Is Formula 1 broken?

[Mike Harte]

chillibowl, the problem is that it's not qualifying that needs to be addressed; it's the rules that stop other teams being able to develop their own cars so that they can be competitive. It's not Mercedes' fault that they brought in their brightest and best engineers and technicians from their road vehicle divisions to help out their F1 engine specialists which resulted in them producing a brilliant PU layout that is miles better than anyone else's.

That has already been addressed, and Ferrari have already gone some way, or so I believe, to copy the Mercedes' turbo layout. And from next year, the token system is being dropped, and this should allow much greater development by the lower tier. Unfortunately for them, it also means that Mercedes can also develop their units at the same pace.

But this is how F1 has always been. Yes, in the past certain elements on a leading car have been disallowed, but this was usually because they were deemed to be outside of the spirit of the rules. Other times it has been because it was so obvious that it would lead to huge overspending by competing teams to try to catch up.

But this is not totally the case now. It seems apparent to me that Mercedes have just created an all round better package than any other team. It's got the best PU undoubtedly, but it's also got good handling and its pretty efficient in the aero department.

It just seems to me that the FIA and FOM are just trying to handicap Mercedes and Ferrari, and I think that this is partly to do with them not wanting to supply Red Bull. It is certainly not being done for the good of the sport.

[old man]

Originally Posted by Mike Harte

Another interesting article about the state of F1, how it's governed and what may be blowing in the wind.

See: http://www.racer.com/f1/item/127598-...e-piranha-club

My impression during qualifying was that the engineers were trying to fit their old way of doing qualifying to the new system and it did not work. Nobody tried to find a way to get the best result for themselves.

Does this piece really argue that this was deliberate?

As they have to do it all again next race will they try something new on tyres and fuel?

[Casper]

Originally Posted by Mike Harte

chillibowl, there are too many threads running which all cross over the same points. This is my response, which covers your post above, in another thread:

Yesssssss!!! way too many threads all totally negative towards the management and regulation that results in poor racing. Everywhere I look on the net the same mantra is repeated time and time again. I wonder what would have happened if this situation had arisen in pre-internet days when no large scale discussion and criticism could be had apart from a few letters to the editor. How times have changed.

[Sodemo]

Originally Posted by Casper

Yesssssss!!! way too many threads all totally negative towards the management and regulation that results in poor racing. Everywhere I look on the net the same mantra is repeated time and time again. I wonder what would have happened if this situation had arisen in pre-internet days when no large scale discussion and criticism could be had apart from a few letters to the editor. How times have changed.

I guess there is a lot of discontent surrounding the series. My discontent stretches back to 1998 so I have a very deep bag of bitterness to draw from.

[Casper]

I wonder if BE has not woken up to what is happening in internet land. In the old days he could do what he wanted with very little feedback due to no internet but as the internet and social media has allowed wide discussion by millions of people that freedom to do stuff with little or no criticism has disappeared. Maybe he just does not understand the torrent of discussion and dissatisfaction that has arisen in the last few years and the enormous numbers involved. He can't be that detached from reality, surely not.

[Mike Harte]

Originally Posted by Casper

I wonder if BE has not woken up to what is happening in internet land...........

.......He can't be that detached from reality, surely not.

I don't think that he is that detached; I just believe that he doesn't care! He has amassed a huge fortune over the years, and although he "gave away" a considerable portion of those assets to his ex-wife, and has lavished indecent amounts to their two daughters, he has remained one of the UK's wealthiest individuals.

In the meantime, every motoring body or entrepreneur that has, or wants to hold, a GP has to come begging to his feet. I would hazard a guess that similar to many men of small stature, that he suffers from the Napoleon syndrome, and that he gets great satisfaction from being, in practice, the most important person in F1. And he knows where all the bodies are buried.

[djinvicta]

He could be on here too.....which alias?

[bjohnsonsmith]

Originally Posted by djinvicta

He could be on here too.....which alias?

Which Avatar?

