Where Would F1 Have Gone Without BE

[Casper]

As promised, if BE had not been around how would F1 have evolved? Would it have survived and flourished or died a slow death or maybe someone else would have filled the niche that BE found and exploited. I think someone like Ron Dennis would have stepped up and moved things along.

[Biscuits In A Red Bull]

"Where Would F1 Have Gone Without BE?"

It probably wouldn't have gone to Asia as much

[Teretonga]

Originally Posted by Casper

As promised, if BE had not been around how would F1 have evolved? Would it have survived and flourished or died a slow death or maybe someone else would have filled the niche that BE found and exploited. I think someone like Ron Dennis would have stepped up and moved things along.

I think your history is a little out of step with reality.
I do not think Ron would have stepped in and it certainly would not have been where it is today.
It would be a lot poorer than it has been over the last 40 years and wouldn't have the strength it has now politically or financially.

Bernie bought into Brabham at the end of the 1971 season when he partnered with Ron Tauranac who had purchased Jacks share in Brabham when Jack retired (the T in BT Brabham model numbers) at the end of 1970.

Just as Teddy Mayer left McLaren 10 years later so Ron left Brabham and went off and set up Ralt (the initial letters of his name and one he had used constructing cars in Australia years before).
Ron Dennis at this point had been one of Jacks mechanics when he was racing and had left Brabham after Jack left and partnered with another mechanic, Neil Trundel, and set up a F2 team Rondel Racing, using Motul money. They actually built their own chassis in the 3rd year but the Motul money stopped flowing after three years and they closed the team. Ron ran cars in F2 and F3 under other names until he started yet another team, Project 4, later in the decade, using March and Ralt, chassis, with money from tobacco companies, one of them being Marlboro.

Bernie ran Brabham with his singular focus after Ron left, and Graham Hill had left to set up what became Embassy Racing. So the BT37 was a Brabham BT34 (the lobster claw) in single radiator form and was the first F1 car under Bernie's leadership. He employed a bright young South African named Gordon Murray, who then penned the BT42, the next F1 car. This was followed by the BT44, then the 44B, the BT45 (Alfa Romeo powered), the 46, 47, to the 49, the first ground effects Brabham. Lauda left the team and Piquet took it to his first victory then his first championship in 1981.

In the meantime (1972-1980) Bernie had applied his seriously refined business nous to the problems facing teams in negotiating with promotorers and suggested that they form an association and negotiate start money as a block, rather than individually. So FOCA (Formula One Constructors Association) was formed and Bernie turned his hand to the political side of the sport fighting for the rights of representation of the team owners. and started to realise the value in the potential of the sport in television rights, and advertising rights, where the strength was in negotiating as a group. Most of the power base at this point was in the British teams (all using Cosworths) whereas the European teams (Ferrari, and at times, Matra, Tecno) handled their own affairs and dealt with the promoters themselves. But by the end of the decade Bernie had massaged the constructors association into a powerful unit.
At the beginning of the 80's Ron Dennis had graduated from F2 and had taken a role and ownership of McLaren when Marlboro merged project 4 with McLaren using Marlboro money. Frank Williams had sold his team to Walter Wolf then walked away to begin a new team with Patrick Head that quickly asserted itself by taking championships in 1980 and 1982, while Bernie's team took 1981 and 1983 WDC titles. Then Ron's team took the 1984, 85, 86, 88, 89, 90, 91 titles and the 87 and 92, and 93 titles.

[Teretonga]

Anyway. Bernie lost interest in running a team and sold Brabham on. Running the whole circus was far more rewarding financially and more up his street than scratching around for sponsorship that was always swallowed up in running costs.

He aligned himself with Mosley when Balestre's leadership of the FIA came up in due course and Max sold him the 110 year deal to the commercial rights.
When the Concorde agreement came up for renewal in the late 90's Frank and Ron fought for a better share but Bernie had Max in the FIA and Luca on side with a special relationship and everyone else signed. Ron and Frank had the most successful teams for the past twenty years but Bernie hung them out to dry. Take it or leave it.

Bernie is ruthlessly pragmatic. That's why in his eyes Ferrari has a special relationship but the others come and go. No emotion, no baggage.

This is why Bernie did far more to make F1 than Ron would ever have done. Bernie had been wheeling and dealing in bicycles, motorbikes and cars for twenty years by the time he bought Brabham.
Ron was a Brabham mechanic then, and Frank was running second hand F3 cars and wheeling and dealing just to eat while trying to run a F2 team. Yes he got into f1 but sold up at the end of 75 unable to carry on. Within two years he and Patrick Head got together and set up Frank Williams Grand Prix Engineering and by the end of 1980 had won their first drivers title.
Ron wasn't even in F1 as an owner until 1980.

