Marussia to miss Austin GP
Discussion
The problem with Marussia is that the whole set up is weird. Marussia was meant to be a Russian supercar company, hence the F1 team branding. The owners decided that a supercar company wasn't such a good idea after all and canned the project. Ownership ofthe team was transferred to Marussia Communications, registered in Ireland but apparently owned by the Russians.
Marussia Communications just appear to be a shelf company, no website, can't really find out much about them.
So its been hanging by a thread for some time. Why keep it going ? why not just sell the entry ? There is no benefit in having the team / slapping the name all over it.
I guess its strategic, back to back races a long away away, costs wise its not going to be cheap. Maybe they'll turn up in ABU and hope to keep their 9th place on double points.
It doesn't bode well for next year though.
Marussia Communications just appear to be a shelf company, no website, can't really find out much about them.
So its been hanging by a thread for some time. Why keep it going ? why not just sell the entry ? There is no benefit in having the team / slapping the name all over it.
I guess its strategic, back to back races a long away away, costs wise its not going to be cheap. Maybe they'll turn up in ABU and hope to keep their 9th place on double points.
It doesn't bode well for next year though.
rdjohn said:
I suppose that the balance sheets of Lotus and Sauber are healthy either. How are these teams expected to find suitable sponsors when they cannot afford to develop their chassis? They are only able to pootle around at the back and get the odd mentioned as they get eliminated in Q1? Force India and Williams have performed well this year, but again are under-financed to play at the highest level year after year.
It all goes back to the silly desire to have mega-complex engines that small teams cannot afford and the intracigence of the bigger teams to accept a sensible spending cap. Meanwhile the rights holders walk away with half the net income and the circuits struggle to break even.
Lotus claim to be breaking even this yearIt all goes back to the silly desire to have mega-complex engines that small teams cannot afford and the intracigence of the bigger teams to accept a sensible spending cap. Meanwhile the rights holders walk away with half the net income and the circuits struggle to break even.
Sauber - don't know but it seems they've mismanaged finances since Peter Sauber stepped down
Force India work on a small budget and are in for a big boost thanks to their WCC position this year
Williams reckon they are going to make a £20 million loss this year
The new engines were forced by manufacturers and from what I can work out aren't hugely more expensive to teams than the V8s.
Agree on the cost cap. Teams also need to take some responsibility for the money they take from tracks/media via FOM. If FOm declared they were going to cut their fees in half and do the same with the money that they give to teams there out be an outcry.
RYH64E said:
Too expensive, add nothing to the show, and sound s
t.
Oh for ft.ks sake man stop acting like a petulant 3 year old.The engine are adding to the show this year, if you can't see that then clearly you don't really understand the technology on the cars at all.
I think they sound pretty good actually, not like a V10 at 20,000rpm, but then only a moron would expect them to sound like that. There is an awful lot more to their sound than just a high pitched wailing.
And yes the engines are very expensive, but who is paying for them ? the manufacturers and the teams, who voted to bring these engines in to the sport. Some times turkeys do vote for christmas.
I'll ask again the question that you refuse to answer - if F1 is so horribly s
t and you hate the engines, the tracks, Bernie, the teams, the drivers why the fk do you keep watching it and spending your time pissing and moaning ? turn it off, go for a walk or something.rdjohn said:
I am surprised that you say that the engine costs are similar to last year, and thought the increased costs to the small teams was well documented.
What I meant was that although we are talking about large sums of money as the figures you posted show I haven't seen how much more this years engines are costing over last years.hdrflow said:
- Another night street race. They have the empty hotel which can be used as an indoor chicane too! Bernie Karts Meet Super Mario.http://joesaward.wordpress.com/2014/09/23/some-com...
Joe said:
....I also bumped into Chung Yung-cho, otherwise known as Joe Chung, who was the power behind the Korean Grand Prix in Yeongam. I won’t forget the day of the first race there as Joe was battling to make sure everything went to plan, up until the very last minute. We don’t often get to see the emotion involved in being a race promoter, with all the highs and lows involved, and Joe’s face at the end of that race that day will always be remembered. He was unlucky in that the global recession hit at the wrong moment and the plan to build a city around the track, in order to develop the entire coastline area, never happened, leaving the Koreans with a racetrack without a raisin d’être in the middle of a marsh. He was thrown out and blamed for the disaster, but I never felt he was the one at fault. The bureaucrats messed things up and slowed things down so much that making the race happen cost more than the budgets allowed.
Today Joe is working on a new plan for a street race in the Seoul region. This is a better idea because the people and infrastructure are there. Joe saw Bernie Ecclestone and showed him the project and Bernie is interested as Korea is still an economic powerhouse where F1 should be. The hope is that the new race, based on the same model as Singapore, could be ready for 2016. We’ll see.
There is a bit more in there about another track opening in Korea too..Today Joe is working on a new plan for a street race in the Seoul region. This is a better idea because the people and infrastructure are there. Joe saw Bernie Ecclestone and showed him the project and Bernie is interested as Korea is still an economic powerhouse where F1 should be. The hope is that the new race, based on the same model as Singapore, could be ready for 2016. We’ll see.
Edited by Crafty_ on Sunday 26th October 19:11
Marussia's problem was it wasn't more prolific. No-one was out getting sponsors, or finding investment partners, at the same time the owner gave them just enough money to keep ticking over, no real investment to move them forwards.
In that sort of situation you're pretty much doomed.
