Will Ferrari's communication director ever stop moaning?

[WhiteBlue]

From the Autosport interview.

Q. The Virgin brand is very strong and known for hard work but also fun. How much will that live on in Formula 1?

RB: I don't think we would have got involved if we didn't think we could do that. There is a fun group of people working together to create a great new team and a great new car. I think they have already proved the sceptics wrong, to show that a car can be produced within a budget – a very, very reasonable budget – and it is a very good quality car. This is just the beginning.

Every other car that is on the grid has had literally years and years of input to get a car to that stage. This car has had just over six months input to get to this stage – with no advantages whatsoever. And I think we are going to have a lot of fun proving that it can be done within that kind of budget.

I think it will be interesting – and will show the other F1 teams that they could reduce their budgets to the £40 million cap that was planned for this year but has been delayed. And have just as much fun – you don't need to spend hundreds of millions to have fun. You can do it within a cap of 40 million and people can have just as much fun – and it will be just as exciting out there on the grid.

Q. Speaking of fun, there has been a little bit of a war of words between you and Tony Fernandes. Have you got your air stewardess' outfit ready?

RB: I am going to measure him up today to make sure we get the most fetching outfit for him!

Q. What was your reaction when you see statements like the one from Ferrari belittling the new teams coming into F1?

RB: I think that it is a bit sad to see Ferrari carrying on with those kinds of words. F1 needs new teams, and Ferrari won the battle of making sure the new teams were shackled. For testing, we built a new car and we are going to have to have exactly the same amount of practice time as Brawn or Ferrari or the others, who have had years and years and years to get their cars to a certain stage. We are not complaining about it, and we are happy to go on with it, but Ferrari should be welcoming new teams because they make the sport much more exciting.

And we will make them look better for a year or two until we catch them up. Ultimately, I think the new teams will give Ferrari a run for their money and I think will make the sport more exciting – particularly as the budgets come down to more realistic levels.

Branson confirms what was pretty obvious in the meantime. Ferrari/FOTA delayed the budget/resource cap by their politicking. It is obvious that F1 needs new teams. And it is clear that the new teams are now competing on much harder rules. The established teams can practically use unlimited accumulated wealth on top of having hugely bigger resources and experience. One should keep that in mind and take Ferrari's politicking for what it is. Selfish tweaking of the rules against the common good of F1.

[Fil]

One should keep that in mind and take Ferrari's politicking for what it is. Selfish tweaking of the rules against the common good of F1.

So you would expect a driver leading the championship to let other drivers through for 'the common good of F1'?

This is a business. it is in Ferrari's/McLaren's/Mercedes' best interests to keep every single competitive advantage they currently have (and have built over the past 20yrs).

Just like each driver will hold onto & extend their championship lead at every opportunity.
Teams & drivers don't care about the good of F1. They care about their job of winning the world championship. You can't ask/expect anything else of them.

[WhiteBlue]

One should keep that in mind and take Ferrari's politicking for what it is. Selfish tweaking of the rules against the common good of F1.

So you would expect a driver leading the championship to let other drivers through for 'the common good of F1'?

This is a business. it is in Ferrari's/McLaren's/Mercedes' best interests to keep every single competitive advantage they currently have (and have built over the past 20yrs).

Just like each driver will hold onto & extend their championship lead at every opportunity.
Teams & drivers don't care about the good of F1. They care about their job of winning the world championship. You can't ask/expect anything else of them.

Yep, but the fans and the regulator need to see it for what it is. It is no good for F1 if the grid dwindles down to two or three top teams and a bunch of satellites or third cars. I guess we all want to see broad competition and much variety in F1. This automatically means that all teams must compete with restricted resources for a while until we have a stronger field. F1 teams aren't independent companies. They run franchises which are set up in the framework of the championship. The framework should be controlled by the FiA for the common good of the sport. At the moment it means expansion and restriction of established teams to fewer resources. It is agreed and Ferrari should stop bitching.

[Fil]

Yeah i agree with you WB (except for the stop bitching part - i love hearing honest non-corporate talk from teams!).

The necessity in creating FOTA with power over rule-making decisions (due to the FIA's inability to create well-developed rules & regs), has created a conflict of interests (teams developing rules to protect their position over the interests of the sport & new competitors).

If this job was being done right by the FIA in the first place, there would never be any need for FOTA & we wouldn't have this conflict, between new & established teams, today.

[Mr Alcatraz]

One should keep that in mind and take Ferrari's politicking for what it is. Selfish tweaking of the rules against the common good of F1.

So you would expect a driver leading the championship to let other drivers through for 'the common good of F1'?

This is a business. it is in Ferrari's/McLaren's/Mercedes' best interests to keep every single competitive advantage they currently have (and have built over the past 20yrs).

Just like each driver will hold onto & extend their championship lead at every opportunity.
Teams & drivers don't care about the good of F1. They care about their job of winning the world championship. You can't ask/expect anything else of them.

Not to split hairs,
Fil wrote:

This is a business. it is in Ferrari's/McLaren's/Mercedes' best interests to keep every single competitive advantage

This is a little pet peeve of mine.
I agree with what you stated!I feel a necessity to add a caveat!
F1 like all real sports is a competition first, and then a business.
Without a presented competition extodinaire, you cannot, and will not
maintain a successful business upon it.
I think that is the complaint by Ferrari. And, yes it is a little bitchy,
to say nothing of the fact that they are one of a few teams that can afford to field a truly competitive team!

