In the round-up: Sebastian Vettel expects a close fight with new team mate Charles Leclerc in 2019.
What they say
Vettel said he hasn’t spoken to Leclerc much yet when asked if he expects his new Ferrari team mate to run him close:
I don’t know, we will see. It’s always close when you drive the same car.
I think he got the seat for a reason. You can always learn: it doesn’t matter if your team mate is younger, older, more or less races. I think there’s always something you can learn inside or outside the car.
Quotes: Dieter Rencken
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Social media
Notable posts from Twitter, Instagram and more:
I don’t even know where to start about today. @McLarenF1 gave me an experience of a life time. From touring the facility, meeting their employees and then 6 hours in the simulator. 🤙@ZBrownCEO @alo_oficial #JJxALO pic.twitter.com/D42p4IZVYx
— Jimmie Johnson (@JimmieJohnson) November 21, 2018
on MWM now @silverstone MD Stuart Pringle
"we cannot put the entire circuit and BRDC at risk… by signing up to a F1 deal we cannot afford"
— Midweek Motorsport (@specutainment) November 21, 2018
- Find more official F1 accounts to follow in the F1 Twitter Directory
Links
More motor racing links of interest:
Street circuit British GP would be 'inappropriate' (Autosport)
"Silverstone is the only place in my view that can host the race."
McLaren will keep Alonso on speed dial, says Brown (Reuters)
"(Michael) Schumacher came back, (Alain) Prost came back. I wouldn’t rule that out. We’re very happy with our driver lineup for the future — that’s what we are very focused on at this moment — but never say never."
Brown hopeful McLaren are on road to recovery after lean years (The Guardian)
"This is a five-year journey we are on to get back to being competitive. We have to do that ourselves."
Abu Dhabi GP preview (Force India)
"Abu Dhabi will be the closing chapter of a very unusual year for both me and the team. It was probably the most complicated season of my career, having to deal with so many things happening inside and outside the cockpit."
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Comment of the day
@Dbradock is concerned about how Liberty Media will respond to F1’s share price fluctuations:
It highlights to me that Liberty are in a bind and it’s probably going to get worse from the point of view of F1 racing from a fan perspective.
Traditionally when share prices are suffering, directors and senior executives and the bean counters embark on a pattern of actions designed to make the share value (and therefore the price) look more attractive.
Here in Australia (so I’m only making assumptions about the rest of the word) we have seen time and again some of our major corporations decimated by shedding staff, massive reductions in services and service quality, asset sales etc) solely to make the share price look good. Every time this sort of thing happens, we get the tired old refrain of ‘we must maximise our value to the shareholders’ whilst their paying customers suffer price increases for a much diminished value/service.
What usually happens a couple of years down the track is the CEO that started the decimation moves on after collecting massive multi million dollar bonuses for improving their share price and the corporation, on its knees because profits are dwindling gets sold off or fails completely.
This is the thing that worries me about the current situation with Liberty. To me it seems that they’ve got to the point where they and their accountants will be looking inwardly to focus on share price with no regard at all for the sport. It’s been my experience that when that happens, the core product will be the first casualty in terms of expenditure, innovation and value to customers.
It will be interesting to see how this develops over the next 12 months.
DB-C90 (@Dbradock)
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Hemingway (@)
22nd November 2018, 0:08
Vettel will impress me if he has a pretty consistent small advantage over Leclerc. I don’t expect it though
Phylyp (@phylyp)
22nd November 2018, 0:32
Is that actually true, or is it just a negotiating ploy? Is Donington Park not an option (I’ve heard it mentioned in other discussions).
anon
22nd November 2018, 7:33
@phylyp, it is very unlikely to be an option – MSV, which now owns the circuit, have indicated that they are not interested, and the circuit really isn’t fit for purpose in the first place.
BlackJackFan
22nd November 2018, 8:58
I’m always curious why circuits like Donington, Brands, and others around the world are stated to be “not fit for purpose” while creating circuits out of city streets seems to happen with ease – without anyone daring to suggest they aren’t up to snuff…
Phylyp (@phylyp)
22nd November 2018, 12:21
Thanks anon, and that’s an intriguing question, BJF.
Phylyp (@phylyp)
22nd November 2018, 0:34
Good COTD, and it highlights a genuine risk if priorities go wrong.
To be a bit pedantic, it’s not the ‘value’ in ‘we must maximise our value to the shareholders’ that’s a worry, but ‘dividend’ that becomes a concern – the latter is what prioritizes short-term gain over long-term planning that might be painful in the near future.
