Honda away. BMW away. Bridgestone away. Toyota away. Renault and shakes dramatically. What is going on in Formula One? Is it too expensive? Unattractive?
Four major manufacturers have left the Formula One championship in the last 11 months. A fifth wobble. Williams could only start with a cash injection from Bernie Ecclestone in the season and Force India want to creditors even allegedly repossessing the motor home, because you will not get paid. These are not only signs of a crisis. Rarely was ordered to take the series so much setbacks, as this year. Never before have so many "big players" simultaneously dropped out, but on the other hand, there has never been seen as expensive a Formula One race will be. The Formula One lives in her own reality and the track in Abu Dhabi is the perfect example.
One of the things that shocked me when I visit this year at the Nurburgring most was completely sealed off the paddock. Since one can not come in, if you look for 3000 € a Paddock Club ticket purchases, but only if you then also have an additional ticket that is issued by the host. So from a team or main sponsor. Otherwise, it remains outside. The paddock is a small town and is similar to the closed neighborhoods of millionaires. Someone from Mobile, a main sponsor, with whom I had changed between the 27th appetizers a few words, was really shocked that it does not even come close to the "real" Formula One. In Abu Dhabi it is consistent then went one step further: since you have built an entire area like Sun A bubble, a self-contained system that reigns in the short-sightedness and stupidity.
The automakers have dominated the series in the last 15 years significantly. When are joined by and by, war broke out and it was upgraded. The manufacturers have pushed the prices and the demands on the environment so far up. And now one after the other goes from the air. The investment by Abu Dhabi is a reflection of artificiality in his Formula One. It looks good, but it has no soul. It consists of money from a nice user interface, but behind it hides nothing. It attracts people who are not sports but about one's own ego and especially about money. Until just none there anymore. Aside from the drivers, mechanics and some leftover "Petrol Heads" it's no longer about the sport.
And that is why the works can pass so easily. The decision whether to operate a sport, is no longer made by those who operate it, but by boards of auditors to meet with a look at the numbers a decision. One, from their point of view, certainly justified decision, because before you dismiss some workers, it is better to save somewhere else before.
But in the case of the manufacturers themselves are gone, where they have the costs explode. Instead, as requested by Max Mosley, probably years too late to agree on a sound cost containment, it has squandered hundreds of millions of years €. And because you put so much money into the series, it has increased the demands on all around the Formula One. Silverstone has long been not only on the hit list because of the BRDC and Ecclestone maintain a cordial enmity, but also because the sponsors of the atmosphere does not fit. Abu Dhabi is just chic.
The biggest joke of it all is still, in the summer that manufacturers have threatened that they would geründen a pirate series. How much would have had the substance, you can see now that all adopt tight-lipped. You would now no longer able to get a starter box full.
Does one of the FIA and Ecclestone give the blame? Sure you have that, but with restrictions, the manufacturer would not even come. They wanted freedom to develop fully, they would themselves decide what they spend. The FIA has the limitation of the engine after all, pulled an emergency brake. Too little, too late for the sport.
Now for the first time are all gone. The private teams seem to get the upper hand, at least those who have good sponsors. I'm not angry about it. It's nice to have producers on the show. You are the salt in the soup, because it only the "David versus Goliath" make possible effect. On the other side without the manufacturer's drivers are more important again. Without the manufacturer, there are perhaps fewer constraints because it no longer goes to the boards. Perhaps the Formula One opens a little and learns that not Vostände make a series of large, but the fans. The draw "big players" only as long as the cream as he is there. The fans remain even if it is not going so well. An experience that some series have behind them and one that the Formula One (and NASCAR) urgently need to make. If you use the "Fan surveys" as a stylistic device needs of the sport has apparently forgotten, and no idea what makes it fun.
The Formula One shrinks. And hopefully it shrinks to a healthy level. Without manufacturers, the FIA has now a unique opportunity to lay down rules and to set budget limits. I hope you take your chance.
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Great article Don! You write exactly what many think.
I hope the Formula 1 utilized this opportunity and the love of money is again somewhat curbed. Although I am not sure whether this is possible under Ecclestone ...
Thank you Don, written great! Bring the atmosphere to the point.
BRAVO!
@ Keke : voice to you, under Ecclestone probably no longer possible. But he is zusehr on money and on a fixed event and not go to racing. Too bad. But zuscheffeln money, you have to do well today, an event and the race as a "minor matter" represent in any way.
When Toyota and Honda is the Erfolgslosigkeit, no money problems because of economic crisis. That's a lame excuse that has certainly played with a little pure, but it would run, it would not matter. The bite at Honda is still powerful in the ass.
Bridgestone to win the Formula One nothing. There is just no competitor, and so it is always the winner and are interested not clean (yes, I like the look that a manufacturer is better - but not for the tire manufacturer).
At Renault, I do me hard. They're now for me a part of Formula One, be it through their years of partnership with Benetton motor or now with the factory team. Surely easier replaceable, forgettable than Ferrari or McLaren, Renault was to go still sad. But Renault's BMW with the manufacturer, which I take off the financial crisis, coming in at BMW though of course the points as at Honda + Toyota.
As long as the Formula One does not degenerate into a unit series, my private teams are loving it. But we should get a unit series, I see black. The F1 lives by developing new technologies, etc ...
I finds well disappear if the manufacturer! The big celebrity show a la Dubai needs but none of us - on TV, I had the impression that the drive in talking big fridge. When is the first indoor race track with artificial rain in mid-race to be awake all?