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lipstick79

We WILL leave F1

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Like Ferrari,  Mercedes are NOW threatening to leave.
So LEAVE - World exposure, that IS good marketing..

They NEED F1  MORE than F1 needs THEM !!

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3 December 2017   3:19 (CET)

Believe it or not, there is life outside of the F1 sandbox, also known as a snake-pit. Coercive tactics (give us your money and you will be better for it, as we hear from new owners) are thingies of the past.

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Quote

Santander HAVE announced that they will be leaving Ferrari and F1,
No wait isn`t Ferrari F1 ANYWAY

 

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3 December 2017   9:20 (CET)

Ms Botín is updating Santander’s corporate governance and board structure. It is broad shake up at this bank, and looks like she is replacing old (mostly father's) guard with her people and refocusing investment into new directions. They have other issues to resolve before they would consider to come back to racing. I am actually not so sure that daughter is found of racing as much, or if at all, as her late father was. Their departure has nothing much to do with Ferrari's actions; at least as we know on the outside. They actually supported a Spanish driver, and after his departure from Maranello, they stayed for contract duration.  

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Ferrari, HAVE just brought the Alfa Romeo brand back into F1,  with Sauber.

So Ferrari will NOT quit F1, any time soon. What other brands do Mercedes have?? That
they can use? Probably none which - is why Ron sold out to Honda.
Who JUMPED in to F1, without a real plan or PU.
After the Honda disaster, now Renault & a race winning PU

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3 December 2017   14:14 (CET)

Ferrari did not bring AR into F1. The brand is part of FCA, whereas Ferrari is not. Common denominators between them are at least two elements. i) Italian heritage, and ii) Marchionne who sits at the helm of both. (1/2 Italian, 1/2 Canadian with his fingerprints on whole affair).

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Well, lets make sure we know what "threatening to leave" means:

1. Ferrari by contract is in the series through 2020. So the threat is to leave in 2021. That is a while in the future.

2. Mercedes did not threaten to leave, Toto Wolf hinted that he would consider it.

3. Alfa Romeo under Marchionne is a significant commitment.

I am not taking the Ferrari threat too seriously. Obviously FIA/Liberty have to give them something (more money, special money payout, modify the 2021 engine regulations to satify them, etc.).....but this seems far from being something apocalyptic.

Now, maybe Scipio will correct me on this......but, I believe this threat is to gain negotiating leverage and is not otherwise serious.

 

That said....if Ferrari left F1 then:

1. F1 would continue as before.....losing some percent of its fan base (10 or 20% I am guessing).

2. Ferrari, already a well establish name, would continue selling cars, probably without any major drop in sales. While no one would have heard of Ferrari without F1 and Sports Car racing, nowadays, everyone knows who Ferrari is.

So, as much as I would not like Ferrari to leave F1, I don't think it would be the death of either Ferrari or F1. Did F1 get seriously hurt with Lotus left it?

 

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3 December 2017   17:38 (CET)

We are all talking about various scenarios once current CA matures. There is no ambiguity there and we all know that, however I do disagree with any suggestion that Ferrari has expressed anything stronger what MB has. Marchionne too on several occasions said once he will have before him final offer from LM, then he will make decision if he takes Ferrari out of F1, or continue. I am under impression that Liberty is floating a few trial balloons to gauge reactions, but there is nothing Mercedes can take to Stuttgart, and the same with SM talking to John Elkann.

If Ferrari leaves, conditions would be such that it may sway a few voices in Stuttgart. F1 may or may not continue without Ferrari (and perhaps others), but character of series will change. I could be wrong, but I think we do not need another NASCAR, IRL, or anything of that kind. 

To equal Lotus with Ferrari seems as a deliberate insult, but whatever...

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I guess that some haven't noticed some of the subtleties of the Sauber - Alfa Romeo deal: Alfa Romeo (FCA) gives money to Sauber to have the Alfa Romeo brand of the cars, Sauber in turn pays the same money plus a lot more back to Ferrari for their engines, in essence Ferrari is paid by both Sauber and FCA and they have free advertisement on the Sauber cars, it's the work of a genius B) IMHO Ferrari (the controlling sharegholders of Ferrari and FCA are the same, as the senior management) was trying to control the voting rights of a second team, like RBR with STR, since their pockets are not as deep as Red Bull's they had to come uop with an ingeniuos solution, whereby FCA pays some money to Sauber (which is all tax deductible), Sauber comes up with the rest, and Ferrari is happy

IMHO it's all a very political scheme, Ferrari needs more political power because over the last few years both Mercedes and Red Bull had a much bigger say into how F1 was run than Ferrari and they are trying their luck with this scheme. The bottom line is that Ferrari has to maintain some sort of primus inter pares role in F1 otherwise their fate is sealed, they don't have the resources of Mercedes, Renault or Honda and if they have to follow in the decline of teams like Williams they will walk away. The point is not if Ferrari gets preferential treatment on some minor matters, the point is if an independent team such as Ferrari can still be competitive in F1. In 2017 Ferrari did all they could in financial terms to close the gap with the Mercedes engine and they failed, they quite simply have not enough money to spend. The Sauber deal is smart but it could also be seen as sign of weakness, they either find smart ways or they can't compete with the big car companies

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3 December 2017   18:00 (CET)

Ferrari has one more -- internal -- problem. SM wants to retire (at least he wanted to go in 2019), a reason why future should be finessed by a person who will replace current ruler. At least I would be looking at that, should my name be JE. New guy has to be comfortable with the product after 2020.

