From Autosport Former double world champion Fernando Alonso has admitted he is worried about his own future, and where Formula 1 is heading, as the row over new regulations showed no sign of abating at Monaco on Wednesday. With Ferrari having lost its legal bid to prevent a voluntary budget cap being introduced in F1 next year, the sport is set for an intense few days to resolve differences between the teams and the FIA on cost cuts. Alonso, whose Renault team has said it will not enter F1 next year unless the rules are changed, has confessed that the situation has left him very uneasy. When asked by AUTOSPORT if amid all the political turmoil he feared that he would not be racing in F1 next year, Alonso said: "Yes. It is very worrying." Although the Spaniard says the political distractions will not divert his attention from racing this weekend, he concedes it is difficult not to think about it when away from the race track. And he has made it clear that he does not want to race in a category dominated by just new teams. "I tried to switch off and concentrate on this business," he said. "Here, when I am in Monaco, I will be 100 per cent focused on the grand prix, with the weekend. But it is true that last week when I was at home it was impossible to switch off because I don't know if this will be my last time in Monaco. "If the big teams and the big manufacturers leave F1 then I don't want to race with small teams, because it is not any more F1 and there are many other categories. "For me, it is strange that no one sat down and thought how we are damaging the sport, how much damage the sport has had in the last two months. To have those three or four new teams and losing seven of the big manufacturers I cannot understand - and not losing only seven manufacturers but losing the 10 best drivers in the world. It becomes no more interesting, F1." Alonso is scheduled to attend the Le Mans 24 Hours race next month, and has admitted that competing in the event in the future would be of interest to him - but he denied his focus would rest there if he was forced out of F1. "I hope to race more than one race a year, but obviously I am 27, I have been two-times world champion and I would like to win more categories and more series."
I concur with Fernando...it's almost like BernieMax is putting the draw of new teams ahead of keeping the manufacturers happy.
What "draw of the new teams"? Very, very few new people (outside of family members, maybe!) are going to be attracted to F-sham without the big guys, and especially Ferrari. New teams, by definition, don't draw in the crowds and TV eyeballs.... I know damn well I'm not interested in watching USF1, Epsilon, Wirth, and other complete no names no matter how closely matched they may be. They may very well be fine race teams, and even constructors, but they're simply not F1 caliber IMHO. Cheers, Ian
You won't hear an argument from me! Agreement, yes, but argument NO WAY! FTR, I meant BernieMax's ability to draw new teams versus the new teams drawing an audience.
The idea is to attract new teams AND keep the big teams, which I believe is what will happen in the end. Next season we'll hopefully have all this year's teams plus two or three of the best of the aspirants. Those who believe the proposed budget limit is unfair to manufacturers should remember the loss of Honda; the limit wasn't designed just to attract new teams but to prevent the loss of some of the manufacturer teams who are suffering from the economic downturn.
I think Brawn is showing you can be successful without a budget cap. The greatness of his story is that he's beating the big teams by outfoxing them without spending tons of money.
My bad! [I figured that's what you were getting at after I posted.....] I wonder why, all of a sudden, it's so important to get a bunch of newbies in to the series? It's been humming along nicely for quite a few years with 10 teams. OK, Mad Max and the evil pygmy are no doubt nervous about the single vote needed to get Merc to pull the plug, and Renault are hardly a given any longer. But, anyone that remembers more than a few years back knows that teams come and go all the time. It's *always* been that way, and always will be IMHO. The one and only constant through it all is Ferrari, and nothing can change that legacy. Not even a complete withdrawal from all motorsport would hurt that legacy. Le Mans is one, fairly widely followed race. Beyond that, sports car racing has virtually zero audience and TV coverage - Who cares? [Sorry, Carol, I know you do!] As Steve has said, CART/IRL and (god forbid!) Nascar have *zero* audience outside of the States - Who cares? For me at least, F1 without Ferrari isn't worth watching. But, a complete withdrawal won't hurt their sales at all if spun the right way. - In fact, the "myth" will get stronger over time as newbies come along who dream of the "glory days" when the Scuderia *was* in a legitimate F1 series. My 02c, Cheers, Ian
using Brawn as an example is not correct. That car was developed last year under Hondas massive budget. The current Brawn budget is 120 million. This was revealed after Australia when they had layoffs....
I know, but that's always the example that's used when people want to argue that Ferrari is too dumb to win with a limited budget.
I don't understand why F1 has to be "dumbed down" to keep it alive? Here's an idea! Why doesn't Ferrari completely change and start using the cheapest parts available. Fire all of the talented employees and bring in the automation. That way anyone who can afford a $20K car can now afford a Ferrari. Brilliant!
It seems to me you're making a better case FOR the budget cap than against it. If teams can be successful without spending lots of money why shouldn't Ferrari, McLaren, Toyota, etc go along with that and spend less money, i.e. agree to the budget cap? Everybody would benefit.
They shouldn't have to...the challenge should be on the lesser funded teams to outsmart those with more resources.
We'll have to agree to disagree. In the long run teams that are able to throw huge amounts of money at it are always going to beat teams that aren't able to do that, and that isn't good for F1. An analogy is football (soccer) here in Scotland. There are two teams with vastly greater resources than all the others and every year one or other of those two teams wins pretty much everything. The rest of the teams are very rarely going to win anything, the only real competition is between the two rich teams. Most of the others are struggling to survive, virtually every year one or more gets very close to going out of business, and occasionally does. Without a major change I believe F1 could go the same way.
I see where your coming from Ian, but football is very successfull, I can't imagine the uproar round here if Man united, Liverpool, Man city ect, were to pull out over the way the sport was being governed!! try street riots, sure the same would apply up your end as well.
Steve, up here it's only successful for two teams, all the others struggle and, as I said, have very little chance of winning anything. Fewer people are going to watch it and Scottish football is pretty much a joke.
Yeah, agreed. Steve's point though was the uproar that would ensue should either of the big two threaten to quit over the way the Scottish FA runs the game up there. Damn, we'd need to rebuild Hadrians Wall if they were going after the English F.A. Cheers, Ian PS - Haven't followed it up there in forever - I presume it's still Celtic & Rangers?
It is indeed, Ian, and no likelihood of that changing anytime in the next 100 years! If you had been following the game in the past year or two you'd have heard that there has actually been talk of the big two quitting the Scottish league and playing in the English league! Although I'm not a footie guy I personally think that might be a good thing. Rangers and Celtic would be meeting opponents who were more their equals than their Scottish opponents are and most of the other teams here would have some chance of collecting silverware at the end of the season.
No to derail all the good Football talk but what's up when Alonso opens his mouth and makes sense? Maybe the sky is falling.
