Ecclestone comments - Why do we have to put up with this!?

[A911DOM]

"Formula One boss Bernie Ecclestone says he wants Ferrari driver Felipe Massa to win this year's world championship."

Im afraid this retchid little turd has nailed his thoughts to the mast yet again, Im sure his ageing chum will also be supporting Ferrari as per the norm.

I am constantly stunned at the blatant inappropriate 'championing' of those cheating Italian barstewards. I love my racing, and cant wait to see what sort of a representation we get from the BBC this year of not only the racing - but the politics and hypocrytical attitudes we seem to get time after time, always favouring bloody Ferrari.

I admired the fact that Schumi was pretty much able to match anyone in any conditions - he was a real driving talent no doubt, but I cannot stand any sport where there is an unfair advantage bestowed upon any one team, its damaging to the sport and to the spectacle of what should be the pinnacle of motor sport. I hope they get a damn good spanking at the hands of Lewis et al this season!

Apologies - rant over.

[williamp]

Do you have a link to this?

If he did say this so blatently, this might explain a few of the stewards decisions. You know, they hear this, assume he's talking directly at them, and make sure it happens

[A911DOM]

williamp said:

Do you have a link to this?

If he did say this so blatently, this might explain a few of the stewards decisions. You know, they hear this, assume he's talking directly at them, and make sure it happens

From BBC website. Just looking around this morning to see if there was any news on Jenson / Honda etc and fell across this:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport2/hi/motorsport/formula...

Edited by A911DOM on Monday 26th January 09:54

[Gillet]

Someone with that much power and influence in a sport should not be allowed to voice their opinion on who should win. Its just bad, makes it look fabourable, and creates extra politics within the sport that are not needed.

[FNG]

I thought Bernie was rooting for Lewis last year?

And therefore that the reason he wants Filipe to win this year is that he's desperate to see unpredictability - anything other than one driver dominating for years like MS did.

BE's sole concern is the marketability of F1 and I imagine the prospect of LH walking away with several WDCs is abhorrent to him.

Notice he's not wanting a return to form from Kimi - think he wants to see quite a few former WDCs on the grid - there have been several times when there's only been one or two champions in F1, which can't reflect well.


O/T - The Ferrari bias from the FIA - I still maintain that IMO someone wearing a red shirt had dirty photos, taken somewhere around 2001 when MM appeared to suffer a sea change in his roles and responsibilities.

Now the secret's out, let's see if there's any change in his preferences. If there isn't, well I guess my stab in the dark was wide of the mark.

[german tony]

I think Bernie generally says whatever he thinks will get a few headlines for F1 at the time. I can't believe that he, reknowned for his secretive dealings, actually tells the general public what he's really upto.

[35secToNuvolari]

Why do we have to put up with this? Because there's no comparable competing series.

[Derek Smith]

35secToNuvolari said:

Why do we have to put up with this? Because there's no comparable competing series.

And therein lies the problem.

If you were trying to present a business case for a breakaway series you would bring up the control freak to the bloke at the bank and what your series would have in his place. And you would also mention the sink hole that Eccs is, syphoning the advertising and TV revenue away from the circuits and teams. To the question: what do you offer that is better than the current system, you could go to town. And that is what makes it very dangerous. F1 has a position as the premiere formula which it has not got exclusive rights to. If Ferrari, Merc, BMW, Toyota and Renault decided to upsticks, probably encouraging Audi to join them, then F1 would be dead as the pinnacle as the drivers would move as well, plus the sponsors. And they'd race at the European circuits as well as north America, Brazil and Australia. F1 as we know it would be dead.

There would be something to replace it of course, there always is, but it won't be F1. It could even be better from a spectator's point of view.

But it won't be F1.

If the big teams are looking to cut costs then a new series is probably the only guarantee. If F1 has just carpet baggers and runs cars with names like The Rainbow Oil Special then I'd problably move over myself. It will be F1 in all but name.

[stephen300o]

Put up with what?, I've only been watching F1 since the early eighties and have always seen it as political and controversial, there is always someone with too much power or seen to be biased, Politics is one of the thing's that makes F1 great(imo),It's an Opera on wheels.

