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McLaren denies supercar company covers its F1 costs

NEWS STORY
14/11/2014

McLaren has moved to deny recently-published rumours that its supercar manufacturing business, McLaren Automotive, contributes to its Formula One team McLaren Racing.

The claim is the latest in a series of rumours which have been running wild after Caterham and Marussia went under. Their collapse sent much of the F1 media scurrying around trying to find out what was going on behind the scenes. It led some to jump to fanciful conclusions and, until now, the facts have not been separated from the fiction.

The first rumour doing the rounds was that Force India, Lotus and Sauber would boycott the Grand Prix in Austin in a bid to extract more money from F1 and its controlling shareholder, the private equity firm CVC. The chance of this proceeding was practically zero as if the teams had voluntarily sat out the race their sponsors could have taken legal action against them for failing to get the exposure they paid for. In turn this could have caused the very collapse that the teams have been fighting to prevent.

What made the reports about the supposed boycott an even bigger gamble was that they came little more than a day before the start of the race so there wasn't long to find out whether it would happen. Moreover, if it never came off the reports that predicted it would still be fresh in readers' minds.

Unsurprisingly, the alleged boycott was never officially confirmed, never took place and was subsequently denied by representatives of Force India and Lotus with Gerard Lopez referring to it as a "conspiracy theory."

Next up came the claim by The Times that "the boycott was only averted after Donald Mackenzie, chairman of CVC Capital Partners, the controlling shareholders, telephoned Gerard Lopez, the Lotus owner, in Austin to offer a compromise. It is thought that CVC may be willing to find as much as £100 million for the three struggling teams to prevent the sport splitting in two."

Like the boycott, the chances of a payout to the backmarkers is also practically zero under F1's existing contracts. The reason for this is that F1's commercial rightsholder is obliged to treat all of the teams equally. It may seem to conflict with the current state of affairs where several teams get far more prize money than others, but in fact it does not.

As Pitpass revealed in April last year, the best-rewarded team is Ferrari but this is not a subjective decision. It is thanks to the fact that Ferrari has been racing in F1 since 1950 which is longer than any other team. The financial and regulatory benefits that it receives could apply to any of the teams if they stick around for longer than Ferrari. Testimony to this, the bilateral agreements which commit each team to stay in F1 until the end of 2020 refer to the beneficiary of these advantages as being the "Longest Standing Team" rather than Ferrari.

Likewise, there is a bonus prize money pot of at least £60m but, as Pitpass revealed last week, it is open to outfits whose ultimate parent signs up to the bilateral agreements rather than the team itself which can be closed leaving F1 with no recourse to take action. The teams which receive the money are Ferrari, McLaren and Red Bull Racing as they are also the top three by the number of races won over the four seasons prior to 2012. Again, this is a criteria which was open to all teams and not specifically those three.

These are hardly new concepts or ones which are unique to F1. In fact, length of service and achievement are of course criteria at the heart of most hotel and airline loyalty schemes all over the world.

Even the payment of more prize money to the teams at the top of the standings than those at the bottom is treating all of them equally as any has a chance of finishing in any position. And anyone who says that the prize money should instead be divided equally clearly doesn't understand the meaning of the word because that would render the payment an appearance fee rather than being success-based.

Treating all the teams equally is a legacy of the Concorde Agreement, the contract signed by all the teams before the separate bilateral agreements came into force in 2013. It stated that the rightsholder must not "confer on any Team any material preferential right, benefit or privilege or discriminate against any other Team or subject it to more onerous material obligations than any other Team."

Pitpass reported this way back in May 2011 so it was no surprise to read F1's boss Bernie Ecclestone robustly denying the rumour that the three backmarkers would be handed £100m.

"We're not allowed to," Ecclestone told Sky Sports F1. "The only way that that could ever happen is if the teams agree to share their money. They are getting nearly a billion, so maybe they can chip a few quid in between them."

Even Ecclestone's denial ended up getting misreported with many outlets claiming that he had "refused" to pay and "ruled out" paying the £100m. In fact, this was completely inaccurate as all Ecclestone is doing is abiding by the contracts which are in place. However, you can hardly blame the reports saying that he was blocking the payment as it logically followed from the flaw inherent in the original piece. In itself, this goes to show the importance of rooting out errors at the source before they become accepted as fact.

It raises the question of what, except for embarrassment, was achieved by reporting an alleged boycott which was never officially announced and never took place and a £100m fund which could not be paid out. There was more to come.

Last week's Brazilian Grand Prix brought the claim that the backmarkers had been shown an email which outlined a plan to have Red Bull and Ferrari supply a third car for the grid next season. It was promptly criticised by Red Bull Racing team boss Christian Horner who told Sky Sports "we haven't been requested" to run a third car. Ecclestone echoed this by saying "we've not agreed anything."

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READERS COMMENTS

 

1. Posted by Hondawho?, 17/11/2014 12:16

"You have to hand it to RD of McLaren. Free engines from Honda. Just goes to show what good business management can achieve. Of course there is no such thing as a free lunch, and I suppose us mere mortals will have to wait and find out the details, if and I doubt they are ever released and why should they be? I will have a wager that the "Mclaren Automotive organisation is now firmly underwritten."

