FOTA is dead

[FW17]

I hope there is a new series with better rules than F1 with FOTA teams. A series without Ferrari politics.

Maybe a open wheel championship run by ACO

[Lorenzo_Bandini]

Ferrari did nothing wrong.

[dren]

Yeah, for once I have to say Ferrari isn't to blame here. Ferrari doesn't seem to have the FIA by the balls like they used to anymore.

It will always fail when you have teams that try to agree on budget restrictions that are also competing against each other.

[Lorenzo_Bandini]

Good article

http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/andrewbenson ... inate.html

[shelly]

I think that all will be clearer in January; recently the horse whisperer has hinted at something new to happen next month

[CHT]

Red Bull energy drinks are a luxury item.

Redbull that are produced in Austria is indeed a party drink or "luxury" products, but I believe majority of Redbull sales are in Asia, where they are sold as non carbonated common man drinks to laborers, workers and truck driver etc

[JohnsonsEvilTwin]

Red bull sales have not suffered the same drop as the automotive sector.

Not only that, red bull are one of the most profitable and cash rich companies on the planet.
Can't hold that against them, but it's not conducive to them wanting an RRA when they can literally burn cash.

[WhiteBlue]

I don't understand why the discussion here is dominated by unfounded opinion instead of fact. People who say that Red Bull over spend and Ferrari not have no proof for that opinion. If you win the championship and most races two years on the trot you will automatically have such accusations. In actual fact it would be strange if the smaller minds would not look for such excuses for their own short comings.

We know for fact that the richest team isn't Rec Bull but Ferrari. Despite being third in the championship they get the highest pay out from FOM. They also retain huge cigarette sponsorship from Marlboro which no other team does. They have plenty of additional income from very active brand merchandising and finally they can always utilize profit and resources from their road car factory for legal or illegal activities. No other team can draw on such a huge resource potential so easily.

If there are factual reasons to think that someone is abusing the RRA first and foremost the natural suspects would be Ferrari. The best witness for that fact is the team principal. In 2010 Domenicali said that Ferrari was struggling to meet the RRA because the had employed a policy of simply throwing unlimited resources at everything that came up in the past decade. He said that Ferrari would have to massively change in order to be successful under the RRA. Since those words we never had any reports of massive cut backs in the Maranello sporting division. At least there was no workers or staff unrest reported over shifting some 700 engineers and technicians from F1 work to other tasks in the factory. Those are facts that can well motivate a scrutineer to look into Ferrari's practices around the RRA.

I'm not accusing Ferrari of doing something wrong. I simply say that there are more logical reasons - if we want to trade opinions - to suspect the top spending Ferrari team than to suspect a traditionally mid spending team like Red Bull. It just doesn't make good sense. On top I have explained that there are plenty of rational reasons why Ferrari and Red Bull have very different views about the future direction for the sporting and technical rules. Both teams use F1 to promote their core product, but Ferrari's automotive business has a lot more interaction with F1 racing than the business of a drinks company.

Ferrari as a company get immediately concerned by every rule, because they monitor how the rule change will bring F1 closer or farer away from their individual sports car technology. Red Bull will have a totally different focus. They will monitor how any change will reflect the core competencies and excellence of their race team to make sure that they maintain their superiority. From this different set of objectives stems the current seemingly eternal disagreement between the two top teams. McLaren, the other top team is like the man in the middle because they are traditionally and by ideology also a chassis constructor, but they are becoming more of an automotive manufacturer year by year.

When we look into the current FOTA problems I find it much more useful to look at the reasons why there is disagreement than to side with one team which you may like. In my view it makes more sense to have an opinion and discuss about the issues that FOTA are also discussing. How to include the engines in the RRA, which level of expenditure is appropriate, whether a strict constructor principle is the right thing to have for F1 and how to police resources and expenditure.

Those are the issues that should be discussed in my view. They are vital for the teams. On top they also need to look at keeping their association alive in order to be successful in the 2013 Concord negotiations. The teams have no excuse this time if they mess up and another conflict fires up like in 2009. In 2009 everybody accused the FiA to be dictatorial in the necessary measures to contain the spending war and keep the grid alive. Under Jean Todt the FiA has completely left it to the teams to sort this problem out, and they have not done too bad IMHO. But now they are coming nearer to crunch time and exactly at this very crucial time the two top teams want to go separate ways. It doesn't make sense to me.

The official word by Red Bull's Helmut Marko is frustration of the stalemate in the RRA talks was the reason for the withdrawal. How does he think that the F1 policies can be discussed and implemented in the future? Does he want to do all the business through the F1 commission? That will never work. Practically there is no alternative to a negotiated settlement of all main issues between the teams themselves. They do not want the FiA or Bernie to dictate the rules to them. So they better sort themselves out. There is no reasonable alternative to FOTA, but there is obviously a need for reform to streamline decision making procedures and get something done. Those reforms are urgently needed. I'm curious if that is realized and if they realize it if the also act upon it.

