Motorsport Off Topic Thread

It sounds like Bernie has come to an agreement with them that allows them to not race. I imagine if a team just decided to not turn up they would break their contract (HRT were forced to race in the first couple of rounds a couple of years back when they asked not too, and Arrows deliberately failed to qualify as they weren't allowed to just not turn up).
 
I have heard that current agreements allow teams to miss up to three races a season without penalty. Not sure if they have to specify or if it is only for reasons laid down in said agreement though.

I see Duke has mentioned this.
 
I would still expect them to need permission to do so.

If Bernie is letting them miss races to try and help them financially, I can't imagine he would then withhold their prize money.
 
smr said:
As Marrusia have secured 10th place in the WCC they can now completely focus and concentrate on 2015's car. So that would make it even more difficult for Caterham next year. I've got a feeling that the race in Russia was the last time we'll ever see a Caterham F1 car.
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If Sauber keep up their current form Marussia could have secured 9th place in the championship
 
It's in the interest of any buyer to wait until administration as many debts will be reduced or written off by the administrators. No redundancies have been announced as yet either which would suggest the administrators expect to make a deal with the buyers.
 
mctiny said:
As they earnt the points then yes they should receive the money, however if they go into administration then the money should go direct to pay debts.
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IIRC, the F1 prize money is delayed to prevent teams turning up after buying a team, running for a year and taking the prize money and running. 2014 prize money will be given to the teams at the end of the 2015 season. If the team no longer exists, it gets distributed amongst the remaining teams and the FOM.

You can see why the other teams and Bernie don't give a minute **** about them. They get the money.
 
Flibster said:
IIRC, the F1 prize money is delayed to prevent teams turning up after buying a team, running for a year and taking the prize money and running. 2014 prize money will be given to the teams at the end of the 2015 season. If the team no longer exists, it gets distributed amongst the remaining teams and the FOM.

You can see why the other teams and Bernie don't give a minute **** about them. They get the money.
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Completely forgot that that might be the case...
 
Prize money should be given out in relation to perfomance and improvement, as opposed to just scoring points.

I don't think they should give out money for the sake of it, but they should reward improvement in relation to previous years. For example, rewards given if a team starts qualifying and finishing 1/2 places above the year before regardless of points. This still keeps the teams hungry for development and improvement but gives the smaller teams a chance to get a slice of the prize money. It could also work well for top teams and stop one team raking it in season upon season. Sure, some teams will lose one one year, but might improve the year after. but there must be a balance somewhere.
 
There was a good point raised a journalist on the Sky F1 programme. He said that in American Football (richest sport in the world) all of the teams get the same amount of money, something like £100 million and it is up to the teams to make money from sponsorship

Surely that would work for F1?
 
Yup spliting the pot equally seems to the only fair way to do it. It has never seemed right to me that a team that has hunreds of millions to spend and win the WCC get huge prize money but the team at the back who can only scrape through a season get nothing. The teams at the front are giong to have a bigger budget through sponsorship but the lower end of the grid need some sort of investment so they can establish themselves.
 
howler said:
There was a good point raised a journalist on the Sky F1 programme. He said that in American Football (richest sport in the world) all of the teams get the same amount of money, something like £100 million and it is up to the teams to make money from sponsorship

Surely that would work for F1?
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That's because its TV rights money, not prize money.

The Premier League is the same, sort of. Football clubs get an amount per televised match. It's why small clubs love being drawn against top teams as it guarantees prime time TV and so a payment.

American Football shows all matches equally on TV so all clubs get the same.

F1 does this too. About $450m is split between the teams evenly as TV rights revenue, because every race is televised. Another $450m is then distributed as prize money, and is there to offer incentives for teams to compete in the WCC.

Sure F1 could bundle it all into an even distribution, and everyone gets the same. But then why would anyone try? Just turn up, come last, never spend money on development, and at the end of the year earn the same money as the champions. No driver or team not realistically in the championship would even bother.

Imagine it was this season, pre Austin. 3 races to go, Mercedes are WCC and there's only 3 guys in with a chance of the WDC. And you can miss 3 races before you break any contract...

Why would anyone other than Mercedes and RBR (just with Ricciardo) turn up? Every teams going to get the same money, none of them other than Mercedes can win the WCC, and flying away for 3 races and competing in them costs loads. Better to just stay at home.

The ONLY reason any team that isn't champion competes for the whole year is because of the prize money for their position within the WCC. Removing that will kill F1.
 
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Skeeter said:
Imagine it was this season, pre Austin. 3 races to go, Mercedes are WCC and there's only 3 guys in with a chance of the WDC. And you can miss 3 races before you break any contract...
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Its a separate stipulation that every team HAS to attend isn't it - so this has nothing to do with it from what I understand anyway (happy to be corrected though).

Otherwise I totally agree with the rest of your post.
 
I believe it's part of the FOM agreement, presumably missing more than 3 means your not entitled to the equal share of TV money and/or your prize money. It could be an FIA Sporting Regulation too though.

But say they are forced to attend every race, everyone would just turn up and then not run, or deliberately fail to qualify. Even if you tried to mandate some sort of "try your hardest or else" rule, everyone just pulls in on the first lap with "technical problems".

At the end of the day the drive to compete for any team is the money. Removing that removes the drive to compete.
 
I agree, an equal share wouldn't work. However I believe the delta between the most/least given out should be much lower than it currently is. If this source is to be believed, the 10th placed team gets a little more than 1/5th of the top team.

Don't event get me started on Ferraris' "We're Ferrari so we deserve more" payment.
 
But having the teams driven by sponsor money would force them to turn up. Their sponsors won't pay if they don't get TV coverage

The better you do the bigger and better your sponsors are
 
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