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Fry has a go at PR; fails miserably
Topic Started: May 15 2008, 08:43 PM (312 Views)
RJHSaints
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http://www.itv-f1.com/news_article.aspx?id=42655

Quote:
 
Honda Racing CEO Nick Fry believes Formula 1 should concentrate on enticing more car manufacturers into the sport rather than filling up the grid with independent teams.

The demise of Honda-supported Super Aguri last week for financial reasons reduced the number of cars on the grid to 20, with fears that it could soon fall by another two following Red Bull’s decision to put Toro Rosso up for sale.

Should this happen, there would be just three independently-owned teams left on the grid: Williams, Force India and the main Red Bull squad – but Fry insists F1’s main concern shouldn’t be to protect a strong privateer force.

Instead he believes the sport should be looking to get the major worldwide car makers currently outside of F1 to field teams which will be on the grid for the long term.

“The first question to answer is, ‘Is F1 any place for a not-very-well funded privateer team?’” he told Autosport magazine.

“In this sport, there is a history of teams working at the margins that invariably fall off the bottom, and I think it will ever be so.

“The real mission for F1 is to attract a Volkswagen, an Audi or another big consumer business into the sport and not attempt to bring in more privateers, who may end up in the same position as teams like Arrows and Prost.

“Privateer teams enter on the basis that they can afford the first season – but invariably can’t generate the revenue to continue into their second or third years.

“If you can’t afford to compete, you shouldn’t be here.”


<doh> <hitwall> <pc>

Coming just a week or so after his team shafted Super Aguri, could Fry possibly have made a more politically inept comment if he'd tried?

Cue outrage from Red Andy and others. <roflmao>
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Rams
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Super Aguri had sponsorship last season but they don't this season, why is that Honda's fault?

In the current climate, he's right. Budgets are too high for a new privateer to compete.
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Rob
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Aren't Honda last of all the manufacturers in F1? Do they want someone else to come in and beat them?
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RJHSaints
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Andy will probably do a better job of arguing this than me, but I guess the gist of it is that Honda were happy to use SA when it suited them to get Sato on the grid and sell cars, but aren't willing to provide support (which would hardly have cost them much, and they have pretty significant resources) now it doesn't suit them

The idea is that you make the sport more accessible to privateers, rather than exclude them altogether. Most of F1's great teams have been privateer, and I certainly wouldn't want to see a grid consisting entirely of manufacturer teams.
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Rams
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Super Aguri had always agreed to support themselves through sponsors from the very beginning (Samantha Kingz in 2006 and then SS United). Honda agreed to supply them parts initally and then an entire car.

Fast forward to this year, Honda are still doing everything they were in the beginning. Aguri loses his sponsor and then you say Honda should now be obliged to give them cars and pay the fees?

If Dietrich Materschitz said he wasn't going to pay for STR's fees anymore and they were wound up before Monaco, I'd agree with you as Red Bull have always paid their fees and been their main sponsor. But this wasn't the case with Honda/Super Aguri.
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RJHSaints
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Fair enough. My stance is not so much that Honda are an evil bunch of coporates out to ruin the little guy, but that to some observers it probably looks that way at the moment, and Fry's comments will do little to help this.
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Red Andy
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RJHSaints,May 15 2008
09:50 PM
Andy will probably do a better job of arguing this than me, but I guess the gist of it is that Honda were happy to use SA when it suited them to get Sato on the grid and sell cars, but aren't willing to provide support (which would hardly have cost them much, and they have pretty significant resources) now it doesn't suit them

The idea is that you make the sport more accessible to privateers, rather than exclude them altogether. Most of F1's great teams have been privateer, and I certainly wouldn't want to see a grid consisting entirely of manufacturer teams.

<thumbsup>

What Fry is saying is, sadly, accurate, but just because something is a particular way doesn't mean it ought to be that way. Nick Fry, David Hume is angry with you. <nono>

What the manufacturers and the FIA should be collaborating on is encouraging the reduction of the massive costs of competing in F1, and therefore making it easier for privateers to enter and run a team sustainably. The problem with manufacturer entries is that they will withdraw as soon as the sport isn't profitable for them, and with the credit crunch looming that could be sooner rather than later. Privateers have the kind of commitment to F1 for its own sake that manufacturers do not have, because they are racing for the fun of it rather than because they want to make money out of it.
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TheCompleteGuitarist
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I'd prefer to see F1 of the 60s and 70s. From a sporting perspective they were probably the golden years.

