[Rumours] Customer cars to force out smaller teams ?

[Marbot]

Originally Posted by wolfhound

Customer cars maybe not happen but we might loose 3 teams shortly and the other eight becoming 3 car teams. Its Bernie's latest attempt to reduce the money he spends on the teams so he and CVC can make more money.

The teams get more than enough money from Bernie to be able to compete in F1 if they finish in the top ten of the constructors championship for two consecutive seasons. The main problem with the amount of money being given out, is that some of the teams insist on having huge amounts more money than the lower teams for finishing higher up in the constructors championship. The overall prize fund for the teams was $751.8 million (last season), which should be enough dosh to put a Man on the moon, but apparently it's not enough dosh to send twenty cars around a track for 20 weekends out of a year (!).

Some of the things written in this article just take your breath away.

"Most companies want to make a profit first and foremost, but not F1 teams. They are generally run to simply break-even with neither a profit nor loss. This involves the team bosses spending whatever is available and they do it in pursuit of victory."

http://www.autoweek.com/article/20131006/f1/131009861

[NaBUru38]

Originally Posted by wolfhound

While everthing looks good in theory, the main difficulty I see is for the current mid field teams to score points. If you have three strong teams then places 1 to 9 are already covered if reliability is to continue as we have currently.

IndyCar has three major teams: Andretti (4 drivers in 2014), Penske (3) and Ganassi (4). They dominate the wins and standings statistics. But 10 drivers got a win and 20 drivers a podium.

The problem isn't the number of cars per team, but the inequalities between teams.

[JacobP]

I don't mind the idea of a three car team. What worries me though is that some teams won't be able to afford fielding the third car. Some teams have barely enough resources for the two cars. Now they will need more money for staff, engines, transportation, etc. I guess this is where the pay drivers come into play. A team like Sauber could hire two drivers with good sponsors and reserve the third seat for the driver they really want to have.

[NaBUru38]

F1 should welcome more teams b letting them buy customer cars.

Having eight 3-car teams is the opposite of that.

[JeremySmith]

Originally Posted by Marbot

Ferrari said that they wouldn't take kindly to having their books looked at by a Forensic accountancy team. $40m to build '1 shed' in the middle of nowhere, ought to stick out like a sore thumb.

This is exactly what the smaller teams (Sauber, Force India, Williams, Caterham, Marussia) feared, that they would be forced to use a customer car because they couldn't possibly be competitive with their own car, if unlimited spending was allowed to carry on as it is doing now.

It has to stop otherwise it will just implode..

Mandatory budget cap please, sorry RedBull you will leave when it no longer suits your purpose anyway..

[chillibowl]

no one likes an audit. it is a truly uncomfortable process but regardless of what the team wants or likes one simple fact remains:

they already have to self audit and accurately report their income and expenses to their board of directors, their shareholders, and their local tax authority every year....every year they are already providing them with an audited financial statement.

i would be more than happy to accept the audited financial statements that Luca signs his name to every year for the tax man.

[JacobP]

Why there are so many broke teams considering that Bernie's organization is raking in cash is beyond comprehension. Certainly, F1's technological arms race has become very expensive. However, all the Nuvo riche countries are paying Bernie dearly for hosting the GPs. TV rights income is probably approaching something like a billion dollars a year. Clearly, the money is there, but it's just not distributed fairly.

[wolfhound]

Originally Posted by JacobP

Why there are so many broke teams considering that Bernie's organization is raking in cash is beyond comprehension. Certainly, F1's technological arms race has become very expensive. However, all the Nuvo riche countries are paying Bernie dearly for hosting the GPs. TV rights income is probably approaching something like a billion dollars a year. Clearly, the money is there, but it's just not distributed fairly.

The new agreement has made it a lot more unfair making it even more difficult for the smaller teams. One of the top teams are getting more from Bernie than the some of the smaller teams total budget.

[sizzle]

Originally Posted by JacobP

Why there are so many broke teams considering that Bernie's organization is raking in cash is beyond comprehension. Certainly, F1's technological arms race has become very expensive. However, all the Nuvo riche countries are paying Bernie dearly for hosting the GPs. TV rights income is probably approaching something like a billion dollars a year. Clearly, the money is there, but it's just not distributed fairly.

Originally Posted by wolfhound

The new agreement has made it a lot more unfair making it even more difficult for the smaller teams. One of the top teams are getting more from Bernie than the some of the smaller teams total budget.

Because it isn't about the teams, it is about how much CVC can rip off F1.

Bernie the saviour of F1, maybe years ago but he always had an agenda.

