Nick Fry has urged F1 to focus its attention of enticing car manufacturers to the sport, saying costs mean privateers struggle to survive.
The downfall and demise of Super Aguri prior to the Turkish GP weekend means that just ten teams remaining in this year's Championship, four of which are privateers: Williams, Force India, Red Bull and Toro Rosso.
However, the latter's position on the grid is in jeopardy after Red Bull owner Dietrich Mateschitz announced that he was selling his share in the team.
Rule changes in 2010 mean that Red Bull, Toro Rosso's sister team, will no longer be able to provide Toro Rosso with custom cars and so Matechitz reckons there is no need to run two teams.
Should the sale not go ahead it could mean the F1 grid would drop to just nine teams, however, Fry believes the sport should focus on getting manufacturers to replace the out-going privateers and not bring in more independent outfits.
"The first question to answer is, 'Is F1 any place for a not-very-well funded privateer team?'" he told Autosport magazine.
"In this sport, there is a history of teams working at the margins that invariably fall off the bottom, and I think it will ever be so.
"The real mission for F1 is to attract a Volkswagen, an Audi or another big consumer business into the sport and not attempt to bring in more privateers, who may end up in the same position as teams like Arrows and Prost.
"Privateer teams enter on the basis that they can afford the first season - but invariably can't generate the revenue to continue into their second or third years.
"If you can't afford to compete, you shouldn't be here."
If Honda continues to struggle will they stay in F1? I can understand why manufacturers would want be in F1 and I also understand why manufacturers would opt not to be in F1. Audi has won the biggest and greatest race in world (24 Hours of Le Mans) 7x in last 8 years. While also dominating endurance sports car racing since 2000. They've also taken what they learn and developed roadcar. Why would Audi want spend more money on F1 program that may or maynot have same success as their sports car program? I see the Porsche-Volkswagen Group sticking to sports car racing.
If Honda continues to struggle will they stay in F1? I can understand why manufacturers would want be in F1 and I also understand why manufacturers would opt not to be in F1. Audi has won the biggest and greatest race in world (24 Hours of Le Mans) 7x in last 8 years. While also dominating endurance sports car racing since 2000. They've also taken what they learn and developed roadcar. Why would Audi want spend more money on F1 program that may or maynot have same success as their sports car program? I see the Porsche-Volkswagen Group sticking to sports car racing.
I agree with all of this, but all it indicates to me is that F1 should step up it's pursuit of more manufacturers as teams.
Here is a stupid question. Is there a rule that limits teams to 2 cars? I mean if Red Bull wanted to field 4 cars instead of two and dissolve Toro Rosso could they do that legally?
Here is a stupid question. Is there a rule that limits teams to 2 cars? I mean if Red Bull wanted to field 4 cars instead of two and dissolve Toro Rosso could they do that legally?
Just asking.
2 cars per team unless the field count drops too low and then the Concorde Agreement kicks in to cause teams to field a 3rd car. I say, eliminate the 2 car/team rule and make it 3/team
If Honda continues to struggle will they stay in F1? I can understand why manufacturers would want be in F1 and I also understand why manufacturers would opt not to be in F1. Audi has won the biggest and greatest race in world (24 Hours of Le Mans) 7x in last 8 years. While also dominating endurance sports car racing since 2000. They've also taken what they learn and developed roadcar. Why would Audi want spend more money on F1 program that may or maynot have same success as their sports car program? I see the Porsche-Volkswagen Group sticking to sports car racing.
I agree with all of this, but all it indicates to me is that F1 should step up it's pursuit of more manufacturers as teams.
Do you understand motorsports history? If you do, you'll understand that what you're asking for is doomed for failure. There's a video you can watch on this site of the IMSA GTPs from 1993. That's what racing looks like when manufacturers pull out.
F1 as an advertising venue only works if you win. Redbull gets value even if they lose because they don't sell cars. Honda and Toyota get no value at the back of the grid.
I completely disagree with Nick Fry, F1 should encourage manufacturer's to enter but should also remain viable for small privateer teams which have always been the backbone of F1.
As we've seen since the 50's when the championship was started, the manufacturer's have come & gone, the only one thats remained in F1 has been Ferrari, Mercedes, BMW, Renault & Honda have all come & gone in the past, sometimes more than once. Everytime the big manufacturer's have left its been the small privateers that have taken there spots.
Lets use this scenario, were down to 10 teams/20 cars now Super Aguri have gone, STR are looking very questionable for next year so we could be down to 9 teams/18 cars. There were some reports from Japan over the winter that Toyota bosses will not continue supporting the F1 program unless they start winning in the next few years, if they go its 8 teams/16 cars.
Point been if things continue & we lost the privateer teams, what happens if the manufacturer's start to lose intrest in F1 & leave like they have in the past?
