Formula 1 2014: General Discussion Thread

Going Strong

Deleted User wrote: »

I hope the big teams stand up for themselves and by-proxy for the smaller teams. Refuse to have 3 cars. Bernie and the rest will have to do something to address costs and so on then. For the sport to be making tens of millions (perhaps hundreds) in clear profit every single year while the teams can't support themselves is ridiculous.

Unfortunately, the big teams don't care a jot about the lesser teams at all and will be delighted at the thought of fewer teams to share the spoils with.

Regarding Ferrari and Marussia. Well, Ferrari are supporting Bianchi and his family as he's a Ferrari driver. They've no obligations to Marussia themselves. Bianchi was told before the Japanese GP that he was off to Sauber next season so Ferrari had no further need of Marussia in any case from the end of the season had nothing happened to Bianchi that day. There's every possibility that Marussia took the step of placing themselves into administration as a response to losing Ferrari's backing.

According to Joe Saward, the Ferrari PU is the second most expensive after Renault. The Mercedes PU is substantially cheaper.

Infoanon

Marussia were rumoured to be stopping after Sochi for a number of months.

Its not a big surprise that they have stopped - their Russian owner stopped funding the team after Sochi.

Nothing to do with Ferrari or Jules accident.

That they have spent $228 million to date is another factor.

Peanut Butter Jelly

Going by last years prize money, Marussia should get about €42m, so enough to just cover this debt.

Frank Bullitt

Some of this financial trouble must be down to the prices of these new "green" engines. If the sport wants to be sustainable and to keep the grid full up enough, clearly costs have to be in check. But these engines are insanely expensive and the smaller teams are struggling.

It's almost like F1 is stuck in this loophole of trying to be green and affordable at the same time, but this new engine tech is far from cheap, and for that matter not that green either.

The decision to change the formula when they did I think take a lot of the blame for these 2 teams dropping out. HRT were always doomed to fail, but with Lotus/Caterham and Marrusia, you could see there was some sort of plan in place, and now the costs have taken them.

The change with the engines, I think, was too drastic, but at the same time, slowly implementing greener tech would mean that development would have been on going and ultimately driven up the costs.

Its a bit of a thankless task for a new team in F1, you pay millions to simply show up and get lapped.

christy c

Q1 is going to be a bit of a joke now unless they change it

Going Strong

Going Strong wrote: »

Unfortunately, the big teams don't care a jot about the lesser teams at all and will be delighted at the thought of fewer teams to share the spoils with.

What spoils would there be with a 10-car grid? How many people would watch? How much would sponsors put in?

afatbollix

Deleted User wrote: »

What spoils would there be with a 10-car grid? How many people would watch? How much would sponsors put in?

Do we watch because of the guy running in 18th place getting lapped or because of the top 6?

There weren't many people happy with the 6 cars running in Indianapolis. :P

Devilman40k

christy c wrote: »

Q1 is going to be a bit of a joke now unless they change it

They'll have to. Doesn't Vettel have an engine change coming up too and a 10 place grid penalty if he does? Could have a qualifying session with just 17 cars!

Going Strong

Deleted User wrote: »

What spoils would there be with a 10-car grid? How many people would watch? How much would sponsors put in?

This is F1 though. Longterm thinking isn't a factor. The teams only see it from a season to season perspective and how can they beat the opposition. With the drop in sponsorship and investment money, the teams are cannibalising the sport. The bigger teams are using the smaller ones to wring some extra cash out of the system by selling them components and technology. When this dries up with the minnows going bust, they'll start looking hungrily at the traditional midfield teams next. Someone from Force India said it the other day "There's five teams that run F1 and everything is done on their terms."

That's Ferrari, Red Bull, McLaren, Mercedes and Williams. Teams with a combination of major manufacturer input and/or hefty 'legacy' payments to support them. That's ten cars on the grid straight away should every other team fold - and points go to ten places so the five teams get to rake in all the prize money every race. Three of them *must* provide a third car - so thirteen and, if Mercedes agree - Fourteen. There's your grid.

Brendan Flowers

vectra wrote: »

Could now be as low as 16.
Apparently Force India have to make a payment to mercedes by today or risk missing out as well.
http://www.motorsport.com/f1/news/f1-set-for-three-car-teams-as-more-risk-collapse/

Maybe EJ could make a cheeky bid to re-buy the team if Force India are in financial trouble!

vectra

Brendan Flowers wrote: »

Maybe EJ could make a cheeky bid to re-buy the team if Force India are in financial trouble!

That would be class

Tippex

Shane_ef wrote: »

What if the third car was allowed to run a different livery perhaps it would be easier for some teams to gain the funds necessary to run the car, eg. if it was for a single special event surely a sponsor would step in for that single race...

I'm nearly 100% positive that this was written into the contracts after BAR/BAT with their liveries that each cars livery in the team had to be the same.

