Will Haas be the next team to disappear?

[Oneball]

Leithen said:

Oneball said:

Leithen said:

One can only hope. Their participation makes a mockery of the sport on multiple levels.

They are a part of F1 as much as Red Bull, Ferrari or Mercedes. If you qualify you get on the grid. If you want a series with identical cars there’s plenty of one make championships out there for you to watch.

I’d like the opposite thank you. Teams that design, make and build their own cars, have ambition to win and aren’t owned by convicted tax evaders.

You’ll want Red Bill binned then too. The Yoovidhya family have all manor of dodgy tax deals, offshore companies etc, they use a Honda engine with a badge stuck on it and Adrian Newey isn’t an employee of Red Bull anymore than Dallara is of Haas.

[entropy]

mat205125 said:

vaud said:

HustleRussell said:

Most recently Caterham and Manor / Marussia, 2014 and 2015.

True but they were promised a cost cap, or at least some control over spending that never materialised in their era.

They also didn't have the backing of a large tooling and machine manufacturer like Haas behind them, and were underfunded and on shakey ground from day one.

Caterham was the only team on paper to have some sort of longevity but I sense Tony Fernandes didn't really have the heart for F1 and let it go under.

[rdjohn]

https://www.formula1.com/en/latest/article.haas-re...

Hass are in the money now. Everything is for sale if the price is right, but if Andretti could buy Hass for $200million they would now be getting an absolute bargain.

The cost cap has changed everything, most teams are now able to turn a profit. Williams was the last bargain-price sale.

My guess is that $500million is now nearer the mark, if you want to get into F1 on the cheap.

[TheDeuce]

gt_12345 said:

Sandpit Steve said:

Tazar said:

Haas don’t seem to be the best funded team in current F1 so will the various lawsuits against them make them disappear?

Can’t see it, no matter how many lawsuits. Thanks to the new “Concorde” agreement, with the famous $200m entry fee, the assets of an extant F1 team are in the $500m range, including their Championship entry and associated prize money futures. The teams want to raise that $200m to $500m from 2025, in which case an extant F1 team becomes worth at least $800m. Even Haas, with their limited factory and extensive outsourcing operation.

There’s plenty of organisations wanting to buy into F1, if they can find someone willing to sell. Right now, no-one is selling. Eventually, the price will be high enough for someone to take the money - most likely Dorilton at Williams.

They're only worth what someone is willing to pay, not whatever value the CA says.

All teams are now worth the figures suggested - because all teams provide a huge marketing boost for the owners and effectively self fund.

The budget cap this season is approx. £108m. That's a budget so easily met by championship monies, commercial dealings and sponsorship. Any team, regardless of actual performance can go on to make a profit and the team itself will never lose value, so... Who cares how much it costs to buy one? Anyone with an attachable product that can be advertised via their F1 participation will pay 'whatever' to acquire a team as and when one becomes available. If Apple were to buy a team, why would they care the cost? They'll have a billion ish viewers each race weekend tuning into to see their name and logo, the other sponsors they choose will pay for the actual cost of funding the team, easily. It's free marketing for the team owners combined with an asset that's going to gain value - because any cash cow gains vale each time it's available for purchase.

This is why Stroll and Wolff now own significant stakes in their teams and attached brands. They were able to be part of talks that created this very secure and lucrative situation and they were able to maneuver to capitalise on what they knew was going to be the future shape of F1 economics.

[Rotary Potato]

Leithen said:

HAAS appear happy to use the maximum amount of TRCs permissible, with no apparent roadmap to increase their own IP. If F1 wasn’t a closed shop that might be fine. Indeed if F1 had a larger grid and a process to continually allow new entries to qualify, I’d argue for a return to March and Hesketh.

But it doesn’t and the current cabal are content in maximising the value of their businesses and claiming the right to choose their competitors. There are obvious candidates who have far more sporting credibility than HAAS, but they will continue to occupy the grid regardless.

I agree with all of this ... however (the case for the defence ) ...

Gene Haas sunk a lot of money into starting up an F1 team when it wasn't a guaranteed money maker. The last batch of teams to try all sunk without a trace when the much rumoured cost cap never materialised. The same could have happened to him, but he put his money where his mouth was at a time when it was a genuine gamble. That buys him a lot of goodwill in my eyes.

Yes, he's done it "on the cheap", and yes, he's doing the bare minimum to be defined as a "constructor" as per the regulations. But there was still a lot of money put down on the table to get the venture off the ground, which he could so easily have lost. But he gambled, and he's now won a seat at a very exclusive table.

I don't agree with the way F1 has governed its way into allowing the teams to effectively veto new competition, and I wish there was a way that new constructors could come along and knock the established teams out of racing - competition improving the breed and all that.

But there isn't, and that isn't something you can lay at the door of Gene Haas. He's not broken any rules, his cars occasionally conjure up a result they have absolutely no right to, and he gambled at a time when people weren't queuing up to try and get into F1. In my eyes, he's earned his place at the top table and earned the right to ride this gravy train for as long as it lasts.

I hope there can be a restructure of F1 which allows for a more competitive process to allow new teams in (even if that means losing some of the worst performing 'established' teams), but I worry that it's become a pipe dream ... the teams have too much power now and it'd be like the turkeys voting for Christmas.

[gt_12345]

thegreenhell said:

gt_12345 said:

They're only worth what someone is willing to pay, not whatever value the CA says.

Supply and demand. At the moment F1 is a closed shop, as Andretti is finding out, and the price of entry is very high, if you can find an entry at all. In this scenario a team can almost name its price, especially if there are multiple potential bidders (Andretti, Porsche and others currently sniffing around any opportunity to buy in). Current logic suggests that the minimum sale price for a team is now the enterprise value of the team plus $200m, as that is the minimum start up cost for a new team if one could be started from scratch. The team owners know this, and it's unlikely any would willingly sell for a lower price, unless they really needed to sell.

I agree, I was just emphasising if they try and milk it, Buyer can just walk away.

[thegreenhell]