Lewis Hamilton, Mercedes, Albert Park, 2020

Wolff rubbishes claim of Australian GP fall-out with Hamilton

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In the round-up: Mercedes team principal Toto Wolff rubbishes a claim he and Lewis Hamilton disagreed over whether the Australian Grand Prix should have gone ahead.

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Comment of the day

Nick is very concerned about the effect the pandemic could have on F1’s long-term future:

I can’t see much of a future for ‘conventional’ F1 racing at all.

At the intended beginning of this season there were indications that a couple of teams would find the year financially hard going. I don’t know how sponsorship contracts are worded, but I could easily imagine that they would be something like “we agree to pay the team $X million if you race at 12 or 15 or 18 of the grands prix this season.” And if the team default (i.e. don’t race) payment could be decreased or avoided. So a truncated season could be fatal to some team’s sponsorship deals, while their costs are relatively inelastic.

So let’s pretend that finally the 2020 season gets underway at Monza in September, but that in the meantime two teams have had to fold and another one is on the ropes. So that might be a grid of 14 or 16 at best. Next, a certain drink manufacturer is having a very bad time. No summer sales as there are no people on the beach, no bar or restaurant sales and precious little high street either, they bow out.

We could be down to 10 cars.

At which point a large manufacturer who finds themselves under commercial and political pressure could say “it’s not worth the money we are paying” and a team and an engine manufacturer disappear.

There’s not much left, is there?

The glory years of teams vying for pre-qualifying and inspirational technical innovation have long gone. The market that F1 was trying to serve (race on Sunday, sell on Monday) is collapsing and the world is moving on. After Coronavirus we will see considerably fewer airlines, holiday tour companies, high street stores as well as F1 racing teams in operation.

Sorry to be pessimistic.
@NickWyatt

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On this day in F1

Alain Prost, McLaren, Jacarepagua, 1989
Alain Prost, McLaren, Jacarepagua, 1989
  • 35 years ago today Alain Prost beat pole sitter Michele Alboreto to win the Brazilian Grand Prix, while Minardi started their first race

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Lifelong motor sport fan Keith set up RaceFans in 2005 - when it was originally called F1 Fanatic. Having previously worked as a motoring...

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34 comments on “Wolff rubbishes claim of Australian GP fall-out with Hamilton”

  1. Well, we could consider the effects after the pandemic as some sort of bubble exploding, like we’ve seen in the past with other causes, mostly economic. The world certainly changed after 9/11, and again after Lehman Brothers… there’s always a needle that pops the bubble…

    In F1 terms, things have been smelling bad ever since FOTA dissolved after certain teams agreeded their own deals instead of fighting together. We should be surprised it’s taken this long for the bubble to explode (if it explodes at all).

    It’s sad, but I feel it’s kinda the same as what we saw mid 90s when we lost a lot of teams and got stuck in the 20 or 22 cars on the grid since then (besides a couple of horrible years after 2010).

    What can I say? I don’t see why Gene Haas would want to keep his team if:
    a) there’s no realistic chance of doing properly well,
    b) it costs a huge amount of money,
    c) it’s not even their business, they build CNC machines,
    d) there’s a pandemic going on and we might not even race this year, so basically no revenue (if there was some in the first place).

    Same goes to Red Bull although F1 (and extreme sports) is basically their big scene for marketing. But why would Renault keep going if their numbers start to look bad? why would Mercedes continue if they already won everything?

    1. Its a pretty good summary by @nickwyatt
      Not sure whether or not F1 and motor racing in general will collapse completely but they will certainly be very different for quite some time once we get through the coming months.
      In some ways that might end up being a good thing – its conceivable that in order to start F1 again there may have to be a huge reset, bigger by far than the one that 2021 “was” going to bring.
      Imagine, for example:

      If manufacturers decided that the only way they could consider the sport would be if they were able to use only drivetrains and braking systems from their road cars so there was not added expense producing special PU’s etc.
      If promoters and track owners say that they’re prepared to participate but for dramatically reduced fees and that the number fell down to about 16 or 18.
      If spectators could only afford to pay about 10% of what they pay now to attend races
      If pay for view broadcasters discovered that they had to substantially drop their subscription fees because people just cant afford to pay for it any more so in turn renegotiate broadcast rights down to about 10% of what they currently pay
      And sponsors all drop their contracts because in the post Covid-19 world that sort f expenditure just cant be justified.

      Liberty then has the problem of “do we continue with massively reduced income streams” or do we walk away – I cant imagine anyone buying it for what they paid anytime soon, if ever, but I can imagine a new and very very different F1 born out of the ashes of the current one.

      However, I can imagine far more easily F1 and other motor racing transitioning to eSports, with proper software development and monetization and the real cars/tracks/drivers being relegated to history.

      1. The question we should be asking is what do we want to pay for F1 and how do we want to pay for it? At the moment the numbers don’t add up for the majority of the teams.

