Ecclestone blames Mosley for new teams’ problems

[andrew]

http://motorsport.nextgen-auto.com/Eccl ... blems.html

http://www.crash.net/f1/news/165328/1/e ... fault.html

MrE's bump on the head has clearly not affected his judgement and he is spot-on as usual.

It is a joke MrM promising the newer teams they can compete in F1 at a cut price (£30 million) and lo-and-behold the cut price F1 doesn't happen and these new teams are tootling around at the blunt end of the grid.

[myurr]

I don't think that the mistakes over the budgets were the worst of it. The FIA's and Mosley's biggest mistake was the unreasonable time frames they gave the teams to make their preparations. The grandee teams would have been working on their 2010 cars for countless months before the FIA chose which new teams it would allow in F1, giving them precious little time to pull together technical resources and personnel all whilst racing against the clock to design and build an F1 car from scratch with no previous IP.

The teams should have been selected and announced 6 months earlier than they were.

[autogyro]

Hind sight is a wonderful convenience.
I wonder how many new teams would have signed up if the budget had been 100 million. If non, would F1 still exist as it is or would there be 22 red cars.

[WhiteBlue]

Another typical 180° turn by Bernie. Last month he said they needed to get rid of the cripples. Now he praises at least Lotus and potentially Virgin as a success. Bernie's position at any time is simply what is going to cost him less money. As part of the deal for the new teams he agreed on some hefty payment to these teams. The money will soon leave his coffers and he is crying and in tears about it.

F1 does not need Ferrari to run three or four cars. The grid should be filled with new teams when a vacancy arises. Mosley saw an opportunity and it turned into reality. It is not perfect but what do you expect in the middle of a global crisis?

[andrew]

The new teams are cripples. Look at HRT - ruddy amatuer hour there, and Virgin isn't much better. At least Lotus have made a half decent effort. This whole budget cap was always going to be a total load and just demonstrated MrM's war on the manufacturers. Asking a team spending 100 million to drop to 30 million is just ridiculous whatever the time scale.

Bernie's position at any time is simply what is going to cost him less money.

What do you expect? He's a business man so will say/do whatever is best for his business.

As for the 3/4 car teams, it makes complete and utter sense. By allowing new teams to effectivly hire a chassis from, say, Ferrari or McLaren allows the new team to make a cash saving on developiong said chassis or even a car. It would make less strain on a small new teams finances and would allow them to spend wisely on areas which will stop them appearing as "cripples".

The "cripples" comment was accurate but I think most observers read too much into it in their desperation to bash MrE. It was basically a hoof up the backside of the new teams to get them to up their game. The only way to improve is not to sit and say "oh you did x, y and z well" but to say "you were terrible at a, b and c - up your game or you'll be out". MrE was being cruel to be kind in his "cripples" comment.

[Florio]

I don't think you can blame Mosley, as the only reason why the budgets weren't restricted was due to the teams alledged pull out for the following season.

[MugenHonda]

The idea of F1 is to have new blood in the sport. Remember in the 70's 80's and the early 90's there was many new teams that were small and couldnt surive. Virgin is the only team to be using only CFD, ok it didnt work but for next year it might.

[xpensive]

WB has a point, btw welcome back with your new found eloquence, however not from the angle from where I see things;

It's about what Formula One is thought out to be, both MrE and MrM welcomed the manufacturers some years back, but when the same manufacturers tried to get more value from their money invested, things became difficult to xpress it mildly.

- You want F1 to be the pinnacle of motorsport with money-guzzling factory support, squeezing out the privateers?
Bring back the big dogs.

- You want F1 to be a safe haven for cheerful amateurs and dilettants, budget- and resource-cap all the way with a no-development bar on just about everything. A spec series ala MrM if you wish.
Bring back Andrea Sasetti and you've got it.

I think MrE is stuck in between somehow, the "cripples" are what makes the stars look good, just like in Hollywood,
but at the same time, they are perhaps deluting the value of the spectacle?

[WhiteBlue]

There is no simple black and white solution to the problem of balancing manufacturers, big brand backed private outfits like Red Bull or small privateer constructors. To balance all those forces and interests a careful compromise must be found in the democratic system of the F1 commission and the 2009 concord agreement. That is not a simple thing.