[GTRMagic]

Marussia& Sauber To Merge

Might be a moot point about customer cars now....

[wolfhound]

Originally Posted by GTRMagic

Marussia& Sauber To Merge

Might be a moot point about customer cars now....

That possability was mentioned in the Autosport article refered to in post 48 above.

I suspected the move might have involved Caterham as they had no drivers signed and I have seen very little mention of Tony Fernandes in recent times leading me to suspect something might happen there.

[wolfhound]

According to Toto Wolff, Marussia are trying merge with either Sauber or Williams. He does not see it happening with Williams where he is still a shareholder.

http://www.crash.net/f1/news/198741/...ng_merger.html

[BSchneiderFan]

When was the last time two current F1 teams merged?

[wolfhound]

The orginal Team Lotus had an arrangement with Pacific in the early nineties however I doubt it could be called a merger. The other one I can remember was the linking up of Wolf and Fittipaldi about 1980. Others memory might be better than mine.

[chillibowl]

i cant think of any but im not really sure what they mean by a merger in this case either?

is it simply two teams merging to become one and taking the best from each, or would two teams move into the same facility but still be separate race teams, or are they looking for a benefactor and will become a B-team like STR is/was to RBR?

anyways a merger sounds odd unless merging would allow them to run 4 cars somehow otherwise giving up two grid spots sounds like they are throwing away their most valuable asset.

[wolfhound]

Originally Posted by chillibowl

i cant think of any but im not really sure what they mean by a merger in this case either?

is it simply two teams merging to become one and taking the best from each, or would two teams move into the same facility but still be separate race teams, or are they looking for a benefactor and will become a B-team like STR is/was to RBR?

anyways a merger sounds odd unless merging would allow them to run 4 cars somehow otherwise giving up two grid spots sounds like they are throwing away their most valuable asset.

If you go back to post#48 where there is a proposal to have 8 three car teams then a number of mergers make sense as teams will need more race personnel to be available with 3 cars to run. While not all the people from the teams that merge will be needed in the new team there will probably be openings in others as F1 would have 24 car grids.

[Armco Bender]

Its mearly a return to the 1950/60/70's when most teams ran customer cars.
Probably a good trivia question to find out which team ran the most customer cars in a race,probably would involve March's in the 70's.

[chunterer]

Osella became Fondmetal which then merged with AGS and I think Scuderia Italia may have swallowed up that, as AGS had something to do with Crypton Engineering whose boss Patriziu Cantu was also involved with BMS?

[chillibowl]

in the early 2000's a company called Phoenix Force (i think) bought part of Arrows and part of Prost hoping to combine elements of each team's facilities, chassis, and engine deal to create a new team which ultimately failed.

the Arrows chassis rights were later sold to Paul Stoddard who owned Minardi at the time who then sold them to Super Aguri. aspects of teams have been bought and sold before so yeah its not unheard of.

[Pontlieue]

The only merger I can think of was Minardi / Scuderia Italia in 1993.

I have no idea how a Marussia/Sauber merger should work. More likely, the Marussia owners could by a stake in Sauber and try to sell the current Marussia team.

[Teretonga]

Originally Posted by BSchneiderFan

When was the last time two current F1 teams merged?

Frank Williams Racing merged with Wolf (sold out?) in the mid 70's before Frank and Patrick set up Williams GP Engineering prior to hiring Alan Jones for 1978...

[wolfhound]

Originally Posted by Teretonga

Frank Williams Racing merged with Wolf (sold out?) in the mid 70's before Frank and Patrick set up Williams GP Engineering prior to hiring Alan Jones for 1978...

Wolf was aWilliams sponsor in 1976 who took over most of Frank's team. Williams and Head left to start up the Williams team we now know in 1977 with a March car and Saudi sponsorship in 1977. It was mid 1977 before they were taking part in GP's

[csirl]

Originally Posted by BSchneiderFan

When was the last time two current F1 teams merged?

Short memories everyone.

Honda/Brawn with Super Aguri - between 2008 and 2009 season.

[Marbot]

If teams find the need to merge, then something is very wrong with F1.

Super Aguri didn't actually merge with Brawn. They had their own premises at Leafield, which are now owned by Caterham. Brawn actually had to get rid of some of its own employees in order to be able to have a reasonable budget for the 2009 season. I think that maybe some of the Super Aguri team ended up at Brawn, Williams and Toyota, hence their double diffusers, which were originally a Super Aguri idea.

[chillibowl]

indeed. i also believe SA was sold to a group (prior to Leafield being sold to Caterham) who wanted to rebrand the team Brabham but were stopped by the Brabham family.