Post here all non technical related topics about Formula One. This includes race results, discussions, testing analysis etc. TV coverage and other personal questions should be in Off topic chat.
CHT wrote:In view of the current situation where teams like FI and Lotus are delaying the announcement of drivers line up, i am just wonder if FIA should impose a dateline (much like football) for team to confirmed their driver line up within a certain time frame so that drivers will not be forced into making a unfavorable decision due to the lack of options late in the season.
No. (Why do I have to use four letters?)
“Strange women lying in ponds distributing swords is no basis for a system of government. Supreme executive power derives from a mandate from the masses, not from some farcical aquatic ceremony!” Monty Python and the Holy Grail
CHT wrote:I would disagree though. At any one time, there will always be more drivers than seats available. So if a team drag the negotiation till late in the season, drivers will have very little or no choice but to agree on whatever terms teams throw at them. FI is a classic example.
There are 11 other teams on the grid with whom the driver can negotiate.
Bernie should take a good hard look at the NFL in the US. The NFL has the highest per-game attendance of any domestic professional sports league in the world.
CHT wrote:I would disagree though. At any one time, there will always be more drivers than seats available. So if a team drag the negotiation till late in the season, drivers will have very little or no choice but to agree on whatever terms teams throw at them. FI is a classic example.
There are 11 other teams on the grid with whom the driver can negotiate.
Yes, but...
Can we agree that the consensus is that not the best available drivers get the best available seats?
If so, do you also agree that this is bad for the sport (not the business, mind you) and should be changed somewhat at least?
No smartphone was involved in creating this message.
A comparison. F1 generates roughly a billion dollars in revenue a year from what I've been able to glean. The NFL generates 9 billion in revenue. F1 currently has 19 races, the NFL has 4 pre-season games, 16 regular season games, 3 playoff round games. The NFL has 32 teams that compete, while F1 has 11 teams or 22 cars.
The average NFL franchise is worth 1.17B dollars, while the value of F1 varies considerably. To help my overseas friends, the average value of the top 20 soccer teams around the world is roughly $968M USD.
Revenue in NFL is on average $271M a year, while F1 as I understand it, will end 2013 such that if revenue was split evenly among the top 9 teams, that would equate to $39.5M each.
The teams in 2013 will make:
Red Bull - $107,157,916.67
Mercedes - $96,481,666.67
Ferrari - $104,055,416.67
Lotus - $78,687,916.67
McLaren - $75,129,166.67
Force India - $71,570,416.67
Sauber - $64,452,916.67
Toro Rosso - $60,894,166.67
Williams - $57,355,416,67
Marussia - $14,235,000.00
Caterham - $0.00
The disparity between Williams and Red Bull or Ferrari is staggering: nearly 2:1.
Now there is a theory in sports, that within a league, increasing competitiveness across teams increases total net revenue. This makes sense as most teams have a regional base, and thus can draw upon regional support that is boosted by increasing league competitiveness. Could this not be also true of F1 teams, who while largely based in the UK, draw upon their respective fan bases (ie. the Tifosi)? If so, it would make sense to make changes in F1 based on increasing competitiveness.
1. All teams should be treated equally. This means that a first-year team should be eligible for full prize money in F1, and also that Ferrari should not receive a special subsidy for being Ferrari. Nor should travel for the top-X teams be subsidized.
2. New talent should be allocated by reverse performance from the prior year. In the NFL, this is the draft system, in which players who want to enter the League register for the draft and then can be selected by any of the teams. The order in which teams select players is based on reverse-performance from the prior year. The selected player need not sign a contract with the team who drafted him, but he cannot play for any other team for at least two years. After two years in the league, a driver would be free to leave teams and go where he wishes.
3. Salary cap. This initially seems like a perverse, anti-free-market idea, but in reality, the salary cap allows teams with less financial resources to remain competitive without the will to win escalating into a spending war. Yes, the resource restriction agreements have helped in F1, but we need more. All personnel in F1 should have salary caps, including drivers, team principals, car designers, etc. The ultimate idea behind the salary cap is that teams like Williams will be able to afford a designer like Adrian Newey and get them back into competitive form.
4. Revenue sharing. F1 awards revenue in a complicated formula that basically results in a 2:1 disparity between first-place and last-place teams. Instead, revenue should be allocated such that the disparity between first and last is much less. This would allow teams that slip one year to recover the next.
5. Pre-season / testing. The ban on testing and the limited number of test days has not served to control costs in F1, but instead results in teams that are farther behind unable to ever make up ground on the top teams. The NFL plays 4 games before the season starts; during this time potential players can be tested, new formations and plays experimented with, and not have to worry about the results. F1 should either consider 1 or 2 pre-season races or more testing. Furthermore, if testing is to be limited, allow a reverse-performance allocation of test-days to the teams. Thus Marussia and Williams would get to test significantly more than Red Bull.
These are just some of my thoughts. My feeling is that while F1 globally may never surpass the US's NFL's revenue, certainly if you believe my main thesis that increasing competitiveness results in increased revenue, F1 could take a number of steps to address the competitiveness issues currently plaguing the Formula.
Whilst I agree that there are some good suggestions there, and that F1 should be looking at other sports for its business model. I am of the opinion that F1 will always be a dysfunctional being whilst Ecclestone/CVC partners are milking it for all it is worth, and that the team cooperate as well as a sack full of cats.
I like your idea about the pre season races, maybe the FIA should reinstate non-championship races that they used to have in the 50/60's
F1 has always been a survival of the fittest, whether that is the best driver, car, budget, politics.
So while it might be nice to cushion drivers looking for seats and have a cosy prize system we would lose the point of F1 as the race series where drivers and teams are most exposed to failure.
I've always wondered what attracts sponsors to certain drivers in the first place. Why, for example, is PDVSA sticking with Maldonado, despite the fact that he's probably the most unpopular driver on the grid at the moment and with questionable performance? Yes, I know he's Venezuelan, but surely PDVSA would get far, far better return by switching to a driver such as Hulkenburg. He's popular, a big talking point, got loads of talent and teams would fight over him (if he had more money). With him, they'd get more coverage because of the better results, and that coverage would be more positive. With Maldonado... they might get some coverage, but what coverage they do get tends to be negative quite a lot of the time (ie. Maldonado's stuck it in the wall, got another penalty, insulting the team, etc). The only link I can see is his nationality. Surely, from a business perspective, it'd make so much sense to start sponsoring Hulkenburg instead?
richard_leeds wrote:F1 has always been a survival of the fittest, whether that is the best driver, car, budget, politics.
So while it might be nice to cushion drivers looking for seats and have a cosy prize system we would lose the point of F1 as the race series where drivers and teams are most exposed to failure.
Not exactly. I am fine with survival of the fittest in terms of driver, car, and budget...but POLITICS? I get enough politics on CNN. I watch F1 for the amazing cars and the competition. As I have just learned this season about the Ferrari special status, I am pretty disappointed.
Even if a team like Marussia builds a better car, they are placed at a competitive disadvantage not only because they have a smaller budget but because they don't get a travel subsidy, or a Ferrari subsidy, or a veto on new rules. It is a lot like the WWE. It looks like a competition, but the winners have been all but chosen.
I remembered reading something about this so did some googling and found it. In April Eclestone said that he has dumped the $10 million so Caterham may be in more trouble than you would think from the recent articles
<We pay the top ten, that’s what we do. For three years we did something different because we had an agreement with Max but from now on we will pay the top ten and that is it.> http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/mark ... float.html
Have you read your own signature? Especially the second point... 