Spyker launch arbitration

[ioan]

It's started, let's see what it gives.

http://www.autosport.com/news/report.php/id/57540

[Hawkmoon]

I can understand Spyker's point of view but considering the 2008 regulations allow customer cars isn't all this somewhat futile?

[tinchote]

I can understand Spyker's point of view but considering the 2008 regulations allow customer cars isn't all this somewhat futile?

The 2008 regulations should be that, the 2008 regulations. Not 2007 regulations. Unfortunately, because this is just a big business and not a sport, nothing will happen as F1 cannot risk losing 4 cars.

[PSfan]

Man do I love this BS...

Team boss Colin Kolles made it clear at the weekend that he was adamant that only constructors should be eligible for points in F1.

"We have a constructors' championship, and I repeat that: a constructors' championship," he told reporters. "So you have this defined in the Concorde Agreement. It is in singular and you must manufacture your car. This qualifies you to be a constructor."

Guess that was the reason Midland dropped the idea of running a Dallara designed and built chassis:

Late in 2004 the nascent Midland team announced that Dallara would be designing and building their Formula One chassis which was due to be entered for the 2006 season.

Considering this hoopla is coming from a team that almost started life out buying essentially customer cars, it screams of irony and hypocrisy.

[ioan]

Man do I love this BS...

Guess that was the reason Midland dropped the idea of running a Dallara designed and built chassis:

Considering this hoopla is coming from a team that almost started life out buying essentially customer cars, it screams of irony and hypocrisy.

F1 is all about hypocrisy, they all try to push the limits of the rules and get offended when others do it.

I bet that Torro Rosso and Super Aguri knew what they were doing and were given very good legal advice about it. Koles should be looking ahead for some bad news coming his way.

I wonder why Williams isn't doing anything, for now. Maybe they wait to see what it gives, if Spyker win than It's good for Williams too, if they don't than there is no use to do it!

[ArrowsFA1]

I quickly read the title of the thread and thought another team had taken Spyker to arbitration over the launch of their car Perhaps I should get more sleep : nore:

[FreshF1]

It's all about the money...It's all about the dum dum du du dum dum...

[tinchote]

Man do I love this BS...



Guess that was the reason Midland dropped the idea of running a Dallara designed and built chassis:



Considering this hoopla is coming from a team that almost started life out buying essentially customer cars, it screams of irony and hypocrisy.

From what you said, they did drop the idea. Then why wouldn't they complain about others doing it, taking into account that it is not permitted by the rules?

[ioan]

Thinking of it I think that Midland didn't drop the Dallara chassis idea because of the rules, after all they could have bought the intellectual rights for the chassis as Super Aguri did last year with the Arrows chassis.
Midland must have dropped the Dallara chassis for other reasons. Competitiveness, money?

[Gannex]

I wonder why Williams isn't doing anything, for now.

I think it's just a matter of time before Williams join the litigation, ioan. There is one matter still under consideration by Williams, and that is the question of whether Red Bull should be joined as well, on the theory that both their car and Scuderia Toro Rosso's car are manufactured, according to the teams themselves, by a third party.

Hawkmoon, you suggest that it is pointless to litigate the matter when customer cars will be legal next year in any case. But that point is not conceded by Williams. The company has claimed that the 2008 Concorde Agreement terms regarding customer cars have not been fixed yet; so it is far from clear that customer cars will be legal in '08, though it has to be said that Max Mosley and others at the FIA have said repeatedly that they will be. But whatever the FIA might opine on the matter, the law is not the law until it has been signed, sealed and delivered by the FIA, something that is quite a long way off. And the question of customer car provisions from 2008 onwards, being under dispute, is a question unlikely to be settled until the last minute.

I would add, Hawkmoon, that even assuming, for the sake of argument, that customer cars will be legal in 2008, it is still worth arguing their illegality in 2007 because there is a lot of TV money at stake. Williams and Spyker spend millions on research, development and manufacture of their cars; Scuderia Toro Rosso and Super Aguri are able to spend far, far less. Is it not fair that the actual constructors should be the only ones to share in 2007's constructor points-related TV revenue, especially since that is what the current Concorde Agreement clearly implies?

So everything remains to be played for in this dispute, as I see it. I'm glad Williams and Spyker are keeping the issue alive. Everyone wants stability in the sport but I, for one, don't want stability if it comes at the cost of destroying F1's status as a design competition as well as a racing competition.