[Plug550]

From Autosport -

http://www.autosport.com/news/report.php/id/72994



No, no, stop it Bernie, you're killing me...

So, let me get this straight, now you need the manafacturers to commit for a few years now - so you can re-finance I guess? Only, last week, I thought you said it would be better if all the manafacturers cleared off. Or was that Smax? I can't remember, it's a job to keep up with this dynamic duo. It's really no wonder that some must be reconsidering. The whole house of cards does look a little shakey some days.

As an aside, the times put Max 66th in their top 100 most influencial people in sport today - one place behind Ron Dennis who has just retired! I like someones sense of humour there.

[jellison]

He also think KERS is a st idea and ahuge waste of Cash - I am with him on that one.

Bernie is THE MAN - there would be NO F1 without him, think about that.

[anonymous-user]

jellison said:

He also think KERS is a st idea and ahuge waste of Cash - I am with him on that one.

Bernie is THE MAN - there would be NO F1 without him, think about that.

but surely you appreciate that given he is only the Commercial rights holder, he has way too much influence on the way things are run.

KERS is a good idea, i know you have your opinions on how racing should be but it stands to reason that if any of this technology can find its way into production cars, its a good thing. far from being the most "green" member of the pistonheads fraternity, we do need to tackle these issues...

[jellison]

pablo said:

jellison said:

He also think KERS is a st idea and ahuge waste of Cash - I am with him on that one.

Bernie is THE MAN - there would be NO F1 without him, think about that.

but surely you appreciate that given he is only the Commercial rights holder, he has way too much influence on the way things are run.

KERS is a good idea, i know you have your opinions on how racing should be but it stands to reason that if any of this technology can find its way into production cars, its a good thing. far from being the most "green" member of the pistonheads fraternity, we do need to tackle these issues...

He is entitled to his opinion - at least he has one, unlike so many of the Robots in and around F1.

KERs is the last thing the Manufactures need at the moment with trying to stay afloat and get cost under control. F1 KERS has nothing in common with the way it would be used in a road car anyway.

The teams are sayinng it is worth 0.2-0.3 sec per lap at present (where tuning your aero over the first few test is 2 - 3 seconds per laps!!

It is just that tosser Mosley trying to make F1 more Green to get push back on the Green fanatic that might try to kill F1. But there are better ways.

The amount of fuel all the F1 cars us in testing AND racing over a season (I read somewhere recently) is less than one long haul Jumbo flight (1 FLIGHT). Oh yes we are killing the world with F1!

Less bloody flying for all is what is needed for cutting back on the ever deminishing global fuel reserves (I work in the Oil Industry BTW).

[Derek Smith]

jellison said:

He also think KERS is a st idea and ahuge waste of Cash - I am with him on that one.

Bernie is THE MAN - there would be NO F1 without him, think about that.

I must admit to being confused by your second sentance. I agree that he turned it into a business with profits and that, but he took them all. F1 would have continued without him as it had without him in the past.

The professionalism of the sport was generated by the teams, including, I have to accept, Brabham when he was in charge. Indeed, I was a big fan and thought their cars superbly engineered and the best prepared on the grid and the BT55 was so advanced compared to the others on the grid (albeit mainly in front) that it took the breath away. They had 1500bhp engines for qually! But Mclaren, Williams and to a certain extent Ferrari also pushed it forward. Eccs was one of the group and probably not it's leader.

His sole contribution has been to the financing of the sport and he keeps the majority of the money away from the sport. Think about what f1 could be with all that extra money.

Whilst I agree that KERS is a huge waste of money - indeed, I've not seen any respected motor racing correspondent defending it, even those who fawn on Mosley - I can't help thinking that Eccs has some other agenda other than simply trying to explain to the rest of us what's going on. This is the latest in a series of comments from Eccs that can be seen as distancing himself from Mosley. Mind you, these follow a time when he was trying to align himself to his power block so he's one confused bunny.

Going on previous history, the reason he's doing it is solely in order to get more money or secure that which he alrady has. He seems to me to be interested in F1 solely as a source of income. That doesn't make him bad but it does make me nervous. And it doesn't make him the saviour of the sport.

[jellison]

The Rights holder want as much cash as they can get in the short time there will stay there, before selling it off to the next lot of investors.

