Official Not606 USA GP Chat and Predictions

The Americans are, understandably, not happy.

 

You have got to be ****ting me.

 

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This is not funny is it...

 

What an absolute farce! Once again F1 is going to look ridiculous on this side of the Atlantic.

Well done Bernie and CVC! They're a bunch of leaches that that don't give a crap about the sport and treat the fans with nothing but contempt. PLEASE JUST BUGGER OFF!!!

 

Bernie's a collection of 4 letter words, none of them polite either!

 

You know say what you will about Whitmarsh but at least he tried to get FOTA working.

 

Interestingly, he's quoted in the article I linked above as predicting this mess last year:

Bob Fernley of Force India was less equivocal:

 

To be completely honest I don't object to a company holding and being responsible for F1's commercial rights - that way they can maximise revenues and exposure, and the teams can concentrate on what matters most, which is going racing. However, CVC have done so at the expense of the teams that make it possible to go racing at all and with very little sustained, united opposition from the teams themselves - which is clearly the issue here.

 

I don't generally agree with all the costcutting and trying to make it easy for the backmarker teams to survive, it needs to be cut-throat back there to give them something to fight for, i.e. their survival. If it was easy to survive at the back you'd get opportunistic businessmen launching F1 teams, running them for £30m, collecting £50m in prize money (plus money from sponsors and pay drivers) for coming last, and creaming off a tidy profit for themselves. A bit like Mike Ashley's business model at Newcastle, keep them in the Premier League investing as little as you can and pocket the lucrative payments for TV rights. At least in football there's a chance of a team being relegated to keep the owners honest.

However, when a team like Force India is struggling there's clearly a problem. I would be good to see half the prize money awarded on a race-by-race basis to prevent cash flow problems. Then the other half awarded at the end of the season based purely on the WCC, with ZERO loyalty bonuses for Ferrari, and the others who benefit from them.

 

I don't think that would be an issue, as the 107% rule should at least ensure the cars are reasonably competitive. Even if it creates two tiers in the sport with the "real" teams and the "profiteering" teams, I'd rather see a full grid than half of one. Something similar to the 107% rule applied to races could ensure there's some racing in that second tier too.

 

For me the 107% rule is too lenient.

 

Quite possibly although that's another discussion entirely. Personally I'd like to see it become stricter the more seasons a team has under it's belt.

 

It would leave an incredibly sour taste for me if there were teams making no effort to compete. Especially as they were making millions out of it. And especially in what is supposed to be the pinnacle of motorsport. I'd feel nothing but hatred towards somebody running a team that way and I couldn't stand to see them on the grid.

Just out of interest, if Bernie replaced Marussia and Caterham with two teams owned by him, then adjusted the way prize money was dished out so that everyone got £40m right off the bat at the start of the season, and then his cars were running round two seconds behind Sauber, how would you feel about it?

 

I don't believe you'd have teams making no effort to compete, if you need the staff to design and build a car you may as well make an effort. If there's £10m more for finishing 10th rather than 11th, you'd expect the bottom teams to put in a non-zero amount of effort to try and get that extra money. Tony Fernandes stopped caring about competing once he realised the gap between Caterham and the midfield, for the last 6 months they've effectively been completing races for the sake of it, but just without any chance of sustaining the team long-term. It's not ideal, I'd much rather we had a full grid of competitive, honest teams but that's not a likely scenario right now. Personally I'd rather see 14 competitive cars and 8 making up the numbers, rather than just 14 cars. At the very least the uncompetitive teams create slightly better TV (more overtakes), more complex strategy (they still slow faster teams down) and the facade of a healthy sport. Without small, uncompetitive teams the likes of Alonso, Webber, Ricciardo and Bianchi would have taken a lot longer to get into the sport, and fewer talented engineers and designers would break into F1.

Bernie owning teams to allow him to cream more money off the sport would obviously leave a sour taste, but if it benefits the sport by more than he's sucking out, then I guess I could live with it.

 

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Have Force India shown up to America then? as someone said above, I also heard last night they were due a large payment to Mercedes today and without making it (and they were struggling massively to do so), they'd not have any engines for COTA. There are stories they may not be at Brazil too. They are working on a race by race basis apparently.

 

For the sake of the sport Merc, should supply them with engines for the remainder of the season. They can work out payment during the winter.

 

Force india have now payed the final instalment to Mercedes and will make the final races

 

What if we had two Championships... "A" Class and "B" Class? If you perform below a certain level you get relegated to B Class and if you outperform someone in the A Class you get promoted the next year? Maybe a stupid idea, but it would give everybody a target to go after and something to really fight for. For instance, top teams like Mercedes, Red Bull and Ferrari wouldn't want to be relegated to "B" Class team status and the lower teams will be fighting to get up there. So race fans will have two different championships to keep their interest going instead of one. And the interest would still be there, especially at the end, to see who gets relegated and who gets promoted. Just a thought. Ok i can close my eyes now and take my licks for that crazy idea..lol. El Bando, Sgt Bhaji, DHCanary, AbsolutelyGlorious and others you can start sharing your lashing as soon as you are ready..lol.

 

8.2 billion...........................