The good news is that these parties managed to agree to a RRA which will now stretch to 2017. This is a stable regulation for the chassis side of things. Unfortunately we don't know the provisions about engines in the RRA. One has to assume that they are much less elaborate and that there is fundamental potential for conflict.

The recent stalling of the 2013 engine talks are an indication that the teams are not capable of finding a solution at this time. In the end they will find a solution that will be acceptable to manufacturers. The teams also want the factories to be in F1. They just don't want them to outspend them and put them out of business. That is legitimate.

The question of new teams is settled for the moment and if any of the existing teams fail the earliest new team selection will be for 2012. It is obvious that teams need a budget of more than $30m in the age of twenty races with the majority being global fly aways. IMO it is not sensible to exclude any officially admitted teams from the transport compensation. This may have been reasonable when the championship was almost totally based in Europe and you had three or four fly aways. Nowadays the majority are fly aways and seven out of eleven are super long haul Asian/Australian flights.

Bernie will always try to protect the money he makes but the fans should know what is in their best interest. The more teams you have the more drivers have a chance. So a mechanism must be found to keep the number of teams above ten and close to the maximum of thirteen. If it means that the banks make a little less money it would be a small price for diversity and opportunities in F1.

[andrew]

WB has a point, btw welcome back with your new found eloquence, however not from the angle from where I see things;

It's about what Formula One is thought out to be, both MrE and MrM welcomed the manufacturers some years back, but when the same manufacturers tried to get more value from their money invested, things became difficult to xpress it mildly.

- You want F1 to be the pinnacle of motorsport with money-guzzling factory support, squeezing out the privateers?
Bring back the big dogs.

- You want F1 to be a safe haven for cheerful amateurs and dilettants, budget- and resource-cap all the way with a no-development bar on just about everything. A spec series ala MrM if you wish.
Bring back Andrea Sasetti and you've got it.

I think MrE is stuck in between somehow, the "cripples" are what makes the stars look good, just like in Hollywood,
but at the same time, they are perhaps deluting the value of the spectacle?

I think MrM want to have his cake and eat it.

[Giblet]

F1 has always had, and always will have backmarkers. Someone has to be quick, and someone has to to be slow.

The fact we have 3 new duos of backmarkers means that pervious backmarkers like MinardiSTR and such have moved up to the midfield, and become 'real' teams.

These new teams mean the sport has advanced, but Bernie can't see the forest for the trees.

[WhiteBlue]

These new teams mean the sport has advanced, but Bernie can't see the forest for the trees.

I rather suspect that he pretends not to see. The old bugger is much too intelligent not to see the truth, but everything he says publicly is part of his propaganda to maximize profit. It seldom has anything to do with the reality as seen by the fans.

[Tamburello]

How much money can you have before it's enough? Btw the new teams are doing a fine job in the circumstances. If they can stay afloat for two or three more years they're going to be right in the mix of the midfield.

[ecapox]

The blame cannot be placed on one person or team. MrM, MrE, and the big budget teams all share in the responsibility of how crappy the new teams are.

MrM gave them basically no time to form a true team that can compete
MrE bashes them when the opportunity arises, which doesnt help sponsor $$
The Big budget teams agreed to restrict spending to amounts that were unreasonable

Now, at the same time, a team that wanted to be more than a backmarker would have seen all these things and ran the opposite direction. Instead the new teams are headed by business men that are looking to make money, not necesarily win. Sure, they make more money by doing better, but they will also have to spend more. Im guessing here, but i'd say that your ROI is a lot smaller when you are up front with the Ferrari, RedBull, McLaren, etc. than it is if you are with Lotus, Virgin, etc. So they enter, hope to not be dead last, spend as little as possible, and make decent money. THAT is the real problem.

[donskar]

How much money can you have before it's enough? Btw the new teams are doing a fine job in the circumstances. If they can stay afloat for two or three more years they're going to be right in the mix of the midfield.

You've said a lot more there than you might know: after 3 or 4 years of hard work and huge expenditures the new teams will go from hopeless to uncompetitive?

One answer: allow one-car teams using chassis bought from another competitor. It worked in the days of March, Hesketh, Wolf, and others, including a team named Williams.