rohit1594 wrote:I wonder just how much serious the owners of teams like Spyker (yes, they did score 1 point in the VERY WET 2007 Japanese GP at Fuji), Virgin, HRT, Caterham (and dare I say, even Marussia?) were about 'competing' in Formula 1 in the first place... By the looks of things, all they wanted to do, was to get media attention along with the big boys and 'pretend' that they belong to the pinnacle of motorsport. Financial issues, little or no development over the course of the season, pay drivers, ugly looking cars has become the hallmark of such teams!
... and in my opinion, it's becoming a bit irritating now! Frankly speaking, the FIA should not allow new teams into Formula 1 unless they have established some kind of a technical tie-up with a top manufacturer. I wonder how Haas F1 will fare...
I think the 3 'new' teams; Campos / HRT, Virgin / Marussia, Lotus / Caterham, all suffered because they came in being sold the line of budget caps coming in, I don't think any of them had the budget to compete in the current set up. Which is much more a black mark against the FIA and the process that brought these three in (along with the stillborn USF1), than on any of these three teams themselves.
HAAS are coming in under no serious discussion of a budget cap, they have big money behind them (Billion Dollar a year business), with a clear goal; the company increased their brand awareness and sales for their automotive tools business through NASCAR, now they want to do the same in global markets which F1 happens to be in. I'd say that's quite a good base, compared to Fernandes coming in with vague dreams of buying Lotus, then trying to turn Caterham into a bigger car company, along with the ridiculous number of other motorsport and business ventures they started up. Marussia were to build a brand for a car company that doesn't really exist anymore, and is basically just a good little racing team, HRT became a mess when VC's thought they might be able to turn a profit and USF1 seemed to have no rationale beyond 'we want an American team because we are America! **** Yeah!'
There's nothing to stop new teams doing better than the last 3, you just either have to have one come in with a realistic budget, and not try and convince them to enter based on rules changes that aren't agreed yet, or you change the rules to give them technical support. I prefer something along the lines of the Force India model, where they had lots of help and personnel from Mclaren to work with, rather than outright buying whole cars myself though...
Of course an actual budget cap and / or the teams getting more of the sports revenues, going to less dodgy places and more big markets (Russia, Azerbaijan? Pricing the sport out of US exposure etc) to attract more sponsors and fans would also help too!
