Brundle on Twitter: Mercedes announce 2013 sponsor,clearly not leaving F1. Last volume manufacturer in F1, supply quarter of F1 grid engines. Crazy to lose them.
The thing is, whether Mercedes withdraw from F1 or not and as much of an impact as that would have on the sport (and withdrawal as a constructor doesn't necessarily also mean withdrawal as an engine supplier), this is only a small part of a much bigger story about Ecclestone's retirement (and the F1 Board set up to replace him) and Ecclestone's retirement fund (and the flotation of F1 to provide it). As far as I can see, the Times F1 reporter is simply focusing on what was said at a Daimler board meeting a month ago in an attempt to disrupt what is probably inevitable (certainly, the withdrawal of Mercedes won't prevent it). Given that CVC won't maintain the ownership of F1 in its current form because of the nature of their business, I think there are really only two alternatives: selling it as a going concern to the likes of Murdoch or floating it on the stock market with a corporate board that includes stakeholder representation. The Times report illustrates the area in which ownership of news distribution and directing the presentation of news reporting in order to meet one's own commercial objectives intertwine and the one compromises the purpose of the other.
Yes, Rosberg is doing very well this year. Maybe they should have Schuey for Friday mornings only for his development work?
Oh yeah, I think that would have to be the case if Mercedes don't put a plastic gearbox or non-flappy DRS on his car, or an automatic traffic light system on his pit box. How about all the drivers that are not doing as well as their counterparts do exactly what you said hmm?
He hasn't been on it since he returned. Now its just excuses he is coming up with. 2005 showed his previous WDC's were all to do with being able to do lots of short sprints as fast as he could and didn't need to worry about tyre degradation etc. As soon as 2005 came along Ferrari were nowhere at the start as it became clear their car was not suited to being kind to its tyres. He needs to either adapt to these new tyres like everyone else, or retire. Frankly he's becoming a bit embarrasing now as he is in danger of being remembered for 3 years without even a podium overshadowing his success of the past. If he wants his racing fix, DTM is the place for him. Will get Mercedes more media coverage in their homeland.
Bit slow finding out about this. How bizarre. Why on earth would you want to appoint quite a large number of team representatives to your board who are likely to put their own individual interests above that of F1 as a whole? Why on earth would you appoint to your board people whose entitlement to be there is dependent on their teams remaining in F1 - which may seem certain now but entirely different in 2 or 3 years time? Surely a rational person would get the teams to form a body of their own and let it elect a number of representatives up to the F1 board with an agreed mandate? You could call it something like the Formula One Teams Association. All the in-fighting would be isolated in FOTA [snappy new name don't you think?] away from the F1 board and the representation would be independent of the teams actually on the grid at any one time. Am I missing something?
Possibly the main thread where all this has already been posted and discussed. The board members from F1 teams may not be quorum members and, as the original thread said, "these directors would not be deemed to be independent for corporate governance purposes" so presumably their voting rights would be different to those of full board members. Should they drop out of F1, therefore, board operations would not be severely debilitated. It is an interesting point that you raise - having individual team representatives making (potentially differing) decisions in the boardroom instead of representation of the teams as a body speaking with one voice for the teams as a body but this is F1 and it is and always has been governed by division and private agreements. Taking this into the boardroom is entirely in keeping with existing F1 governance.
Hmm yes I see the other thread with much more information. It's worse than it looks here, as Red Bull only figure on the F1 board IF Ferrari chose to nominate Christian Horner or Dieter Mateschitz as Ferrari's representative, so it's not actually open for ANY team other than Ferrari to participate at all. I can see Mercedes' problem. They are the only major Northern European corporate currently in F1 with all the attention to governance that entails. Why would they want to be associated with looks like a typical F1 banana republic arrangement?
Um, that's not correct. The original leaked draft stated that "the Ferrari representative likely to be appointed to the F1 board is Luca di Montezemolo, the company’s chairman. Either Dieter Mateschitz, the Red Bull founder, or Christian Horner, the Red Bull Racing team principal, will also be invited to join the F1 board as part of the new Concorde Agreement..." Since then, McLaren has also been given a seat so the three main teams each have a seat on the board. Well, Fiat SpA and Red Bull GmbH won't be represented and, should Mercedes F1 be given a seat, neither would Daimler AG. We're only talking about the F1 racing operations - Scuderia Ferrari, Red Bull Racing and VMM-F1. They may, of course, be represented by personnel higher up the food-chain than Domenicali, Horner or Whitmarsh. You're quite right about Mercedes, though. The Daimler AG board has never been fully supportive of being in F1 as a constructor and a month ago this came to a head at the shareholders' AGM with calls for them to withdraw, which is what the Times F1 correspondent has, rather belatedly, built a story around, with somewhat nefarious motives.
Bernie Ecclestone says the Mercedes deal is 80% done http://www.f1zone.net/news/ecclestone-says-mercedes-deal-80-per-cent-done/13925/
