96 replies to this topic

[ToxicEnviroment]

2nd tier is a great idea. I you think about it F1 always bar last 10-15 years had 2nd tier

 

back in 60s  there were lot of private brabhams filling the last rows and even some f2 machinery

 

In 70s basically 2/3 of the field were 2nd tiers. All those Tokens, Shadows, Ensings, Lyncars, ATSes, Merzarios etc were all basically 2tier teams. Althougn not in official way

 

In the  mid 80s you had Tyrrell and the likes running  NA aspirated engine and competing for Jim Clark trophy basically a 2nd tier award

 

Than in the late 80s early 90s you had influx of cosworth and judd powered teams -also making them 2nd tier

 

Funny, all those times are ususally reffered to as the "golden times of f1"

 

So I see nothing wrong with 2nd tier teams

Edited by ToxicEnviroment, 10 February 2015 - 18:05.

[andrewf1]

I totally support the idea of a division 2 in F1, which are 1 year old purchased cars, as opposed to constructed cars. (I don't think 1 team should own that supplier contract). 

 

As long as they can't win "constructors" prize money, it would seem to answer many of F1's problems since there is a far better business case to enter F1 as a competitive Division 2 team for say £30m per season than easily the last Constructor team for £80m per season. 

 

People can take the piss out of the details of Bernies proposal, but the core approach is sensible.

 

To those that say all we need to do is re-distubute the prize money. Please reach for a calculator. There is NOT ENOUGH money in the total pot to adequately fund 12 Constructor teams. $500m total pot / 12 = $41m each. $41m is not enough based on various F1 teams declared operating budgets and that is based on a structure where there is no incentive for winning. So give the winners even more and there is an average of even less than $41m per team. People always say this is the obvious solution. It is not and it shows that running F1 is more complex than that. 

 

1) The pot is actually around $800m, unless you meant £ initially. That's $66m per team.

2) Increase the pot! F1 generates $1.7bn worth of revenue.

 

Also, your basic assumption is that teams would be funded on prize money alone. That's obviously not the case.

Edited by andrewf1, 10 February 2015 - 18:16.

[johnmhinds]

Rather ridiculous that some fans think figures like $40-60 million per team (yeah I know it's far more than that) wouldn't be enough to run a racing series.

 

Is there any other series that is even close to costing that much? Why should F1 need to cost several orders of magnitude more than every other motorsport?

 

The top teams have shown they are unable or are unwilling to lower costs, so they need to be capped before anything else can be done with the sport.

[sopa]

I don't remember if "special Ferrari payment" was already within that prize money pot or not. But if not, you can add that as well!

[TheCaptain]

I totally support the idea of a division 2 in F1, which are 1 year old purchased cars, as opposed to constructed cars. (I don't think 1 team should own that supplier contract). 

 

As long as they can't win "constructors" prize money, it would seem to answer many of F1's problems since there is a far better business case to enter F1 as a competitive Division 2 team for say £30m per season than easily the last Constructor team for £80m per season. 

 

People can take the piss out of the details of Bernies proposal, but the core approach is sensible.

 

To those that say all we need to do is re-distubute the prize money. Please reach for a calculator. There is NOT ENOUGH money in the total pot to adequately fund 12 Constructor teams. $500m total pot / 12 = $41m each. $41m is not enough based on various F1 teams declared operating budgets and that is based on a structure where there is no incentive for winning. So give the winners even more and there is an average of even less than $41m per team. People always say this is the obvious solution. It is not and it shows that running F1 is more complex than that. 

 

 

I think you're using the wrong numbers in your calculator.   The teams get around $1150m split amongst them  including the Ferrari bribe etc (and CVC take out $650m or so).     You could easily have 11x teams taking $100m each and still allow for a little bit of performance related pay.       Get CVC to throw in another $100m for a 12th team and you have a full grid.     

[BlinkyMcSquinty]

Rather ridiculous that some fans think figures like $40-60 million per team (yeah I know it's far more than that) wouldn't be enough to run a racing series.

 

Is there any other series that is even close to costing that much? Why should F1 need to cost several orders of magnitude more than every other motorsport?

 

The top teams have shown they are unable or are unwilling to lower costs, so they need to be capped before anything else can be done with the sport.

 

There are dozens of effective means to control costs, but this crazy business has the inmates running the asylum. For example, just last week Force India voted against allowing Marussia from fielding last year's modified car from starting the season. How absolutely crazy is that, one team being able to deny a competitor access to the sport? And when both the FIA and Bernie desire lowering costs, it can't happen?

 

If Formula One was a person, they have a rope around their neck, slowly tightening and killing them slowly. But instead of the basic solution to cut the rope, there are attempts to apply makeup so the purple face isn't obvious, or turn the volume down so we can't hear the gasping, or Photoshop a turtleneck to hide the rope. Until the two basic issues are confronted, namely allowing teams and manufacturers power in deciding the fate of the sport, and in unequal distribution of revenue,

[HistoryFan]

I would like to see a strong FIA which makes the rules and which thinks about how the perfect rules would be - and which do not let the big teams make the rules. So I would like to see rules with which small teams could survive.