AMKC

Brendan Flowers wrote: »

Maybe EJ could make a cheeky bid to re-buy the team if Force India are in financial trouble!

I somehow don,t think thats going to happen. Don,t think EJ wants to put himself under that kind of pressure again and have to spend that kind of money on on F1 team again just to keep it going especially if he can,t make any money from it. He would be brokein no time. I think he is happy now with the nice comfortable life he has now.

Myrddin

Brendan Flowers wrote: »

Maybe EJ could make a cheeky bid to re-buy the team if Force India are in financial trouble!

EJ is well to comfy with how things are to get back into managing I reckon

GarIT

As great as having an Irish team would be I don't think it would be good for the sport to have Eddie Jordan involved.

Jordan 199

GarIT wrote: »

As great as having an Irish team would be I don't think it would be good for the sport to have Eddie Jordan involved.

Why not?

GarIT

Jordan 191 wrote: »

Why not?

I think he is a complete embarrassment, the wild claims he makes and I think he is just a bit thick in general. He also proved himself to be a coward in his interview with Nico where he dodged the topic of the day completely (the crash with Lewis), then told the crowd to stop booing and that nico had drove a great race when he had managed to take his own team made out in a situation you'd expect a rookie to see coming. A lot of people wont agree with me but that's what I think.

Tzardine

GarIT wrote: »

I think he is a complete embarrassment, the wild claims he makes and I think he is just a bit thick in general. He also proved himself to be a coward in his interview with Nico where he dodged the topic of the day completely (the crash with Lewis), then told the crowd to stop booing and that nico had drove a great race when he had managed to take his own team made out in a situation you'd expect a rookie to see coming. A lot of people wont agree with me but that's what I think.

Plus he did them Eircom ads which are just cringeworthy.

Myrddin

GarIT wrote: »

I think he is a complete embarrassment, the wild claims he makes and I think he is just a bit thick in general. He also proved himself to be a coward in his interview with Nico where he dodged the topic of the day completely (the crash with Lewis), then told the crowd to stop booing and that nico had drove a great race when he had managed to take his own team made out in a situation you'd expect a rookie to see coming. A lot of people wont agree with me but that's what I think.

I like EJ, but I do agree with this post. The podium interview was very poor, & drone-like. It's what you'd expect from a token interviewer who hadn't a clue about F1 (Brazil 2013 for example). In the defence of EJ, is it possible those podium interviews are the 'property' of F1, & are subject to much tighter limits than say a BBC interview? EJ is normally not known for asking easy questions after all...

GarIT

Myrddin wrote: »

I like EJ, but I do agree with this post. The podium interview was very poor, & drone-like. It's what you'd expect from a token interviewer who hadn't a clue about F1 (Brazil 2013 for example). In the defence of EJ, is it possible those podium interviews are the 'property' of F1, & are subject to much tighter limits than say a BBC interview? EJ is normally not known for asking easy questions after all...

There are some good things about him, he is better connected that any other commentator, he has called a few things before they happened but at other times I think is he watching the same sport as I am.

The podium interview may well be restricted, but if I was told not to mention what just happened I still wouldn't go out and tell him he dove a great race.

Myrddin

GarIT wrote: »

The podium interview may well be restricted, but if I was told not to mention what just happened I still wouldn't go out and tell him he dove a great race.

Yeah fair point. It was very patronising to watch.

vectra

GarIT wrote: »

I think he is a complete embarrassment, the wild claims he makes and I think he is just a bit thick in general.

Exactly.
That is why he is super rich and we are sat in front of the TV watching him . :rolleyes:

Myrddin

vectra wrote: »

Exactly.
That is why he is super rich and we are sat in front of the TV watching him . :rolleyes:

EJ can be cringe at times, even fans of his will give that one. I just think he has character, something seriously lacking in almost every other pundit/presenter in F1. I like him, I think he pushes & asks awkward questions (podium interview aside), & I think he is very good at making predictions.

Stallingrad

Say what you will about EJ he has great taste in boats.

Myrddin

Christ, is that his?

Stallingrad

Myrddin wrote: »

Christ, is that his?

It sure is, he has been buying Sunseekers for years and is good friends with the companies owner. Knowing EJ I'd say some deal was done that was mutually agreeable, I doubt he paid full the full €41 million list price!

Tzardine

Wow. Did not realise that EJ is so wealthy. A quick Google search says he is worth $475 million.

Makes me wonder even more why he did them terrible Eircom ads.

Myrddin

Tzardine wrote: »

A quick Google search says he is worth $475 million.

:eek:

flazio

Despite his earlier claim about his age, I still reckon EJ would be a far better successor to Bernie Ecclestone then Flavio Briatore.
Correct me if I'm wrong but wasn't Eddie part of the team that got Ireland a stage of the World Rally Championship for a couple of years?

mickdw

Im sure the next boss of F1 will be a more conventional business manager. No doubt, if they wanted a wheeler dealer Bernie clone, EJ would be ideal.