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2. Posted by gturner38, 16/11/2014 16:53

"You're playing with semantics if you claim the extra payment Ferrari receives isn't specifically for Ferrari. The agreements may refer to the "longest standing team," but unless there is an expectation of Ferrari quitting, that is always going to be the team from Maranello.

As for not wanting the "prize money" split evenly, when did these payments start being prize money again? If that's what it was, then the owners of Marussia would get paid for their finish this year, but they won't if they aren't in the series next year. It is an appearance fee, and there is no reason for there to be such a massive gap especially given the nature of the sport. Money doesn't guarantee success, but it gives access to significantly more resources, so how can the smaller teams be expected to compete when they start out $150 million behind Ferrari and Red Bull?
"

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3. Posted by ape, 15/11/2014 8:56

"

CARTEL."

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4. Posted by Hondawho?, 15/11/2014 7:06

"Note to pit pass:
Please could you make available an editing facility on here as once the button is pushed to "Post" its like a stone thrown into the sea "once thrown, it can never be recovered". Thank you."

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5. Posted by Hondawho?, 15/11/2014 6:58

"Sorry pressed the post button.
As manufacturers they need to handle it. Not an easy task.
Regarding McLaren, they may be two different companies for financial reasons but for marketing purposes they are seen by the world to be "one". Does each have a different logo? I think not. Besides, McLaren racing came before McLaren automotive so it's easy to see why one would like to own a McLaren road car, it's because of their success in racing. It's a marketing thang, as they say in the USA! Despite what the finance arrangements may be and let's face it they have nothing to do with the media if there are cross overs so what it's got nothing to do with anyone other than the guys who own the company. Perhaps the media need to learn how to cope with this wonderful new communicating world we live in?"

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6. Posted by Hondawho?, 15/11/2014 6:50

"The problem for the media is that they need "news" as its their business. As we have seen some media outlets to "create business" try and create news as well as ther is just not enough news to satisfy the saturated media outlets. This they can do easily, however, when you have any type of manufacturing business, to develop takes a long time, during which there are good times and bad times. The media seem to look at all the bad points as its news, therefore creating a void of reality in many cases. It's a shame but manufacturing need to handle it and as manufacterer"

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7. Posted by vikingivesterled, 15/11/2014 1:00

"The current agreements do not support small teams or new ones coming into the sport. Bernie in the important British market (where most of the teams are HQ'd) went for an upfront money deal with the pay tv channel SKY, reducing the BBC broad publishing agreement. This was ok for him and the other commercial rights holders and the top teams that got a good chunk of the money based on some new rules, like how many years the team had been I F1, they cooked up in the backroom. Rules and money unreachable by anyone but the existing teams, unless one of the "in the money teams" keels over for other reasons. No matter how long Sauber keeps going, they are never going to catch up with Ferrari regarding number of years in the sport. And without that money they are not going to improve their chance on being higher up the results money either.
The SKY deal ruined it for they who are depending on sponsorship and large tv audiences seeing the sponsors logos on the cars. And screen exposure is the only way for a new, non car manufacturing, team to get money, unless they have a rich uncle. A BBC summary a couple of hours after the race when the result is already known is never going to attract the same size of audience as a live show. SKY's reach is less than 10% of BBC's, and when F1 is on a special dedicated extra pay sport channel it is probably more like 1% of the reach. That is not going to attract logo sponsors.

Bernie's latest play that the younger market is not of interest, also shows a very short term view on profits. The young of today need to know about a product when they becomes the trend setters, and then want it when they become the middle aged afluent of tomorrow. Bernie might be a good deal maker, but his ability to see new possibilities and alternative media is not moving with the times. I don't blame him. He is well into his twilight years and should be enjoying the fruits of what he has already accomplished. Step back to a purely advisory position, and let somebody with a vision of an even more magnificent future for f1 come forward. "

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8. Posted by scf1fan, 14/11/2014 22:41

"So, do I understand this correctly . . . Unless Ferrari were to quit (and possibly not come back for many years!) that that money will always be Ferrari's no matter how much of a dog they run, and that no part of that money will EVER be available to any new team, no matter how well they run?

Also, unless a team has the financial backing to be able to contractually say that they will be around for some predetermined number of years, that that amount of money will never be available to the smaller teams?

Thirdly, depending on how they actually calculate it, the back makers will get so little of the "prize" pot to be inconsequential (if not just plain 0!) so they will essentially have to run strictly on sponsorship money, either from their own marketing or by driver buy-ins?

And it probably takes a unanimous vote of the teams to change this structure . . . ?

No, the teams are not all treated equally; nor, since the main performance aspects of the "sport" are all directly attributable to the money spent, are they being treated fairly. They are all (probably) playing to the same rule book, I'd agree, but it certainly looks to me as if the financial part of that rule book is stacked against a new team.

It would be interesting to see a pie chart showing how much of the money is really available for racing as compared to being predetermined by contract.

I hope Gene Hass's pockets are deeper than they look from here."

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