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3 December 2017   18:07 (CET)

I do not have credible confirmation, but I've read that engines supplied to Sauber are either at, or below production cost, and for that reason I would be hesitant to call it money making machine. There must be some other objectives in play than just money made from sales.

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This is an interesting article: http://www.gptoday.com/full_story/view/625437/Underestimate_me_at_your_peril_8211_Marchionne_to_F1/

Part of it here and was part of the Alfa Romeo launch, with Todt and Carey in attendance:

What followed was pure mastery. Sergio Marchionne returned to the podium for a few more words. In the space of 10 minutes, he politely panned the Michael Buffer COTA show, make clear FCA & Ferrari did not want to be part of a ‘dumbing down’ of Formula One, asserted the sport should be focused on technology over entertainment, and what could be the knock out blow, “our partnership with Sauber is until 2021, if we don’t like the direction the sport is taking at that point, we will leave and we’ll take them with us”

This rhetoric was delivered not only to a room full of media, but squarely at Chase Carey seated directly below the rostrum at which Sergio Marchionne made his speech.

Following this, team owner Pascal Picci and team principle Frédéric Vasseur returned to the stage for an open Q&A session. I would not like to suggest any questions were ‘planted’ but the position of FCA strength ahead of any negotiations with Formula One over the future of the sport was highlighted at every available opportunity.

 

Anyhow....this looks like high theater. Clearly an attempt to gain leverage.

 

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11 hours ago, Publius Cornelius Scipio said:

The point is not if Ferrari gets preferential treatment on some minor matters, the point is if an independent team such as Ferrari can still be competitive in F1. In 2017 Ferrari did all they could in financial terms to close the gap with the Mercedes engine and they failed, they quite simply have not enough money to spend. The Sauber deal is smart but it could also be seen as sign of weakness, they either find smart ways or they can't compete with the big car companies

<<In 2017 Ferrari did all they could in financial terms to close the gap with the Mercedes engine and they failed, they quite simply have not enough money to spend.>>

That does nicely summarizes the problem. I am not sure that Ferrari will even be the #2 team next year, as the Red Bull Renault combo is suddenly looking dangerous, and the McLaren Renault could suddenly be a major factor. If Ferrari was suddenly #4....then what?

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2 hours ago, Ruslan said:

<<In 2017 Ferrari did all they could in financial terms to close the gap with the Mercedes engine and they failed, they quite simply have not enough money to spend.>>

That does nicely summarizes the problem. I am not sure that Ferrari will even be the #2 team next year, as the Red Bull Renault combo is suddenly looking dangerous, and the McLaren Renault could suddenly be a major factor. If Ferrari was suddenly #4....then what?

Ferrari can't stay in F1 if they are not in a position to win, we must remeber the interview that Bernie gave recently when he said that a ealthy Ferrari was in the interest of everyone and that for Mercedes to win in front of Ferrari is something, to win in front of, say, Sauber is a totally different proposition, and so he said that all the helps that were given to Ferrari were a good investment also for the others.

It would be nice to have a level playing field though, not all the cars should be the same but some sort of chance for a realistic challenge

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4 December 2017   9:58 (CET)

<<In 2017 Ferrari did all they could in financial terms to close the gap with the Mercedes engine and they failed, they quite simply have not enough money to spend.>> 

They have money all right, but they have exhausted 2017 self-imposed team's budget, something that will happen often, should broader budget cap imposition goes forward. 

It is not only about how much you spent, but on what, and much of the capital goes into bypass methodologies of the insane rule book we have now. What we see today is outcome of several years of misguided restrictiveness on testing, locking teams for full term into initial errors in design.  Rule book needs to be simpler, allowing for gathering data of actual testing on the track, and making rapid and timely changes as necessary, all which is now are so dearly missing. Incremental changes which are permitted over winter or performed in actual races (as McLaren said there were doing) is too little, too late, and killing the sport as fans falling off, loosing interest.  

Problem is not just disparity in engine performance between Renault with Honda v. Ferrari and MB, but something has to be done with aero and downforce designs. More attention should be paid to what Hamilton said after Abu Dhabi race, namely (paraphrasing), "I couldn't follow cars" (because of dirty air). There is a lot to think about, but will they? Probably not.