But we're here and now. F1 is what it is. It's corporate, it's sell, sell, sell, it's marketability where it's stars earn money as if they'd won something before they've won anything.

Get real and stop living in dreamland. The era of the privateer is OVER. Blame the privateers that are still in the sport or it's organisers, for bringing in the industry, for selling out. For wanting the backing of a works engine to get them further up the grid or a sponsorship deal to give them more financial resources over their competitors. This all happened before, not now. That machine is already in place, so don't go blaming it's current competitors, blame the likes of Williams and Mclaren, who enticed manufacturers to support them, Renault, BMW and Honda as engine suppliers, who are all now teams in their own right.

Blame the fag companies who were desperate to associate themselves with a glamourous sport and who have no doubt poured millions into the sport.

So yeah, that's right stick your head in the sand and blame Nick Fry because you just don't like him and you think he's solely responsible for destroying the F1 you think you'd like.

He's just saying it as it is and trying to stop F1 brining another individual or small business to it's knees. It's already ruined two drivers, Prost and Aguri in recent times.
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everythingoes
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TheCompleteGuitarist,May 16 2008
03:24 PM
I'd prefer to see F1 of the 60s and 70s. From a sporting perspective they were probably the golden years.

But we're here and now. F1 is what it is. It's corporate, it's sell, sell, sell, it's marketability where it's stars earn money as if they'd won something before they've won anything.

Get real and stop living in dreamland. The era of the privateer is OVER. Blame the privateers that are still in the sport or it's organisers, for bringing in the industry, for selling out. For wanting the backing of a works engine to get them further up the grid or a sponsorship deal to give them more financial resources over their competitors. This all happened before, not now. That machine is already in place, so don't go blaming it's current competitors, blame the likes of Williams and Mclaren, who enticed manufacturers to support them, Renault, BMW and Honda as engine suppliers, who are all now teams in their own right.

Blame the fag companies who were desperate to associate themselves with a glamourous sport and who have no doubt poured millions into the sport.

So yeah, that's right stick your head in the sand and blame Nick Fry because you just don't like him and you think he's solely responsible for destroying the F1 you think you'd like.

He's just saying it as it is and trying to stop F1 brining another individual or small business to it's knees. It's already ruined two drivers, Prost and Aguri in recent times.

<clap> <clap> <clap> <thumbsup>
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Brave_Lee_Flea
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RJHSaints,May 15 2008
08:43 PM
http://www.itv-f1.com/news_article.aspx?id=42655

Quote:
 
Honda Racing CEO Nick Fry believes Formula 1 should concentrate on enticing more car manufacturers into the sport rather than filling up the grid with independent teams.

The demise of Honda-supported Super Aguri last week for financial reasons reduced the number of cars on the grid to 20, with fears that it could soon fall by another two following Red Bull’s decision to put Toro Rosso up for sale.

Should this happen, there would be just three independently-owned teams left on the grid: Williams, Force India and the main Red Bull squad – but Fry insists F1’s main concern shouldn’t be to protect a strong privateer force.

Instead he believes the sport should be looking to get the major worldwide car makers currently outside of F1 to field teams which will be on the grid for the long term.

“The first question to answer is, ‘Is F1 any place for a not-very-well funded privateer team?’” he told Autosport magazine.

“In this sport, there is a history of teams working at the margins that invariably fall off the bottom, and I think it will ever be so.

“The real mission for F1 is to attract a Volkswagen, an Audi or another big consumer business into the sport and not attempt to bring in more privateers, who may end up in the same position as teams like Arrows and Prost.

“Privateer teams enter on the basis that they can afford the first season – but invariably can’t generate the revenue to continue into their second or third years.

“If you can’t afford to compete, you shouldn’t be here.”


<doh> <hitwall> <pc>

Coming just a week or so after his team shafted Super Aguri, could Fry possibly have made a more politically inept comment if he'd tried?

Cue outrage from Red Andy and others. <roflmao>

Quote:
 
Super Aguri are believed to be in as much as $100 million debt to Honda for engines and technical support, and it is just such a prospect that allegedly scared off previous potential investors Dubai International Capital - fronted by the British Magma Group - who by pulling the plug on their agreement with the small Leafield-based concern plunged SAF1 into crisis ahead of last weekend's Spanish Grand Prix.