That is maybe one bad thing Bernie has done.

With you on the 80's Brabhams - Awesome.

[Gillet]

I know what people are saying that Bernie made F1 what it is today, but we need new blood, new ideas, and less money being taken by Bernie's company.

Does Bernie own anything to do with F1, or is his company hired by the FIA? I just don't understand why the FOTA doesn't just setup their own version, fire Bernie, then they can dispense the money as they see fit, making sure that everyone, including the circuits and teams get a fair cut of everything.

[flemke]

Gillet said:

I know what people are saying that Bernie made F1 what it is today, but we need new blood, new ideas, and less money being taken by Bernie's company.

Does Bernie own anything to do with F1, or is his company hired by the FIA? I just don't understand why the FOTA doesn't just setup their own version, fire Bernie, then they can dispense the money as they see fit, making sure that everyone, including the circuits and teams get a fair cut of everything.

Bernie owns 10% of the "commercial rights holder".

FOTA is a sort-of successor to the GPMA. They spent a few years, and those were years when there were loads of money floating around, trying to figure out a way to separate themselves from both Bernie and the FIA.
They gave it up for several reasons. An important one was that Ferrari went back to the FIA/Bernie, but others were that Bernie had the circuit contracts sewn up, the best broadcast packages sewn up, and the race sponsorships sewn up. Also, with the FIA granting racing licences, it was going to be tricky for the drivers to walk away from it if they ever wanted to race under FIA aegis in future.
Finally, the FIA controls EuroNCAP, and has many high-level relationships with the bureaucrats and politicos who govern the road car industry. Mosley has already been alleged to have threatened BMW's EuroNCAP rating in order to get his way on the imposition of V8s. The risk of Mosley's (not that he could ever be petty about something) making life hell for a carmaker that had challenged him in F1 was no doubt a factor as well.

[anonymous-user]

i understand the point about fuel, i worked out that ALL UK motorsport used less fuel than a single flight to australia! KERS might be pandering to the greens but better that technology is created by f1 teams than blokes in a shed on a government grant...

the biggest cost killers to a team are wind tunnel and aero testing, by introducing a stock front and rear wing, not only do the teams have massively reduced costs, but they wings can be designed to encourage overtaking...

and on another subject, didnt another brabham (bt48) have a somewhat dubious engine cooling method involving a dirty great big fan which inadvertanly stick the car to the circuit?!?....

[Derek Smith]

pablo said:

KERS might be pandering to the greens but better that technology is created by f1 teams than blokes in a shed on a government grant...

the biggest cost killers to a team are wind tunnel and aero testing, by introducing a stock front and rear wing, not only do the teams have massively reduced costs, but they wings can be designed to encourage overtaking...

KERS is paid for by the teams and is not applicable to road cars. It's money wasted.

As for wind tunels, whilst there may be savings to be made over the years, it is not available to the teams which have already built their massive tunnels. Further, all the wings do is to limit the opportunities for aerodynamic improvements: it doesn't stop them. The teams with the wind tunnels will gain those extra hundredths of a second and the smaller teams, who have smaller or no tunnels, will have no incentive to build bigger ones so will always suffer. So to my way of thinking the restriction will increase the gap between the haves and have nots.

If you look back at the history of F1, the 3-litre formula was the cheapest time for the teams as there were few changes. Indeed, if you look at the long history of the fabulous DFV you will see that the consistency allowed virtually anyone to join the throng and work their way up into contention. With continual rule changes this is not possible. What killed cheap racing was turbo-charging. If Balestra had any sense he would have banned it from the start, using one of the many objections of those who knew they would never be able to compete with the manufacturers.

What is expensive is change. Cheap is no changes. This is a universal truth.

The function of the FiA is to regulate sensibly. But radical rule changes is not the way to go.

One way, favoured by Pitpass and many others, would have been to keep the 3.5 litre V8 engines and just limit the revs. No new tooling, no new moulds, no new cars, no new transmissions, no fundamental reshaping of the car, little training of staff, no new failures, no new retooling to overcome the problems highlighted . . . and so it goes on. Such changes to the regs has an enormous impact on the teams. Each part of the car is dependant on the other bits. If an engine suddenly requires more cooling then just about everything on the car, maybe even the tub, needs checking and normally modification. Even the simple change of the number of races the engine has to last cost McLaren an incredible amount of money and, presumably, the other teams as well.