I knew EJ has splashed out on that boat but I didnt think he was worth half a billion dollars.

Looking at murussia going bust, surely with losses of 40 million approx and the strong posibility of 40 million prize money this year, there has to be a bargain to be made somewhere.

dloob

Stallingrad wrote: »

Say what you will about EJ he has great taste in boats.

That's nice but I prefer the Yacht myself.
http://www.yachtworld.com/boat-content/2013/05/oyster-885-the-yacht-that-eddie-jordan-chose-2/

You can charter it when Eddie isn't using it from only 47,000 a week, bargain!

Tippex

flazio wrote: »

Despite his earlier claim about his age, I still reckon EJ would be a far better successor to Bernie Ecclestone then Flavio Briatore.
Correct me if I'm wrong but wasn't Eddie part of the team that got Ireland a stage of the World Rally Championship for a couple of years?

That was certainly the rumour doing the rounds back in the day after Jordan shut up shop that Eddie was primed to take over from Bernie.
I have to say I would love to see Eddie back in the day to day of F1 but sadly can't see it happen.

moby2101

Correct me if I'm wrong but hasn't it been generally known for a while that Christian Horner will be anointed as Bernies eventual successor?

mickdw

moby2101 wrote: »

Correct me if I'm wrong but hasn't it been generally known for a while that Christian Horner will be anointed as Bernies eventual successor?

Well Geri Halliwell seems to think so.

moby2101

mickdw wrote: »

Well Geri Halliwell seems to think so.

? I don't follow

mickdw

moby2101 wrote: »

? I don't follow

Just alittle joke.
Geri seemed to hunt down Horner as the most eligible non bachelor in F1.
They are soon to be married I believe.

acquiescefc

Some of my pics from Suzuka.

Jordan 199

Great pics. Suzuka is the best track on the F1 calendar IMO.

Tzardine

Texas is becoming one of my favourites. Really looking forward to the weekend.

Terrontress

Tippex wrote: »

I'm nearly 100% positive that this was written into the contracts after BAR/BAT with their liveries that each cars livery in the team had to be the same.

Before BAT I think, otherwise they wouldn't have had to run cars which had a livery split up the middle.

Jordan 199

Terrontress wrote: »

Before BAT I think, otherwise they wouldn't have had to run cars which had a livery split up the middle.

The livery on the BAR 001 was horrid.



On top of a bad livery, it's reliability sucked too.

cadaliac

flazio wrote: »

Despite his earlier claim about his age, I still reckon EJ would be a far better successor to Bernie Ecclestone then Flavio Briatore.
Correct me if I'm wrong but wasn't Eddie part of the team that got Ireland a stage of the World Rally Championship for a couple of years?

That pr1ck wont shouldn't get near Bernie's replacement position.

Zcott

Jordan 191 wrote: »

The livery on the BAR 001 was horrid.



On top of a bad livery, it's reliability sucked too.

There's a good interview with Jacques Villeneuve in this month's F1 Racing in which he really regrets saying that they'd win their first race. The car wasn't too bad, just chronically unreliable.

Donnelly117

mickdw wrote: »

Well Geri Halliwell seems to think so.

_rebelkid

US GP Race Thread

Scotty #

GarIT wrote: »

I think he is a complete embarrassment, the wild claims he makes and I think he is just a bit thick in general.

A bit thick? He's one of the shrewdest and most successful entrepreneurs this country has ever produced! Private planes, helicopters, a yacht in the harbour in Monaco. He's not doing too bad for a guy that's "a bit thick". He can even afford wigs good enough that most people don't even know it's a wig!

I'd love to see him heading a team again.

Scotty #

moby2101 wrote: »

Correct me if I'm wrong but hasn't it been generally known for a while that Christian Horner will be anointed as Bernies eventual successor?

The first time I ever heard Toto Wolff's name being mentioned was in connection to him taking over from Bernie some day. Very powerful man in Motorsport, has his finger in a lot of pie's. I don't think Horner is alpha enough for the job. Someone like Ron Dennis would be better but he's a bit of a loon. Ross Brawn maybe?

christy c

JEV thinks he might be staying in Torro Rosso.

http://www1.skysports.com/watch/video/sports/f1/9541571/vergne-not-alarmed-by-financial-situation

Makes sense, they don't want two rookies in the one team

Zcott

christy c wrote: »

JEV thinks he might be staying in Torro Rosso.

http://www1.skysports.com/watch/video/sports/f1/9541571/vergne-not-alarmed-by-financial-situation

Makes sense, they don't want two rookies in the one team

Yep, makes sense. He's performed well this year, too.