34 replies to this topic

[annica]

It seems almost fashionable to bash Tom Walkinshaw. Hate for Tom Walkinshaw is apparently the single thread that unites many people.

Why?

Because he plays hard, lies and dishonours his contracts? But surely he also faces the legal consequences of dishonouring his contracts. This is nothing unique to Tom and I would say that by Formula One standards he is in pretty good company!

Why do you hate TW?

[Ricardo F1]

I don't really have a problem with him, in fact I've always liked Arrows. Especially now Jos is gone!

[maclaren]

Tom stole Minardis TV monay with Phoenix for Arrows

[lustigson]

I don't hate Walkinshaw at all. I just think that, if (or when) all the rumours about him shifting debts from one company to another and all that stuff appears to be true, he's being stupid. He'd be 'bringing the sport into disripute'.

[servellen]

He's ok---but he is a hardend business man who does some dodgy deals and sacked two of his drivers just before the beginning of the season. He made some tough choices, and lots of fans are bound to hate that.

I think Verstappen deserved to get sacked HHF is doing much better; personally i don't like some of the dodgy deals he jumps at taking part in like the whole phoenix thing---think he should work on bringing more quality and consistancy into his existing team rather than being so scattered in his activities. Arrows hardly test at all, and apart from thr last few races in which HHF has done well- the Arrows have been like mobile chicanes that hardly finish.

[SennasCat]

Originally posted by annica

Why?

Because he plays hard, lies and dishonours his contracts?

Tom stole Minardis TV monay with Phoenix for Arrows

Do you need any other reasons??????

[annica]

Originally posted by maclaren
Tom stole Minardis TV monay with Phoenix for Arrows

Stole? Interesting choice of both verb and tense!

[annica]

Originally posted by Steve Williams
Tom stole Minardis TV monay with Phoenix for Arrows

Missed you by two minutes. I was busy here. Go figure.

Do you need any other reasons??????

Yes. Specially since the one maclaren & you mentioned is a non-event and a product of your imagination.

[annica]

Originally posted by lustigson
I just think that, if (or when) all the rumours about him shifting debts from one company to another and all that stuff appears to be true, he's being stupid.

He's being smart. He is doing what others failed to do. Although I wonder whether it would have any affect at all in the cash infusion from sponsors. Much effort for nothing.

He'd be 'bringing the sport into disripute'.

What sport?














OK, lets try again...
No way is he bringing the sport into 'disripute'. He's playing by the rules and stretching them to the limits. More power to him, I say. That FIA clause is ridiculously vague to pass scrutiny by any court and I don't think we should base our arguments on such a silly clause.

[boost]

Toms a wanker.
But u covered many answers in your own flame bait troll..

Because he plays hard, lies and dishonours his contracts? But surely he also faces the legal consequences of dishonouring his contracts. This is nothing unique to Tom and I would say that by Formula One standards he is in pretty good company!

There all wankers, but thats F1.
Are u after after some personal reasons to hate him? none here can probably answer that unless your name is Verstappen.

[jloehs777]

I don't really have a problem with Tom bringing in Heinz for Jos other than the timing. A few weeks before the start of the season basically meant that Jos had no chance to make other arrangaments for 2002 where as if it was in the silly season 2001 Jos at least had a chance of finding another drive. I don't know much about his other shady practices other than when he tried to sue Diniz in 99 for leaving Arrows for Sauber, but Jordan's done similar things in the past (eg Shumacer 91) so maybe that's all just part of the game?

[dretceterini]

This sounds kind of like "women are whores", "men are sluts"

[maclaren]

Originally posted by annica
Stole? Interesting choice of both verb and tense!

Yes. Specially since the one maclaren & you mentioned is a non-event and a product of your imagination.

Or maybe smiley was wrong.

Another try:
Tom stole Minardis TV monay with Phoenix for Arrows

[annica]

Originally posted by boost
Are u after after some personal reasons to hate him?

