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Old 12 Jan 2019, 10:21 (Ref:3875674)   #2876
BLiTZ
Racer
 
Join Date: Oct 2016
United Kingdom
Posts: 266
BLiTZ should be qualifying in the top 10 on the grid
Quote:
Originally Posted by VIVA GT View Post
I agree. It's a well known fact that I don't like JP (and I have my reasons), and although he does get lots of column inches and forum mentions I would say that not much of it is actually positive/constructive. I appreciate that there is a well worn phrase that 'no publicity is bad publicity' but if the team I ran was getting all of these comments pointing out that 'my' car, being driven by a so-called super driver (statistics show, multiple champion, almost 100 race wins, and that's without his own publicity machine) is incapable of getting anywhere near the pointy end are far greater than the publicity my 'other' (younger, quieter, less famous) driver who was getting the results, I would not be happy.

I view Plato as being similar to Mansell in that, if he has a good result, it's all down to him. If he has a bad result, its not his fault but someone else's, the car doesn't perform, FWD/RWD (delete where applicable) has too big an advantage, the accident(s) he was involved in were not his fault etc. It's all about him. You win as a team ("Thanks to my team, my sponsors and so on") but you lose as a team too. This is one of the reasons why I think a lot of teams would not want him on-board, irrespective of the money he maybring, but I also think that for the above reasons, that ability may be lessening now too...
(I will now put my flame proof clothing on and await the replies!)
Well said! In the last three years I think Plato's 'marketing' has done more harm to the Subaru campaign than it did good.

First Year: After 'bringing the deal together', he 'bigs' the car up to be a super mythical unicorn of unbeatable existence so much that when the inevitable teething problems arise, people are hyper critical of the team/car (myself included). Rest of the season his lack of pace is blamed on lack of development etc.

Year Two: He shunts the car at Brands, cue a year-long perma-excuse for his lack of performance that appears to tear apart the team in terms of moral and somewhat sours the fact that Ash drove the balls off the car to take the championship. (Funny how we saw more coverage of Plato's lack of performance than Sutton's success?!)

Year Three: We get the silent treatment. 'Crash-related car issues rectified' he still can't get the thing to go well so bat and ball are taken home and Subaru get hardly any mention again despite Ash peddling well. Perhaps a retaliation to the fact that he's only there to keep the team afloat financially (if rumours were true they'd have had no engines had he not opened his wallet).

All in all not the best experience from Subaru UK's perspective and after the trials and tribulations at MG I doubt he has the credibility to bring another manufacturer to the grid again. Would you want to get involved in the series if the driver you're funding spends half the year slagging off your car?

Whilst he's a great marketing man, he's far too quick to point blame unlike drivers like Ingram, Turkington, Shedden etc who manage to 'look on the bright side' when success doesn't go their way in a race.
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