GPWizard F1 Forum
F1 News & Discussions => General F1 Discussion => Topic started by: Robem64 on October 14, 2017, 08:57:41 AM
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http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-41610963 (http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-41610963)
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Ever since Max changed the directive of the FIA from primarily a body overseeing the safety of the sport to one overseeing the viability of the sport, things have gone wrong. First problem is that I don't think they bothered to get the advice of any economists or accountants. They focused in on saving manufacturing costs and ignored the R&D that went into the engine designs. So they crafted rules around building fewer engines that would need to survive a much longer life. Every new engine rule tweak likely cost the teams millions in research to achieve, and then every few years they have completely changed the entire engine layout, and added complicated hybrid and energy accumulation systems, bringing new tech into F1 and adding new expensive expertise and research, testing and manufacturing costs. It all just keeps piling up, all the while the teams are spending gazillions in aero development trying to get some whiff of speed out of puny rpm challenged engines.
What a surprise it is costing them more... :crazy: :crazy: :crazy:
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It went wrong at the turn of the millenium. Max made several errors:
- he didn't add viability to the FIA's remit fast enough (he needed to do it in 1998 or 1999, when the sponsors were stepping up, not wait for the 2001 recession to hit and finally be forced into it in 2003)
- he shouldn't have done it at such short notice (six weeks)
- nor with such disdain for the teams (which immediately forced them into "opposition mode" and therefore to refuse all meaningful budget cuts)
- the method was totally wrong (forcing incrementalism by way of the ban-hammer, especially on innovation, was very expensive and focusing on road-relevancy)
- the approach was (forcibly, thanks to the Ferrari veto) partisan, supporting the thinking of one particular wealthy team above others (it didn't always pay off for said wealthy team, but that was for other reasons)
Jean Todt is, of course, Max's protegé, who unfortunately did not improve upon the original template. Furthermore, he has been spectacularly behind the times when it came to hybrids. If a series was to do hybrids, it needed to start at some point last decade and finish in 2015, give or take two years. Otherwise, the only viable strategies were to go all-electric (if road-relevance was the planned method of attracting funding to race) or go all-petrol/diesel (if "retraux" entertainment was the planned method). Both strategies have their merits and demerits (and retraux by diesel would have been a big fail, in retrospect), but they were potentially viable. Which going for hybrid five years after sportscars and the year before series needed to stop doing it never was.
Scott is correct to point out that the year-by-year changes hurt a lot (and yes, they've changed every year since 2014 thanks to the dithering over engine tokens, moved goalposts on endurance and staggered introduction of alterations). It's worse because it turns out that the best engine was getting increased funding for 24 months rather than the 12 of everyone else except Honda. As a result, engine manufacturers are now having to have three different engines in development at once (this years, next year's and the prospective year-after-next's) to keep up. Even a budget cap doesn't help here because there are certain minimum costs to keeping a development stream going. It would be more effective to remove one (which would free up 1/3 of the R&D expenditure right away).
No account has been taken of whether current expenditure has been sufficient for the current standard to be matched (hint: for everyone except Mercedes, it has not). So the FIA have mandated a large cost increase for 2018, but are still claiming it is to reduce costs. At some point one has to consider whether it can merely be put down to incompetence, or whether actual lying (in service to psuedopolitical objectives) is now taking place. Then people act surprised that two teams have already gone under during the "new engine" system, and several more are showing danger signs.
Did I mention a global recession is coming, which is exactly the thing which generally does reduce budgets (to zero) in F1? (Hard to avoid the evidence, with the closing shops, bizarre credit behaviour from banks and market bubbles developing). (Force India has a another problem. Not only is it unusually vulnerable to recession due to being one of the few teams getting sponsors, but its main funder is likely to end up in prison - albeit I gave up figuring out when some time ago).