VW "LOOKING" at F1 with Liberty in charge going forward into 2021

Ugh, VW and motorsport always means risings costs and lots of political BS.

 

I'm not reading anything in that article to get too excited about!

Based on what's written, I could start a thread that screams: Ferrari looking at leaving F1 in 2021!, based purely on the fact that they've asked Liberty Media to reveal their plans for 2021 onwards so that they can assess their options.

Let's face facts here:

For a start off, we're talking about four years time - a lot can happen in the motor industry in four years (I bet four years ago VW never anticipated having to pay out $20Billion+ in fines and compensation for getting caught cheating emission tests!)

In fact, a lot can happen outside of the motor industry in four years!

We could be facing a World collapse of the financial markets within the next four years for all anybody knows.

(Hell, Chances are Trump will have started a third World war long before we even get to 2021!)

And secondly, Liberty Media are talking to all manner of car manufacturers about the possible future of F1 (including inviting non-current participants to help shape the future of the sport in an attempt to encourage them to enter the sport).

As I say, there's nothing to get too excited about with this story just yet!

 

VW will only be interested if it retains eco friendly engines.

 

Liberty will cave to get in new teams.

 

Ross Brawn has made it clear he doesn't want a VW/Mercedes/BMW wank fest. He wants low end teams to make the step up to F1 and be sustainable rather than be dependent on manufacturers.

Small, independent teams that have some sort of guarantee that they won't go broke in case they lose a sponsor are IMO (and Ross Brawns it seems) a better fit than an unreliable giant manufacturer. Toyota, Honda, BMW etc all can drop F1 whenever they want to and they did. I have my sincere doubts that Mercedes is in it for the long haul. They want to offload as quick as they can, striking of F1 as ''been there, won everything, done'', retain the image of Mercedes uber alles. Look at Audi in Le Mans...as soon as they started to lose, it's gone.

I'd much rather want to see a bunch of ''garagistes'' than big manufacturers go at it. Mclaren, Williams, Sauber...Ferrari in that regard was also independent, selling road cars to fund racing. Mclaren can be seen as that too these days. Of course, I'd welcome a manufacturer too but not on their terms of being eco friendly road relevant stuff...

 

I agree Merc will drop out at some point. McLaren will be around as long as they can afford to.

Honda is questionable. Another bad season and I think they will be shakey. Toyota is out for good. Ford doesn't see the point. Renault is in and out as they please.

Long term liberty needs more teams in the sport or it will no longer be a sport. It will be an exhibition. It's almost that now.

 

Agree. Rather see racing powered by old power plants ( ie mecachrome, megaton euphemisms for current stuff,) or Hart , Judd , Motori Moderni , whoever is left. Plenty of DNFs and unpredictable outcomes rather than despicable dominations,. Always disagreed with Fast Ian on that one.

 

VW insisting on "eco friendly engines" in F1 would be like Charles Manson demanding that we all love each other, and do only good things for those around us!

 

Yep, and more teams is best gotten making the operations cheaper and sustainable so that certain GP2 teams can step up. Big manufacturers aren't beating F1's door down since making the change to hybrids and they won't....

Exactly! Make it feasible again for those kind of companies to supply engines again so that little teams could have a chance. There's no reason for ''power units'' to cost well over a million, or gearboxes 500K. Organize it well and it can be 1/10th of those prices. Limit wing development and encourage venturi tunnels (only so much you can do with that anyways). Cost goes WAY down, competitiveness up = win win

lol

 

+1 Vive les garagistes!

 

+1


Can Ferrari be considered as a "garagiste" ?

 

Certainly started out as one.

 

Maybe it did.

But can one consider a team that receives a $100M historical bonus before turning a wheel a garagiste? That is the question.

That bonus will stay as the invisible elephant in the room, until it is stopped.

 

IMO if F1 racing costs are significantly reduced (cheaper engines/gearbox/development cost by way of reducing wing development), Ferrari would be more open to a reduced historical bonus.

If lets imagine it would become very hard to spend more than 100m running a team including development of the car, said historical bonus could get reduced to say 25ish million. IMO, that's a ''fair'' figure, considering that Ferrari of course has by FAR the largest following and are of course the only team that have been there since day 1. F1 stands to lose more if it loses Ferrari, and I think teams and especially new joining teams are understandable of the historical bonus.

I would personally agree that if 100ish million is what a top team would spend, and that basically would get funded by F1 just for Ferrari, would be pretty outrageous...

 

It's the principle of the "historical bonus" itself which I find wrong and indefensible.

"F1 stands to lose more if it loses Ferrari" This needs to be tested.

 

It´s indeed wrong, the essence of sport is that all parties involved start from the same starting point.

But other sports have the same problem with commercialization, Football for instance. Some country´s getting 4 to 5 CL spots, favourable drawing terms, the skewed distribution of tv rights money etc.

It´s a slippery slope.....

 

I firmly believe that F1 will lose more than 100m if they lose Ferrari than just keep paying the 100m. Let alone 25...

The amount of hardcore Ferrari fans is incredible. Even on this forum I've read many times of people buying Ferrari's and then watching it, and incredibly, when they've sold their Ferrari...they stop watching!

Definitely not my mentality, and I won't stop watching F1 if Ferrari quit today, BUT, I would think F1 suddenly loses a chunk of specialty. No one can just replace the mad Italians. There's a history there that you just can't copy or replace.

 

Liberty have every right to level the payment field. I love Ferrari but the arrangement is not at all fair. I have zero interest in them keeping the payment. So they have been in the sport a long time-- Thats by choice. If they leave I will keep watching Ferrari or not.

 

Maybe, maybe, but the people who follow F1 (as opposed to the tifosi) really don't give a damn if Liberty loses money or not; they are interested in a level playing field where all teams are rewarded for their participation, and according to their results. Liberty has a duty to make it that way if the sport is to keep any credibility.

In a sport where money can buy expertise, giving a $100M head start on the ground of "seniority" to one participant at the expense of other is indefensible. Some other teams may even spend more, but it's their money, or their sponsors' money and the rewards from the previous year.

Hypothetically, one can even imagine Ferrari finishing 11th in the ranking and still pocketing $100M !!

 

+1

Same here.

No team, no player is bigger than the sport.

 

I for one would like it if Bugatti came "back" to F-1. seeing how they were not there since the late 40's ... it would be quite something. do I think it will happen - NO.

 

Volkswagen can even revive Audi (Auto Union) or Bentley for historical nostalgia.

 

Ferrari (and McLaren, and Williams) deserves more his historical bonus than Mercedes or Red Bull theirs. Mercedes and Red Bull only got special treatment because they have more money, the others at least bothered to stay racing for "a few years".

So, if they remove the Ferrari bonus, they´ll have to remove anye other special treatments: Liberty won´t manage to get that unless they want to have the most powerful half of the grid slamming at their doors with forks and torches. So I think this is just a matter of quantity, not quality: Liberty probably wants to reduce Ferrari´s chunk a little. That extra money most probably will end not in Sauber or Force India, but in their pockets, and business will resume as usual.

 

BMW just said they're not interested either.