No. But if you have some reasons do share.

I was most perplexed because every once in a while a poster would mention how s(he) hates/dislikes TW and then there would be a trail of posters claiming how they hate/dislike TW and things like TW deserves what he gets (don't we all?).

Myself, I quite enjoy TW and appreciate the way he runs his organization.

[annica]

Originally posted by maclaren
Or maybe smiley was wrong.

I don't see smilies. They get stripped out of comments. Nevertheless, the point remains.

PS: Didn't you get 'warned' about annoying smilies?!

[Oachkatzlschwoaf]

hate is a strong word. i don't hate TW (nor anyone else for that matter)

however, over the years he has made himself a reputation of being a liar and cheater, so maybe that's a reason why many people don't like him ;)

[Ross Stonefeld]

I have no problem with Tom Walkinshaw, in fact I respect him for being able to make emotionless business decisions.


Man didnt you guys see Michael Douglas in Wall Street?

[AndreasNystrom]

Well, his moves he did on Jos etc wasnt moral right maybe, but it was necessary.
Look how well Arrows is doing now with HHF in the team!. Jos couldnt do anything near this imo (and we can argue about that the whole day. If you think Jos is better, thats fine with me.)

[Flying Panda]

I hate Tom Walkinshaw becasue he is an arsehole.

[Zmeej]

Agree with Oach that to hate him would be overkill (not to mention bad for my innards), and agree with jloehs777 on the HHF for Jos move.

However, he is, to quote Annette Benning's character in "The Grifters,"
"so crooked he could eat soup with a corkscrew," and a wanker, so I given a chance, I probably neither work for him nor shake his hand.

[AyePirate]

From what I've been told by people who have had to deal with
him, he's just a very, very, very unpleasant person. He gives
off the impression that at any moment he could head-butt you.
An air of impending violence fills the room when he enters.
Just the kind of guy to set up the Russian GP

[AlesiUK]

i really dont get this stuff about tom stealing minardi's tv money?unless i missed something that money was infact prost's,NOT minardi's.minardi got there tv money just like everyone else.When stoddart set out his budget for this year he could not have known prost would go bust,therefor shouldnt have been relying on that money.

[TAB666]

Originally posted by maclaren
Tom stole Minardis TV monay with Phoenix for Arrows

nah, Minardi shouldnt get the tv-money since they didnt deserve them

[Chrissy Boy]

They do deserve the money, because prost went Bankrupt.

But there is no chance for Minardi to dissaper from the F1 scircus, becuse Bernie has promised that there will always be 22 cars racing for every week, if he don't he will get seriously fined.

Minardi will get their money, and I don't like Tom Walkinshaw either way!

[MortenF1]

I don't see how Bernster can be fined, but I agree that he will make sure there's 22 cars on the grid. And how the hell did Arrows "steel" Phoenix's money?? And, I too, am not excactly Tom's greatest fan.

[Shiftin]

Can't say I hate him cause he's is in a tough buisness. I do dislike him a lot though. Mainly for sacking Jos, but I am not objective in this. I mean, if another was sacked and Jos took his place I wouldn't have a problem with it. It's just that I don't like the way TW plays "the game".

[annica]

Originally posted by Chrissy Boy
They do deserve the money, because prost went Bankrupt.

See AlesiUK's post. If the situation is as black and white as you paint it to be, then Mr. Stoddart would already have got the money. No matter what it says in concorde agreement regarding distribution of money, the fact is Bernard himself isn't confident that it would stand scrutiny of the court.

There is a reason for this.

Courts handle bankruptcy cases daily, so to say. And in those cases they always ascertain which party has invested and therby decide which party gets the money first etc. In this case, the money was 'earned' by ProstGP and any court that comes up with this situation would find the Bernard way of distributing money very strange and contrary to their expectations. Let's see how this situation develops.

But there is no chance for Minardi to dissaper from the F1 scircus, becuse Bernie has promised that there will always be 22 cars racing for every week, if he don't he will get seriously fined.