        The sport is shackled by its raison d’etre of being the pinnacle of motorsport. But I’d take a viable F1 that was 10 seconds per lap slower over the current doomed-to-failure model any day.

        We should be looking at how to create a feasible trade off between budget (guided by the revenue generated by the sport, not by billionaire investors treating teams as playthings) and speed. In my mind, this looks like vastly simplified aero and engine regs, coupled with a more equitable prize money system (and ideally a more appealing environment for old fashioned sponsors).

        The current coronavirus crisis is either going to be the straw that broke the camel’s back, or the kick up the rear that the sport desperately needed.

        1. The question we should be asking is what do we want to pay for F1 and how do we want to pay for it? At the moment the numbers don’t add up for the majority of the teams.

          There is no negative gap between total revenue and total costs of running the cars. The problem is that a large part of the revenue goes to the banks/investors rather than the teams.

          1. @coldfly absolutely, but this is currently part of the “cost” of the sport. We’ve found ourselves in a situation whereby the sport’s continued survival is reliant on the actor who is bleeding it dry, the commercial rights holder. If FOTA had become more powerful, I think we’d be in a better situation now. Liberty’s priority is profit, while the teams (most of them) are there to race.

          2. I’m not sure if FOTA would have saved the day, but I’ve always been a believer of teams being significant stakeholder in FOM (commercial rights owner of the sport). @frood19

            PS Liberty’s priority is not necessarily (short term) profit. They know that to make if ‘profitable’ for them is to focus on the long term. The priority for them is thus to race first and then grow the sport. But they bought the sport with other people’s money and will have to pay both interest and debt repayments, which is money leaving the sport.

    2. F1oSaurus (@)
      8th April 2020, 8:31

      @fer-no65

      The world certainly changed after 9/11

      Actually the real impact was the .dot com bubble bursting. That happened over half a year before 9/11.

  2. I basically share @nickwyatt ‘s pessimism.

  3. People really want to break Mercedes team apart. Lewis fall-out with Toto, Toto to Pink Mercedes…

    1. Cotd Nick, you are probably right that said f1 is “probably” a very good place for money laundering, it used to be better, motorsports in general, so I can see some sponsors and teams surviving but like you said if someone can exploit a contract the will.

  4. GS (@gsagostinho)
    7th April 2020, 6:57

    About the On This Day In F1 photo: isn’t that an MP4/2C from 1986? If so, isn’t the year incorrect in the caption or did Prost do a demo in that car in 1989 in Jacarepagua?

      1. The image URL refers to Brazilian GP Jacarepagua 5-7 April 1985; should be the MP4/2B then.
        @gsagostinho

    1. @gsagostinho Either the image-choice is incorrect or the year in the image-text on gray-background is incorrect.

    2. Yes, definitely 1986 look at the engine cover ‘TAG Turbo’. McLaren were running the Honda engine in 1989.

    3. @gsagostinho whilst you are right that it definitely isn’t from 1989, as @coldfly rightly notes, it’s the MP4/2B from the 1985 Brazilian Grand Prix, not the MP4/2C from 1986. The two are very similar, but if it were the MP4/2C, then Prost should have been using No.1 as he would have been the defending WDC – in 1985, however, he would be carrying No.2, as in the above image, because he was the runner up to Lauda in 1984.

  5. I’m not that pessimistic about the situation, although there is (or could be) at least some validity to those words. Time will tell.

  6. Good to see how these clever and well equipped teams of engineers are doing their part to help where help is needed – Dallara, JOTA and no doubt many others who have been doing so in recent weeks.

  7. I found the final answer in Wolff’s interview more interesting:

    ÖSTERREICH: Wann glauben Sie, dass es los geht?
    Wolff: Ich hoffe, im Herbst.

    1. @coldfly
      I wouldn’t take it seriously at all, considering the interview was conducted by oe24, the by far worst newspaper in Austria (just google it, you will find tons of jokes about it).

      I would questions if the interview even happened. They could’ve just simply made up the answers.

    2. A translation for those of us who don’t know german\austrian on an english speaking website would’ve been useful.

  8. The key element in any equation to judge the future health or the survival of F1 is ‘time’.

    When the season starts is critical. When will teams have an income flow again? Will it flow before the iron laws of business come into play? How long until crowds are allowed in to circuits again? How long would promoters be able to host races with no ticket income? How long will it be before governments feel wealthy enough again to cover hosting costs as before? When will any government to start doing that to help out? How long can Liberty live without income to defend itself agains the sharks on Wall Street? When will pay per view providers find subscriptions falling and those corporations want to bail out? When will the overall national and international economy recover and rebound? When will travel restrictions be relaxed? When will teams feel safe travelling to certain venues such as China, Vietnam, Italy, Spain? How long can the airlines and shippers survive without business? Will they be able to offer the service and deals as before? How long will it take the team factories to fire up again? When will the dynamic character of F1 to date reassert itself or will the environment change so much that it never will, or not in the medium term?

    The time questions are almost endless. And the answers so far are not comfortable.

