Audi’s decision to fire Daniel Abt from its Formula E team two days ago sent the motorsport world into convulsions.
The rights and wrongs of how Abt and Lorenz Hörzing arranged for the expert simracer to take the Formula E driver’s place in Saturday’s Race at Home event, and its career-wrecking ramifications for Abt, have been endlessly debated.To understand the potency of the story you need to strip away the irrelevant stuff. Much has been written about esports, streaming and all the rest of it. These have become compelling topics in our lockdown existences, and provoked predictable ‘hot takes’ over a driver being fired over ‘just a game’. But they’re distractions from the real story.
Abt’s grave error was to engage in a premeditated act of deception. In an impressively-delivered apology video, he insisted he did not intend to “keep quiet about it”. That may well be true, though he did not indicate how or when he and Hörzing intended to reveal the simracer had beaten all bar two of the regular Formula E drivers while impersonating Abt.
But the deception made his firing an inevitability. “Integrity, transparency and consistent compliance with applicable rules, especially with regards to the past, are top priorities for us at Audi,” said his employer in its second statement on the matter yesterday.
On the same day Abt was shown the door, Germany’s top civil court ruled Volkswagen must pay compensation to a customer who purchased one of its vehicles which had been fitted with software designed to cheat emissions software. (Full disclosure: the author drives a diesel A6. Albeit very infrequently, these days.)
Abt thought the scheme would produce a “funny story”. If nothing else, his judgement of how compelling the tale would be was spot-on, though he obviously reckoned without the detail of his firing by Audi. Interest in it dwarfed everything else on Tuesday.
Half an hour after Audi confirmed it was ‘game over’ for Abt, word came of 1,200 more job losses elsewhere: McLaren. Around 70 of these will involve members of the Racing division, chiefly accounted for by an F1 team which has been steadily finding its feet after years in the wilderness.
It may have been dwarfed by the Abt story, but the developments at McLaren are obviously more significant. Not just because of the magnitude of the cuts involved, which amount to around one quarter of the group’s total staff including its advanced technology and car making divisions.
McLaren’s plight also partly reflects the health of Formula 1 and its teams. The sport this week ratified a far-reaching set of new regulations for coming seasons aimed at easing the financial burden for all teams. It has to strike a difficult balance between cutting costs for smaller teams while remaining affordable and attractive enough for larger teams to remain.
Nonetheless, a further reduction in its budget cap raises the potential that some teams will have to reduce their headcounts further in the coming seasons. Some are already referring to the largest teams as “dinosaurs”.
McLaren gave the first indication of whether the new rules package Formula 1 has agreed will guarantee the continued participation of the current teams in the sport. The regulations promise other savings by allowing teams to roll over their 2020 chassis into 2021, reducing the development work they can conduct and forcibly limiting what they are allowed to spend. Will that be enough to save costly F1 programmes when other companies are contemplating the kind of cuts McLaren are?
Last week car maker Renault agreed terms to receive a €5 billion (£4.49bn) state-guaranteed loan. Its F1 team also praised the new regulations approved yesterday as “responsible and appropriate responses to the short and long term challenges of Formula 1.”
“These decisions, supported unanimously by teams with very differing strategies, honour the remarkable work of the FIA and Formula 1 and will strengthen the discipline in the long term,” it added. Whether Renault, and those other teams with “very differing strategies”, remain in F1 is the matter of imperative importance the sport now faces.
Can Mercedes, whose parent company Daimler was already cutting tens of thousands of jobs before the pandemic, continue to justify paying Lewis Hamilton’s salary along with the other costs involved in adding to an already staggering haul of silverware? In the space of four years Audi has canned its highly successful World Endurance Championship team and its DTM squad; Mercedes pulled out of the latter two years ago.
Job losses are not trivial matters. It’s easy to write about ‘downsizing’ and ‘headcount reductions’ and forget these numbers are not abstractions, but real people with families and dependants. They are ‘the guys and girls’ back at the factory without which ‘the show’ couldn’t happen.