 

Having said that, I want to think about the idea about 2nd tier F1 teams. I have two points:

 

1.

We had the Jim Clark Trophy/Colin Chapman Trophy in the 80s for teams which could not buy turbo engines. Did that really doing well? What's your opinion? I think yes, it was successfull although it was only raced for one year. But in 1986 all teams were using turbo powered cars and in 1987 (the year with that Trophies) there were five teams not using turbo engines. Tyrrell and AGS changed to V8, Leyton House, Larrousse and Coloni entered Formula One without turbo engines. I don't know whether this teams would have entered F1 if they had to use turbo engines. Does anybody know that? And has anybody an idea how much money the teams saved with not using turbo engines?

 

But in those times the FIA was against turbo engines and it was a question of time that turbo engines would have been banned. There were also some restriction rules for turbo engines (maximum bar and fuel), so perhaps this did help that trophies.

 

2.

What about the different classes in sports car racing? We had 4 different classes in Le Mans (LMP1/LMP2/two GT classes), why does that function there? Because of the long distance (having time to talk about these classes)? Are such different classes not attractive for short races? Is it because it's Formula One? Or what's the difference in your opinion?

 

And we also had private teams in the high class LMP1 (Rebellion, byKolles) which have no chance to beat the factory teams Audi, Toyota, Porsche and Nissan. Although they are driving with much more expensive LMP1 cars not with LMP2 cars. Why?

[Ferrari_F1_fan_2001]

Christian Horner is tipped to be Bernie's succesor in F1. No wonder the Red Bull connection has been mooted.

[Ben H]

I think you're using the wrong numbers in your calculator.   The teams get around $1150m split amongst them  including the Ferrari bribe etc (and CVC take out $650m or so).     You could easily have 11x teams taking $100m each and still allow for a little bit of performance related pay.       Get CVC to throw in another $100m for a 12th team and you have a full grid.     

 

What would be crucial in a sensible prize money distribution is a decent amount of money for LAST place, and an end to the ridiculous situation where there was a prize money 'cliff' after 10th place (and bizarrely in Maruissia's case this lasted for two years AFTER they finished 10th?!) so the option of a rationalised 'bare bones' effort wasn't really there. Have sensible prize money for all, and yes the bottom team may not be scoring loads of points but they can be there, and can grow, and can develop drivers and engineers (remember Alonso flinging the Minardi round on his own in 2001 - got noticed!)

 

The 'lost' generation of teams that haven't joined F1 over the last 20 years who could have been cracking value for it, and aren't in because of this elitism is appaling - think of some of them - Prodrive, Carlin, ART, DAMS.....with a more realistic and open attitude towards prize money and fresh teams, at least some would have been banging the door down to get in, and they would have been there for the long term with a proper racers attitude. I think I'm right in saying that disregarding buyouts, if Manor don't make it this year, Sauber will be the most recent pure 'startup' on the grid...........circa 1993

 

You would have thought F1 of all sports would have been for intense competition, creative destruction, always having to look over your shoulder for the new young pups trying to innovate and beat you.....but instead it has been pull up the drawbridge and stick fingers in ears mode for far, far far too long.........

[Atreiu]

I'd rather a 2nd tier with a 2011 Lotus. Just to see how the field would deal with a far from perfect and trouble some car.

[KingTiger]

Because teams such as Williams are against it. And even though i was a fan of customer car efforts like Super Aguri, i can kinda see their point as well: Competitors being constructors instead of just racing teams is an important part of F1 and i don't think anyone wants to see some sort of DTM racing, with basically three cars for the whole field. I know that wasn't much of an issue in the past of F1, but times have changed and the sport is probably more complex and expensive than ever and we'd risk transforming the whole midfield and below in nothing more than B-teams for the big manufacturers.

 

Because I'd rather watch a full field of 26+ cars rather than what were going to have in a few years - 3 RBR, 3 Ferrari, 2 Mercedes, and 2 McLaren. 

[mclarensmps]

I have never heard of a company or organisation which still holds such an incompetent moron at the helm of a multi-billion dollar franchise, close to implosion.

 

The man does absolutely nothing to promote F1, he collects the money and ruins the sport. Promotes Qatar and threatens Hockenheim and Monza...I don't care about what he's done for the sport before anyone here could remember, the fact is he's running F1 into the ground.

 

What kind of sustainable vision are we to expect from a guy 20 years past his goddamn retirement age? The man doesn't know if he'll live tomorrow, of course he doesn't care about the future!

 

As a shareholder, if Bernie is an incompetent moron, I'll take 3 incompetent morons to run my show, please!