@HoHum (@hohum)
22nd November 2018, 1:11
@phylyp, Strangely, in the US dividends are not very common, it’s all about capital growth hence the elation as record indices are set and the panic when they fall, also see Apple’s cash reserves.
Phylyp (@phylyp)
22nd November 2018, 1:15
@hohum – thank you, that’s interesting information. Re. Apple, I thought they were the exception, prioritizing building up their warchest instead of paying dividends to shareholders?
Exediron (@exediron)
22nd November 2018, 5:11
It’s because dividends are taxed differently (that is to say, higher) then capital gains under the US tax code.
socksolid (@socksolid)
22nd November 2018, 2:23
I doubt it that liberty is already looking a way to cash out of f1. I think fundamentally the reason why liberty bought f1 was because they thought there is a lot of untapped money in the internet side of f1 things. Bernie was extremely skilled getting good deals and making lots of money but he was 80 years old and did not have any kind of understanding how to make money with the internet. So he literally chose to actively not do anything with it. As such one could look at f1 back then and think they are leaving a lot of money on the table by not doing anything in internet.
So liberty bought f1 and was hoping they can make big profits by putting their product into the internet (and tap into the american markets). However liberty folks are old people as well and they are not the trailblazers f1 would need to catch up. Liberty people are just some 20 years younger than bernie and for them f1 is still all about television. Their grand idea was building a streaming service exactly like all the others before it and it seems that it hasn’t worked out as well as they have thought. The fact is that is what bernie should have done at least 5 years earlier. And there is a lot of money in internet. But to get to that money in 2018 you need to look at what is happening in the future. Not 2010 or even 2014.
Other thing I think that is a big problem for liberty is that they own something they have a lot less control of than they thought. Bernie’s last deals gave away all the powers to the big manufacturers in f1. They control the political side, they control the decision making side, they control the rules, they control the technology and they control the money. And they are using all these powers to give them an edge on the track and get the biggest slices of the cake. F1 has lots of problems to solve and the big manufacturers are fighting against liberty at every corner at every step. Even if they wanted and could change something the timelines are very long. If you can fix f1 for the 2030 season you can do it but by that time liberty for sure was hoping to be somewhere else.
Drop Sochi
22nd November 2018, 3:30
To give Bernie credit, F1 was very early with a very good digital offering, but there was no audience as hardly anyone had an internet connection that could stream video back then… he gave the techies what they wanted and it was a moneypit. Times have changed though.
geargrinder
22nd November 2018, 4:00
I am pretty sure Liberty is in this for the long haul. That includes getting through negotiating the new rules and updated deals with promoters. Some of the promoters BE dealt with really had no idea how to put on a great race. If by 2022 things haven’t improved (viewership and revenue headed in the right direction) then I would be worried Liberty will make cuts to maximize profit. They are still in the base-building phase though.
Remember, hundreds of millions were siphoned off to BE’s daughters to buy gigantic homes instead of being invested in the sport. Where we are now is so much better than that.
Phylyp (@phylyp)
22nd November 2018, 2:29
@socksolid – very good point, I’d had the same thought. I’m curious to know just how much the Brazilian GP contract situation caught Liberty out – was it picked up in 2016 in their due diligence, and if not, when? That would also give an indication of how thoroughly Liberty have gone into the nitty-gritties. They are a large and experienced organization, so I wouldn’t expect calamitous misses, but some of the things that have occurred make me wonder.
DB-C90 (@dbradock)
22nd November 2018, 4:43
@phylyp I’ve been wondering what due diligence they did since the bought it.
I still think Bernie’s greatest ever achievement was finding a chump gullible enough to pay such a massive price for blue sky (and a fading blue sky at that).
Phylyp (@phylyp)
22nd November 2018, 5:39
@dbradock – LOL :-)
Nitzo (@webtel)
22nd November 2018, 5:48
Re. COTD @dbradock
I was just looking at the chart of FWONK’s share price and its very close to forming a certain pattern that traders generally refer to as the ‘Death Cross’. (It has already formed such a cross with one another indicator)
Its now basically a falling knife unless some extremely good news/numbers revive it.
MaliceCooper
22nd November 2018, 7:40
VET: “Well here’s a message for Charlie! …”
Phylyp (@phylyp)
22nd November 2018, 12:22
Took me too long to get that reference, now I’m laughing at work 😁
ColdFly (@)
22nd November 2018, 8:53
Liberty has one big problem as mentioned by @dieterrencken a few weeks ago; they don’t own a ‘real piece’ of the F1 sport. They don’t own the sport (FIA does), they don’t own the teams, and they don’t own the circuits.
