ME4ME wrote:I think it's like you say, both companies have no appetite for it. That's what's so frustrating, the stubbornness in F1.
No team, manufacturer, or any other party is willing to put an effort into what's good for F1, although it's hard to blame them.
The issue of responsibility to either Mercedes or Ferrari is a non starter in my view.
The whole saga stems from Red Bull's stubbornness to accept Renault in the new PU era. And the fact that Honda have not being approached at all, indicates this is not just about getting an engine, but the best engine.
So if we speak about what is good for F1, is it good that a team can effectively blackmail the entire sport with a quit threat if it does not receive "the best engines"?
I can imagine that Force India, Sauber, Ferrari, Mercedes, Williams and Manor will not blink an eye should Red Bull quit.
The reasons are not only numerous but profound.
Exiting FOTA to make the RRA an irrelevance and thereby increasing the expenditure to compete.
I think that a few years ago we had FOTA operating in a very good way,” said Fernley in a press conference today. “It was a consolidated approach, it was well stewarded by (then McLaren team principal) Martin Whitmarsh, we were in joint negotiations with CVC at the time to obviously renegotiate those contracts and everything else”.
“Unfortunately, and I say that because obviously Christian is here, Red Bull felt the need to take the forty pieces of silver. And that was the downside, I think, for Formula One, and I don’t think we’ve recovered from that particular action.”
They did their own thing. Where was the health of the sport an objective here? It was self interest.
As was the reasoning behind leaving FOTA, which officially lay at FOTA being"irrelevant". But on closer inspection was due to mandatory audits to ensure adherence to the RRA.
http://www.motorsport.com/f1/news/f1-au ... f1-budget/
Earlier this year, boss Christian Horner denied claims the team flouted the FOTA-governed cost savings agreement by as much as EUR 60 million in 2010. Autosprint said the suspicion is that Red Bull broke the agreement by filing contentious information about its structure and workforce. The magazine cited "sources" in claiming Red Bull figures have attempted to stop the Capgemini audit because it is an "invasion of privacy" requiring the release of "sensitive data"
Again evidence of self interest. In the general context of "self interest", every team has it. From Mercedes and their secret tyre test(FIA approved...), to Ferrari and their veto/special deal(bernie approved..)
But then Ferrari and Mercedes do not make demands of supply or threaten to quit, and then cite the health of the sport as their objective.
They ditch their supplier(self interest), and it becomes Ferrari and Mercedes responsibility to be "good" for F1 and start a supply?
That's a little contrary wouldn't you say?