As to letting the run 3 cars, do we really want an all Ferrari or McLaren podium at every race? Letting them run 3 cars could kill the few remaining small teams such as Williams as the points would be dominated by the big 3-4 teams (Ferrari, McLaren, BMW & Renault).
who cares there is only 2-3 good teams anyway....... Maybe 4 if renault gets it back together. I don't really care what's going on at the back. Nobody likes a loser.
I completely disagree with Nick Fry, F1 should encourage manufacturer's to enter but should also remain viable for small privateer teams which have always been the backbone of F1.
As we've seen since the 50's when the championship was started, the manufacturer's have come & gone, the only one thats remained in F1 has been Ferrari, Mercedes, BMW, Renault & Honda have all come & gone in the past, sometimes more than once. Everytime the big manufacturer's have left its been the small privateers that have taken there spots.
Lets use this scenario, were down to 10 teams/20 cars now Super Aguri have gone, STR are looking very questionable for next year so we could be down to 9 teams/18 cars. There were some reports from Japan over the winter that Toyota bosses will not continue supporting the F1 program unless they start winning in the next few years, if they go its 8 teams/16 cars.
Point been if things continue & we lost the privateer teams, what happens if the manufacturer's start to lose intrest in F1 & leave like they have in the past?
As to letting the run 3 cars, do we really want an all Ferrari or McLaren podium at every race? Letting them run 3 cars could kill the few remaining small teams such as Williams as the points would be dominated by the big 3-4 teams (Ferrari, McLaren, BMW & Renault).
So, then...what do you do?
Look, I agree with what you guys are saying and I understand the importance of privateers to the sport. It's just that this is the most expensive form of the most expensive sport. You can't just be letting any old team come in just because they can afford a season or two. Instability of this fashion is harmful, imho. I can't see a manufacturer being in for any less than a 5+ year stint.
I think we all want more, not less. I want more privateers. I want more manufacturers. They're driving out privateers with assinine cost-cutting rules that don't really cut costs, then they wonder why teams fold and nobody will buy them. If they must insist on going down this road, then they must focus on manufacturers. Otherwise, cut costs in a meaningful way, not just on everything but aero, so that, like you said, F1 remains viable to a much larger pool of teams/investors. As it is now, that pool is dwindling fast.
In a perfect world, I'd want a nice balance between manufacturers and privateers, lots of cars on the track, lower costs so there's better competition, and less restrictive rules for more innovation, maybe even a return of the tire wars, even 3 or 4 tire makers! Let's make it interesting!
Lots of points being made, here are a few of mine:
Certian MFG chose to stay out of F1 because of a cost benifit. Porsche-Audi, VW, Mazda, and others have racing sport programs that my not have the broad exposure of F1, but neither the costs of operations. They chose to go the smaller racing series and still gain marketing exposure.
Other MFG such as Toyota and Honda, because of the amount of sales worldwide, can amortize a $300 million dollar program down to less than $100 per car-truck-vehicle, sold, which they calculate as a managable investment for F1. (Note: This was Jaguar's logic for selling out in 04, They calculated $1500 per car, for $120 million for a mid-field program wasn't worth it). That can put pressure on other manufacturers that may have a high 100's or low 1,000's in a cost per car calculation, (Porsche, Spyker, Lamborgihini) and as Nick Fry indicated, can only handle 1-2yrs of financial comittment before the costs just become unbearable.
With cost-control being a bit of an oxymoron,(Teams with money will spend it..I've heard Steve Matchett elaborate on this and I agree) and the current environment of not allowing customer cars, only the teams that have the F1 infrastructure of manufacturing a car will be in F1. And the only way someone new (VW, Porsche-Audi) will come in, is to take over and existing team. This doesnt allow for expansion of F1 teams, but merely a zero-sum game of contestants.
Based on the impending concorde agreement that will require true constructors, The sport may be forced to adopt a 3 car team, fielding 21-24 cars depending on the mix of manufacturers involved. In the past, I had been a proponet of having customer cars with a customer team being a joint venture with an existing MFG to assist in amortization of costs, and allowing up to 12 competeing teams on a grid. But the problem with this is that no factory team will allow a customer team to out perform them. Even with the sporting regulations modified to limit development during an ongoing season, The factory would simply make the following years customer car uncompetitive.
Given the nature of the sports recent history, and the financial requirements of operating a F1 team. I feel a 3 car team will be a realisitc vision for 2012 and beyond.
With cost-control being a bit of an oxymoron,(Teams with money will spend it..I've heard Steve Matchett elaborate on this and I agree) and the current environment of not allowing customer cars, only the teams that have the F1 infrastructure of manufacturing a car will be in F1. And the only way someone new (VW, Porsche-Audi) will come in, is to take over and existing team. This doesnt allow for expansion of F1 teams, but merely a zero-sum game of contestants.