The fate of one driver’s job has commanded a lot of attention in the past few days. But many more are depending on the decisions Formula 1 has taken. For their sake and that of the sport, hopefully they’ve got it right.
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2020 F1 season
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Mouse_Nightshirt (@mouse_nightshirt)
28th May 2020, 12:55
It’s going to be a rough few years for the team. We saw the damage 2008 did to the grid and the sport, I suspect this will be worse.
I’m just thankful that Bernie is no longer running the show. At least Liberty seems to have some semblance of understanding the need to care for the teams.
BasCB (@bascb)
28th May 2020, 13:45
Well said @mouse_nightshirt. It sure looks like everyone is getting into rough weather. But I agree that at least Liberty seem to be working towards a more sustainable business, I hope they manage it.
Not George
28th May 2020, 17:07
F1 will be ok if the car manufacturing companies involved can demonstrate that their $135-145m is covered by Liberty payments, sponsors & tangible marketing benefits. Otherwise the tyre burning (great for the environment hey?) seen at Nissan in Barcelona could spread.
I still see the budget cap as a way for Liberty to reduce the amount of cash they have to give to the teams (e.g. is the top 3’s performance/legacy payment going to be divided up?).
Fer no.65 (@fer-no65)
28th May 2020, 13:11
Great article… I said it before, i’ve got no sympathy for a driver that only had to play a game for charity, while a lot of people are having a very tough time. I really hope those 1200 McLaren employees find their feet soon.
anon
28th May 2020, 13:46
@fer-no65 it is worth bearing in mind that McLaren have indicated this is only the first round of redundancies.
They have indicated that, in 2021, there will be a second round of redundancies to reduce their head count of their racing division when the budget cap kicks in – so although 70 are being cut right now, the team will be cutting more staff in another six months or so. That, in turn, suggests the wider business might also face cuts – and perhaps gives an indication of the sort of scale of cuts that we might see elsewhere.
Robbie (@robbie)
28th May 2020, 14:34
Staffing cuts have become a topic in F1 since Liberty took over and immediately made it known that cost caps were finally going to be negotiated and attempted, which as we of course know has come to pass. This was all pre-pandemic. The idea was that there would be some trickle down effect with staff having to leave Mac, for example, but finding homes at the lesser teams who have found themselves bolstered with a bigger percentage of the pie with which to compete.
Of course the pandemic has meant those let go will not find a home on a lesser team right now, but it is my heartfelt hope that this is relatively temporary and that in a year or two employment in F1 might grow again, at least for the lesser teams who will have the room to grow, being below the caps.
Not to take anything away from those whose jobs will be affected, for nobody wishes that on anybody, but it does have to be said though that the numbers of staff on the top teams had become ridiculous in some aspects of their businesses, helping to create the huge imbalance between the have and the have not teams. The pandemic has forced their hands and accelerated the process of trimming down the excess and finding a much better balance and sustainability throughout the grid. I’m sure they’ll get there. It’s just unfortunate it has to start this way, without as many avenues for those let go.
Jonathan Edwards
29th May 2020, 1:47
Well said
bobec
28th May 2020, 14:16
Because it’s Formula E. Who cares?
Seriously though, things are tough.
Btw what A6 do you drive? If it is a 3.0 TDI from after 2013 it can be modified to meet the emissions standards. I think all 3.0 TDIs from 2014 onwards are getting fixed in the US.
Sensord4notbeingafanboi (@peartree)
28th May 2020, 22:00
hopefully the author is not Cumming 260 miles to work on this article.
NS Biker (@rekibsn)
29th May 2020, 0:15
It was my understanding that all of the VW diesels, and Audi too I suspect, 2009 and on, had been retrofitted with updated software and re-sold back into the public domain or scrapped. Likely defendant on conditions and mileage.
Some local cars in the NW are fetching a pretty high price at dealers too.
bobec
29th May 2020, 7:02
@rekibsn Yes, I should have said the post-2014 3.0s got fixed by the official VW/Audi dealers and were given back to their customers. And now the cars which couldn’t get fixed immediately are appearing at third party dealers.
