Thank you BMW!

[BDunnell]

What I find really ironic is that around the world BMW cars are viewed as a "driver's machine", yet BMW doesn't have the motorsport prowess to back up this reputation. BMW's closest competition, Audi and Mercedes, have fared much better in sports.

BMW does — or, at least, did — in touring car racing. Often it's been down to external preparation companies, but it can't be denied that BMW has been highly successful in tin-tops with works-backed programmes.

[Malbec]

Manufacturers can be absolutely astonishing in their incompetence when it comes to motorsport, can't they? In the old days, Ford certainly 'got' motorsport, as had BMC before that, but look at Ford's motorsport record in the last 30 years and it's pretty woeful. Is this the result of bean-counters taking over from motorsport people? Then there are the Japanese, whose efforts either seem to have been brilliant or laughable. My favourite example of all is Nissan with the Sunny GTiR rallying project. Team principal Dave Whittock recalled a few years ago how the Japanese engineers' preparation for the 1991 Safari, the team's first WRC event, largely involved putting cigarette packets in potholes to measure their depth. Then when Whittock told the Nissan bosses that a victory first time out on the Safari was unlikely, they seemed to lose interest in the whole programme.

I don't think you can lump together an entire nation in one grouping. Nissan's recent WRC attempts may have been poor but IIRC they had a Fairlady Z do well in the Safari back in the '70s didn't they? I don't think the Japanese are any better or worse than the Germans or Americans. BMW may not get motorsport but the VW group (when they can be bothered) have done very well with ALMS or F3 and Mercedes have not done badly either.

Frankly for BMW I think the issue comes down to not being very capable dealing closely with an outside party. Their incompetence in this respect is not limited to motorsport. Their takeover of Rover reads like a slapstick comedy while their motorbike division is suffering from appalling quality issues due to increasing reliance on their Chinese suppliers and failure to ensure quality in their partners. Then their choice to take over RR was interesting to say the least when historically Bentleys outsold the luxury marque 3:1.

[Malbec]

BMW does — or, at least, did — in touring car racing. Often it's been down to external preparation companies, but it can't be denied that BMW has been highly successful in tin-tops with works-backed programmes.

At the moment they are presenting themselves as having a strong racing history in motorbikes with their very good S1000RR.

Problem is, its a bit difficult to do so when your last victory on tarmac was back before WW2!

[Malbec]

Do you think Frank Williams would just have given up had he sold out to BMW before being faced with their getting rid of it, then?

Dunno, my comment was more aimed at Sauber's motivation. I don't think he did want to carry on being involved in F1 but came back in for other reasons. Even now he is less involved in the team than he ever was before.

[BDunnell]

I don't think you can lump together an entire nation in one grouping. Nissan's recent WRC attempts may have been poor but IIRC they had a Fairlady Z do well in the Safari back in the '70s didn't they? I don't think the Japanese are any better or worse than the Germans or Americans. BMW may not get motorsport but the VW group (when they can be bothered) have done very well with ALMS or F3 and Mercedes have not done badly either.

Hence why I didn't say that Japanese efforts were all bad. Datsun, of course, was hugely successful in rallying, especially on the African events, for some time. Toyota's rallying exploits were exceptional. So much of this has been down to setting up European-based competition arms, of course, but very few manufacturers of any nationality have run truly in-house motorsport efforts for a long time. Set against these positive examples, though, are those occasions when — it seems to me — there has been a peculiarly poor influence on the part of Japanese manufacturers when the bosses have attempted to gain too much influence and simply not understood what was required.

[wedge]

Their ALMS V8 'M3' racer where they refused to build a homologation road special and pulled out after winning the championship but before the deadline for selling the required number of cars was IMO one of the worst attempts at corporate cheating that I can remember.

You mean the E46 M3 GTR?



BMW did nothing wrong from what I remember. They satisfied the homologation rules at the time which was to homologate within the year, which they eventually did.

Porsche moaned and played the "not within the spirit of the rules (of GT racing)" card because they didn't want to get into another arms race after coming back off GT racing of the mid-late 1990s - which, funnily enough, was instigated by Porsche who took the urine/exploited the rules.

For 2002 the rules were changed and BMW quit because they couldn't/wouldn't satisfy the homologatation rules in time then that's their business.

[jens]

Good insightful posts and thoughts here.

As a longstanding Sauber fan I'm ecstatic that the team has scored its first podium since they got rid of BMW.

It is quite amazing to think that this was perhaps the first time in the long history of Sauber F1 team, when they had genuine race-winning pace! In any case P2 is their best ever result, discounting BMW's period. And looking at BMW's period, they never really had genuine race-winning pace either, while the Canadian GP win was a bit fortunate.

[philipbain]

The thing I found really galling about BMW's management of Sauber was in 2008 when BMW-Sauber had produced a competitive car and won the Canadian GP. With a stated goal of winning a race achieved the BMW Management decided that it would practically cease it's effort in 2008 and concentrate it's resources on going the next step in 2009. Where this approach may work in Sports Car Racing where big manufacturer teams are competing mainly against privateer outfits with limited resources and budgets, it should be learnt that in F1 to stand still is to go backwards! This was further compounded by the fact that BMW-Sauber's 2009 car was distinctly average and lacked the innovation of rivals such as Brawn which led to a season playing catch up. It's inconceivable that a true racing team would give up a shot at a championship just because a pre-determined goal had been achieved and is the reason why the big car companies should keep F1 programs at arms length, let the experts run it, they can throw as much money as they like at it, just don't let them try and actually run it!

[N4D13]

philipbain, I understand your post, but I don't really think BMW had a chance to win either championship in 2008. Kubica managed to lead it mostly due to LH and KR's mistakes, but it doesn't mean that the BMW was THAT good. They only won the Canadian GP and that was only thanks to Hamilton going banzai on Räikkönen while Kovalainen and Massa had very poor races. I would understand their decision if they wanted to focus on having a championship-winning car in 2009, although seeing what a dog they had the next year, I wonder whether they started putting resources into its 2009 car or just stopped funding their F1 effort altogether.

[jens]

To deepen into the issue a bit, one problem with 2008 BMW Sauber was that although it was initially fast, it was complicated and difficult to develop, like the 2011 Renault. I think if BMW management saw genuine potential in the car and hence genuine shot at the world championship, they would have gone for it. But at that moment they had to make a difficult choice - go on with a car they won't get any further, or concentrate on a clean sheet design with which to attack.