The problem with Formula one?

[agwiii]

Originally Posted by Gt_R

Unfortunately, more people, involved parties, media and fans are more interested in punching more holes than patch up the existing leaks.

Gt_R:

This is very insightful. As I read it, I realized the solution is that Formula One needs to be reengineered.

Reenginering involves "throwing away the old and redesigning processes and procedures." Family law is well beyond the point of possible incremental change or correction. The only thing that will work is to throw away the old system and start over, asking the fundamental question of WHY!

In their book Reengineering the Corporation, Michael Hammer and James Champy (1993) define reengineering as "the fundamental rethinking and radical redesign of business processes to achieve dramatic improvements in critical, contemporary measures of performance, such as cost, quality, service, and speed." They go on to clarify the four critical terms within this definition: "fundamental," "radical," "dramatic," and "process."


Hammer and Champy say that when doing reengineering, individuals within an organization must ask very fundamental questions about WHY they do what they do and WHY they do it the way that they do. Asking this type of very fundamental question forces people to reexamine the underlying assumptions and rules for the way they conduct business.


Reengineering is determined to be "radical" and "dramatic" because it does not mean making superficial corrections to things, but, rather, throwing away the old and redesigning processes and procedures for completely new ways of accomplishing work. Dramatic change, rather than incremental improvements is the goal.

Finally, Hammer and Champy stipulate that the goal is to reengineer "processes," which they define as "a collection of activities that takes one or more kinds of input and creates an output that is of value to the customer." Most business people, according to Hammer and Champy, are not process-oriented; instead, they are too focused on specific tasks, people, or structures.


(http://www.dist.maricopa.edu/its/lap/section7.html)

[agwiii]

Originally Posted by Dutton

A socialist model for motorsport would have to be viewed in the economic sense only, certainly not any "social network" sense: unless you are meaning in the beurocratic systems of the political elite, then it certainly could be.

I guess if all teams were state owned, received x-amount of state funding and were not allowed to have anything otherthan identical cars etc........

More pragmatically, the State role would require being taken over by some greater body that dished out the means to the teams. It really wouldn't be feasible, or particularly desirable, to my mind for F1.

Be a bit **** for F1 really.

That 'almost' sounds like the original IROC.

[Super Tourer]

Politics has always been a part of F1 and always will be. F1 has made the 'vested interest' into an art form.

Whatever new order comes out of the current negotations, the above will not change.

F1 has been the model of two types of regime.

On one level it has operated the ultimate 'democracy', in that any changes to the Concorde Agreement require total agreement from all members. Over time this has proved to be a fools errand.

This has led to the 'dictatorship' element of F1 (the FIA and on his day BE), choosing/having to force through change, using their powers to impose their will onto people (teams) who do not want it.

This had led to a revolt (The GPWC) and a potential 'coup' (GPWC again).

If we are tracking F1's troubles it is has rubbed along on an unworkable constitution that has finally come to a head. The teams don't like it because they can see too much of the revenue going elsewhere, the regulators don't like it because there is no agreement on the way forward.

What we have now is an election campaign, insitgated by the 'revolt', with both sides drip feeding their manifesto to the electorate (the teams).

As in most elections, the question is do you vote for the party in power despite their faults, because you know what you get - or do you risk voting in the opposition who will have a manifesto of ideals but no guarantee they will either stick to them or be able to implement them?

[JohnSSC]

Dutton, thanks for defining the "socialist" vison.

ST, what you are describing is more the administration of F1. I still stand behind my notion that the "point" of F1 is the enhancement of revenue generation opportunities to support the industry itself. If thought of as a corporate model than the Team Owners are a Board of Directors with voting interest and a financial interest.

If, as agwiii has posited, Mercedes is getting itchy to improve their ROI at McLaren there could be some interesting things happenning across the board there: with the drivers, the ownership and the Team's performance this year.

[Logrence]

Originally Posted by AdamAshmore

Why does F1 have to be related to the cars we drive? The cars we drive are relatively dull. My daily car is yawn city, although infinitely better at getting me to work that a McLaren MP4/20.

I didn't mention anything about F1 cars being like the cars we drive. I respect your opinion, but don't put words in my mouth, please.

I said that the problem with F1 is that is sealed off from the real world and that we have no influence on it...the bods who work in F1 live in this little bubble - Max Moseley comes out with all these changes which are supposedly in the spectator's interest - he doesn't know what the spectators are interested in.

Whether you think the Max and Bernie show has been a good thing or a bad thing, I think it's clear F1 has lost something since the approachable days of the sixties.

[Adam43]

Originally Posted by Logrence

I didn't mention anything about F1 cars being like the cars we drive. I respect your opinion, but don't put words in my mouth, please.

Rather than put words in your mouth, I misunderstood what you meant. Apologises.

I thought it was inferred that it was because the cars were very complex that it was out of touch with us. Hence my slight assumption that I thought you meant because our cars don't need all those computers. I said I didn't quite understand your post. Sorry.

[agwiii]

Originally Posted by AdamAshmore

Rather than put words in your mouth, I misunderstood what you meant. Apologises.