[Mike Harte]

And furthermore, he appears to have two investment funds, one American and the other one Chinese, who are pushing CVC to sell out to them. Topco Delta and FOM are huge cash cows as things stand, and even if CVC gave them away for a dollar, they will have made over 600% return on their investment and that is after they have already repaid the loans that they took to by F1 in the first place.

[Mike Harte]

Although one must credit Mr E, and of course Max Mosley, of dragging F1 through the mire to become the "pinnacle" of motorsport where some teams now employ over 500 people to just allow 2 cars to circulate around for a couple of hours 20 odd times a year, he is always in the background, always the puppeteer.

Knowing that Monza is struggling financially and is yet to sign up to a renewed contract, he is dangling the prospect of a race in Las Vegas under the Italians noses saying that he has a contract with Vegas, but they haven't signed it yet. So, as ever, he is playing one off against the other, and in a very public way.

Just like his interview given recently that was published over the weekend, where he claims that a price has been agreed for CVC's stake in F1, but no decision has been made. It smacks of him playing the two investment companies off against each other to push up the price, otherwise why mention it.

[JeremySmith]

It's typical Bernie Echolstone tactics, if only all the race promoters would get together and tell him to stuff his circus then problems like the one we see with Monza would not be happening ..

They are a rather mild mannered bunch it seems, including our own promotor in Austin ..
Echolstone should be paying the racing promotors a fee not the other way round, it's never made good business sense to me, I fail to understand the concept ?

[bjohnsonsmith]

Originally Posted by JeremySmith

It's typical Bernie Echolstone tactics, if only all the race promoters would get together and tell him to stuff his circus then problems like the one we see with Monza would not be happening ..

They are a rather mild mannered bunch it seems, including our own promotor in Austin ..
Echolstone should be paying the racing promotors a fee not the other way round, it's never made good business sense to me, I fail to understand the concept ?

If it is a bad business model, with the promoters paying Ecclestone rather than the other way round, why do they persist with the current arrangement?

[bjohnsonsmith]

Originally Posted by Mike Harte

Although one must credit Mr E, and of course Max Mosley, of dragging F1 through the mire to become the "pinnacle" of motorsport where some teams now employ over 500 people to just allow 2 cars to circulate around for a couple of hours 20 odd times a year, he is always in the background, always the puppeteer.

Knowing that Monza is struggling financially and is yet to sign up to a renewed contract, he is dangling the prospect of a race in Las Vegas under the Italians noses saying that he has a contract with Vegas, but they haven't signed it yet. So, as ever, he is playing one off against the other, and in a very public way.

Just like his interview given recently that was published over the weekend, where he claims that a price has been agreed for CVC's stake in F1, but no decision has been made. It smacks of him playing the two investment companies off against each other to push up the price, otherwise why mention it.

There's piece on the potential Vegas race on Sky Sports website http://www.skysports.com/f1/news/125...nie-ecclestone but I guess with his deal with Sky, Bernie is using them as his personal news channel, as there's nothing about this on either Autosport's or Racer's websites.

[Mike Harte]

Originally Posted by bjohnsonsmith

There's piece on the potential Vegas race on Sky Sports website http://www.skysports.com/f1/news/125...nie-ecclestone but I guess with his deal with Sky, Bernie is using them as his personal news channel, as there's nothing about this on either Autosport's or Racer's websites.

Not quite. This appears to be one of a series of press releases that BCE has provided through his mouthpiece Christian Sylt, which has appeared in various formats and guises over the last 10 days or so. First there was the 8 page spread that appeared in the Sunday Times on the 20th, and now further bits and pieces that seem to popping up here and there. The piece on Sky acknowledges picking it up from the Mail.

Mr E is obviously pumping up the pressure on various fronts, although neither he nor CVC need the money. He just seems to have taken on the attitude that as he can do it (succeed in getting ever increasing amounts of money), he is going to do it. The contradictory element is that he so often, usually in secret, digs into to his own bank account to help out teams and individuals that are in distress; just take what he did for Lotus last year, paying the salaries for at least one month. That fact was leaked by one of the Lotus' people; BCE didn't want to acknowledge it, because it doesn't suit his image.

