Motorsport Off Topic Thread

Matt-Page said:
Worthy of some support.....

https://ideas.lego.com/projects/118292

If it gets 10,000 votes, it will be reviewed by Lego to see if they can offer this as an official set.
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Posted in the Lego thread, but to add, while I appreciate someone has put time into doing that, a) it's not really good enough to be an official set and b) why would they make a set of one of the worst F1 cars in recent history?

Will it explode and rebuild itself into something better, like a Lego Honda lanwmower? :p
 
JRS said:
Of course not.

But I stand by my statement. If F1 disbanded tomorrow, it would be no great loss. Another single seater formula would replace it. But if Ferrari went out of business....:eek:
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And again I will clarify that were talking about F1, not the entire global marketplace for sports and car makers.

Within F1 Ferrari are making decisions based on their own needs with no concern for the sport.

Being able to pick and chose whos allowed to race you is bad enough, but being able block a working group, FIA and WMC approved rule because a single competitor doesn't like it is just messed up.

As I think you have said before, the FIA should lay out the rules and the teams then decide if they want to compete. And this is exactly what they seem to be trying to do by threatening either a cheaper, more powerful engine, or even a whole new engine format for 2017. If Ferrari refuse to agree because it would cost them too much, either make them uncompetitive and expensive, or mandate a whole new massive expense as the alternative option.
 
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Shamelessly stolen from Pistonheads: These are the McLaren 2014 accounts (which I assume are public knowledge?)
I'm back from my meeting so here are the "highlights":

Turnover down £13m to £179m due to declining prize money and sponsorship.

Cost of Sales up by £26m to £148m due to the complexity of the 2014 car plus additional cost of building a Honda powered car for the end of season test (that only managed 6 laps).

Operating Loss of £30m compared to a profit of £22m last year.

McLaren say that £35m of costs will not re-occur in 2015 (payment for supply of Mercedes engines, cost of terminating Mercedes engine supply and restructuring costs).

Cash down from £7.7m to less than £0.5m.

It also looks like they called in £25m of loans from other McLaren Group companies during the year. McLaren Technology Group (the ultimate parent company) is now £77m in debt.

The racing team's collection of old cars now makes up 77% of the balance sheet. If the current cash burn continues I wouldn't be surprised to see some of these auctioned off at some point.
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That last bit is rather odd. If the F1 team owns the cars and they make up that much of the balance sheet then it means the team clearly don't have any ownership of MTC. So the F1 team is operating as an entitiy with minimal assets, probably just owning the cars they build, trucks and all race equipment.

So what that shows is that the team is in the protective arms if the McLaren Group, which has a number of companies, some doing a lot better than the F1 team. So if times get tight (which they will) they won't have to start selling cars to make it by, they will just get investment from elsewhere within the group.

It would be interesting to see the McLaren Group accounts to see how this year is affecting their top line numbers.
 
A tiny bit more:
McLaren Technology Group (MTG) only owns a very small share in McLaren Automotive. I notice that McLaren's share has declined in the year from 4.3% to 3.7%. It won't have any meaningful impact on the accounts.

The Bahraini's now effectively control the car company with their 57.1% shareholding.
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That has got to hurt... Tag Heuer has left McLaren after 30 years and joined up with Red Bull.

So an expanded sponsorship deal from a champagne supplier *extremely useful for them at the moment...* and they've lost two long term partners in Tag Heuer and Hugo Boss and STILL no title sponsor.

No wonder they're haemorrhaging money.
 
Wow, cancelling a 30 year sponsorship deal to join a team that has no guarantee it will be on the grid next year!

McLaren are screwed. I would say they should get a new engine supplier, but given the Red Bull saga, would anyone supply them?
 
I don't think Tag Heuer have been a prominent sponsor for years now, only sponsoring the drivers overalls recently I think. Indeed this was probably the most coverage they've had for at least a decade, given how much the McLaren drivers have been pictured getting out of the car.
 
It's not massively surprising as the "family" ties were cut years ago. The TAG parent company financed and badged the Porsche turbo engine used from 1984-87. Mansour Ojjeh (CEO of TAG who still own 25% of the McLaren parent company) sold the watch brand about 15 years ago to an luxury goods company.
 
I find it hard to believe that TAG have cut ties with McLaren after one poor season. Even if the partnership isn't as large as was a few years ago, TAG still heavily use F1 and McLaren in their watch line up.

Are Red Bull ditching Casio in that case? Seems like a conflict of interest and Casio (like TAG) use F1 for marketing.
 
I've been thinking about the proposed rule changes for 2017 (F1) and the ramifications for team management. From what I have read the reintroduction of ground effect would allow the cars to run much closer together. If cars are allowed to run closer together then overtaking "should" be more prevalent.

In Brazil Lewis couldn't close to closer than 0.5 a second and after a few laps gave up at the teams urging/orders, but if he were able to run closer to Rosberg, blood in the water and all that, the team would be hard pressed to get a racer to give up trying to win a race.

In my opinion I think one reason Merc are dragging their feet over 2017 rule changes is to retain control over extremely competitive and sometimes hotheaded drivers.

This is the article that got me thinking http://www.grandprix247.com/2015/11/16/strategy-calls-becoming-an-issue-in-mercedes-camp/
 
Grazze53317 said:
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I don't doubt what you say, but the reason for Merc dragging their feet is because the current regulations suit them to a T, and they don't want the status quo threatened by a change of regulations, where someone else could potentially usurp them.

This is a recurring theme for many years in F1, and another reason why allowing the teams to argue the toss over stuff is a bad idea. The rule maker should consult the teams, but ultimately come up with the rules on its own. The team can decide whether it wants to play, or not.
 
I'd like to think that the team principles would be more concerned about making sure the sport is worth watching over just ensuring their own position in it, but recent events have shown this is far from the situation.

On the face of it you must admit, its a hell of a lot easier to manage a team of multiple drivers if no actual 'racing' ever happens. I'm not saying that's what Mercedes are up too, but there is certainly a desire to avoid an even playing field, both in and between teams.
 
Some noise being made that the Beeb will have to drop live F1 entirely to save money. Hopefully it's true, because their coverage for a while now has been fairly terrible.

It's a shame that the British fanbase for F1 doesn't matter at all to TPTB, otherwise live F1 going entirely behind a paywall in this country might actually be something that would shock them into sorting the sport out.
 
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