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Ferrari has a turnover of approx EUR 3 bn, Mercedes has a turnover of approx EUR 153 bn, how on earth can Ferrari compete with that? For Ferrari EUR 300m is a sustantial amount of money, for Mercedes it's peanuts, Mercedes could easily afford to spend EUR 3 bn in F1, equal to the total turnover of the whole of Ferrari, without many problems, I know that Mercedes had an advantage in the fact that they were allowed to draw the rules for the PU regime etc etc, but still Ferrari does not have enough money to challenge the likes of Mercedes (or BMW, VAG, Honda, Renault) because they are so small.

If the trend of increased budgets continues Ferrari will be out of F1 in a few years time, the can't afford F1

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4 December 2017   10:53 (CET)

There is a natural (useful) limit how much money you can apply on a specific technical solution, without achieving greater outcome. That is the same for every team. I am not (and never have) proposing we should engage in spending race, however I am of opinion, that budget cap is a wrong solution to this issue, and at the end it will do more harm than benefits. What is needed is a change of technical normative references. Building a space ship for running in loops every second weekend for two hours seems rather proposition which crossed the line from exotic and special to downright insane batman cage style. Reliability, and armada of PhDs on high performance computers in back rooms with Tata feeding race-data in real time to home base, etc., is not cheap endeavor, but should we go so far? There is a lot what could be done to make this series less expensive and equitable, without ending up with just another cheap and boring show.

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15 hours ago, Publius Cornelius Scipio said:

It would be nice to have a level playing field though, not all the cars should be the same but some sort of chance for a realistic challenge

Yes....that would be very nice. Might have to give Ferrari a little bonus though.

If you have never read this book, I strongly recommend it:

 

51Jo0HRbNfL__SX336_BO1,204,203,200_.jpg

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13 hours ago, Publius Cornelius Scipio said:

Ferrari has a turnover of approx EUR 3 bn, Mercedes has a turnover of approx EUR 153 bn, how on earth can Ferrari compete with that?.....If the trend of increased budgets continues Ferrari will be out of F1 in a few years time, they can't afford F1

Seeing how Sakae choose to ignore the implications behind this post.....I decided it needed to be re-posted.

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11 hours ago, Ruslan said:

Seeing how Sakae choose to ignore the implications behind this post.....I decided it needed to be re-posted.

On 12/4/2017 at 10:56 AM, Sakae said:

4 December 2017   10:53 (CET)

There is a natural (useful) limit how much money you can apply on a specific technical solution, without achieving greater outcome. That is the same for every team. I am not (and never have) proposing we should engage in spending race, however I am of opinion, that budget cap is a wrong solution to this issue, and at the end it will do more harm than benefits. What is needed is a change of technical normative references. Building a space ship for running in loops every second weekend for two hours seems rather proposition which crossed the line from exotic and special to downright insane batman cage style. Reliability, and armada of PhDs on high performance computers in back rooms with Tata feeding race-data in real time to home base, etc., is not cheap endeavor, but should we go so far? There is a lot what could be done to make this series less expensive and equitable, without ending up with just another cheap and boring show.

5 December 2017   6:13 (CET)

Sakae actually responded to alleged money issue. (as re-posted) 

IMO now a season past we had opportunity - in Ferrari case - to observe what happens, when a self imposed budget for the season is exhausted prematurely on a complicated thingy, such as racing car is. Sure, it appears that MB had bigger budget, but managing this situation has to be done on several fronts, as suggested earlier. i) new and simpler technical regulations, ii) optimizing development, so teams can drop expensive rules avoidance schemes, and iii) ensuring that transition to New World doesn't hits teams like a ton of bricks. I am not suggesting we should be racing wheel barrows, to illustrate at the extreme, but surely those would be cheaper to build than Batman cages we have now. Not only it is expensive, but it doesn't works well (as Vettel said, as Alonso said, as Hamiltons said). Cars are unstable, when in close proximity during overtake maneuver. Topology of courses did not kept up with all of this, and there are far too many expensive front wings buried at great cost.

Imposition of a budget cap in my view will just create more problems than solving. Better (practical) solutions are needed.

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On 4/12/2017 at 10:56 AM, Sakae said:

I am not (and never have) proposing we should engage in spending race

the problem is that a spending race has been going on for quite some time. I agree with you that simpler and long lasting rules could help bring the costs down (just look at the 3000 cc formula that allowed so many teams to give it a go thanks to the Cosworth DFV), the problem is that I'm not sure that it would be enough at this stage. As a matter of principle I'm not very comfortable with a budget cap but something has to be done

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Strategy for exploitation of potential force might be the one Liberty will choose, but for the F1 it is , I think, wrong way to go. Teams have options available, and they will simply leave.

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