Poll Ferrari threaten to quit F1... again!
- Thread starter Brogan
- Start date
The Ferrari Auto Grass series, I like the sound of that.
Kewee
Race Winner
Maybe instead of criticising Ferrari, or more to the point Montezemolo for wanting changes, we should look at the current state of Formula One. I can only speak for myself but I think they have a point. I've never been less interested in the sport I love than I am right now. We all know F1 is driven by technology but there's something seriously wrong when there are five World Champions in the field and only one of them is able to fight for a win. That may not bother some but it's not what I want to see, I want to watch the best drivers in the world fighting for the podiums and that's not what we're seeing. I had the privilege of watching Le Mans on the weekend, what a breath of fresh air. No artificial overtakes, every aspect of a drivers skill tested, yet despite that, new technology being developed that will advance motoring for all of us. It was motorsport at its purest and left me wondering where the hell has F1 gone wrong. As far as I'm concerned, thank you Ferrari and Montezemolo for trying to bring some purity and common sense back into the sport before it's damaged beyond repair.
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I think you are letting your Alonso tinted glasses skew your perspective here Kewee. Such a radical rule change was almost certainly going to allow one team to dominate (as in 2009). Unfortunately for Ferrari it's Mercedes who are dominating and they don't like it. His comment about the engine is also dubious at best as three other teams on the grid are using the same power plant as the Mercedes works team and aren't getting close.
Mercedes have produced the best package, Ferrari haven't. Up your game Ferrari and stop moaning.
If Luca wants to do something about the appeal of F1 he should look around at what is happening in the World and realise that the FIA are simply reflecting what is going on. The three LMP1 teams at Le Mans all had hybrid engines. Ferrari, Porsche and McLaren all now make hybrid super cars to improve the way power is applied and to be more economical. If Balls out, growling beast is what Montezemelo wants to see racing perhaps Ferrari should enter NASCAR. The problem is they would probably not win there in exactly the same way that they wouldn't win at Le Mans. What's he going to do then? Cancel all of Ferrari's racing program?
Here's another idea, if Ferrari want F1 to appeal to younger people (although I don't see any mention of that in the article) maybe they should get rid of the pensioners they currently have pedalling their cars and employ some more interesting and exciting younger drivers instead.
Mercedes have produced the best package, Ferrari haven't. Up your game Ferrari and stop moaning.
If Luca wants to do something about the appeal of F1 he should look around at what is happening in the World and realise that the FIA are simply reflecting what is going on. The three LMP1 teams at Le Mans all had hybrid engines. Ferrari, Porsche and McLaren all now make hybrid super cars to improve the way power is applied and to be more economical. If Balls out, growling beast is what Montezemelo wants to see racing perhaps Ferrari should enter NASCAR. The problem is they would probably not win there in exactly the same way that they wouldn't win at Le Mans. What's he going to do then? Cancel all of Ferrari's racing program?
Here's another idea, if Ferrari want F1 to appeal to younger people (although I don't see any mention of that in the article) maybe they should get rid of the pensioners they currently have pedalling their cars and employ some more interesting and exciting younger drivers instead.
Kewee
Race Winner
FB..... I started my second sentence, "I can only speak for myself" and my following comments had nothing to do with Alonso and in fact if Ron Dennis or Frank Williams had called for a meeting rather than Montezemolo I would have posted exactly the same reply, the only difference, I would have been thanking a different Team Principle for trying to bring about changes. I'm also aware the three LMP1 teams were using hybrids, I'm also aware they have the freedom to make their own choices regarding how they use and develop that technology. I've made my views known for a number of seasons regarding the direction F1 was moving in. I'm far too much of a purist to like KER's and generally I feel F1 is being strangled with regulations. The holy grail of chasing rev's has been taken away from engine designers which was a huge negative in my opinion. As I said, I loved Le Mans and the freedom designers enjoy and wish the F1 regulators would give F1 room to breathe.
Your quite right regarding such a radical rule change leading to one team getting the jump on the rest of the field, It would have been helpful to the sport had they been a little more flexible with the development period and allowed more testing and development changes during the first year of the V6 turbo's.
Your quite right regarding such a radical rule change leading to one team getting the jump on the rest of the field, It would have been helpful to the sport had they been a little more flexible with the development period and allowed more testing and development changes during the first year of the V6 turbo's.
Andyoak
Champion Elect
Kewee, I do agree with you about restrictive regulations; as do many of us here.