Bernard promised what? To whom? My understanding is that the agreement with circuit owners has a condition of atleast 18 starters. Do you think the circuit owners will be able to fine him? The FIA will fine him? Who will fine Bernard? Bernard can easily renegotiate with circuit owners a la Tom Walkinshaw (fitting, isn't it!) and they have no choice but to agree with him. Also I am not too sure, but if push comes to shove lower formulae cars may be allowed to fill the slots. But that's not gonna happen. Bernard will see to it. Let's see how this situation develops.

[Liam]

Arrows don't have, and won't get, the Prost TV money. Before Minardi can get the money, the other teams all have to agree to pay them. The only team that won't agree is Arrows because the man behind DART is a friend of Tom's and Tom is playing silly games with Stoddard.

Tom's F1 dealings are notoriously dodgy. It wouldn't surpirse anyone to discover the top people at Arrows actually have TWR contracts, so if Tom jumps ship (to DART for example) they wouls have to follow. Arrows has huge debts and is in real financial trouble, but rest assured any assets they might appear to have will be TWR's not Arrows, so nobody gets paid. He's done exactly that before.

Then you add in the needless firing of drivers days before the season, gving Mark Webber a testing contract but not letting him anywhere near the car all year and you start to see why some people don't like having him around.

[AlesiUK]

Tom Walkinshaw is one of the shrewdest operators in the buisness.

Would micheal Schum be where he is today without tom?had he just stayed with jordan after that race at spa would he have gone on to be multipul world champion?Tom took him to benneton.

Walkinshaw has always done a good job,at benneton,then at ligier and now at arrows,without him arrows would be no-where.

i like jos,but the fact is that frentzen is a better driver.tom knows that.

Not only is the man behind phoenix a friend of toms,but if phoenix makes it to race,then all the tech back up and personnel will come from TWR,in return phoenix pays TWR money for there services and tom can invest that in arrows.

I love minardi and i would love to see them get more money,but if stoddart says minardi will go bust without it then stoddart is not a good buisness man.He should be spending his time trying to get new sponsors instead of spending all his time moaning at walkinshaw over money which is not minardi 's.

[flyer72]

Well, TW should quite possibly be banned from F1. Why people are doing business with him is beyond me. He does not have any morals whatsoever and that people can respect him is something I can't understand.

He isn't afraid to go to court to fight - he has been sued by many and he also lost several times.
He even brought a sponsor into the courts! Volvo bought him out of the AutoNova plant after some very harsh words, meaning that they couldn't deal with him. Basically they said that he acted like a criminal. When was the last time you ever heard VOLVO say that??? They wouldn't do accusations like that unless.... Go figure.

TW knows racing, but he shouldn't be involved in business. Ask yrself this q: who amongst the ppl in F1 actually have ever said anything positive about him?'

HHF is driving at Arrows because Prost didn't survive and Bernoldi is just driving because of his Redbull connection(read $$$$).

Think about it this way, would you like to do business with TW? I wouldn't.

[Tommy]

Tom's just a ********

He sacked de la rosa without warning
he sacked Verstappen without warning
never gave them time to find another seat
and now he's causing another team to go bankrupt

[Pascal]

Let's not forget Salo who was sacked to make room for Takagi just days before the season started...

[Dudley]

In this case, the money was 'earned' by ProstGP

Nope, there are 2 conditions to earn TV money.,

1- finish in top 10.
2 - turn up for first race of next season.

Sicne 2 wasn't fulfilled the money goes to team 11. So PS would have knoen it was his money since March, plenty of time to start budgeting it before now.

[Ferrari Boy]

Originally posted by boost
Toms a wanker.

[Foxbat]

TW has achieved a great many things, occasionaly against all expectations. But wherever he goes it always ends with disrupted relations and a bunch of court cases. Remember the Jaguar-supercar fiasco?