[JeremySmith]

Originally Posted by bjohnsonsmith

If it is a bad business model, with the promoters paying Ecclestone rather than the other way round, why do they persist with the current arrangement?

I am not sure to be honest ? The economic impact is good for a city that hosts a Grand Prix, but for the promoter of the race it does not appear to make much sense at all ..

[chillibowl]

Originally Posted by JeremySmith

... but for the promoter of the race it does not appear to make much sense at all ..

i saw Ron Walker in the Paddock at OZ...he was looking healthy but he is a billionaire after all and some of that wealth probably came from promoting F1.

good work if you can get it but it comes at the expense of the taxpayers which makes it great for the local promoter but terible for those paying the taxes.

it raises an interesting issues though.1. over time, gov't subsidized events have a way of extracting ever greater sums from the host nation and it's taxpayers and 2. why are any responsible gov't subsidizing a sport that generates over a billion in profits each year?

thats the untenable part imo.

[Mike Harte]

Originally Posted by chillibowl

it raises an interesting issues though.1. over time, gov't subsidized events have a way of extracting ever greater sums from the host nation and it's taxpayers and 2. why are any responsible gov't subsidizing a sport that generates over a billion in profits each year?

This raises an interesting topic, and there are no definitive answers; they are all theoretical. As is the case with COTA, governments make assumptions about projected income and increased tax revenue from major sporting events, and even though after the event they will announce that x amount was spent and y extra tax was raised, they can't ever fully justify any of it. How on earth can they know how much extra was spent in food establishments or other outlets and accurately specify that the income was derived from the race. After all, some people may just have been passing through. And, as in Texas, the projected figures given by COTA have yet to be reached, which is why the local gov't has reduced the subsidy.

[S griffin]

When classic circuts like Monza and Spa are under threat, you know there is something is wrong with Bernie's motives. He don't care two figs about the sport anymore, although he cares about is his next million

[Mike Harte]

Not blaming Mr E in this post, but it would seem as though the tyre contract for the years 2017-19 has yet to be ratified and signed. Although FOM confirmed the awarding of the contract to Pirelli last year at the Russian GP, the FIA are still sitting on the contract because they cannot make up their minds about specific tyre testing, the car to be used, or who to run it.

This should be so simple to deal with. Pirelli have suggested that they would be happy with a 2013 V8 powered car, and that they have no preferences to which chassis. Why don't the FIA just drop the names of all the available running cars in a hat, and just draw out a name. Then, rather than the team running the car, why not lease it to a company such as Classic Lotus Cars who have experience running a fleet of older F1 cars. I am sure that if this was conducted on a commercial basis that people like CLC would jump at the opportunity to be involved, and it would also mean that the testing was being carried out at arms lengths to the current teams.

Or is that all too simple for the FIA?

[chillibowl]

i could be wrong but didnt the FIA already agree to allow a number of two day tests (up to 6 maybe) to be used exclusively for tire development? add the that the relative rules stability, wouldn't that render the need for an old test car moot?

[Mike Harte]

Originally Posted by chillibowl

i could be wrong but didnt the FIA already agree to allow a number of two day tests (up to 6 maybe) to be used exclusively for tire development? add the that the relative rules stability, wouldn't that render the need for an old test car moot?

I believe that the contract agreed between FOM and Pirelli allowed for both, in season tyre testing by teams, plus the use of an older car for development purposes mainly. Makes total sense to me; I mean, the tyre companies spend days on end at test tracks testing tyres that are in/will be in use on public roads which will only be subjected to a fraction of the stresses that a F1 tyre will go through.

[djinvicta]

"the tyre companies spend days on end at test tracks testing tyres that are in/will be in use on public roads which will only be subjected to a fraction of the stresses that a F1 tyre will go through."

Mike: You have obviously not seen my missus drive...

[bjohnsonsmith]

Dieter Rencken has written an open letter to Bernie Ecclestone and has put it up on Autosport's website.

http://www.autosport.com/premium/fea...nie-ecclestone

[Mike Harte]

BJ, can you tell us tight so and so's what the letter said, please.

And yet more irony; an open letter, that is placed behind a paywall.

[S griffin]

I read it and he pulled no punches