As a fan, I wholeheartedly agree with you.

[CHIUNDA]

In MotoGP there are basically three classes and it works in the sense that they have more bikes on the grid. What they have done there is to allow the slower bikes to a) use more fuel, b) use softer tires in qualifying and c) use more engines during a season. Currently a factory team that did not win a race the previous season get some advantages as well, in spite of being "factory". I don't remember exactly, but I think it is that they can use 8 engines instead of four.

F1 could go that route. I mean it could. I would not like it much though. Nevertheless - something needs to be done. This formula of making cars just slightly faster than the cars that cost 1/20th to build and maintain is simply silly.

This actually sounds practical. It would allow weaker teams to get some positive TV time and boost their revenue and work towards being competitive. They could even throw in some extra filming (testing etc) and Internet streaming for these teams just so they can have more targeted exposure (some limited variant of Arsenal/ManU TV kind of thing).

Secondly it would not disturb the current revenue sharing framework thus minimising counter politics. Lastly it should cover any team not just "factory".

[SonJR]

The 2013 RB with a decent v8 engine would be giving the current spec a very good run for its money.

Which is probably why that's the prefered choice, rather than just the relationship with Horner. No point in putting in a 2013 Caterham (who owns those anyways!? ) if it's gonna be 6 seconds off the pace, opposed to a RB9 that might be within 3 to 4.

Edited by SonJR, 11 February 2015 - 07:30.

[Mercedestorque1]

I think Flavio is good where he's at?

 

who says money cant but you love

[Exb]

I guess 1 question is, if a few more teams are in trouble and end up folding, is this idea better or worse than having some 3 car teams as something will have to be done in that situation to increase the amount of cars? 

[Clatter]

Rather ridiculous that some fans think figures like $40-60 million per team (yeah I know it's far more than that) wouldn't be enough to run a racing series.

 

Is there any other series that is even close to costing that much? Why should F1 need to cost several orders of magnitude more than every other motorsport?

 

The top teams have shown they are unable or are unwilling to lower costs, so they need to be capped before anything else can be done with the sport.

And it's not like they are that much quicker around the track than many other series. Does any other sport constantly complain about needing to cut costs while simultaneously changing the rules and massively increasing the costs?

[Clatter]

who says money cant but you love

It can't, but some women (and men) can always be bought.

[Rinehart]

1) The pot is actually around $800m, unless you meant £ initially. That's $66m per team.

2) Increase the pot! F1 generates $1.7bn worth of revenue.

 

Also, your basic assumption is that teams would be funded on prize money alone. That's obviously not the case.

1. The pot is around $500m ($550 to be more accurate) not $800m, according to autosport.

2. Increase the pot is not possible unless CVC willfully agree to lower their return significantly. Again, another simplistic solution peddled but in reality impossible. 

3. My assumption is not that F1 teams operate on prize money alone, I didn't think I needed to spell it out. My knowledge is that no team ran on less than $60m last year, no competitive team ran on less than $100 and a big part of the reason for that is the engine + chassis combined costs $50m +.

 

So my inference is why chase the impossible notion of say $50m MORE INCOME per team to meet the colossal costs, when the same result can be achieved by LOWERING COST by $50m via customer cars and engines.

 

It boils down to the fact that a lot of fans want a very difficult problem solved in the perfect way and think its simple "oh yeah just spread the prize money around and expect the teams to find more sponsorship and hey presto we'll have 12 profitable, competitive teams all constructing contemporary cars".. GET REAL. 

[Rinehart]

I think you're using the wrong numbers in your calculator.   The teams get around $1150m split amongst them  including the Ferrari bribe etc (and CVC take out $650m or so).     You could easily have 11x teams taking $100m each and still allow for a little bit of performance related pay.       Get CVC to throw in another $100m for a 12th team and you have a full grid.     

 

Seriously, your numbers are absolute nonsense, plucked from thin air. DR has written a number of detailed articles on this, all available on Autosport plus. 

[andrewf1]

1. The pot is around $500m ($550 to be more accurate) not $800m, according to autosport.

2. Increase the pot is not possible unless CVC willfully agree to lower their return significantly. Again, another simplistic solution peddled but in reality impossible. 

3. My assumption is not that F1 teams operate on prize money alone, I didn't think I needed to spell it out. My knowledge is that no team ran on less than $60m last year, no competitive team ran on less than $100 and a big part of the reason for that is the engine + chassis combined costs $50m +.

 

So my inference is why chase the impossible notion of say $50m MORE INCOME per team to meet the colossal costs, when the same result can be achieved by LOWERING COST by $50m via customer cars and engines.

 

It boils down to the fact that a lot of fans want a very difficult problem solved in the perfect way and think its simple "oh yeah just spread the prize money around and expect the teams to find more sponsorship and hey presto we'll have 12 profitable, competitive teams all constructing contemporary cars".. GET REAL. 

