Quote:
Originally Posted by Dr.Brian
Apparently Mercedes and Ferrari have some sweetheart deals as well regardless of the constructors championship result with guaranteed super payments or something. One of the teams leads was talking about that a few months ago and how it's a disadvantage to all the other teams and gives M and F a significant advantage. I think they were taking about how to try to attract new teams, like Haas, into the sport. It was something they hoped would change with the new management of F1. Though I don't really know much about the business aspect of the sport, only what they were saying. If that's also true, it's clearly an unfair advantage.
It seems like they need more of an Indy style shake up with less emphasis on spending hundreds of millions on custom cars and more on driver skill and some old fashioned luck.
It's also odd to me that the whole competition is about the constructors championship but much of the sponsors are loyal to drivers. That's a strange set up.
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One of Bernie's legacies is that Ferrari get paid $100m every season just for turning up. Ferrari themselves are understandably completely resistant to the idea of giving this up. They would argue that they add huge value to the Formula One business as a result of their rich history and legendary status as the premier name in motorsport, so are well worth what is effectively an annual bribe. I'm not aware that Mercedes have a similar deal.
Many would agree with your assertion that Formula One ought to shift to lessen the disparity between the teams and make it more of a driver's formula. To that I would respond in two ways. Firstly, there are plenty of other motorsport categories in which the machinery is more evenly matched and the drivers make more of a difference, e.g. Moto GP (which is brilliant to watch) various touring car championships, IndyCar etc. Secondly, F1 is as much a marketing exercise as it is a sporting competition. The big names use the exposure as advertising to sell road cars. That's basically the reason Merc re-entered the sport a few years back (and one of the prime reasons for the change to hybrid engines as car manufacturers know there is no long term future in thirsty, large capacity engines). It's why they value the constructors championship so highly. It's why they pay Lewis so much - not only is he a truly great driver, his reach on social media spreads the message of the Merc brand to an audience they ordinarily have relatively little traction with. If they couldn't have the opportunity to leverage their vast resources into building a competitive car they wouldn't have come back. Similarly Ferrari is synonymous with F1 and they wouldn't countenance any possibility that they might spend a few seasons chugging along at the back of the grid, which might be the result of a wholesale change in the ethos of F1.
Now you could rightly argue that this is not the way to look at a sporting contest and things may yet change given the new ownership. But I doubt it as the manufacturers inherently have too much power. If the rules are changed too much against the status quo, then they can simply up sticks and leave. Or form a new competition where they make the rules, leaving F1 up the swanny.