That doesn’t stop one from being successful (just look at Google), but it makes it a lot more difficult.
I doubt that Liberty has the financial clout to buy a bunch of teams or loads of F1 circuits. Thus the only way to get married to them for longer than the length if a supersonic plane is to have one of those parties to become a major shareholder in their F1 venture.
They tried it once by selling shares to teams, but that failed for obvious reasons.
The way I think they should do it is by giving all teams a share in FWONK. It sounds stupid – the ‘giving’ part – but might actually work. Currently, Liberty ‘gives’ some 50% of profit to the teams without getting any praise or love. It would be much better if the teams were 50% shareholder and getting the same annual payments as dividends, and being ‘invested’ in the long-term future of FWONK.
Suddenly you have a strong company with the most important noses pointing in the same direction.
Phylyp (@phylyp)
22nd November 2018, 12:24
@coldfly very clever idea. I’d love to see Dieter’s thoughts on this.
Shimks (@shimks)
22nd November 2018, 16:08
Very interesting proposal, @coldfly.
Aapje (@aapje)
22nd November 2018, 19:33
@coldfly
It would cause new teams to be even more reticent to join though, because then they would have to buy a stake from another team.
ColdFly (@)
23rd November 2018, 1:38
How good would that be, @aapje, if new teams could only enter when buying out one of the existing thirteen teams.
Thirteen teams, because that’s my target.
Is it’s difficult to but am existing team, then it must be that they are healthy and do not want to sell. This F1 would be healthy at last.
frood19 (@frood19)
22nd November 2018, 9:53
regarding COTD, that’s capitalism for you. corruption, cronyism and vested interests are inherent in the system. you can argue whether these problems occur because of the system (i.e. are completely unavoidable) or because of bad actors exploiting the system (i.e. are avoidable if everyone thought beyond their own interests) but it’s clear that organisations which prosper without having these problems are rare indeed.
ColdFly (@)
22nd November 2018, 10:47
We should start that philosophical/economical discussion, @frood19.
In its purest form Capitalism comes with an open ‘market economy’. And in a perfect open ‘market economy’ there is no place for corruption, cronyism and vested interests (they would be ‘priced’ out of the market).
The problem is that you will never find a pure form of Capitalism and Market Economy.
Thus don’t blame ‘Capitalism’, but blame the ‘bad actors’ (who will strive in any system), or blame that it is not enough / not finished ‘Capitalism’.
BaKano (@bakano)
22nd November 2018, 11:28
Great reply @coldfly
I would just add that the world has moved onto Finance Capitalism where the goal is to maximise the profit from the purchase and sale of financial products, instead of the more traditional and dare I say normal goal of maximising the profit via the “core” product a company/person chooses to explore.
So for instance for a car maker the goal becomes selling the cars it makes as a way to get money in order to invest in financial products, instead of just making money out of selling cars.
This together what was said in the COTD is what actually ruining a lot of business nowadays and the big financial crisis of 2007-08 should have been the final proof that Finance Capitalism is not the way to go…
frood19 (@frood19)
22nd November 2018, 11:31
@coldfly I verge towards the view that because the bad actors clearly exist, they are a part of the system. there’s probably a game theory style equation for the likelihood of corruption occurring in a given set of circumstances (i.e. the payoff is better than the bad reputation…or the immediate payoff is too much of an incentive for the bad actor to crash the whole market, for example). as you say, there is no ‘pure’ form so it’s absolutely necessary to build in corruption/cronyism etc when assessing or analysing capitalist organisations. I would argue they are an inherent part of capitalism as it exists in the real world. market forces are not sophisticated enough to predict the future or to obviate short-termism (which always seems to go hand in glove with corruption!) – theoretically ‘pure’ capitalism is just as much a pipe dream as theoretically pure communism, arguably more so.
Jere (@jerejj)
22nd November 2018, 10:06
“Silverstone is the only place in my view that can host the race.” – I agree.
Interesting COTD.
Alec Glen (@alec-glen)
22nd November 2018, 13:23
I think the whole share price piece and COTD are way overblown, Liberty play the long game and won’t care a jot about short term share price. For evidence of this look at their other businesses and acquisitions. In the UK they (John Malone via Liberty companies) bought Virgin Media for £15Bn, pumped £4Bn in to grow the asset, now makes profit and will probably sell/consolidate at some point down the line when they’ve got good value (like what they’ve done in Europe recently with transactions with Vodafone). They put 40m in to get control of Formula E which despite making significant losses, turned down an offer of 600m for it this year and is now worth closer to 900m and growing etc, I guess what I’m saying is that they know what they’re doing.