 

1) I don't have an Autosport+ subscription, but according to Forbes (well, Sylt actually) the pot is $800m - http://www.forbes.co...rd-800-million/

 

2) This "it can't be done" type of thinking is very detrimental to any type of progress or solution when faced with a problem. A bit of lateral thinking by CVC could do wonders:

 

increase the pot -> redistribute prize money -> teams get financially secure -> closer competition -> more sponsors, better "show" -> increased revenue. Using social media and granting access to race archives and such could substiantially boost F1's popularity and thus, its revenue as well. Of course this chain of actions is not so simple and straight-forward, but I'm sure there are many effective solutions which can be applied to takle F1's financial problem from all sorts of angles.

 

3) I still don't understand your last point, $40+m prize money is a heck of a lot better than $10m or none at all. Yes, costs could be lowered too and we already have customer engines - however nobody wants customer cars and especially not 2013 RedBulls vs. 2015 Merc. It might be a solution but it is the wrong, unwanted one.

[andrewf1]

As a shareholder, if Bernie is an incompetent moron, I'll take 3 incompetent morons to run my show, please!

As a fan, I wholeheartedly agree with you.

 

Bernie is incompetent because of his mentality. He's after short-term profit, not after sustainable growth, relying on the same old marketing trick of "exclusivity", which translates to astronomical costs for race holders, broadcasters, game developers etc. and blocking any kind of online footage. He's ditching the heritage of the sport and embraces Bahrain, Abu Dhabi and Qatar because those are willing to pay the money. He neglects smaller teams and embraces only the big ones for the very same reason.

 

This strategy may have worked in the 80s and 90s but it has no place now in this day and age of online platforms. We as customers nowadays are used to immediate gratification and access to valuable content. This conflicts with Bernie's exclusivity model and as a result, the sport loses out.

 

A competent person would have made F1, as an enterprise, much more successful and popular, which ultimately translates to a lot more money for the shareholders.

[dau]

Seriously, your numbers are absolute nonsense, plucked from thin air. DR has written a number of detailed articles on this, all available on Autosport plus. 

I wonder where he gets his numbers from then. Are you really sure those are supposed to be USD and not pounds? And is that maybe just the part that goes directly to the teams, not including FOM's bonus payments?

[chipmcdonald]

I've always posited F1 could run a 2nd tier - let it be manufacturers and rent-a-chassis teams.  More the merrier.

 

Anything that brings more diversity to F1 is a good thing IMO.

 

n the other hand - I've also always posited that the Master Plan is for GP2 to become "F1" by default.  I don't watch spec racing.

 

 

 

 

 

[chipmcdonald]

You mock Bernie, but he's wise in having an emergency backup plan not just for the exit of Force India and Sauber, but also for the exit of Greece....

 

If Spain follows Greece, the EU is not going to be the same and neither will F1.

[StudMuffin]

It can't, but some women (and men) can always be bought.

Yep, thats the reason Bernie got into trouble and funnily enough got out of trouble!!

[Rinehart]

I wonder where he gets his numbers from then. Are you really sure those are supposed to be USD and not pounds? And is that maybe just the part that goes directly to the teams, not including FOM's bonus payments?

Oops my bad, I meant £ not $... so it doesn't change the picture I presented at all, its just in a different currency. £550 (POUNDS) / 12 teams = not enough! 

 

Here is Dieters numbers:

 

Team / 2013 placing / 2013 payouts (￡m) Est 2013 budgets (￡m)
Ferrari 3rd 99.6 250
RBR 1st 97.2 235
McLaren 5th 57.1 160
Mercedes 2nd 55.2 160*
Lotus 4th 39.0 130
Force India 6th 35.4 100
Williams 9th 33.6 90
Sauber 7th 32.2 90
Toro Rosso 8th 30.0 70
Caterham 11th 18.6 65
Marussia 10th 7.2 51

 

So £505 in total including all forms of FOM income (prize/historical/whatever). 

As an example SFI recieved £35m, they operated on a budget of £100m. Thus they needed to find £65m and they got nowhere near that. Even distribution would be £42m with 12 teams (which you're never going to get to as that would mean no incentive for constuctors points), but even then SFI would be looking at other incomes for £58m. Miles off! That's my point, very simple, its not the money the sport generates that is the problem, its its COST to participate. 

[StudMuffin]

If Benie gets it off the ground would you be able to gain points for a super license from it? Perhaps just change the rules again!

[Rinehart]

1) I don't have an Autosport+ subscription, but according to Forbes (well, Sylt actually) the pot is $800m - http://www.forbes.co...rd-800-million/

 

2) This "it can't be done" type of thinking is very detrimental to any type of progress or solution when faced with a problem. A bit of lateral thinking by CVC could do wonders:

 

increase the pot -> redistribute prize money -> teams get financially secure -> closer competition -> more sponsors, better "show" -> increased revenue. Using social media and granting access to race archives and such could substiantially boost F1's popularity and thus, its revenue as well. Of course this chain of actions is not so simple and straight-forward, but I'm sure there are many effective solutions which can be applied to takle F1's financial problem from all sorts of angles.

