They both seem nice guys. It appears to me just another example of the impossible F1 cost structure that only suits the top 3-4 teams and then not always.
Redbull having come in and in my view they upped the ante financially buying all the toys and 700 staff and 4 Championships no longer have the edge due to their engine. They find that spending say an estimated 600million per year and not winning isn't fun.
The money structure is about hyper budgets that are eye watering for all but the biggest companies.
We see that Volkswagens plans to enter *see below are scuppered as their spare $billion got eaten up by the emissions scandal.
So it's a place no longer for racers, The Ken Tyrells, Colin Chapmans, Peter Saubers. Its for corporates. That pure fact is killing F1.
If costs were cut to 25% of current levels the spectacle would be unchanged.
Bold statement? The whole of the indycar grid runs on about what Sauber spend.
If a team could enter and compete for say £30-50 million p.a we would see 18 teams instead of 11 and the need to pre qualify. We would see new blood that wasn't really just customer teams (Haas) and B-teams (Toro Rosso) or client teams just running the top teams drivers in waiting.
The top few are strangling the sport.
*I mean why would any sane company that already had a strong brand image spend the minimum 1 billion required to even be near the front? Can anyone tell me?
Examples:
a)Lets look at it. M/Benz, tons of money but a bit of a staid old farts image. Perfect sense, F1 Lewis Hamilton WCC, WDC. Job done. The masses don't get to see that the Driver is British, the Car is british and the engine is british. The M/B parts are the cheque book and the paint job.
So it was a reasonable investment. But even for them it looked a bit scary for a while when wilth all that money the were languishing in the mid grid. with Shumacher and Rosberg.
b) Red Bull. Soft drink billionaire and a product that either needs hundreds of millions spent on advertising or spent on promotion. If you like F1 it might as well be promotion. So , job done. You couldnt but the air time and promotion RedBull has had with the same spend (as their F1 budget) on advertising. They have done their job and now might scale back. The return on further billions is now a bit more nebulous. They can go and hype something else like soap box racing if they want.
c) Ferrari. Their whole brand image is built on F1. The relationship is somewhat symbiotic. They need F1, F1 needs them. (they do have too much power IMO).
d) Volkswagen. A brand image (until recent developments) par excellence. Bentley, Audi, VW, Skoda, Seat.
The luxury brand, the overpriced car, the family car, the value car and the younger car.
Audi particularly, a whole brand built on very little but early 80s rallying and QUATTRO and the Lemans 24 hours. But its working.
The reality is that Vorsprung dur Tecnic is better translated as "Volkswagen but Expensive"
However the masses that are more comforatable paying an extra £100 a month and having the audi badge instead of the Skoda badge are happy.
So if its working why on earth do you want to spend a billion quid to have an audi team that would (almost certainly) not dominate? If they dont dominate what have they achieved. IMO a pure ego project and smacking of "edifice complex".
So my question is if you were running a successful car company with a good brand image would you enter F1?