While Bernie was running his team he acted on behalf of the teams and by creating FOCA he created an organisation that did everything for the teams but also became the point of contact for everyone else too.
He was so good at this people just contacted FOCA and they took care of everything related to the event that the promoters had to hassle around with a multitude of contacts.
Eventually promoters signed away rights to television revenue, trackside advertising revenue, Bernie closed off the paddock to outsiders other than 'rich' insiders, and elitist sort of 'special' group that created mystery and 'value' simply by holding itself aloof.

Max was well healed enough to be a privateer F2 driver in the late 60's in a BT23 FVA.
Ron Dennis was a mechanic, Frank Williams a wheeler dealer in F2 and F3 while trying to do F1 in a privateer Brabham with Piers Courage. Soon after Max got together with a bunch of mates from F2 and Robin Herd and they formed March. So its not difficult to see how Max aligned himself with Bernie and why the relationship with Ron was so fraught when Ron became the most successful team owner ever in the 1980's (At one point more F1 victories than Ferrari).

The idea that Ron could have done what Bernie has done is fanciful. No one had the insight and vision Bernie has had over the last 40 years. No one else actively involved in F1 either now or then could have done what he has done. Ron never had the visionary view and probably doesn't have the skills Bernie has that would enable him to contribute anything like what Bernie has been able to do in establishing FOCA and negotiating what Bernie did, especially in the beginning.

Yes, maybe awry over the last decade, perhaps absolute power corrupting to a degree, although when you get so successful you cant always see the wood for the trees.
You are so close and involved inside the operation you become immune to or blind to what people see from the outside, and success can also blind you to an objective view, to see things as others see them.

[Paradise City]

It's possible some worse hoodlum would've grabbed the sport. But I'd take that chance if I could.

[andy666]

I am not thoroughly schooled in the history of F1, I have only been religiously watching since early 2000's . Speaking my mind and I will not apologise upfront , I really dislike the man I keep reading how he has done great things for the sport but I do not see any . Without BE would the sport be the same ? Worse ? Better ? Nobody can say , I would like to say in light of his recent activities he has to go but could it be a case of "better the Devil you know" .

[Teretonga]

Originally Posted by andy666

I am not thoroughly schooled in the history of F1, I have only been religiously watching since early 2000's . Speaking my mind and I will not apologise upfront , I really dislike the man I keep reading how he has done great things for the sport but I do not see any . Without BE would the sport be the same ? Worse ? Better ? Nobody can say , I would like to say in light of his recent activities he has to go but could it be a case of "better the Devil you know" .

That's a fair comment Andy.
No one who came to the sport during the last twenty years would have an idea of how it was organised back before the seventies. The explosion of growth that came between the introduction of sponsorship on cars in 1968 until the mid or late 90's would have an understanding of how much Bernie changed it for good.

The rot (in my opinion) set in during the mid to late 90's when Max and Bernie aligned and Max supported the political games with the teams, sold Bernie the commercial rights for a song ($350 million).
From the beginning of the 90's till the end of the decade the cost of running a top F1 team quadrupled.

The results of the death of Senna, (how Max reshaped F1) the narrow track, grooved tyres, the new Concorde agreement, with Ferrari the favoured son and McLaren and Williams the outsiders, saw Ferrari spend the last 5 years of the 90's preparing for 5 years of domination in the first five years of the new millennium.
What was going on at the surface was a war between the teams, but below the surface were a different sort of political battle with Max and Bernie lined up with Ferrari, while Ron and Frank fought the battle on track with their teams as the weapons, but at some political (and financial) disadvantage.
The fact that McLaren and Williams have never been able to dominate since the end of the 90's in the way they did in the last 20 years of the last millennium, is not just about engineering. F1 politics, money and intrigue all played a major role.

[Teretonga]

How close were Bernie and Max? very close. Once Bernie bought Brabham in 1971 they worked together.

"In 1971, British businessman Bernie Ecclestone bought the Brabham team, and Mosley recalls that:

Within about 20 minutes of [Ecclestone] turning up at the [GPCA] meeting, it was apparent that here was someone who knew how many beans made five and after about half an hour he moved round the table to sit next to me, and from then on he and I started operating as a team. Within a very short time, the two of us were doing everything for the GPCA, instead of everyone moving around in a block, and from that developed FOCA.[52]"
Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Max_Mosley

[Casper]

Originally Posted by Teretonga

I think your history is a little out of step with reality.

I only put it forward as a "what if" not a hard point in history. Perhaps I should have written a Ron Dennis to make it a hypothetical in the truest meaning.