 

3) I still don't understand your last point, $40+m prize money is a heck of a lot better than $10m or none at all. Yes, costs could be lowered too and we already have customer engines - however nobody wants customer cars and especially not 2013 RedBulls vs. 2015 Merc. It might be a solution but it is the wrong, unwanted one.

 

1. Yes I've corrected that I meant £ not $, so it changes nothing in terms of the ratio between income and expenditure. There is not enough FOM income to spread between the teams to make the numbers work. 

 

2. I hate to sound like a defeatist, but even if you write the most compelling letter in the world to CVC, they will not agree to increase the amount of money they put back into the sport to the level needed, as that will come directly out of their profits. You might get a ting concession, a few % it will change nothing in the grand scheme of things. 

 

3. Take SFI, who are in serious financial trouble, who operated on a budget of £100m last season. Of that £35m was FOM income. That means they needed to find another £65m I don't know exactly how much of that £65m they succeeded in raising through sponsors and whatnot, but it wasn't anywhere close. I'm guessing it was about £25m and their operating loss was about £40m. So lets say for arguments sake that the issue is a budgetary deficit of £40m per year for the smaller teams. So we either need to find a way to give them another £40m per season or find a way to reduce the cost of the sport by £40m. To me it is crystal clear that there is NOT another £40m per team in the pot (via blind CVC generosity or selfless agreement of prize fund re-distribution). Maybe the sport can generate more income but it needs to attract more fans who pay to watch and that is a longer term strategy. So the answer has to be to reduce the costs, which would be very simple if they didn't have to pay £35m for engines and £25m to build their own cars, each year and instead could pay *IDEALLY* £10m for a car and engine bundle, that would probably be as quick as the car/engine combo they would have built anyway (certainly in Caterhams case) and it would save £40m. At least this route is viable - that's all I'm saying.

[Shambolic]

There is not enough FOM income to spread between the teams to make the numbers work. 

 

 

There might be if certain teams didn't get "incentive payments", or "historical" bonuses...

[andrewf1]

F1: Ecclestone wants to get rid of Mercedes

http://f1-insider.co...edes-loswerden/

 

The plot thickens...

 

Dunno how reliable this is, but I really hope Ecclestone's dictatorial and careless rule of the sport comes to an end as soon as possible

Edited by andrewf1, 11 February 2015 - 18:49.

[SlickMick]

Oops my bad, I meant £ not $... so it doesn't change the picture I presented at all, its just in a different currency. £550 (POUNDS) / 12 teams = not enough! 
 
Here is Dieters numbers:
 
Team / 2013 placing / 2013 payouts (￡m) Est 2013 budgets (￡m)
Ferrari 3rd 99.6 250
RBR 1st 97.2 235
McLaren 5th 57.1 160
Mercedes 2nd 55.2 160*
Lotus 4th 39.0 130
Force India 6th 35.4 100
Williams 9th 33.6 90
Sauber 7th 32.2 90
Toro Rosso 8th 30.0 70
Caterham 11th 18.6 65
Marussia 10th 7.2 51
 
So £505 in total including all forms of FOM income (prize/historical/whatever). 
As an example SFI recieved £35m, they operated on a budget of £100m. Thus they needed to find £65m and they got nowhere near that. Even distribution would be £42m with 12 teams (which you're never going to get to as that would mean no incentive for constuctors points), but even then SFI would be looking at other incomes for £58m. Miles off! That's my point, very simple, its not the money the sport generates that is the problem, its its COST to participate.

Rinenhart,
Don't shout at me if I wrong but are you really sure :-)
Your figures seem at odds with this BBC article from November :

http://www.bbc.com/s...rmula1/29905081

Here's the offending extract :

"Where does the prize money go?
Of F1's £1.1bn income, 63% goes to the teams, the rest to boost the profits of the commercial rights holders (CRH). The main shareholder is a venture capital group called CVC Capital Partners; various banks and investment companies also hold shares.

The contracts that define how the teams get paid are confidential and each team has its own commercial deal with the CRH.

However, this is believed to be how it works. Bear with me, because it might make your head hurt.

Just under half (47.5%) of the profit - about £500m in the last year of results - is split in half.

One half is divided equally between the top 10 teams as defined by their results over the previous three seasons; the other is split between the top 10 from the previous year alone, with each position receiving a given percentage. The higher up you finished in the constructors' championship, the more money you get.

There is also a separate pot called the constructors' championship bonus (CCB), which is about £187.5m and split between Ferrari, Red Bull and McLaren, with Ferrari earning by far the most.