  9. Out of curiosity, how long would you expect it to take to get a refund from the Aussie GP, considering I purchased tickets from the official F1 website? I get it will take a while, and I don’t wanna be rude, but just wondering how long before I should follow up. Anyone else had money back yet?

    1. Did you read the ‘small print’ before purchasing?

      4. Cancellations and refunds
      4.1 Purchased ticket(s) are non-cancellable and non-refundable.
      4.4 Cancellation of an Event: The Ticket is purchased for the relevant Event. No Tickets are transferable to other events.
      If an event is cancelled (and not rescheduled) and should the promoter of the event offer a form of financial compensation or refund for the client order, you may be entitled to receive this amount fully or partially, depending the circumstances in question.
      Should an event be cancelled (and not rescheduled) and the promoter offers no form of financial compensation, we will in no way be liable or responsible for providing refunds, nor any form of compensation, be it financial or other.

      It seems that (now you have the official cancellation) you rely on the refund/compensation programme the event promoter is compelled to do.

      1. @eurobrun @coldfly Following up on this, I went to the Ticketmaster website for their refund policy. It appears they are having trouble refunding everyone as promptly as usual, because the relevant paragraph is:

        If your event was canceled, there’s also nothing you need to do. It’s Ticketmaster’s standing policy to automatically refund the full cost of the ticket and fees to the original purchaser’s method of payment used at time of purchase. For any canceled events, due to the unprecedented volume of cancelations, please note that you should expect to receive your refund in as soon as 30 days.

        The Australian Grand Prix was cancelled on 13 March, so the earliest to expect refund would be 9 April (mathematically it should be 12 April, but I can imagine Ticketmaster trying to get as many refunds as possible done before Easter weekend because banks won’t be processing them during the holidays). If it comes before that I would be seriously impressed. If you don’t have it by the end of April, I think that would be the point to contact Ticketmaster enquiring what is happening.

        For people who bought tickets for Monaco, the same applies, and the 30-day mark applicable would be 18 April (because it was cancelled on the 19th March).

        Postponed races will not receive refunds unless rescheduling is impossible or Liberty announces it is waiving its usual policy regarding the ban of ticket resales (apparently some other organisers are doing so).

        1. Thanks @alianora-la-canta
          I thought was probably jumping the gun a little, but I guess I’ve kinda lost all sense of time and date now!

          1. @eurobrun That’s understandable; I keep thinking every day is Tuesday…

    2. @eurobrun, I thought you were working in something related to F1 (media).
      No free entry for you?

      1. @coldfly the info I have is:
        https://www.grandprix.com.au/event/ausgp-refund-information, but I’ve heard no more since. I don’t wanna kick up a fuss just yet if they’re still processing, but just wondering if anyone has had any money back yet?

        Sadly I don’t get free tickets. I work as tech support for a vendor in the broadcast sector so occasionally get behind the scenes, but usually not during the event itself.
        I was hanging around the paddock on the Wednesday courtesy of production contacts of NEP (who facilitate Sky F1) and Gravity Media (who facilitate Ch4). It was good for a geek out, but I had to purchase tickets for the rest of the weekend.

  10. @keithcollantine
    Please try to avoid articles from ‘oe24’, because it’s the worst “newspaper” (I wouldn’t even use it as toilet paper) ever printed in Austria.
    Seriously, it’s like ‘The Sun’ in the UK, but 100 times worse.

  11. Who still buys Red Bull, anyway? I haven’t seen anyone drink one in years. Are we sure the company isn’t just doing huge scale money laundering? ;)

    1. Dave, quite a few people actually, with India, Brazil and Africa apparently being massive growth markets for them – apparently enough to push annual sales up by 10%, with the company shipping 7.5 billion cans in 2019 alone. https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2020-02-17/red-bull-sales-rose-10-to-record-driven-by-emerging-markets

    2. Just look at your local supermarket and ask the ones who fill the racks.

  12. The COTD mentions a lot of issues that are true. I see F1 as being done. At least in the shape and form that it currently is in. We might be seeing an exodus of Constructors by the end of the year.
    The worlds economy will need a long time to fully recover from the damage that this epidemic caused.
    For F1, the future F1, it might be a blessing in disguise. For years we all screamed to get costs lowered. Not just in terms of what Teams were spending, but also how much some of the tracks had to pay to host a race and what us fans had to pay for tickets and TV access.
    If anything, I hope F1 emerges as a leaner and simpler series. One that is affordable to privateers. If F1 would had to revert back to some basic engine concepts for a few years and some basic rules, in order to reestablish itself or even reinvent itself, I would be ok with it.
    We all know that the future of Motorsport will eventually be all electric (or some other easily renewable and efficient resource) at some point or another.
    The passion from the fans is still there. If it becomes affordable and accessible, they will show up in huge numbers.
    If the Sport is affordable and accessible to companies, they will come and spend.

    Our Government is trying so hard to keep everything up and running as it is, throwing money at the economy without there being an end in sight with this pandemic.
    My view is that once it is all over, you can always rebuild.

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