[WhiteBlue]

Good article

http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/andrewbenson ... inate.html

Yeah, some of it is good, but it also falls into the trap of only looking at the RRA noise which isn't the core issue. The core issue of the FOTA is the inability to make decisions when top teams have conflicting objectives.

[JohnsonsEvilTwin]

Whiteblue


Red bull are the richest team in f1. Period.

It does not matter what Ferrari are paid in f1, what red bull makes in annual sales dwarfs that what Ferrari can. And the difference in FOM money's isnt more than 20 million.
So they have the means to spend whereas ferrari do not. Have you seen Ferrari sales the last 3 years? Stagnant.
Fiat cannot justify a Ferrari team spending 300 million a year when it faces tougher economic climates.

Ever thought what would happen if the euro capitulated in Italy?
Ferrari do not have cash reserves. Not do fiat, Red bull would outspend Ferrari in a heartbeat. that's not to say they cannot spend, because they still can.

So we come full circle. Why would Ferrari leave FOTA?
Because red bull leaving means they would have a spend advantage over ferrari.
The restriction outside of fota is meaningless, and their decision to jump ship tells you all you need to know about what they truly thought of the RRA.

Why did they dismiss the audit? Why where columns left unfilled?

Why can red bull build a specific car per race track allied to new floors, diffusers etc. when teams in f1 for over 59 years cannot?
Newey is good, but he ain't that good.

What is red bull technologies role? Is it assisting the team in any way?

There are too many questions for this to be dismissed as fantasy. You may ignore it, for whatever reason but that doesn't mean these questions will disappear.
If red bull come clean and submit to the audits the same way all the other teams did, then they will have gone a long way to appeasing the questions.
Until then, people have every right to question what theyve been up to.

[CHT]

Red bull sales have not suffered the same drop as the automotive sector.

Not only that, red bull are one of the most profitable and cash rich companies on the planet.
Can't hold that against them, but it's not conducive to them wanting an RRA when they can literally burn cash.

Redbull is promoting their brand in a wide range of sports, events and F1 is not the only motorsport series either. further more, RBR doesnt really have a main sponsors like Philipmorris, Shell, or Vodafone, and they do not make money from supplying engine either.

Only Redbull themselves will know how much additional revenues F1 has brought to the company so far.

I think a more profitable business is still cigarette not energy drinks

When comparing Ferrari, did you include the revenue of FIAT Group?

[WhiteBlue]

Whiteblue
.......

Red bull are the richest team in f1. Period.

.....

So we come full circle. Why would Ferrari leave FOTA?
Because red bull leaving means they would have a spend advantage over ferrari.
The restriction outside of fota is meaningless, and their decision to jump ship tells you all you need to know about what they truly thought of the RRA.

Why did they dismiss the audit? Why where columns left unfilled?

Why can red bull build a specific car per race track allied to new floors, diffusers etc. when teams in f1 for over 59 years cannot?
Newey is good, but he ain't that good.

What is red bull technologies role? Is it assisting the team in any way? .....

As I have said before we should deal with facts and not with fiction. It is irrelevant how much the fans think a team can spend if the owners start unlimited spending. The point is what the team's past and present budget was and is. And all publications of the past - and the published estimates of team principals - all say that Ferrari spent and still spends more than Red Bull. No amount of fantasy will negate that.

I'm telling you for the third time now that no teams leaves FOTA due to an actual spending dispute!!! The majority of the teams have the means to force budget verification and full disclosure if they are united in their wish to see the figures. They decided not to do this. It means that a majority of teams is not convinced that there is a problem.

The reason for teams leaving is the inability of FOTA to make the necessary decisions for RRA and other issues. At least that is the reason For Red Bull as publicly stated by Marko on Austrian television. And if you read the Ferrari statement carefully you find a similar reason. FOTA is not sufficiently expressing Ferrari's opinion in terms of testing, third cars, focus of technical development and other issues. That is the same reason that HRT gave a year ago: "FOTA is doing nothing for us." Effectively it is the same that all three teams say. "There are no results in FOTA's work to move F1 forward to where we want it to go! Why should we spend the effort?

Stop worrying about the team structure of Red Bull. There is no secret to it. Red Bull technologies simply is the engineering and development department which had been separately set up in 2005. The objective was to avoid the constructor principle and supply two teams (Red Bull Racing and Toro Rosso) with the same intellectual property. That issue was finally settled in 2007 when the F1 commission decided that all teams must be constructors and build their own chassis from 2009. Since that time RBT has been exclusively providing IP to Red Bull Racing and services to outside companies which are not engaged in F1. Team structure effectively is a lot more simple than the bunch of McLaren companies that deal with automotive, engine electronics or F1 derived technologies.

[JohnsonsEvilTwin]

Since that time RBT has been exclusively providing IP to Red Bull Racing and services to outside companies which are not engaged in F1.

Bingo.

[donskar]

How invigorating:
Red Bull is the richest.
No, it's Ferrari
No Red Bull!
Ferrari!
RED BULL!
FERRARI!!!
ZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZ

[raymondu999]

Oh come on. The richest team is clearly HRT