In addition, the two other teams deemed historically important and who also have permanent places on the rule-making F1 strategy group - Mercedes and Williams - each get payments of just over £18.8m.

And £6.25m is given to each team not in the top 10 but competing in the championship.

On top of that, before any money is divided up, Ferrari receive a bonus just for being in the championship, on the basis of the value their presence is perceived to give the sport.

That is worth 5% of the revenues - 2.5% of the promoter's share and 2.5% from the teams' pot. This is about £56.25m this year."


Wouldn't you agree this contradicts your figures and puts the total to teams nearer the £700m/$1.1b mark. If not, are you saying the article is ambiguous/wrong/I'm daft and didn't read it correctly?

Cheers.




EDIT EDIT, BIG FLASHING EDIT, WITH EDIT KNOBS ON : Just re-read the article. Refers to 1.1m "revenue", then 1.1m "income" (note, not profit), then uses the line "Just under half (47.5%) of the profit - about £500m in the last year of results - is split in half." I read 500m as the result after applying the 47%. If that's wrong then it would make your numbers just about right. I'll wont delete this longwinded post as it might help explain to others.

Edited by SlickMick, 12 February 2015 - 02:49.

[Peter0Scandlyn]

who says money cant but you love

 

Man! All that meat and no vege....

[Peter0Scandlyn]

The plot thickens...

 

Dunno how reliable this is, but I really hope Ecclestone's dictatorial and careless rule of the sport comes to an end as soon as possible

Well that was interesting.

Article in German, google offered to translate, so why not? So they did.

Below the article was the already available google translation. Completely different gist.

[GoldenColt]

It never ceases to amaze me how far the people in charge of F1 would go and how many complicated ideas they would propose just to avoid the only simple solution which would be to distribute the money in a way that gives midfield and backmarker teams a chance to compete in F1 without going bankrupt in a few years. Imagine all that time and energy wasted to come up with these sort of ideas.

[Rinehart]

Rinenhart,
Don't shout at me if I wrong but are you really sure :-)
Your figures seem at odds with this BBC article from November :

http://www.bbc.com/s...rmula1/29905081

Here's the offending extract :

"Where does the prize money go?
Of F1's £1.1bn income, 63% goes to the teams, the rest to boost the profits of the commercial rights holders (CRH). The main shareholder is a venture capital group called CVC Capital Partners; various banks and investment companies also hold shares.

The contracts that define how the teams get paid are confidential and each team has its own commercial deal with the CRH.

However, this is believed to be how it works. Bear with me, because it might make your head hurt.

Just under half (47.5%) of the profit - about £500m in the last year of results - is split in half.

One half is divided equally between the top 10 teams as defined by their results over the previous three seasons; the other is split between the top 10 from the previous year alone, with each position receiving a given percentage. The higher up you finished in the constructors' championship, the more money you get.

There is also a separate pot called the constructors' championship bonus (CCB), which is about £187.5m and split between Ferrari, Red Bull and McLaren, with Ferrari earning by far the most.

In addition, the two other teams deemed historically important and who also have permanent places on the rule-making F1 strategy group - Mercedes and Williams - each get payments of just over £18.8m.

And £6.25m is given to each team not in the top 10 but competing in the championship.

On top of that, before any money is divided up, Ferrari receive a bonus just for being in the championship, on the basis of the value their presence is perceived to give the sport.

That is worth 5% of the revenues - 2.5% of the promoter's share and 2.5% from the teams' pot. This is about £56.25m this year."


Wouldn't you agree this contradicts your figures and puts the total to teams nearer the £700m/$1.1b mark. If not, are you saying the article is ambiguous/wrong/I'm daft and didn't read it correctly?

Cheers.




EDIT EDIT, BIG FLASHING EDIT, WITH EDIT KNOBS ON : Just re-read the article. Refers to 1.1m "revenue", then 1.1m "income" (note, not profit), then uses the line "Just under half (47.5%) of the profit - about £500m in the last year of results - is split in half." I read 500m as the result after applying the 47%. If that's wrong then it would make your numbers just about right. I'll wont delete this longwinded post as it might help explain to others.

No because I am talking about the distributed prize/historical money pot ONLY.

Your numbers are income and therefore also include monies that are used for example to freight the cars around the world, provide FOM TV infrastructure, etc. All this is provided for centrally. 

[Rasputin]

2nd tier is a great idea. I you think about it F1 always bar last 10-15 years had 2nd tier

 

back in 60s  there were lot of private brabhams filling the last rows and even some f2 machinery

 

In 70s basically 2/3 of the field were 2nd tiers. All those Tokens, Shadows, Ensings, Lyncars, ATSes, Merzarios etc were all basically 2tier teams. Althougn not in official way

 

In the  mid 80s you had Tyrrell and the likes running  NA aspirated engine and competing for Jim Clark trophy basically a 2nd tier award

 

Than in the late 80s early 90s you had influx of cosworth and judd powered teams -also making them 2nd tier

 

Funny, all those times are ususally reffered to as the "golden times of f1"

 

So I see nothing wrong with 2nd tier teams

I totally agree, they should introduce the far less expensive 2013 2.4 V8 as an alternative, just like when 1.5 turbo/compressor engines were allowed to compete with 3.0 atmos from 1966 to 1986.