I thought it was inferred that it was because the cars were very complex that it was out of touch with us. Hence my slight assumption that I thought you meant because our cars don't need all those computers. I said I didn't quite understand your post. Sorry.

Adam Ashmore and Logrence:

My hat is off to the two of you!

You not only avoided flaming each other and thus disrupting our message flow, but you apologized to each other for the misunderstanding.

I am impressed!

[sr230772]

i would dump the bernie and max show they are leeches to the sport give the ownership back to team owners shared equally.with a fixed budget per team to use on development on cars per season i would dump one of the italian races and german race from calander and make it into a 17 race per season

[Kicking-back]

Originally Posted by sr230772

i would dump the bernie and max show they are leeches to the sport give the ownership back to team owners shared equally.

"Back to the team owners"?

They've never had it.

And it would be a disaster.

[sr230772]

why would it be a disaster if they never had it?

[Kicking-back]

Because the team owners would be so driven by self interest they'd never be able to do anything for the benefit of the sport.

It would also become even more of a closed shop than it is now - what incentive would there be to let a new team in?

For an example of team owners running a racing series, look at CART - they managed to mess that up to the point of bankruptcy.

[sr230772]

but cart was nt run by team owners then, allthough it is now so i cant see where your coming from plus toyota and honda put the boot in cart a bit like ferrrari now

[Gabrio]

KB is right. You can't be a referee and a player at the same time. Sooner or later it becomes difficult.

[Gabrio]

KB, if you keep posting at current speed, you'll have 97 million posts before I become a veteran....

[Kicking-back]

Originally Posted by sr230772

but cart was nt run by team owners then, allthough it is now so i cant see where your coming from plus toyota and honda put the boot in cart a bit like ferrrari now

It was.

CART was always a committee of team owners.

[agwiii]

Originally Posted by Gabrio

KB is right. You can't be a referee and a player at the same time. Sooner or later it becomes difficult.

To do so would be a conflict of interest. Perhaps F1 needs a Code of Conduct?

[agwiii]

Originally Posted by sr230772

i would dump the bernie and max show they are leeches to the sport give the ownership back to team owners shared equally.with a fixed budget per team to use on development on cars per season i would dump one of the italian races and german race from calander and make it into a 17 race per season

I would absolutely dump Bernie and Max. However, you can't give it back to the Teams, since they never had it!

Who should be in charge?

Should it be an independent body?

[Kicking-back]

The sporting side of F1 is an FIA Championship - and as the FIA's elected head it is correct that Max is in charge.

[agwiii]

Originally Posted by Kicking-back

The sporting side of F1 is an FIA Championship - and as the FIA's elected head it is correct that Max is in charge.

What is your point? Are you a Max supporter?

[JohnSSC]

Ah! Here lies the rub!

We don't like Bernie and Max, but (like our parents) they are the only authority figures that we know in F1. So let's get rid of them and replace them with....What?

I will re-posit that F1, as developed by Bernie's vision (like it or not) has gone from a clubby, pip-pip cheerio be a good sport man sort of thing funded by an assortment of wealthy folks to a very, very "corporate" industry. The Team owners now, in a very real sense are "Shareholders" as they have bought into and supported BE's vision.

Now, no offense intended above there in re: the "clubby" comment but realistically this is exactly what happened - in the '30's, '50's and '60's F1 was quite literally "sport for sport's sake" (with notable exceptions of course - and very expensive sport to boot) but with no locus - no focal point - reason for existence (can't spell 'reaison de terre' - bollux!) that made it an ongoing "industry."

Now we have a "sport" that is completely addicted to the revenue streams that come from inhabiting the corporate model that it now wears.

So to "return" the sport to the good old days we simply dump BE and Max, the Evil Twins.

This is a great idea (sarcasm alert) as it would leave F1 completely bereft of a strong leadership that has it's eye on the ball. Now we may not agree that the eye is on the correct ball, but the focus is there. As K-B pointed out I believe, with the Team Owners in the driver's seat, chaos of Machiavellian proportions would break out as each tried to best serve their own self-serving needs and wants. CART is an excellent example of what happens when the Team Owners become the BOD.

Conclusion: no strong leader, no focus; here comes the chaos.

BE is getting up there in years as is Max. They won't be here forever (and God forbid anything bad happen to them) but what does happen when they leave? Nature abhors a vacuum. Each Team Principal likely thinks of themselves as being emminently qualified to run the "Show."

Scary prospect, that.

[Inigo Montoya]

Some have suggested that Jean Todt would be a good replacement for Max

runs for cover...

[Super Tourer]

or...Ron Dennis.

[Inigo Montoya]

Ron Dennis would certainly make for an interesting head of the FIA. Can you imagine the FIA press releases, all written in Ronspeak?

[JohnSSC]

Sorry, I am still laughing at the "runs for cover" comment!!!!

[Super Tourer]

Originally Posted by Inigo Montoya

Ron Dennis would certainly make for an interesting head of the FIA. Can you imagine the FIA press releases, all written in Ronspeak?

Yep.

Facilitate a communication window between senior level competing partners, to explore primary technical opportunities relative to the current statute within the framework and objectives of the exisiting constitution.

In other words - call a meeting of team bosses to discuss new rules....