I was around in the 70's but F1 did not have a high presence beyond Europe and I was more interested in rallying so my knowledge of those times is sparse and I have no driving desire to study it. The past is the past but this discussion point I do find interesting. Perhaps it will not go far as a discussion for there would be few here that experienced those historic times.

My personal view is that someone else would have come along and organised the sport much the same as today but perhaps not as refined and costly as it is. Who that might have been is anybodies guess.

[chillibowl]

a huge 'what if' which makes this a difficult question.

no doubting that BE was a visionary in many ways in the early days and while he might have favoured one team over others, RD and SFW and others became very rich as a result of following his lead. he has been a great benefit to several team owners and several track promoters but as their benefit increased i think its fair to say that the fan experience has decreased.

from what i have read he was really ahead of his time with offering digital service package to subscribers complete with multiple feeds and angles but that failed as it was either ahead of its time or too expensive. as a consequence he seems to have abandoned or shunned every attempt to offer the viewers at home more. F1's slow adoption of HD broadcasts and its unwillingness to engage fans via social media are examples of this imo.

hard to say what F1 would look like without the man though. for me my take is that F1 would still exist but would be run more along the lines of other major sports. more of a corporate structure rather than a kingdom ruled by fiat (both in terms of the actual definition of the word fiat and ruled by whats good for Fiat).

i think the sport would have become larger in scope as a corporate structure would had more 'managers' overseeing different aspects (too much for one man to do) and would have favoured the inclusion of more manu's as they would have been able to become in as true and equal stakeholders in the sport.

i dont think the garagista's would have survived in an era without BE either so too his credit BE saw the necessity of keeping independently owned teams on the grid where as almost all other major sports have done away with the concept of family run teams in favour of corporate entities owning clubs.

so on one hand the sport would have been marketed/promoted better but would have adopted more of the soulless quality which characterizes most other global sports now. bigger is not always better. also think that without BE the move to Asia would have still been there. the need to find new markets/expansion is what all the sports are looking for.

anyways, as andy666 said, perhaps we really are better off with the devil we know.

[miatanut]

Originally Posted by Teretonga

Yes, maybe awry over the last decade, perhaps absolute power corrupting to a degree, although when you get so successful you cant always see the wood for the trees.

You are so close and involved inside the operation you become immune to or blind to what people see from the outside, and success can also blind you to an objective view, to see things as others see them.

The last few years are the problem for me. He definitely started out as a good guy in my mind.

I've always felt the (financial) returns of the sport should go to the people with gasoline running in their veins. The team owners, the drivers. To a lesser degree, even the track owners. Somebody owns a track because they have an interest in the sport. Tracks aren't big money makers, and they could own something else (and always do), but they own a track because they have a connection to the sport.

I don't think a big chunk of the returns of the sport should go to people who would just as well invest in pharma or something else. People for whom it is simply an investment.

That's what caused the "show" to take precedence over everything. In the old days, racers could show up at the track with something on their car nobody else has, and a big grin. Sometimes the competitors could immediately see what it was, other times they could see only the lap times and try to figure out what it was. That was what made racing fun.

Bernie squished the fun out of it.

[Sodemo]

I certainly don't hold Bernie up in any good light in terms of the health of "F1". He may well have done it some good in the earlier days, but for the last 2 decades he has been bleeding the sport dry, in my opinion of course.

[Neil Duke]

BE brought the corperate image to F1.Back in the day,I knew a couple of guys who spannered for Brabham during the season,this was all it was,a summer jolly.One day BE declares that all their beloved Snap-on tool boxes are to be sprayed blue & white,which they refused to do,so BE buys all new boxes & sprays them in the sponsors colours,& it all moved on from there.

[Teretonga]

Originally Posted by Neil Duke

BE brought the corperate image to F1.Back in the day,I knew a couple of guys who spannered for Brabham during the season,this was all it was,a summer jolly.One day BE declares that all their beloved Snap-on tool boxes are to be sprayed blue & white,which they refused to do,so BE buys all new boxes & sprays them in the sponsors colours,& it all moved on from there.

He did that with his own team. An almost obsessive attention to detail and to getting his own way.
Apply it to a team you own and you may be eccentric to some, 'professional' to others.
Apply it to a public sport where your role is to represent your fellow team owners to the promoters and you can see why it started to go awry after Max Mosley became the FISA boss in 1986.
Bernie's life is interesting, but basically its just a business story, boy from a poor background does good.
Max Mosley's life in the politics of F1 is much more influential and if people want to know why F1 is the way it is, it is what Max enabled Bernie to do and how Bernie and Max took over F1 that is the real key to the 'how it came about' that many people grimace about today.

[Tucky]

I think Bernie's the classic example of outstaying your welcome. He was great for F1 but should have left by now.