Causes of the retirement of Honda, BMW and Toyota.

[ECW Dan Selby]

The weird thing is, 80% (made up stat admittedly) of people here and everyone else seemed to be dead against it!

Time's a funny thing...

Selby

[dyewat808]

Originally Posted by ECW Dan Selby

The weird thing is, 80% (made up stat admittedly) of people here and everyone else seemed to be dead against it!

Time's a funny thing...

Selby

Its not just the people involved in F1 that are a bit bonkers!

I'd be for it, purely to see the types of cars some of the teams would have come up with.

[Marbot]

Originally Posted by ECW Dan Selby

The weird thing is, 80% (made up stat admittedly) of people here and everyone else seemed to be dead against it!

I think that it was people against Mosley rather than people aginst the budget cap. If Kylie Minogue had thought of it.........

[Malfunction Junction]

I think that it was people against Mosley rather than people aginst the budget cap. If Kylie Minogue had thought of it.........

.........then it would have been shouted down as it came from an antipodean.

[hondafan37]

(Pingguest) The budget cap isn't the way to go. It would just be another restriction, although one difficult to enforce. I more believe in 'divergent governance'.

I am agree with you, I believe in divergent governance too

Here's an exert from an interview with Max in regards to the 2009 regs:

"What technical and other freedoms will the cost-capped teams have which are not available to the other teams?

MM: A different (but standard) under body, movable wings, no engine rev limit, no restriction on the number or type of updates, no homologation requirements, no limits on materials, testing, simulators, wind tunnels and so forth - most of the cost saving measures introduced over the last few years will not apply to these teams. However measures to save money during the race weekend, such as the ban on refuelling and the Saturday parc ferme, will apply to both categories of team. We are also thinking about a much bigger capacity KERS for the cost-capped teams. But all this must be covered by the £30 million - no exceptions and no free or subsidised outside help. Anything supplied by another team or an outside supplier will be included at its full commercial cost except for items supplied to all teams at subsidised rates under the single supplier arrangements negotiated by the FIA (e.g. for tyres), which allow all teams to benefit equally from reduced costs."

Very interesting, indeed. I can't help but feel it would have been a much better direction to go in.....? Comments, thoughts, opinions?

Here's a link to the full interview:
http://www.grandprix.com/ns/ns21249.html

Selby

The question is: how do you do to control the budget ceiling?

[Knowlesy]

Originally Posted by Malfunction Junction

.........then it would have been shouted down as it came from an antipodean.

No.

People like Kylie.

I like her bottom.

[Pingguest]

Originally Posted by ECW Dan Selby

But there were two options from what I remember:

Technical freedom to a budget cap (35 million)

OR

Unlimited spending with restrictions.

That's nothing but creating two divisions in one series.

[hondafan37]

The F1 should allow any type of alternative energy. This is the future and the F1 should be the testing laboratory again. The F1 should allow Electric, Hybrid, Hydrogen, Turbos, Ethanol, Gas turbine and any other type of engines. So all of brands return to the F1.

[Yannick]

For decades, BMW used to have a product line of 3 differently sized limousines: compact (Series 3), mid-sized (Series 5) and luxury car(Series 7), plus a coupé (Series 6) and the occasional roadster from time to time (Series Z), with the small car (Series 1) being introduced during the 90s and eating into the market share of Series 3. But whereas this product line stayed relatively stable since the 70s, the 2000s were a period of expansion: the roadster Z3 was replaced by two models Z4 and Z8, of which several evolutions were released in relatively short succession.
Additionally, BMW started their SUV line (Series X), but they modeled this line on their scheme of models, which means they released an SUV for Series 3 customers, one for Series 5 customers and one for Series 6 customers, effectively ending up with 3 different lines of SUVs. If that is not oversaturation of the market, I don't knowwhat is.

When the economic climate changed, they kept sitting on their stock of expensive models. So an easy cost cutting measure must have been pulling out of F1.

[johntt]

Originally Posted by hondafan37

The F1 should allow any type of alternative energy. This is the future and the F1 should be the testing laboratory again. The F1 should allow Electric, Hybrid, Hydrogen, Turbos, Ethanol, Gas turbine and any other type of engines. So all of brands return to the F1.

Personally I think that F1 cars shoold only have to meet safety requirements, fit within certain length/height/width restrictions, and use no more than x KJ of energy per race, that amount of energy being available in whichever form the team chooses.

[Marbot]

Originally Posted by Yannick

When the economic climate changed, they kept sitting on their stock of expensive models. So an easy cost cutting measure must have been pulling out of F1.

I thought that they had already started cost cutting a long time ago by no longer using turn signal bulbs and only fitting main beam bulbs in the headlights? They have even gone so far as removing badges from the bodywork! Although that seems to be more of a hit-or-miss affair. I often see them struggling to get out of side roads. Maybe some sort of overheating problem? *

*This part of my post may only make sense to UK members.

In any event, BMW obviously thought it better to concentrate on not looking like it was spending loads of cash on racing a couple of cars every other weekend while it was simultaneously laying off workers in its factories.

How Mercedes ever got beyond that point, no one really knows. But they'd better start winning soon!

[GolddustMini]

Originally Posted by Marbot

I thought that they had already started cost cutting a long time ago by no longer using turn signal bulbs and only fitting main beam bulbs in the headlights? They have even gone so far as removing badges from the bodywork! Although that seems to be more of a hit-or-miss affair. I often see them struggling to get out of side roads. Maybe some sort of overheating problem? *

the first part of their downfall was letting audi drivers use the bmw lane on the motorway.............

[Marbot]

Originally Posted by GolddustMini

the first part of their downfall was letting audi drivers use the bmw lane on the motorway.............

Perhaps the first part of any UK BMW, Merc or Audi owners downfall is realising that we don't actually have any Autobahns in this country. They make so much more sense over in Germany.

I digress.

Apparently Germany is having something of an economic boom at present! Maybe BMW won't stay away too long. Japan, on the other hand, are still battling against recent events that happened there.

[JamesH]

Originally Posted by Marbot

Indeed. See sig. v

90% of the performance of an F1 car comes from aerodynamics. Maybe it's people like Boeing that should be entering F1?

I have a passing acquaintance with an F1 aero guy, and I think it was he who said that when approached by [insert F1 team here] whether they would be interested in helping out, the aeroplane aero specialists basically said they were not interested/not able to help with anything that did less than 500mph. (because its a completely different ball game at low vs high speed).

Even Vettel isn't that fast.