Jon Bee
28th May 2020, 16:15
I pity anyone who is partway through one of motorsport engineering and design courses that are being run by several universities and colleges in the UK. I don’t imagine all of the students will be aiming to join F1 teams, but those who are will have seen their dreams shattered by yesterday’s announcements.
Not George
28th May 2020, 17:02
There’s been a massive skills shortage in engineering for years. I was told by a colleague (at an aircraft company) who’d worked in F1 that he could get me a job if I was good enough: the same goes in the opposite direction.
Casanova (@casanova)
28th May 2020, 17:37
F1 as an industry has a reputation for being tough – whether or not you’re an employee who travels to races, the hours are long, the deadlines extremely tight, and the pressure never-ending. As a lifelong F1 fan who has ended up as an automotive engineer, I can honestly say that during my career I’ve never seriously considered a job in F1.
But both the posts above me make good points. The engineering skills shortage is considerable, but at the same time it’s an industry with high standards. Sadly, lots of very good engineering graduates opt for better-rewarded, lower-pressure careers doing something else.
obster
28th May 2020, 16:33
I feel F1 was looking at losing up to half the teams on the grid due to financial reasons. McLaren, Renault and Haas have other core businesses to worry about besides F1. The budget requirements were getting ridiculous.
mrfill (@mrfill)
28th May 2020, 18:51
I’m wondering whether McLaren have played a blinder. The redundancies would have come and covid has speeded up the process which means McL will be working like a 2021 team in 2020. Come next season they could be in a much better situation than other teams who put off the inevitable redundancies and the budget cap will hurt them less. Racing Point is in a similar position as Stroll has resisted increasing the staff levels hugely and the team is likely to remain stable without major cuts. Different story for the big 3 teams though.
I’ve been through the redundancy thing. ‘Restructured’ after 21 years I thought it was the end of the world. Within 6 months I realised it was the best thing that had happened to me.
HOLMZINI
28th May 2020, 19:26
I think his attempt to sub a driver with skill sets into his Virtual Racecar is rather clever after all it’s just GAME PLAYING.
Give him credit for his idea but fail him on not pulling it off. It could have become a great tale of having fun during this Covid time we live in. So should he be fined, fired and RUINED FOR LIFE???? I say no way and if you don’t get it then go knit.
Audi instead of reacting so dramatically should have with a bit of tongue n cheek
and left it as “let’s not do this again” and get back to Real Racing and leave the game playing to the kids. Hope a team will step up and offer a reality check and put him back into a seat. Those bent out of shape over his practical joke so dramatically makes me laugh.
TEDBELL
28th May 2020, 19:29
It was a game and I agree with you it’s a bunch of nothing. Give me a break.
Sensord4notbeingafanboi (@peartree)
28th May 2020, 21:54
I know that this season is not going as expected, even so I can’t shake off the impression that either this was a looming scenario for mclaren or that f1 teams will find ways to save the budget on the least desirable areas.
DB-C90 (@dbradock)
29th May 2020, 1:01
I doubt that McLarens announcement will be the last that we see, although it my be the best publicised.
It should also be remembered that this pandemic will be responsible for thousands, if not millions experiencing redundancy, many with young families and responsibilities just like those from McLaren and other F1 teams that will lose their jobs.
This is not unique to F1 and will be a huge challenge for us all to get through. On that basis the stupidity of a single driver seems pretty pale when it comes to “news”.
BasCB (@bascb)
29th May 2020, 9:41
indeed @dbradock – just look at the news coming out of Williams today (and also those things coming from AutoMotorundSport about Mercedes potentially selling shop), this is likely to be only the first of many more such announcdments to come.
BasCB (@bascb)
29th May 2020, 9:45
I guess we can take signals from Renault that the budget cap means they feel good enough about F1 to confirm they will be part of it for the longer term as a positive signal though.
Even though at the same time they are cutting thousands of staff from their manufacturing and I am sure they will be looking at their F1 team too.
Jonathan Edwards
29th May 2020, 1:47
Great article, Keith.