My personal belief is that it would have been better to follow Galahad's (and others) idea to provide a limited quantity of kJ of fuel and then let the engine manufacturers / teams come up with their best solution to make that go the distance.
That could have given us straight 4's, V6's , V8's... or for Monty a V12? We might have had flywheel KERS from Williams; development of super capacitors; who knows?
Red Bull might even find a way to convert the sugar and caffeine in their horrid drinks to power their cars.
However, despite everything the budgets do need to be controlled and that does entail some restrictions of in-season development; it's a crude tool but it almost works.
Each period of F1 has had a dominant team following a significant rule change and everyone else has had to strive to catch up. And most seasons struggle to find more than 2 teams fighting it out.
At least by restricting engine develop in-season it is allowing lesser funded teams to come up with aero and mechanical improvements to the chassis and car. They can all do this and some are being successful (Red Bull at the moment).
Bottom line is Ferrari haven't done well enough and they need to focus on getting better with the same tools as everyone else. At least they have a big enough budget to throw everything, including the kitchen sink, at it.
My personal belief is that it would have been better to follow Galahad's (and others) idea to provide a limited quantity of kJ of fuel and then let the engine manufacturers / teams come up with their best solution to make that go the distance.
That could have given us straight 4's, V6's , V8's... or for Monty a V12? We might have had flywheel KERS from Williams; development of super capacitors; who knows?
Red Bull might even find a way to convert the sugar and caffeine in their horrid drinks to power their cars.
However, despite everything the budgets do need to be controlled and that does entail some restrictions of in-season development; it's a crude tool but it almost works.
Each period of F1 has had a dominant team following a significant rule change and everyone else has had to strive to catch up. And most seasons struggle to find more than 2 teams fighting it out.
At least by restricting engine develop in-season it is allowing lesser funded teams to come up with aero and mechanical improvements to the chassis and car. They can all do this and some are being successful (Red Bull at the moment).
Bottom line is Ferrari haven't done well enough and they need to focus on getting better with the same tools as everyone else. At least they have a big enough budget to throw everything, including the kitchen sink, at it.
Just for those that aren't anal enough to want to read the LMP1 technical regs here's the part about engine equivalency. It's all about fuel flow, the less fuel you run in to the motor the more power you can have from the electric engine, but then you have to harvest it either directly from the engine or through other systems such as the turbo, brakes, water system etc. (just like an F1 car).
I have no idea or knowledge as to why F1 went down a single route for engine capacity, fuel flow or max amount of energy which can be released per lap from the batteries but I presume all the teasm signed up to the regs. I seem to recall they were revised to a V6 format as "Ferrari don't make 4 cylinder engines".
I agree with Kewee that the relative freedom on the LMP1 cars to design the engines how they please is technically very interesting although I have a feeling Ferrari would have been up in arms if the option to run a diesel motor had been on the table, especially if they were being trounced by 4 cylinder oil burner from Stuggart whilst they doggedly stuck to a V8 petrol screamer. I seem to recall Ferrari hanging on to a flat 12 engine in the days of wing cars and ground effect when the World and it's brother could see that this sort of design was well past it's sell by date and V12's when everyone else was using a V10, so they are not noted for moving quickly to new technology and ideas.
And the amount of squawking about the sound of this years engines would have gone to 11 if there had been a diesel engine on the grid.
I have no idea or knowledge as to why F1 went down a single route for engine capacity, fuel flow or max amount of energy which can be released per lap from the batteries but I presume all the teasm signed up to the regs. I seem to recall they were revised to a V6 format as "Ferrari don't make 4 cylinder engines".
I agree with Kewee that the relative freedom on the LMP1 cars to design the engines how they please is technically very interesting although I have a feeling Ferrari would have been up in arms if the option to run a diesel motor had been on the table, especially if they were being trounced by 4 cylinder oil burner from Stuggart whilst they doggedly stuck to a V8 petrol screamer. I seem to recall Ferrari hanging on to a flat 12 engine in the days of wing cars and ground effect when the World and it's brother could see that this sort of design was well past it's sell by date and V12's when everyone else was using a V10, so they are not noted for moving quickly to new technology and ideas.
And the amount of squawking about the sound of this years engines would have gone to 11 if there had been a diesel engine on the grid.
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Kewee
Race Winner
Andyoak ...... Just to say I agree with your comments. My original posting was showing my frustration at four of the five World Champions being unable to be competitive. I feel the change over to the new engines could have been handled with a little more care to lessen the huge gap between Mercedes and the rest of the field. I'm not saying that in defence of Ferrari, they are after all third in the constructors championship and if it weren't for the brilliance of Ricciardo would be second.
