WhiteBlue wrote:when the customer car concept was viable for Super Aguri and Toro Rosso the value of a team was a lot higher than it is now. with the decision to require the development of an independant new chassis without the chance to use even a year old chassis new teams need to spend most of their cash on that item. I estimate that the bar has just been raised to twice the height that you previously had to jump in terms of initial investment. one should not forget that the most vocal "constructor" entered F1 with a purchased chassis 30 years ago. It looks to me like particular and oligarch commercial interests are being satisfied to erect artificially high entry barriers. F1 should have an interest to have a healthy growth of entrepreneurial teams ready to compete and capable to beat the old guys even in old chassis. instead we will probably get of a string of bancruptcies beginning with Super Aguri. this isn't in the interest of the spectators.
Well, I don't know if
Williams is "the" most vocal constructor (
as labels are cheap and expendable in Formula One) but their relative value has certainly risen sharply in the wake of their opposition to the customer scheme. And of course the time that Patrick Head and Frank Williams will have to secure a sustainable exit from the sport is drawing fairly near. I have a certain sympathy for their viewpoint, as Super Aguri and Scuderia Toro Rosso can hardly approach the value Williams have added in making the sport what it is ... But I also have sympathy with SA and STR for being faced with scaling insurmountable odds, one after the other through no fault of their own.
These diverse interests, of course, are not the easiest of things to fit together, even with the need to keep the platform open and accessible - viable to everyone, that is. My impression is that the powers that be didn't recognise this dilemma in time, i.e. when the sport and the teams began to develop a discernible "history", financial and otherwise (
say, a decade or two from the inception). The ownership of the commercial rights to the sport was separated from dividing resources through immediate sporting success and this is what makes this issue very hard to solve. There's an argument to be made, I guess, that Bernie has put himself in a position where his level of control over the resources prevents him from functioning fully to the best interest of the sport or the teams anymore. The financial geometry has been far removed from reality and perhaps it is only cultural inertia, or the recognition of inevitable change (
and hoping that it will be for the better) that holds this construction together.
Teams and team owners should be compensated for building the success of Formula One with a stake in the commercial rights of the sport, not just an allowance from the proceeds. This stake serves as a reflection of the compounded investment in time and resources to the whole. This compensation, however, should remain separate from resources directed towards the sporting effort to avoid a prohibitive distortion and a barrier to entry. In other words, the teams in their turn should accept full sporting risk from any willing competitors on track.
If customerisation is not feasible or desirable, perhaps the FIA should run an F1 team of their own, outside the constructors' championship. The effort could consist of a couple of motorsport veterans hired to direct an effort by young engineers wanting to show their mettle to other teams (
or wanting to establish a team of their own eventually). I guess the financing is there for the taking, in sponsorship and selling the "FIA F1 car" for teams entering the sport for the first time i.e. they could purchase it only for one or two years for a fixed sum (
non-profit) and also competing outside constructors' points for that time. There should be a limit to how many such teams there could be, probably not more than two at a time. Thus, if such an effort takes off it is quite likely that they'd want to hire at least some of the engineers that developed their first car, thus enabling a successive circulation and entry on all levels (
as opposed to recycling the same people among the teams).
I don't know if there will be many bankruptcies as such as a result of the current situation - just a series of agonising financial plights that risk showing F1 in an increasingly ridiculous light. I agree, this isn't in the interest of the spectators. In fact, it isn't in the interest of very many others either and the disparity between the amount the amount of resources and the amount of people responsible for those resources (
and expectations) is growing. It seems like a thoroughly unnecessary tightrope to walk. By spreading the risk the profits could well exceed the level we're seeing today - by a quite a clear margin. People are accustomed to praising the growth of Formula One as a success story. Reflect F1's success to the growth of the Global economy (
especially the automotive sector and media) and that "success" seems decidedly less stellar by comparison. "Luck" is a curse word in an image driven economy, but perhaps it's time to cut some people down to size before it's too late.
As to the Automoto365 article, it's very interesting, but I'm always reading these with the reservation about Nicolas Todt's "angle" in the events. Perhaps that's too sceptical of me, though. If the report is accurate though, I'm left wondering just why Honda would bother with Nick Fry anymore?
