Discussion
andyps said:
I get the feeling that Williams support the FOTA actions in principle, but as an organisation which only exists in F1 or as a supplier to the FIA the principles had to come second to continued existence.
Thats the crux of the matter. Williams also had an agreement, much like Ferrari, albeit with less rights for less money and want to avoid the extra expenditure of having to fight an action by MM. Plug550 said:
Alfie Noakes said:
In my opinion this would have been agreed behind closed doors. I doubt any of the teams are surprised by the news.
Quite. The suspension was announced by Williams also, not FOTA. One wonders what Williams has to gain by this unilateral announcement.The upside. What are FOTA going to do beyond suspension, if as we all know this is heading to a fudge/compromise, FIA & FOM are still going to be involved, he'd have bought some good will from them down the line. And FOTA, well he'll have friends there that would understand anyway, or ones that weren't and remain the same. FOTA is driven by mutual self interest, like most communities, when its only as strong, or not, as self interests converge or diverge. His, for now, have diverged. James Allen piece from yesterday suggest FOTA was not as "unified" as the headline suggested.
navier_stokes said:
The difference between Williams and just about everyone else in FOTA is that Williams IS F1. If they don't get into next season, they don't have a business, the others do; therefore they had to sign up, regardless of their position within FOTA.
That's not quite right; but Williams' only other major contract at the moment AFAIK is that for the F2 cars, also an FIA gig.If I were at Williams, I'd also be asking pretty searching questions of the other teams as to why they think they can't operate on £40m, when Williams themselves are pretty sure they'll be fine at that number.
skwdenyer said:
navier_stokes said:
The difference between Williams and just about everyone else in FOTA is that Williams IS F1. If they don't get into next season, they don't have a business, the others do; therefore they had to sign up, regardless of their position within FOTA.
That's not quite right; but Williams' only other major contract at the moment AFAIK is that for the F2 cars, also an FIA gig.If I were at Williams, I'd also be asking pretty searching questions of the other teams as to why they think they can't operate on £40m, when Williams themselves are pretty sure they'll be fine at that number.
skwdenyer said:
navier_stokes said:
The difference between Williams and just about everyone else in FOTA is that Williams IS F1. If they don't get into next season, they don't have a business, the others do; therefore they had to sign up, regardless of their position within FOTA.
That's not quite right; but Williams' only other major contract at the moment AFAIK is that for the F2 cars, also an FIA gig.If I were at Williams, I'd also be asking pretty searching questions of the other teams as to why they think they can't operate on £40m, when Williams themselves are pretty sure they'll be fine at that number.
skwdenyer said:
If I were at Williams, I'd also be asking pretty searching questions of the other teams as to why they think they can't operate on £40m, when Williams themselves are pretty sure they'll be fine at that number.
I'm not sure that the bigger teams are arguing that they could not compete at that level. Rather, they are asking why they should have to do so. Although I myself have long favoured a cost cap with a far more open formula, it is worrying that the FIA proposal appears to be very vague on how its cap would be assessed and enforced. As we have seen with many of the FIA's incomprehensible rulings of the last few years, the less precise the laws, the more room the judge and jury have to do whatever they like, irrespective of the ostensible spirit of the rules, or of the precedents upon which well-intentioned competitors rely to know how to conduct themselves.
I believe that the big teams' other concern is a practical one: they don't see why they should be forced precipitately to put hundreds of people out of work, or to pay them to do nothing, just because Mosley has less patience than a child who hasn't been potty-trained. If they are forced to make a drastic reduction in their costs, it is not obvious why they should not be given more than a few months in which to plan and carry out that complex and painful action.
Briatore made an apt comment this week. He pointed out that when his first team, Benetton, joined the sport, they did so on a much smaller budget than that of several of the biggest, long-established teams. At that time, he, Briatore, did not expect that the wealthy teams should have been required to reduce their budgets simply to accomodate his own team's limitations.
Forums | General Motorsport | Top of Page | What's New | My Stuff