LONDON, England (AP) Formula One is in a permanent state of flux. Flavio Briatore is urging F1 teams to cut back on their spending or face problems in the future. Perhaps that is inevitable in a sport where the target is forever moving, but a year does not seem to go by when a new raft of changes to the rules and regulations is announced. The stated intention is always to improve the spectacle -- only for it to seemingly make little or no difference. Cars today are just as difficult to overtake as they were five years ago, perhaps even more so given the array of aerodynamic parts hanging off them at every conceivable angle. 'Dumbo ears?' 'Shark fins?' These are not what the ordinary fan cares about, yet engineers' carbon-fibre creations ultimately serve to hinder the racing. It is an issue close to the heart of Flavio Briatore, the outspoken Renault team's managing director. "For the moment I think we are going in the wrong direction," he told the official F1 Web site. "No fans are interested in our suspension or gearbox. They want to see a good race. We give too much power and too much money to the engineers, but that is our fault. And this is the result that we have. "Sometimes what is missed is the fact that we are here for racing." This week, further potentially radical changes to F1's regulations took a step closer to fruition after the objectives and structure of a new team-led organization were agreed. The Formula One Teams' Association (FOTA) was set up in July and the articles of association have now been signed by all 10 teams. FOTA has been established to find ways to increase entertainment, cut costs and reduce the sport's environmental impact alongside the FIA, the sport's governing body, and F1 promoter Bernie Ecclestone. The teams had been told that they would have to come up with new regulations by October or have the FIA impose their own from the 2011 season onwards. For next year, changes are on the way which will make the cars look and behave differently. Once again the holy grail of frequent wheel-to-wheel action is sought, as well an improvement to the sport's green credentials. F1 will move to hybrid technology through KERS, an energy recovery system which will reduce carbon dioxide emissions. Briatore is against KERS and the cost of its development. "My opinion is that if we develop KERS we should develop it all together in Formula One," he continued. "At the moment everybody is developing in isolation from the others and that is pushing the cost into lofty heights. In the end everybody wants the same. "In one year, everybody will have the same system and we'll have thrown away a massive amount of money." Briatore has been appointed to head up FOTA's commercial working group (there are two other working groups -- one sporting, headed by McLaren chief executive officer Martin Whitmarsh, and one technical, headed by Honda team principal Ross Brawn). He believes it is in the sport's interests to keep costs down, given what is happening in the outside world. "We need to understand that Formula One is part of the economic environment -- it's not something we do by ourselves," the Italian added. "We need to anticipate the problem -- if you are a good manager -- and not be forced by the market. For 10 years I have urged us to cut costs and I believe that if we had done it six or seven years ago we would be in better shape. "We are not here to discover new technology for the future, we are too small for that. Formula One is the pinnacle of motorsport, but we also should look for a sound budget." Briatore is right in that F1 needs to keep a tight grip on its purse-strings -- but only for its own sake. He is wrong, though, on the technology front. Spending billions of dollars a year on F1 cars should produce results with some relevance to their road-going counterparts. It seems decadent to operate otherwise. The big car manufacturers are in F1 to win in order to sell road cars. In allocating huge budgets to their F1 divisions, it seems sensible that part of the return should be technology they can channel into their core business. Ultimately, if F1 can exist more cheaply, with greater real-world relevance and with plenty of excitement for the viewer, then all the better.
I take thirty seconds out of my day to copy and paste this and all you can say is "ta."? What is "ta" anyway? Thanks a lot? :+)
FIA: "Hey F1 costs too much money for small teams to compete, you know we should really cut costs by changing the rules" Small Teams: "Yeah!" FIA: "Remember what we said earlier? yeah forget that, we want you to build a 'Push to pass' system like was in Champ car......oh yeah and lets call it KERS and place it under the guise of Formula One 'Going Green'" 'nuff said....
I have one arm plastered to the finger tips and my brace on and I am only out of bed because down the road a bit we have the V8 supercars L&H 500km race at Phillip Island. The forcast is for showers and wind 20kt with 25kt gusts. P.I always has great racing maybe if you get another 30 seconds to spare you could find out about it. Anyway in my condition you should be greatful that I took 3.sec to let you know I do read your posts Thank-You for your wealth of information Your Humble Servant Andrew.
OH damn, I forgot you were banged up! Sorry about that! Get well soon. P.S. If my wealth was measured by my level of knowledge I would be living in the back room of a foodbank fighting rats for small pieces of cheese.