[timbo]

If Ferrari and McLaren are able to sustain a business model that enables them to have a competitive team, is it their fault or something?
Funny that Branson mentions Brawn. Guess what, why he didn't buy a stake in it and be a part of competitive team? He had a great publicity last year for ridiculous amount of money, what he complains now?

[Fil]

If Ferrari and McLaren are able to sustain a business model that enables them to have a competitive team, is it their fault or something?

Exactly, common mentality seems to be to penalise the successful teams for achieving what all the other teams strive for..

To claim Ferrari as 'bitchy' or 'moaning' for them trying to protect their own vested interests seems out of line to me. what could possibly be expected of them or any leading team??

This is a business. it is in Ferrari's/McLaren's/Mercedes' best interests to keep every single competitive advantage they currently have (and have built over the past 20yrs).

This is a little pet peeve of mine.
I agree with what you stated!I feel a necessity to add a caveat!
F1 like all real sports is a competition first, and then a business.

Tazio, i understand the sentiment. i think you interpreted my post differently.
The teams are businesses - i was referring to the Ferrari team as a business in F1.

[Mr Alcatraz]

This is a business. it is in Ferrari's/McLaren's/Mercedes' best interests to keep every single competitive advantage they currently have (and have built over the past 20yrs).

This is a little pet peeve of mine.
I agree with what you stated!I feel a necessity to add a caveat!
F1 like all real sports is a competition first, and then a business.
Tazio, i understand the sentiment. i think you interpreted my post differently.
The teams are businesses - i was referring to the Ferrari team as a business in F1.

I understand!
I was agreeing with you!
Just adding something that many people forget!
I think Ferrari/McLaren's/Mercedes and I'll through Williams in there
don't want their sport dragged down to mediocrity by adding at once several
fledgling teams, with questionable solvency!
And now that you mention it, it really isn't moaning at all.
It's a registered statement of an opposition to the direction
the sport (they perceive maybe) is heading.

[horse]

If Ferrari and McLaren are able to sustain a business model that enables them to have a competitive team, is it their fault or something?

I think this is a measure of how we, the watching public, wish to see success measured. This is the same issue in football. Does spending your way to success benefit the sport as a whole? I would say, no, as only a few can afford to spend enough to compete.

This is the main issue with sport as business. Business markets tend to favour a few, it's very rarely that wealth is distributed among all the players. Once it was Williams commanding all the cash, now it's McLaren, Ferarri, Red Bull. It's still a limited number in a large field.

F1 has the opportunity to, by restricting budgets, rebalance the means to succeed from spending power to human ingenuity, which personally I think makes a better sport.

[timbo]

F1 has the opportunity to, by restricting budgets, rebalance the means to succeed from spending power to human ingenuity, which personally I think makes a better sport.

Money without ingenuity means nothing. We all could've seen it with Honda before Brawn arrived, Toyota and earlier Prost (they had quite a hefty budget at their time) etc.

In the long run, equalized spending may yield much more interesting competition, but it can't be enforced in such a short time! For the better part of '00s Max and Bernie did all they could to draw smaller teams away from the sport and to prevent smaller teams from entering, so the fact that only established and well financed teams stayed is not a teams fault!

And once again, had Gascoyn said it - fine, but Branson? What a joke...
Ask him to give all his money to charity and start over again!

[Mr Alcatraz]

If Ferrari and McLaren are able to sustain a business model that enables them to have a competitive team, is it their fault or something?

I think this is a measure of how we, the watching public, wish to see success measured. This is the same issue in football. Does spending your way to success benefit the sport as a whole? I would say, no, as only a few can afford to spend enough to compete.

This is the main issue with sport as business. Business markets tend to favour a few, it's very rarely that wealth is distributed among all the players. Once it was Williams commanding all the cash, now it's McLaren, Ferarri, Red Bull. It's still a limited number in a large field.

F1 has the opportunity to, by restricting budgets, rebalance the means to succeed from spending power to human ingenuity, which personally I think makes a better sport.

Yes!
But in football the teams that fail get relegated to a lower league!
If F1 had a feeder series it would be a whole different ballgame.
Teams that entered F1 would have already excelled at the level directly below them.
As things stand now this would be very helpful.
And a maximum of two should be added until an ideal field (26 max imo) is
reached.
After that only one, with sponsorship given at its own peril!

[autogyro]

So far almost all of the posts about Ferrari moans are completely off the mark.
One thing is absolutely true about the press release statement of Montezemelo.
It was an absolute and provable lie.
ALL of the manufacturer teams that left F1 are on Official record as leaving F1 because of financial problems. Ferrari state that this was not the case.
Sour grapes, because they know full well they cannot build a winning car without five times the money of any other team.

[Mr Alcatraz]

Sour grapes, because they know full well they cannot build a winning car without five times the money of any other team.

And this is a provable statement?

[timbo]

Sour grapes, because they know full well they cannot build a winning car without five times the money of any other team.

No wonder they didn't win 2009, they would need what... 2 billions?

[Mr Alcatraz]

Sour grapes, because they know full well they cannot build a winning car without five times the money of any other team.

No wonder they didn't win 2009, they would need what... 2 billions?

Why should McL' spend as much as Ferrari when they can just steal 700+ pages of IP?