Quote:
Originally Posted by Richard Casto
I get what you are saying, but I don't quite think things are as bad as you think with respect to "sporting character". There has been and will continue to be some level of nefarious manipulation within racing by sanction bodies and the regulatory writers. I think there is some odd stuff happening right now in WEC regarding balancing of energy available to the cars that is potentially a slap in the face of Audi (and I say this not being an Audi fan at all). I think that is likely much more "back room" than than anything that RBR might be thinking is going on in F1 today. In short, I don't think there is an attempt to take RBR down a notch by the FIA. They are being treated no better or worse than anyone else as best as I can tell.
My main point in agreeing with the "one Ferrari" above is really that we don't want another player thinking it "is" a Ferrari when it's not. I am not a Ferrari fan at all, but I freely admit their value to F1. They bring a huge amount of eyeballs to the sport. Both in ticket sales and TV viewership. They are unfortunately truly unique and of critical value to "F1 as a business", or at least how we know F1 today. And while Ferrari will occasionally whine and moan and also throw around whatever weight they have (and it is significant), they generally stick to the sport through thick and thin at the end of the day.
I think the problem with RBR is that they don't have a deep history in the sport and other than dumping decent money into two teams, nothing is particularly special about them other than that they have had relatively great success within the short period. I think that quick success has created effectively a large organizational ego (if you can assign an ego to an organization). Maybe the ego has manifested itself within various people within RBR (Mateschitz, Marko and maybe Horner) and it has bloated their opinion regarding self importance to the sport beyond reality.
If RBR was to take their money and go elsewhere, I expect the things that make RBR "special" today would remain. The engineering staff, drivers, etc. would disperse and go elsewhere. Imagine no RBR, but with Vettel and Newey split up and working elsewhere. Sounds quite interesting to me actually.
Frankly, I will have a much deeper respect for RBR if they were to have to struggle through a season or two of poor results while still enjoying a wealth of money (Mateschitz) and talent (Newey, Vettel, etc.). Act like professionals, fight back and come out the other side as winners. My God think of the recent struggles of Williams. They don't have the resources of RBR, but I have the utmost respect for that team for continuing to pound away at trying to win.
The fact that things just haven't gone RBR's way a slight bit (we are only two races in) they threaten to leave the sport? It does nothing but leave a sour taste in my mouth. Now the saber rattling might just be them throwing their weight around. I hope that is the case, but if it really is ego problems, then I say pull the trigger now and don't tease us.
Richard
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Oh I don't think RBR will leave. I think this will get sorted out whatever way and they will decide to stay.
And while I agree that Ferrari is something special from a historical perspective and that the general public perception is an asset to the sport, I think they play on it a bit too much and that
some of the concessions made to them are out of order.