Maybe the guy was using is for tax avoidance or something, who knows, either way its difficult ot see how it could have had a future operating as it was.
In that sort of situation you're pretty much doomed.
Maybe the guy was using is for tax avoidance or something, who knows, either way its difficult ot see how it could have had a future operating as it was.
Scuffers said:
Crafty_ said:
Scuffers said:
Are there enough real sponsors these days?
Lotus seem to have little problem picking them up this year, even with a dreadful car.Thought they were skint too?
Its not like they have not lost half their staff.
The point is Lopez got off his arse and did something about the team and they are (hopefully) heading for a solid future.
zac510 said:
Crafty_ said:
Marussia's problem was it wasn't more prolific. No-one was out getting sponsors, or finding investment partners, at the same time the owner gave them just enough money to keep ticking over, no real investment to move them forwards.
From what source did you divine that information?Ok its a massive amount of money, the point is the team has not stagnated.
Back to Marussia, ok they were Virgin at first, so lets write off that period. When Marussia took over did you see the guy at the track with the team ? has he given any interviews ? has the team ever given any hint of doing more than declare which pay driver would be in the seat next year ? have they actively chased sponsorship ? Haas who hasn't even bought his UK base and won't enter F1 for another 18 months has been to more races and given more interviews than Mr Marusssia (whatever his name is).
Did you ever hear that they had bought an upgrade to a race? christ even Caterham managed that !
When were they ever going to move forwards?
RYH64E said:
Mercedes haven't invested huge amounts of money because they have any real interest in F1, they've invested huge amounts of money because their various marketing departments have decided that the cost will be more than recouped through increased sales of saloon cars.
Also, unlike traditional F1 teams they aren't dependant upon sponsors or win bonuses for funds, they have the resources of an enormous corporation behind them and can spend whatever they like in order to win. It's a fallacy to compare them to a team Marussia, Marussia don't have unlimited funds available and can't justify their profligate expenditure with increased car sales.
I disagree.Also, unlike traditional F1 teams they aren't dependant upon sponsors or win bonuses for funds, they have the resources of an enormous corporation behind them and can spend whatever they like in order to win. It's a fallacy to compare them to a team Marussia, Marussia don't have unlimited funds available and can't justify their profligate expenditure with increased car sales.
Yes Merc are there for the marketing. The point is that they could have gone to WEC, or just stuck with DTM, maybe USCC to make it big in the USA.. lots of options.
They decided F1 was where they wanted to be and were obviously determined to get to the top.
I didn't suggest that Marussia parent company/owner had the money that Merc do, nor that Marussia should be winning races. Its more of a frame of mind thing.
Maybe we should consider Force India, rescued from Midland / Spyker / an much deflated Jordan, its now battling with the mighty McLaren on a smaller budget and in years past have been a solid midfield team.
RYH64E said:
That says more about the decline of McLaren than the rise of Force India, both are now midfield teams and neither can compete with Mercedes or Red Bull.
I wouldn't be too confident about the future prospects of Force India, it's a rich man's plaything and we've seen before what happens when the rich men lose interest or find a better toy.
You've completely missed the point. Force India are solid midfield runners from being a tail end team. This hasn't happened by running the team on just enough money (some from drivers) to keep the cars ont eh grid. Its had investment (albeit a limited amount) to move the team forwards. If they spend the money from this years WCC wisely they could move even further forwards. Marussia were never going to get anywhere with the attitude the owner had.I wouldn't be too confident about the future prospects of Force India, it's a rich man's plaything and we've seen before what happens when the rich men lose interest or find a better toy.
At one level or another all the teams are a rich mans plaything. Williams, Zetsche, Mateschitz ,Ferrari (now Angelli family).
Scuffers said:
REALIST123 said:
Theyve just been discussing this on sky, during P1. According to them, quoting Pat Symonds, they've been running with less than 100kgs of fuel at some tracks, since the very beginning of this year, including Australia.
A
Simply don't believe that, especially for the first race of the year, nobody was that brave/confident.A
Is this like your declaration that they wouldn't ever use over 10k RPM, yet at many races we've seen them do exactly that ? Is the TV telemetry not trustworthy either ?
[quote=Scuffers]Yes, with the fuel flow restrictions, power will climb to 10,500Rpm, then not just plateau, but actually fall after this, as with more RPM and the same fuel burn rate, increased pumping/frictional losses will mean less power, at which point they will not want to rev them any more than the gap between gears, which with 8 won't be huge..
[\quote]
you spent ages telling us how revving past 10,5000 would be pointless.
They regularly use 11-12k RPM, and IIRC we've seen higher than that on occasion.
Before the season you said there would be no increase in torque and the cars wouldn't be harder to drive, despite the teams, engine manufacturers and even pirelli were saying the increase in torque would make it harder. And surprise surprise they were right, drivers can't just go WOT out of a corner now, the cars build speed quicker, the drivers have to actually work the throttle a bit. This isn't opinion, its fact.
Its ok to be wrong sometimes.
[\quote]
you spent ages telling us how revving past 10,5000 would be pointless.
They regularly use 11-12k RPM, and IIRC we've seen higher than that on occasion.
Before the season you said there would be no increase in torque and the cars wouldn't be harder to drive, despite the teams, engine manufacturers and even pirelli were saying the increase in torque would make it harder. And surprise surprise they were right, drivers can't just go WOT out of a corner now, the cars build speed quicker, the drivers have to actually work the throttle a bit. This isn't opinion, its fact.
Its ok to be wrong sometimes.
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