[Rinehart]

The bottom line is that in modern times, the slower, smaller teams in F1 are likely to be 3-5 seconds off the pace. They achieve this relative uncompetitiveness via an extraordinarily expensive and illogical set of rules that necessitate that they:

 

1. Design and build a brand new chassis, costing £25m, every year

2. Purchase monstrously expensive PU's for the season, for about £35m, from the manufacturers they are competing against

3. Perversely have to place lower quality pay drivers in their cars to afford to compete 

4. Receive only a small fraction of F1's profit share as compared to larger, more competitive teams

5. Ultimately are unable to generate the required operating budget of close to £100m through sponsorship, so they cannot improve and instead usually go bust within 3-10 years.

6. Another privateer team joins to take its place, seemingly blissfully unaware of the impossibility of the task (with the odd exception, such as Red Bull or a manufacturer such as Mercedes). 

 

Giving teams the option to buy a (lets call it F2) chassis+engine package for about £10m which performs within 3 seconds of the competitive pace would potentially solve every single of of these problems.

 

1. A sustainable business case for smaller teams

2. More competitive racing from front to back of grid, with larger grids

3. Improved quality of drivers through squeezing out of the pay drivers

4. An effective proving ground for young drivers/engineers with an obvious promotion target to the "constructor" tier 

5. Enable manufacturers to demonstrate and therefore advertise that their "hybrid" technologies are better than "standard" technologies

6. A more viable entry roadmap for new teams that could consider establishing themselves in F2 before moving up to F1. 

 

The only downside would be that the inclusion of F2 would mean that F1 was no longer a constructor series - and I understand that a purist might have a problem with that to an extent....

But, lets also remember, this is how F1 was for the majority of its history, that privateers could purchase a car. So, its actually selective purism. F1 wasn't originally a constructor only series.

[Rinehart]

I totally agree, they should introduce the far less expensive 2013 2.4 V8 as an alternative, just like when 1.5 turbo/compressor engines were allowed to compete with 3.0 atmos from 1966 to 1986.

 

Weren't the constructor ONLY rules inserted into one of the old concord agreements, purely as a means to drive up the value of the participating teams (Williams, certainly were amongst the strongest advocates of that in the 90's). 

[noikeee]

The bottom line is that in modern times, the slower, smaller teams in F1 are likely to be 3-5 seconds off the pace. They achieve this relative uncompetitiveness via an extraordinarily expensive and illogical set of rules that necessitate that they:

 

1. Design and build a brand new chassis, costing £25m, every year

2. Purchase monstrously expensive PU's for the season, for about £35m, from the manufacturers they are competing against

3. Perversely have to place lower quality pay drivers in their cars to afford to compete 

4. Receive only a small fraction of F1's profit share as compared to larger, more competitive teams

5. Ultimately are unable to generate the required operating budget of close to £100m through sponsorship, so they cannot improve and instead usually go bust within 3-10 years.

6. Another privateer team joins to take its place, seemingly blissfully unaware of the impossibility of the task (with the odd exception, such as Red Bull or a manufacturer such as Mercedes). 

 

Giving teams the option to buy a (lets call it F2) chassis+engine package for about £10m which performs within 3 seconds of the competitive pace would potentially solve every single of of these problems.

 

1. A sustainable business case for smaller teams

2. More competitive racing from front to back of grid, with larger grids

3. Improved quality of drivers through squeezing out of the pay drivers

4. An effective proving ground for young drivers/engineers with an obvious promotion target to the "constructor" tier 

5. Enable manufacturers to demonstrate and therefore advertise that their "hybrid" technologies are better than "standard" technologies

6. A more viable entry roadmap for new teams that could consider establishing themselves in F2 before moving up to F1. 

 

The only downside would be that the inclusion of F2 would mean that F1 was no longer a constructor series - and I understand that a purist might have a problem with that to an extent....

But, lets also remember, this is how F1 was for the majority of its history, that privateers could purchase a car. So, its actually selective purism. F1 wasn't originally a constructor only series.

 

 

I agree there is a very sound logic behind it, it's not "overcomplicated" or "stupid". However if you open up the back of the grid to a cheap mildly competitive second category, you're putting pressure on the smaller traditional teams. Would Toro Rosso still make sense as a constructor when they could still train drivers by placing them in the 2nd category? Would Sauber, Force India and Lotus still make sense as a constructor, if they could move to this category and run slightly slower cars at a much much cheaper fraction of the cost? You could end up in a situation with 4 or 5 constructors and the rest going spec. And then what if Red Bull and Mercedes decide they've got enough publicity from the sport and abandon, too ...? Everyone runs Ferraris or McLarens?

