution that was far more rearward than it should have been (59% rear weight when the previous car, at 55%, was already considered to have slightly too much of a rearward static weight distribution).
One of the fixes that Dallara had to implement was to effectively stuff the nose cone with almost 13kg of ballast in an attempt to try and shift the static weight distribution further forward, which heavily compromised the design of the front crash structure.
Because of the potential danger associated with having ballast scattered across the track, the nose cone effectively has to remain in one piece in order to contain the ballast. It therefore means, however, that you now have a large and heavy body which can bounce around the track if it becomes detached from the car, which creates the need for a retention system.
By contrast, because the regulations in F1 mandate a non structural crash structure within the nose cone of the car, there is no need for F1 cars to adopt a tether system. Instead, you can design a structure that can break up in a controlled manner on impact to dissipate energy, which ultimately benefits the driver (since it reduces the peak deceleration in a crash).
Ultimately, the need to tether the nose cone arises in IndyCar as a way of fixing an underlying flaw in the design of the car which is not present in F1 – it aims to address a solution that isn’t present in F1 in the first place.
BasCB (@bascb)
30th March 2016, 6:04
On top of that @anon, the teams decided that they wanted to keep the quick release bolts for noses to be a bit faster to change noses after accidents, and therefore the noses are far less tightly fixed to the chassis then they are in F1.
Diego (@ironcito)
29th March 2016, 7:34
What many teams are having issues?
Certainly not Ferrari, Mercedes or Renault, they are works teams. Nor the Red Bull brothers. I hear that Haas has a solid financial backing. I would think that McLaren are safe, despite their current hardships. Force India are on the rise. I don’t see Williams going broke either.
That leaves Sauber and Manor.
Regardless of how funds are distributed and whatever, the bottom teams will and should struggle. If having an F1 team would be a guaranteed sustainable endeavor, regardless of performance, then everyone would have one. If you’re always at the back, you perish and someone else takes your place. That’s how it’s supposed to be.
markp
29th March 2016, 10:49
What are the actual figures, if Ferrari etc and all the teams put prize money into 1 pot and distributed equally how much would they each get based on the most recent figures? With that figure how much more would Sauber get a year? I know it will be more but how much?
NewVerstappenFan (@jureo)
29th March 2016, 11:40
Lol, Renault had terminal financial issues last year, until major car company steped in.
Sauber are basicly engineering company for hire, that also runs an F1 team…
Manor are racers on a budget.. Wonder if they will be around next year, if they stick to 11th place.
Force India… On a very tight budget.. Seems ok, but for sure extra 20M would help them..
All these teams given 10-30M extra from CVC bank of goodies would operate better and improve our show.
Likewise take 10-30M away from Merc, Ferrari and RBR, does anyone imagine them not be at front of the grid?
Simple redistribution of income from CVC would provide stability and more Narrow competition window.
But as things are Mercedes gets 2 Billion worth of brand advertising, + Most money from CVC. I bet they would win just fine without CVC imcome.
Just like Haas, 0 CVC money and his team does just fine and provides valuable brqnd recognition around the world.
ads
29th March 2016, 16:57
Mercedes get payed well because when they bought Brawn they bet on themselves. Bernie told them if they won 2 constructor championships and 2 driver championships they’d get the same deal as redbull. I believe that’s why bernie now hates the hybrid engines and has been moaning about em since 2014. He suddenly relised that he and the cvc was gonna lose money out of thier own pockets. Must have been extremely painful for him in 2014 when Mercedes were over 1 second faster than everybody else.
Jules Winfield (@jules-winfield)
29th March 2016, 12:49
Are Renault and Mercedes going to continue to pour in hundreds of millions of dollars per year to run two race cars around 21 tracks? At some point, Mercedes will no longer be at the top of the tree and they’ll decide to pull out. Renault may get fed up not winning if 2020 rolls around and they’re still mid-grid. They’ve pulled out before, numerous times.
Red Bull moan constantly about unfair rules, engines and the like. There have been rumours about Dietrich M. wanting to off-load TR for years (the latest scuttlebutt mentions Alfa Romeo).
Force India’s owners are in trouble with the law over in India. If Vijay goes to prison, what’ll happen to the team? They’re hardly flush with cash. If Perez leaves and takes his sponsors with him, that’s a big chunk of cash gone.
As for Williams, I’m sure that whilst Frank is still breathing, he’ll put all effort possible into running his team. When he’s no longer involved, what then? Williams has shareholders to cater for now. Will Claire and Jonathon carry on their father’s team, or will they sell up to some rich businessman or some manufacturer?
