Well on the track record of what's happened in the last few years the changes haven't been properly thought out ;)
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Well on the track record of what's happened in the last few years the changes haven't been properly thought out ;)
The problem is, Max's bleating about cost-cutting is starting to become a bit like Bono or Bob Geldof bitching about world hunger and poverty. Noble causes sure, but you get the feeling they are using it for their own attention-seeking needs.
If Max was serious about cost cutting and increasing the grid, perhaps scrapping the $48 million new team entry bond would be a good start? How about allowing single car teams again?
But F1, like any sport, will always have the haves and have nots, as said above. Also teams will spend what they have available to them - always have always will - and teams with more to spend will inevitably come out on top - but not always (Toyota?)
The key is to make it more accessible at entry level, for teams to enter, and yes probably come last week in week out, but then somebody has to be last!
The fact is I don't think anyone running the sport is serious about helping the smaller teams. They'd actually prefer to have a nice, compact, homogenized, manageable 20 car grid all within 2 seconds of each other, rather than an entry list of 30-40 cars with some heroic minnows maybe 6 or 7 seconds off the pace.
No - this is just an excuse for Max to push his one-make, standardized component, engine-freezing, dumbing-down agenda on us. Strange for the man who was once one-quarter of one of the world's biggest customer racing car manufacturers that he is so hell-bent on killing off that cottage industry and have 3 or 4 companies producing ALL of the world's racing cars - because that is the way it is heading.
One driver once said, I think it was Martin Brundle, that when Mosley first won the FISA presidential election he introduced himself to the drivers at Suzuka in 1991, and said something along the lines of "you won't be seeing much of me", which was greeted with a cheer (after all the rubbish with Balestre over the previous 10 or so years).
Well, a great big fat lie that turned out to be.
P.S. As for the WRC's problems, well as an ex-fan of rallying I can only speak for myself, but the day they decided to can events like the Safari and RAC rallies for a few laps of a car park in Wales somewhere, was pretty much the beginning of the end for that once-great sport. Top that off with entry caps and a control tyre (sound familiar?) and right now I couldn't care less about the WRC.
I'm amazed of the posts of some of you.
If the costs of running a F1 team will not be cut at least by half than F1 will not survive. It's that simple.
Don't you people see that the financial markets fall back to a low mark that we didn't see since the 80's?
Who the hell are you expecting to continue investing half a billion USD a year in a F1 team?
You might want to say that there are contracts in place already. Contracts are worth only the paper they are written on if one of the parts goes bankrupt.
You lot may continue to attack Max left and right for his cost cutting ideas, but I'd like to see what will you do when there will be no more F1. I bet you will b!tch about how max didn't cut costs when it was still possible.
This is going to sound stupid, but 'cost cutting' can mean anything - so what do the Teams do to cut costs, and what do the FIA mean by cost cutting? They might not be the same.Quote:
Originally Posted by V12
As for your WRC point - basically the changes were to 'cut costs' and for better media coverage. So you can see it's worked.
What are you basing that on ioan?Quote:
Originally Posted by ioan
How did F1 survive the 80's?Quote:
Originally Posted by ioan
Take Toyota as an example. They have precious little to show for their massive investment in F1 over the years and yet they remain in the sport. Why?Quote:
Originally Posted by ioan
Also, is there any sign that any of the manufacturer teams are considering withdrawing from F1? The fact is they will come and go regardless according to their own needs, not the needs of F1. They always have done.
Max has been talking about cost cutting in F1 for years, and yet what has he done about it? He has introduced a variety of rule changes that have cost the teams money, as well as increasing entry & superlicence fees but what has he done to reduce costs?Quote:
Originally Posted by ioan
I agree but that still doesn't mean that an actual cutting of costs isn't needed to give the sport a shot in the foot before it goes the way of the WRC and drifts off into relative obscurity as the WRC seems to be doing.....Quote:
Originally Posted by ArrowsFA1
Whether or not Max walks the walk and actually implements rules which mean costs actually get cut who knows but he is right in what he is saying.
Well that kind of proves my point then. In dumbing down and changing the whole concept of the sport in the name of "cost cutting", it p*sses off the purists and real genuine fans of the sport (who, contrary to popular belief, aren't completely worthless and not worth caring about). So you get a "cheaper" sport that nobody is watching or cares about - sponsors leave, manufacturers leave, and the whole thing goes tits-up anyway.Quote:
Originally Posted by AndyRAC
There was a time in F1, like the Indy 500, when an individual could actually build a car in his garage and if he could get it to the track, pay the entry fee, and quailify for the grid, he was in the race. With the exception of Ferrari when Enzo was still alive, I've always thought that having manufacturers make up the majority of the grid was a mistake because their shareholders are their main priority, as well they should be. Nowadays, just the cost of buying into F1 is staggering and the expenses of all those fly-away races can't be cheap either. I wonder how much money is spent on carbon fiber over a season? Maybe we should go back to aluminum and fiberglass on chassis construction but continue with electronic and engine developments elsewhere on the cars. I can see manufacturers having an interest in electronics and engines for possible production car uses but I don't think we'll be seeing any mass producing auto manufacturers building their road cars with carbon fiber anytime soon, with the exception of Ferrari.
Not always.Quote:
Originally Posted by Dave Brockman
How do you explain Renault's performance after drastic rule changes in '03 and '05. Or how about Ferrari's demise in '05?
The flipside of the coin is that reg changes equalises the competition because its a clean sheet of paper for everyone.
But yes, constant rule changes doesn't do much good with cost cutting agenda.
That's a deposit. It's to ensure that teams have sufficient funds to enter the championship but you only have to look at the demise of Super Aguri to look at the financial mess F1 is in. Seems like Torro Rosso is next on the Grim Reaper's list.Quote:
Originally Posted by V12