I agree with Hairy Scotsman. Formula One is supposed to be a sport, not some sort of half-billion dollar advertising venue. Fans who go to races or watch on television want to see a race, not a parade, an engineering exercise or a two-hour advertising forum. Especially when the commercials the television network runs are more interesting. God forbid, "the greatest racing in the world" should turn into a bad Super Bowl, where half the audience tunes in specifically to see the commercials.
For those of you who haven't studied Formula One history, this situation has happened before. In the late 1950s, the big Italian factory teams -- Masseratti and, yes, Ferrari -- were the class of the field. No one else was close; sometimes, there would be 15 to 30 seconds between the fastest and slowest qualifiers.
While the budgets were smaller, the expenses were still enough to drive most of the smaller, independant and privateer teams out of the sport. The FIA's response to this was, essentially, to end Formula One as the World Driver's Championship. The bigger 2.5 litre cars were abandoned in favour of 1.5 litre Formula Two cars, or something very similiar. It was during this era when independant teams like BRM and Lotus established themselves, and privateers like Rob Walker won the occasional race. Stirling Moss's win over the Ferraris at Monaco in 1961, for example, is a classic "David Beats Goliath" contest.
The 1.5 litre formula also shook things up sufficiently to set the stage for the early days of the three litre formula, which was one of the technically most interesting eras in Formula One. Anybody could run anything, and you never knew who was going to come out with what. A given race saw space frame Brabhams with stock-block Repco engines taking on monocoque Lotus with Climax, and later Cosworth V-8s, Ferrari and Cooper-Masseratti V-12s and even BRM's infamous H-16. Until the Cosworth DFV became universally available, the racing was pretty good. Championships were decided on consistancy, no on who won all the races.
Today, we have something similar. Two teams -- Ferrari and Renault or Ferrari and McLaren -- dominate the field. Occasionally, someone else will win, but that is a fluke. Budgets are incredibly huge -- $200 million to $450 or $500 million. Maybe more; the teams don't tell all on anything. The field is shrinking as the independant teams like Super Aguri, Red Bull and others leave the sport because they can't match the other teams' spending. And nobody is coming in to replace them.
Sooner or later, something has to give. If the present trend of brutal costs and limited competition keeps up, we will have maybe four teams in the sport: Ferrari, McLaren, maybe Renault, maybe Williams, maybe BMW. Honda and Toyota will either shape up or decide to keep themselves solvent by not wasting half a billion dollars a year to finish mid-pack or worse. Do we really want to see four or eight car fields, with only two potential winners? Indy 2005 may be a foreshadowing of a "typical Grand Prix," if something is not done.
A spending cap, monitored closely -- if not administered -- by the FIA might help. So would substituting cheaper materials and cutting back on the non-stop research and development budgets that cost hundreds of millions of dollars and pay back almost nothing. Or the FIA could just elevate A1GP to "World Championship" status and start over. But you can't go on like this forever.
With cost-control being a bit of an oxymoron,(Teams with money will spend it..I've heard Steve Matchett elaborate on this and I agree) and the current environment of not allowing customer cars, only the teams that have the F1 infrastructure of manufacturing a car will be in F1. And the only way someone new (VW, Porsche-Audi) will come in, is to take over and existing team. This doesnt allow for expansion of F1 teams, but merely a zero-sum game of contestants.
Sounds pretty ominous.
Think about it, There are only 7-9 facilities worldwide that are capabile of manufacturing a F1 car. Some of those are dependent on having engines supplied to them. And a new team having to invest all that money into a infrastructure, even if they came out with a well performing car, would not recoup those costs for 10yrs or more. Its just to expensive to startup like that, therefore, the only realisitc way to get in is to take over an existing facility. Thus, limiting the number of teams..unless the demand for such facilities reaches a point where building a new facility can be a viable alternative to the "market rate" for an existing one....
With cost-control being a bit of an oxymoron,(Teams with money will spend it..I've heard Steve Matchett elaborate on this and I agree) and the current environment of not allowing customer cars, only the teams that have the F1 infrastructure of manufacturing a car will be in F1. And the only way someone new (VW, Porsche-Audi) will come in, is to take over and existing team. This doesnt allow for expansion of F1 teams, but merely a zero-sum game of contestants.
Sounds pretty ominous.
Think about it, There are only 7-9 facilities worldwide that are capabile of manufacturing a F1 car. Some of those are dependent on having engines supplied to them. And a new team having to invest all that money into a infrastructure, even if they came out with a well performing car, would not recoup those costs for 10yrs or more. Its just to expensive to startup like that, therefore, the only realisitc way to get in is to take over an existing facility. Thus, limiting the number of teams..unless the demand for such facilities reaches a point where building a new facility can be a viable alternative to the "market rate" for an existing one....
Yes. Sounds very ominous. Seriously.
Sounds to me like the clock is ticking for the series.
Is that an overreaction?
I realize that it's possible that all of these facilities could keep changing hands and continue running into the future...but what are the odds?