Honda have recently underlined they are no longer willing to continue to bail Super Aguri out of trouble, with suggestions the latter was only able to compete in Barcelona with the Japanese manufacturer's financial assistance.


If Aguri were aware from the beginning that (as Nick Fry says) "It was never Honda's intention to fully fund two Formula One teams" then Honda have given the team enormous amounts of help.

If they have really supported Aguri to the tune of$100 million dollars surely everybody can see that they couldn't continue supporting the team forever? Sooner or later the team was going to have to stand on it's own two feet, Honda couldn't be expected to continue throwing money into a bottomless pit, especially not at a time when their own F1 efforts are flailing so badly.

Ultimately, despite the support from Honda, Aguri failed to find enough sponsorship of their own with which to operate - despite not having to design their own chassis or engines. What chance then would they have had in 2010 when customer chassis were banned?

I think Honda have done all that could be expected of them and that perhaps Aguri are victims of the change in attitude of F1 towards customer teams.


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Red Andy
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TheCompleteGuitarist,May 16 2008
10:54 AM
I'd prefer to see F1 of the 60s and 70s. From a sporting perspective they were probably the golden years.

But we're here and now. F1 is what it is. It's corporate, it's sell, sell, sell, it's marketability where it's stars earn money as if they'd won something before they've won anything.

Get real and stop living in dreamland. The era of the privateer is OVER. Blame the privateers that are still in the sport or it's organisers, for bringing in the industry, for selling out. For wanting the backing of a works engine to get them further up the grid or a sponsorship deal to give them more financial resources over their competitors. This all happened before, not now. That machine is already in place, so don't go blaming it's current competitors, blame the likes of Williams and Mclaren, who enticed manufacturers to support them, Renault, BMW and Honda as engine suppliers, who are all now teams in their own right.

Blame the fag companies who were desperate to associate themselves with a glamourous sport and who have no doubt poured millions into the sport.

So yeah, that's right stick your head in the sand and blame Nick Fry because you just don't like him and you think he's solely responsible for destroying the F1 you think you'd like.

He's just saying it as it is and trying to stop F1 brining another individual or small business to it's knees. It's already ruined two drivers, Prost and Aguri in recent times.

Overinvolvement of manufacturers in motorsports is not sustainable. Mass withdrawal of manufacturers is what killed Group C sportscars; the threat of manufacturer withdrawal has reduced WTCC to a contrived joke; WRC and F1 will go the same way if steps are not taken to reduce the influence manufacturers have on the series.

Nick Fry is correct in what he is saying, but I will say again, just because F1 is this way now doesn't mean it should be. Fry clearly wants manufacturers to have a stranglehold on the sport; if this happens, it will slowly but inevitably kill F1, because massive, global companies with shareholders and profits alone in mind will not stick around if the going gets tough.
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TheCompleteGuitarist
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Nothing last for ever. F1 has seen it's best days and while it's not exactly in decline, you're never going to see the revival you're expecting.

It's not just the manufacturers that have ruined F1, it's all the greedy and desperate team owners and F1 management in general.

Just as you say the manufacturers may not stick around if the going gets tough you cannot expect a privateer individual to just suddenly magic a couple of hundred million out of the air when their funds run out.

It's an international sport at the very least and the travel around the globe costs dearly.

At present we have a balance of almost self funded, partially self funded and complete manufacturers. Unless F1 returns to being a European only series with maybe the ODD trip afar, then manufacturers and sponsors are it's only hope.

I'd suggest watching a lower formula if you want something less corporate.
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Red Andy
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At least part of the teams' travel costs are covered by FOM for the very reason that without assistance, many teams (at least in theory) would be unable to afford the expense of travelling to each GP.

But I see where you are coming from. However, in my book the problem of privateers withdrawing from the sport due to massive expense can be solved to some degree by properly reducing costs; the problems with the loyalty of manufacturers cannot be solved, at least not without making massive concessions that damage the integrity and spirit of the sport itself.

Any rethink in the way F1 is run and its visions for the future will not come about overnight, but I do not think it is unachievable. What is needed most of all is proper leadership and an end to this "corporate dollars uber alles" approach - in other words, the current status quo needs to be removed. After all, money doesn't talk, it swears. ;)
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