28/10/2014
NEWS STORY
Lamenting the loss of Caterham and Marussia, former F1 team owner Gian Carlo Minardi comes round to the Pitpass way of thinking.
Though he sold his F1 team in early 2001 to Australian Paul Stoddart, Gian Carlo Minardi, who nowadays focusses on driver management, keeps a close eye on F1.
As Caterham and Marussia enter administration with just three races remaining, the Italian, like many, fears that others may follow and calls on the sport's powers that be to take notice.
"Honestly, it's a bad blow for F1, missing two teams, four cars and four drivers is certainly a sorry situation," he says.
"Unfortunately, the regulation changes have heavily affected all the teams' spending," he continues, "leading to this result for teams already in great difficulty.
"However, the situation seems strange for Marussia, which, thanks to the two points won in Monte Carlo by Jules Bianchi, currently occupies ninth in the constructors' standings, ahead of Sauber and Caterham. These points will turn into money from TV royalties at the end of the year, which should make the team attractive to a potential buyer.
"Indeed,” he adds, "perhaps it would be better to buy one of these structures, rather than starting from scratch," a possible reference to Gene Haas.
"If we exclude the top teams, the others certainly do not sail in calm waters," he continues. "This should make us think and ponder before making decisions such as new power unit regulations and double points, sometimes it's best to stop and count to ten to avoid being in these situations.
"What's going on at Caterham is ridiculous," he admits. "After two to three month, the consortium that looked set to rescue the team has disappeared as quickly as it arrived, vanished like a soap bubble. Factories under seizure, assets assigned to administrators."
As the sport faces the prospect of third cars, it's a situation that he is not in favour of. "It's a situation that I don't like very much," he admits, "but if you really need to adopt, it should at least be entrusted to a young driver to keep growing".
Finally, in terms of the calendar, and with an eye of the swathes of empty seats at various races this year, Minardi echoes Pitpass' long standing mantra of quality over quantity.
"Is a calendar of 19-20 events was too packed? Perhaps, are they too many for today's needs, even for the most dedicated of F1 fans."