At the moment IRL may not be as quick as F1 but the racing is fabulous, the winner could come from anywhere in the field and that includes the road courses, street circuits and ovals. Strange when you consider IRL is heavily regulated also, but somehow they've got it right and the drivers can be the heroes the way motorsport used to be. People will always want to cheer their favourite drivers not the technology.
At the moment IRL may not be as quick as F1 but the racing is fabulous, the winner could come from anywhere in the field and that includes the road courses, street circuits and ovals. Strange when you consider IRL is heavily regulated also, but somehow they've got it right and the drivers can be the heroes the way motorsport used to be. People will always want to cheer their favourite drivers not the technology.
Andyoak
Champion Elect
I have a sneaking suspicion that the opportunity for IRL drivers to win is helped by much lower budgets.
One of the biggest headaches F1 will continue to have is 2 or 3 teams with a bottomless purse AND restrictive regulations. I don't believe that you'll ever get an effective budget cap so derestrict the regulations.
It might not stop 2 or 3 teams dominating but it will bring back technical interest AND some unreliability; I happen to like seeing things pushed to breaking point.
One of the biggest headaches F1 will continue to have is 2 or 3 teams with a bottomless purse AND restrictive regulations. I don't believe that you'll ever get an effective budget cap so derestrict the regulations.
It might not stop 2 or 3 teams dominating but it will bring back technical interest AND some unreliability; I happen to like seeing things pushed to breaking point.
Fenderman
Rooters Reporter
It's a mystery to me that Ferrari haven't kept an interest in the LMP classes. The Ferrari 330P's were fabulous machines and it would be so good to see and hear what they might have produced had they kept up involvement in the top classes.
Original photograph by Peter Howkins - Alias "Flibble" on Wikipedia shared under Wiki's creative commons license. Ferrari 330P3 at Goodwood
Original photograph by Peter Howkins - Alias "Flibble" on Wikipedia shared under Wiki's creative commons license. Ferrari 330P3 at Goodwood
At Le Mans, nobody expects the privateer to compete with the factory entrant. Occasionally, gloriously, David can beat Goliath through reliability, but they're effectively running in different classes. In F1, the expectations are different, because of the quality of some of the private teams and their tradition of competitiveness. As budgets have risen, regulations have become more restrictive to cut costs (or more accurately, eliminate avenues of potential expenditure) with the aim of retaining competitive private teams. For me, I'd liberalise and let teams spend what they like; but I know what the likely effect on the racing would be. I might be surprised though; even at the peak of spending there were teams (Jordan, Benetton/Renault) who could do a lot with a little.
As others have already suggested, it's downright comical for Ferrari to decry efficiency by floating the possibility of a Le Mans return. Which is why everyone see's this for what it is, a hollow threat.
And I think we all know that Montezemolo would certainly not be calling for a meeting of the minds if Ferrari had found themselves in Mercedes position. They just have to make a huff in order to deflect some of the attention from their failures.
When it comes down to it Ferrari will never ever find a better gig than the one they've currently got going. Due to their historical position in the sport and the cozy relationship with the Formula One Group, Ferrari are currently being cut a check for 5% of all revenue right off the top. The most recent figures put this at around 85 Million dollars a year for simply entering their cars. The ultimate kick in the nuggets to the other teams comes from the fact that half of that money comes right out of the WCC pot before anything is actually divvied up. Needless to say, they've got a sweet deal that they would be insane to turn their back on.
And I think we all know that Montezemolo would certainly not be calling for a meeting of the minds if Ferrari had found themselves in Mercedes position. They just have to make a huff in order to deflect some of the attention from their failures.
When it comes down to it Ferrari will never ever find a better gig than the one they've currently got going. Due to their historical position in the sport and the cozy relationship with the Formula One Group, Ferrari are currently being cut a check for 5% of all revenue right off the top. The most recent figures put this at around 85 Million dollars a year for simply entering their cars. The ultimate kick in the nuggets to the other teams comes from the fact that half of that money comes right out of the WCC pot before anything is actually divvied up. Needless to say, they've got a sweet deal that they would be insane to turn their back on.