 

Ultimately whether the solution is a 2nd tier of spec cars, customer cars, or third cars for the existent teams, the danger is exactly the same: F1 gets closer and closer to a spec series situation. F1 should instead focus in trying to retain as many independent constructor teams as possible.

 

What about Max Mosley's idea of a few years back (which brought Virgin, Lotus and HRT) - a 2nd tier for CONSTRUCTORS under slightly different regulations and a tightly enforced cost cap?

[FerrariV12]

 

What about Max Mosley's idea of a few years back (which brought Virgin, Lotus and HRT) - a 2nd tier for CONSTRUCTORS under slightly different regulations and a tightly enforced cost cap?

 

 

While I disagreed with many of Mosley's ideas - the spec engine he tried to drive through being the worst of them - I don't think this would be a bad idea at all.

 

The thing that's had me worried whenever a "2nd tier" is brought up probably because of the suggestions that were rolling around a year or two back around formalised A and B teams, so 5 "A" teams and 5 Toro Rosso-like outfits, the hierarchy pretty much locked in place. Which didn't sound appealing at all. But if a system like the one above could be made workable, then a 2nd tier team - independently owned and with facilities in place - if they do a good job, build their team up, they could always then transition into the top tier.

 

That said, I hate to say it but, I wonder if some within the sport and - from reading this and various message boards, user groups, etc. down the years - a significant proportion of fans - are getting exactly what they wished for this year. For years I've heard "quality over quantity", "if they're 4 or 5 seconds off the pace they might as well not show up", "only the cars at the front matter", crap like that. Well that's exactly what we're getting this year. Enjoy 

Edited by FerrariV12, 12 February 2015 - 17:30.

[kraduk]

 

 

What kind of sustainable vision are we to expect from a guy 20 years past his goddamn retirement age? The man doesn't know if he'll live tomorrow, of course he doesn't care about the future!

 

Nice to see some of the posters in here are as out of touch with EU law as Bernie is 

[highdownforce]

 

What about Max Mosley's idea of a few years back (which brought Virgin, Lotus and HRT) - a 2nd tier for CONSTRUCTORS under slightly different regulations and a tightly enforced cost cap?

 

 

KERS

• KERS has double the power of Capped KERS with the same time limit per lap
• KERS can connect to both the front and rear wheels

 

Front Wing

• Asymetric Front wing moveability (adjustment from side to side can be different)
• No limit to the number of times moved per lap
• limit of 10 degrees of movement instead of 6 degrees

 

Rear Wing

• The upper section of a two section wing may be moved as long as it stays within the body dimensions

 

Transmissions

• Cars can be capable of driving more than two wheels

 

Engines

• Unlimited RPM on engines and Unlimited engines per season

 

 

 

 

[andrewf1]

Nice to see some of the posters in here are as out of touch with EU law as Bernie is 

 

what do you mean?

[LORDBYRON]

Is this not infect customers cars ? idea which got shot down

[Tsarwash]

Oops my bad, I meant £ not $... so it doesn't change the picture I presented at all, its just in a different currency. £550 (POUNDS) / 12 teams = not enough! 

 

Here is Dieters numbers:

 

Team / 2013 placing / 2013 payouts (￡m) Est 2013 budgets (￡m)
Ferrari 3rd 99.6 250
RBR 1st 97.2 235
McLaren 5th 57.1 160
Mercedes 2nd 55.2 160*
Lotus 4th 39.0 130
Force India 6th 35.4 100
Williams 9th 33.6 90
Sauber 7th 32.2 90
Toro Rosso 8th 30.0 70
Caterham 11th 18.6 65
Marussia 10th 7.2 51

 

So £505 in total including all forms of FOM income (prize/historical/whatever). 

As an example SFI recieved £35m, they operated on a budget of £100m. Thus they needed to find £65m and they got nowhere near that. Even distribution would be £42m with 12 teams (which you're never going to get to as that would mean no incentive for constuctors points), but even then SFI would be looking at other incomes for £58m. Miles off! That's my point, very simple, its not the money the sport generates that is the problem, its its COST to participate. 

Does any of this prize money an/or revenue get taxed at all ? I imagine that most governments would like a share of it. Imagine that CVC is paying interest on the initial loan as well. I'm not saying that F1 doesn't have pots of money rolling around, but often people forget that say turnover is not income. 

 

Bernie has been very clever, and bribed exactly the correct teams to keep them on board to prevent a breakaway, and knows how to dangle the right sized carrot in front of the other teams that he thinks matters. Bernie shouldn't be running F1 alone. The balance with Max worked well, up to a point. Max understood the long term, and Bernie is the master of the short term. 

[BillBald]

I think Flavio is good where he's at?

 

 

I can't work out what he sees in her!