The only two teams that I can personally see continuing, come what may, are Ferrari and McLaren.
As for your last paragraph, there are a finite number of race teams able to enter F1. In the last decade, we’ve had four new teams. Two have dropped out, one almost died (and lost one of its drivers) and the other is practically a Ferrari B-team. That’s hardly impressive.
ads
29th March 2016, 17:01
Well Mercedes were spending 100’s of millions when they were working with mclaren they only won 2 championships in that time but they didn’t bail out and carried on spending. Fact is the Mercedes f1 team pays for its self.
Alianora La Canta (@alianora-la-canta)
29th March 2016, 19:53
Ferrari, Mercedes, Haas and Renault are safe for the moment.
Williams should be perfectly safe as long as there aren’t any more global recessions. I wish I could guarantee that, but I can’t.
Red Bull and Toro Rosso are only safe so long as Dietrich Mateschitz is interested, and the Red Bull situation severely tests his patience.
Force India is dependent on a benefactor facing a series of court cases, some of which are likely to result in jail time and/or bankruptcy.
McLaren has lost a lot of sponsorship and has unusually high overheads. This is not a safe combination. The recession scenario cited for Williams would likely endanger McLaren’s participation unless its results improve substantially.
Sauber is teetering on the brink and has been for a couple of years.
I’m not sure there’s ever been a moment where Manor has been truly safe.
From what I heard, somewhere between 45% and 50% of the team revenue goes on CVC, so even if the distribution had no other fix to it, the non-CVC teams would double their incomes if the CCB payments were removed. The backmarkers would gain another double-figures percentage of income if absolute equality was done (exactly how much depends on how far back they are).
Of course, that would halve the income of McLaren, Mercedes, Red Bull and Ferrari, and would lead to at least some of those teams leaving F1 as they would have immediate cashflow issues.
Also, if Bernie’s suspected game plays out and F1’s income falls far enough, four teams – Ferrari, McLaren, Red Bull and Toro Rosso – get “golden goodbyes” and therefore would be paid to not do F1.
I expect the bottom teams to struggle. I don’t expect all but two of them to have clear and obvious threats to their continued participation in F1.
Boomerang
29th March 2016, 9:06
Regarding Monisha’s observations I see it as a total discord with reality. The whole world is messed up these days that it makes no sense to single out F1. It’s not a parallel universe, it is affected by many factors. Economical, political and religious as well. The last is the least to grasp, if you ask me. To help you catch my drift I have to mention there is a non alcoholic ‘champagne’ used at winners ceremony, in some countries… My personal opinion is that F1 is in a very good shape taking into consideration all the circumstances. I probably share opinion of the majority wanting it to be a quiet oasis, unaffected by the ways of the world, with noisy engines of course. But…, we all know it would be in discord with reality as well…
praxis (@praxis)
29th March 2016, 10:31
@Boomerang,
Fair enough, but people rarely associate the realities of the world with the sport they follow(unless you’re buying the ticket for the event or paying subscription fee for TV).
markp
29th March 2016, 11:10
There was an article a few years ago detailing the prize money but I cannot find anything else. At the time the total was 700m Dollars, Ferrari get 2.5% off the tops so 17.5M Dollars. Then 50% of the remainder is spread equally amongst the top 10 so 34.1M Dollars each, the remaining 341M Dollars is distributed according to where you finish in the Constructors the previous year. I must be missing a whole raft of other payments as if Ferrari gave up the 17.5M Dollars and spread across 10 teams they get an extra 1.75M dollars per team which in the overall scheme of F1 is not a lot. Where is the huge difference in payments?
praxis (@praxis)
29th March 2016, 11:49
@markp,
Try this: http://www.autosport.com/news/report.php/id/118955
Should stay relevant for 2015 too.
markp
29th March 2016, 12:34
Thank you, now it makes sense with the complaints, performance column is understandable but if the premium payments were abolished and shared equally amongst the top 10 then that is 25M Dollars a year extra which is how it should be. Even so if teams are spending more than they have then they are stupid, they should only spend what they have and they would not get into difficulty. If finances are mis managed by smaller teams there is the danger by receiving another 25M a year they spend 35M more as they are not run properly. Maybe a from of financial fair play to stop smaller teams over spending or borrowing what they cannot afford?
glynh (@glynh)
29th March 2016, 11:55
With the exception of ferrari’s ‘bonus’ payment it’s strange that fans expect the money to be divided equally. In most sports prize money goes to the winner, it’s not given to every participant.
