Several times recently I have started an essay only to have events overtake me. Not even Turk Thrust on speed could have invented some of the stuff that has been going on.
In fact, I have been overwhelmed by all the nonsense and so what started as a reasoned essay has turned into a multi-part rant, I mean cool assessment.
Caterham was at Abu Dhabi thanks to crowd-funding and Bernie flying the team at no cost. This will not be much comfort to the 230 workers made redundant with seven weeks pay owing. Caterham was not just a team, it was a business, a factory. While some people in F1 earn big money, there are many people employed in workaday jobs, people like secretaries and catering staff, people whose role is not glamorous, but who are essential to the running of a factory.
In these tight times, seven weeks pay is a serious matter, but staff carried on working loyally even when their money was not arriving because they wanted Caterham to survive. The crowd-funding exercise got the headlines, the workers were barely mentioned.
Caterham was supposed to have been bought by a consortium of Swiss and Middle Eastern investors who, so far, have protected their anonymity. One well-known commentator has suggested to me that no such consortium has ever existed. He surely must be wrong; it must be that they are just shy of publicity, a rare occasion in Formula One.
One talks of Caterham, but there is a group of companies so the team is separate from manufacturing and another company owns the right to compete in Formula One. In September, Caterham Sports was sold to Constantin Cojocar, a Romanian ex-footballer, for one pound, and perhaps worth every penny.
Marussia failed to make it to Abu Dhabi, but it is my understanding that the staff were paid to the moment they were made redundant. A story is that the team made it to Stansted airport for the flight to Abu Dhabi and was turned away whereas Caterham flew out for free.
This puts Marussia's viability as a saleable asset in some doubt. Had the team competed in Abu Dhabi, its share of next year's revenue would have been 20-30 million Euros since it still finished ninth in the Constructors' Championship thanks to two points scored by Jules Bianchi at Monaco.
By contrast, Caterham has set a new record for the team which has competed in the most races without scoring a point.
Tony Fernandes, of Caterham, and Bernie have been connected in other fields. Fernandes bought a controlling interest in Queens Park Rangers, one of the lesser London football clubs, from Bernie Ecclestone.
Three cars from well-funded teams has a certain logic. Christian Horner, however, says that Red Bull could not afford to run a third car. This must be a negotiation position because a third car does not increase a team's expenses by a third. Research and Development and running a factory remain the same regardless of how many cars are entered.
Machines which made two wishbones, would simply make three. Twenty years ago, Engine Developments (John Judd) was machining engine parts 24 hours a day, thanks to robotics. Engine Developments was not a big operation considering it made engines for Formula One (Judd and Yamaha) and Indycar..
When running a third car, the only major expense is the engine bill and that is a known factor.
A third car could have a third title sponsor, as McLaren had in the 1970s. In some cases, the choice of a third driver is likely to be influenced by the sponsorship they can bring so the day of the pay driver is not necessarily over.
After the banking collapse of 2008, caused by the greed and incompetence of people who grew rich using other people's money, major players like BMW, Honda and Toyota, left F1. It wasn't just that their showroom market was affected by the downturn, there was a freeze on engine development which is why they were competing in the first place.
In order to make up the numbers, new entries were invited and there was talk of a US$55 million spending cap. The FIA conducted due diligence to ensure that only serious bids were considered. The bids of Lola and Prodrive were rejected even though Prodrive had won World Rally Championships and Lola had been making production racing cars since the winter of 1957/8.
After due diligence, the bid of US F1 was accepted, It surprised nobody when they failed to even make a car, Clearly the FIA's understanding of 'due diligence' is different from most of us.
Of the rest, HRT has gone and Caterham and Marussia are in abeyance. The cost cap never happened and the reason it never happened is the FIA which pandered to vested interests.
To be fair, the cost cap was discarded before the new teams arrived, but every applicant was already committed. After the newcomers were accepted, Formula One turned its focus to the much more expensive hybrid packages. The smaller teams were not part of the Strategy Group which made the decision.
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