http://www.f1fanatic.co.uk/2012/02/14/f1-quitters-return-racing-2012/ F1 quitters return to racing elsewhere in 2012 | 2012 F1 season Posted: 14 Feb 2012 04:30 AM PST Nick Heidfeld, BMW, Abu Dhabi, 2009 BMW turned its back on F1 at the end of 2009 When the global financial crisis began to bite, F1 was rocked by a series of departures by major car manufacturers. First Honda pulled the plug on its F1 team at the end of 2008. Within 12 months BMW and Toyota had followed suit. This trio are embarking on major new racing projects in 2012 â but not in F1. Why have they chosen to make their comebacks in other series?
loaded dice - and the existing players have large pie-slices, new teams would only get a sliver of the rewards.
Loaded dice indeed. Bernie's - and his friends' - continued monopoly comes with all the territory under the Sky… Unfortunately, it seems that the fools who are so impatient to have their thirst for F1 slaked by allowing themselves to be extorted through paying Sky high prices for their fix, are so short-sighted that they do not see the destruction they are contributing to.
Hardly. The last three championships have been won by Red Bull and Brawn, Ferrari have had a fourth and two third place finishes in the constructors in that time. BLS has it spot on, they don't have the expertise to win so they don't want to invest millions to show the public their brand getting repeatedly trashed by someone else's. All three of those teams threw vast amounts of money at the sport trying to buy success and they failed.
Sure, they don't want to see their brand trashed every week when they get lapped by a competitor, but why not start a team under a different name, and slowly increase your presence within them, until eventually completely rebranding them? For example, a car company (lets call them Toyonda) buys HRT, pumps a few hundred million into them behind the scenes. When HRT begin to look like they may be going somewhere, perhaps beginning to mix it in the midfield, announce a sponsorship deal, making the team HRT-Toyonda. Then when they start pushing for the top 3, drop the HRT name to leave Toyonda racing proudly at the head of the pack. Sure, it's an expensive, maybe 15 year strategy, but it'll cost less than starting a team from scratch, and doesn't do your company's reputation any harm.
I would say no, they are customer teams, RBR is the works team, with maybe the latest reincarnation of Lotus also possibly works team. I no longer count McLaren as a works team now that Mercedes have their own team, what would mercedes do if the championship came down to McLaren v Mercedes, who would get 100% focus?
BMW have been continually involved in Motorsport since the end of their F1 involvement (GT2&3, DTM). Im happy that Toyota have decided to enter the LMP1 category in endurance series, their hybrid entries are obviously more aligned with their commercial ambitions than F1 ever was. The economic climate continues to bite hard as Peugeot have abandoned their LMP1 project (mystifying as they had already done all the expensive work with their new car built and ready for Sebring) leaving another year of debate as to which Audi will win Le Mans. In this climate manufacturers have to align their marketing exercises in motorsport (and that really is all they are) with their corporate objectives
