Ferrari Mailing List: Independents to resume dominance of F1?

[Red5hilser (Red5hilser]

Wouldn't it be wonderful if we went back to those pre Max and Bernie days  of 
the 1950's and '60s? When motorsports, and especially F1 was more of a  sport 
than a business run by  a bunch of money-mad ego-maniacs? 
 
Bernie Madoff would fit right in with these hugger-muggers dressed in  
Seville Row suits, don't you think? Although I would miss seeing Mistress  
Helga, 
strutting around the pits in her black leather bodice, fishnets,  spike heels, 
and with her riding crop, looking for that 'little worm'  Max!
 
For me, it all started way back when Colin Chapman changed the British  
racing green livery on his Lotus cars to what appeared to be cigarette boxes  
on 
four wheels. These days there isn't enough space for numbers on the cars  for 
all the sponsors' decals. They look to me, like racing billboards. The  shame 
of 
it all.
 
I don't know whether Jochen Rindt was ahead of his time, or just  protesting 
the commercialization of the sport when he painted on both sides of  his plain 
white Bell Star helmet, the words 'THIS SPACE TO LET.' Prophetic,  wasn't he? 
I couldn't imagine Michael with a 'ZIMMER FREI' helmet, could  you?
 
Speaking of Rindt, who was once of the most vocal drivers concerning the  
safety issue, I wonder if the reason that the Lotus wasn't fitted with an  
anti-submarine belt between his legs at Monza that practice day was a  colin 
Chapman 
weight saving idea? The Lotus was noted for being the most  fragile car of 
it's time. And don't even get me started about the phantom  flat tire that 
caused Jim Clark's fatal sudden turn into the trees a  Hockenheim.
 
I forget the driver or the marque, but back in the day, there was a story  
about a driver setting up for a fourth gear corner, only to discover that a  
mechanic had left a wrench behind the brake peddle and it had lodged up there  
and he couldn't depress it. That must have been a real 'Come to Jesus' moment  
for him!
 
Anyway, that's my 2 Pesos on that.  --  Yer pal, Ferrari  Bubba 
 
 
In a message dated 2/7/2009 12:09:47 A.M. Central Standard Time, Staxwax  
writes:

 
In the last two months or so F1 fans have watched in horror as story  after 
story emerged about the car makers’ varying degrees of commitment to  the 
sport. Max Mosley is today reported to doubt the future of F1 without  further 
cost 
cuts. But F1’s problems started when Honda left F1 in December,  making many 
realise that the global economic crisis might not only mean  tabloid hyperbole 
and a lot of Robert Peston.  
Like dominoes, the armageddon theory goes, they will fall. Toyota don’t  need 
F1 and especially don’t need F1 without Honda. European car makers  Renault 
and Fiat are suffering and receiving bail-outs. American car makers  are dead 
in the water, affecting the world market. Others are allegedly  taking 
boardroom votes whether to stay in motorsport. Even the healthy ones  are 
privately 
struggling too, or at least will be in the coming months. Some  analysts 
believe 
the world is not only seeing unprofitable businesses  succumb to the market, 
but the collapse of the global car industry as we  know it. Others, 
specifically environmentalists, make the justifiable case  for governments to 
intervene, 
blackmailing the car makers into ‘building  green’ or dying. 
So where does this leave F1? In a very healthy state, thank you very  much. 
Should all the aforementioned happen, it does not mean the end of the  sport by 
a long shot. People have very short memories. Prior to the 1990s,  the sport 
was privateer-dominated. On the grid in 1989 stood 20 teams of  which only one 
or two could claim to be manufacturer-led in the way we  understand today. 
Moreover it is only since the 2000s, and BMW’s ill-fated alliance with  
Williams, that manufacturer dominance has become the norm. That  collaboration 
ended ostensibly because BMW wanted entire control of the  team, and Frank 
Williams and Patrick Head would not let them. However,  Williams and Head 
became 
something archaic and heroic in so doing. They were  the last true privateers 
in 
an era where private team after private team  disappeared with financial 
problems relating to a fundamental lack of  investment, in a costly era.  
Only die-hard fans complained; most thought that if the racing survived,  it 
didn’t really matter. And in 2009 everybody reached a point where Ron  Dennis, 
he of the McLaren brand with the Mercedes money, said that he didn’t  believe 
a team could exist without a manufacturer behind it.  
If what Dennis says is true, then the cost cuts can’t come soon enough.  Of 
course competing at the pinnacle of motorsport will always be expensive,  but 
when it has become so expensive that it’s completely out of the reach of  
private teams, the sport’s foundations become a bit shaky. Red Bull is of  
course a 
bizarre exception to all this – two private teams owned by a  massive drinks 
company which probably will go from strength to strength in  the next years.  
One of the possible outcomes of the present situation is that everything  
will go back to normal (as in, similar to how it’s been in the last ten  
years). 
The other is that manufacturers will stop pouring millions into the  sport, 
and instead go back to making cars. Max Mosley today says that this  could 
happen as soon as 2010. Presumably in such a scenario the car makers  would 
still 
sell engines to teams, much in the way they did on that grid of  1989, and by 
association benefit from the team’s success. 
This is an outcome no F1 fan should fear, because it would mean a return  to 
cars made by teams rather than brands. Yes, there would be less money in  the 
sport; yes, there would be less glam; yes, there would be less  technology. 
But the world is changing and for once F1 is being forced to  change with it.  
The advent of more privateer F1 teams is very possible. The ‘USF1’ story  
broke in the week, and David Richards is itching to get into the sport. Cost  
cuts are making that a realistic idea, and after a year or two more of  
financial agony for the car makers, it may well come to pass. When the  
financial 
crisis is over, there will still be F1. It may be a little  different, but it 
might well be better. 

 
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