Across the board changes are only viable in times of excess. When economy is required then change is the devil.

[FourWheelDrift]

jellison said:

The Rights holder want as much cash as they can get in the short time there will stay there, before selling it off to the next lot of investors.

Who wants to buy something that is $5Billion in debt?

Matt Scott article said:

Formula one teams are set to demand a bigger share of the sport's revenues after growing alarmed at the amount of interest being paid by its owners to service $5bn (£3.2bn) in debts.

Teams are resisting efforts by the FIA, motorsport's governing body, to force them into a series of controversial cost-cutting measures. The first steps in the FIA's plan came last week when tenders closed for the standard-engine contract, the cornerstone of the thrift programme.

Analysis of accounts for the 12 months to last December of formula one's holding company, Delta3 (UK), shows that CVC Capital, which bought the sport from a consortium of banks two years ago, loaded more than $2.4bn of bank loans on to it during the leveraged buyout. In addition to these were almost $2.6bn of loans from CVC, although the private equity firm insists it will not enforce repayment of this debt since it acts only as a standard tax-reduction mechanism.

Paying the loans cost Delta3 $229.6m in interest last year - equivalent to almost half the central distribution to the constructors - a fact that has dismayed teams, who five years ago threatened to break away from the sport. "There is anger felt from many teams," said one insider at the Formula One Teams Association (Fota).

"We have had banks, oil companies, financial institutions and pharmaceutical companies with us as sponsors. We have raised this money. Why do we have to keep cutting costs? The sport earns a lot of money so let's look at our share."

Last year the paper losses were huge. With loans "rolling up" interest - nearly $500m had accrued in the 13 months since November 2006 - Delta3 made a loss after tax of $458m on turnover of $938m. This prompted the accountants to acknowledge that Delta3 will only be a "going concern" if CVC continues to support it "to meet its liabilities". CVC, which has recently raised $20bn in funds that are committed for 10 years, insists it is a long-term investor.

CVC also points out that the constructors already receive a larger take than ever from central funds under the terms of the 2008-2012 commercial agreement. The prize fund has doubled from $250m a year.

That has added significantly to Delta 3's costs since the last available accounts. The CVC director Nick Clarry said that despite the financial downturn the sport's revenues this year have grown almost 40% to $1.3bn, providing a comfortable margin for bank obligations to be met. "There is a lot of headroom," said Clarry. "Our revenues need to go down $400m before we have any pressure from the banks."

CVC must repay the majority of the $2.4bn loans on expiry in 2014 but says they are being paid off ahead of schedule from "excess profits" formula one generates. It currently has no available estimates of what Delta3's 2008 profits will be.

Now the teams want to go back to the negotiating table with the sport's commercial operators at Delta3, led by formula one's commercial rights holder, Bernie Ecclestone. "What's changed since [2006] is the teams have seen how much debt CVC has put on the sport," said another Fota insider. "We thought CVC's interest was to get income from running the business but not to such an extent that the sport has to perform to its maximum ability for five or six years just to recover the debt. This is why there is interest in new negotiations."

Despite the increased revenues from the 2008 commercial memorandum, no formal contract has been concluded with the teams. CVC is confident a new agreement will soon be reached, considering the obstacle to be the engineering minutiae of regulations. Yet tensions remain. "The logistical costs are so high now," added one source. "[The championship] used to be 12 races, then a maximum of 17. There used to be 80% of the races in Europe and now 80% are across Asia: the costs to the teams are much higher now."

Ecclestone has sought more dates in more exotic locations due to the higher race fees received in places such as Bahrain and Singapore. These have been pivotal in raising 2008 revenues. But an equally controversial development is the FIA's thrift programme. Teams suspect that the ruling by Max Mosley's FIA to introduce the cost cuts has been directed by Ecclestone and Delta3. Clarry said no pressure had been applied.

The "sport" has been run like a personal piggy bank for the last few years, Bernie needs a pension (look up Alpha Prema) and with his upcoming divorce needs to maximise his income and minimise his pay off.