I don't think that eliminating budget caps would accomplish anything, except, perhaps, the drive the smaller teams out of existence. I have no desire to see F1 grids of 6 or 8 cars which might well be the result if the smaller teams decide that they have NO chance whatsoever. The bigger teams are already sucking up the heavyweight sponsors, and that would only be exacerbated by lifting the caps. The bigger teams already spend as much per season as a minor weapons systems costs the Department of Defense.
Formula 1 has never been a hotbed of innovation. Everything from disc brakes, to monocoque chassis, to downforce enhancements and automatic transmissions were all seen in sports car racing first. It is, first and foremost, supposed to be a series where the best drivers in the world go head to head. Even that has been diluted by the preponderance of pay drivers, which the smaller teams have to have in order to field any cars at all.
I honestly don't know what the remedy is, but I don't think that letting the bigger teams throw even more money around is it.
Formula 1 has never been a hotbed of innovation. Everything from disc brakes, to monocoque chassis, to downforce enhancements and automatic transmissions were all seen in sports car racing first. It is, first and foremost, supposed to be a series where the best drivers in the world go head to head. Even that has been diluted by the preponderance of pay drivers, which the smaller teams have to have in order to field any cars at all.
I honestly don't know what the remedy is, but I don't think that letting the bigger teams throw even more money around is it.
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Bushi
Race Winner
Wonder why siffert_fan, everything innovative gets banned instantly.
Give the smaller teams more money and CVC less and ban pay drivers. Although it's practically impossible to ban pay drivers, cause drivers bring sponsors and teams need them. But give the small teams more money and they might be bound to look for talent.
Does anyone know how much the prize pot is what the teams get?
I know new teams have to be in the sport for about 3 years, before they actually get something worthy.
Give the smaller teams more money and CVC less and ban pay drivers. Although it's practically impossible to ban pay drivers, cause drivers bring sponsors and teams need them. But give the small teams more money and they might be bound to look for talent.
Does anyone know how much the prize pot is what the teams get?
I know new teams have to be in the sport for about 3 years, before they actually get something worthy.
The Prize Pot Payouts are fairly complex and I think they'll be even more so this year because you have to pay a certain amount back per point won or something?
Here is an excerpt from a Joe Saward article last year,
The last paragraph is extremely pertinent to Caterham and may be the ultimate demise for the green cars.
Here is the link http://joesaward.wordpress.com/2013/11/27/how-much-money-does-marussia-gain-from-2013/
Here is an excerpt from a Joe Saward article last year,
The last paragraph is extremely pertinent to Caterham and may be the ultimate demise for the green cars.
Here is the link http://joesaward.wordpress.com/2013/11/27/how-much-money-does-marussia-gain-from-2013/
Here is the 2013 Payout table
2013 Formula 1 Prize Money
Team---------Column 1-----Column 2------Total
Red Bull-----$35 million----$66.5 million---$101.5 million
Mercedes----$35 million----$56 million-----$91 million
Ferrari--------$35 million----$45.5 million---$80.5 million
Lotus----------$35 million----$38.5 million---$73.5 million
McLaren------$35 million----$35 million------$70 million
Force India---$35 million----$31.5 million----$66.5 million
Sauber--------$35 million----$24.5 million----$59.5 million
Toro Rosso---$35 million----$21 million------$56 million
Williams--------$35 million----$17.5 million----$52.5 million
Marussia-------$0--------------$14 million------$14 million
Caterham------$35 million----$0----------------$35 million
So in 2013 Ferrari made 4.5 Million dollars more for just turning up to race than the actual prize money achieved for their results.
2013 Formula 1 Prize Money
Team---------Column 1-----Column 2------Total
Red Bull-----$35 million----$66.5 million---$101.5 million
Mercedes----$35 million----$56 million-----$91 million
Ferrari--------$35 million----$45.5 million---$80.5 million
Lotus----------$35 million----$38.5 million---$73.5 million
McLaren------$35 million----$35 million------$70 million
Force India---$35 million----$31.5 million----$66.5 million
Sauber--------$35 million----$24.5 million----$59.5 million
Toro Rosso---$35 million----$21 million------$56 million
Williams--------$35 million----$17.5 million----$52.5 million
Marussia-------$0--------------$14 million------$14 million
Caterham------$35 million----$0----------------$35 million
So in 2013 Ferrari made 4.5 Million dollars more for just turning up to race than the actual prize money achieved for their results.
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Sniff petrol are on the ball as usual:
http://sniffpetrol.com/2014/06/24/ferrari-announces-tantrum-special/
http://sniffpetrol.com/2014/06/24/ferrari-announces-tantrum-special/
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