While there are much higher running costs in F1 it seems quite reasonable to have most money given to the winner then stepping it down to a small amount for last place, or only paying down to tenth position since that stops people from turning up and not trying in exchange for a few million.
markp
29th March 2016, 12:36
It’s not just Ferrari with the special payment looking at the link posted by @praxis but also Red Bull, Merc, Mercedes, McLaren and now Renault.
Piet
29th March 2016, 9:52
The problem is not F1 racing, it is the ‘general’ personality the world currently have. If you look at different generations from different eras you will find that people from certain eras almost have universal personalities. The same people that watched F1 in the 90s and early 2000s are still the same people watching F1 today. What some of the younger generations aspire to today is not the same thing people aspired to decades ago. I do not agree with people saying the problem is the racing itself as there have always been teams dominating and it is a F1 trend.
To be honest if you look at trends today and what 99% of young people follow on social media, the only guy that promotes F1 to the young generation is Lewis Hamilton. Each and every person that’s got a problem with Hamilton will also have a problem with a lot of role models young people follow on social media today. F1 is a conservative sport with conservative fans and that will need to change. I also think the drivers points fingers too easily at F1’s governing body for F1’s ‘problems’. The drivers should get some personality and start promoting themselves as they are ultimately the guys who people will look up to and support. They should be the role models rather than Kanye and Kim. There is no excuse for this, because if one guy can achieve this then others can too. Yes, there are guys like me who supports a team, but it started out by rooting for a driver when I was a kid.
When F1 figures this out a lot of the so called problems will suddenly disappear, because more fans means more money which means less to complain about.
Alianora La Canta (@alianora-la-canta)
29th March 2016, 19:55
What would be the point? Most of them would have to resort to fakery to have any shot of “promoting themselves”, and the generation that isn’t coming through can spot fakery from a quite impressive distance away. The sort of people who behave like Lewis does usually can’t put enough focus on either the racing or the glamour to be successful at either. Both racing and glamour reward single-minded focus when it comes to most people.
DB-C90 (@dbradock)
29th March 2016, 11:01
Whilst Bernie’s statements about teams spending more money that they have is quite true, I’m wondering why there isn’t a “minimum” amount available for distribution to teams.
If there is, then is it indexed in line with the rate at which the FIA rules are rewritten to increase expenses.
In Saubers case, I’m sure there may well be fault on both sides but one thing I’m absolutely certain of is that I wouldn’t want to be responsible for working out the available budget and expenditure forecasts for any team. Way too many unknown variables ranging from “how much will engines cost me this year” to “will the sponsor actually pay their promised funds and on time” – then there’s “how much will CVC decide to distribute this year”?
Solo (@solo)
28th May 2016, 10:35
The problem with distribution is the bonuses and big difference in rewards. The bonuses should disappear and be redistributed equally. The position money should be kept but the difference in rewards should be changed because the first few places have a lot bigger difference than the other places.
The problem with smaller teams overspending comes from the fact that they are there to compete. What is the point of only spending what you have when you can’t even get inside 107%. They have to spend if they ever want to get something and not be last. Besides last is a bad position since there is no real reward for the 11th team and you have to kiss Bernie’s feet to give you at least 10 mil for your troubles and he will do that only if he feels like it.
So in the end the bigger problem is the difference of amount between small teams and big teams not how much money are distributed. If Sauber had 30 million more and Ferrari had 90 million less then the difference between Ferrari and Sauber will be smaller. It will be easier for Sauber to get closer to Ferrari and that means Sauber will have a bigger chance of making something happen and get even bigger reward etc. If you give Sauber 30 mill more and giver Ferrari another 50mill then nothing is solved. Sauber’s position won’t be better because you gave them more money. It will be worse because the difference with big teams increased and now they will unavoidably have to throw that 30mill away and more on top of that as to not get 10 times lapped by the bigger team. The real issue is not having more money but having less different money from the bigger teams.
wsrgo (@wsrgo)
29th March 2016, 11:03
Thanks for the wishes @keithcollantine . I’ve been a little busy of late so haven’t been able to post regularly, but I still read all the articles :) Keep the great work!
Philip (@philipgb)
29th March 2016, 13:46
F1 has same fundamental problems as society with an uneven distribution of wealth and resources does it? Well I’m shocked, just shocked. Actually I’m not that shocked. I think duh is the word I want to use.
Jorge Lardone (@jorge-lardone)
29th March 2016, 17:07
Bernie and his partners CVC are gangsters, that is the truth.