Prodrive officially out of F1

[jon-]

I've searched and gone through the past 4 days of topics but I've a feeling this might be a repost. Sorry if it is.

http://www.autocar.co.uk/News/NewsArticle/AllCars/...

Autocar said:

Prodrive boss David Richards has admitted to Autocar that Formula One is a “dead duck” for his company.

Speaking at the Autosport show in Birmingham, Richards said that the new Concorde Agreement had dashed Prodrive’s hopes of becoming the Formula One team.

New rules make it mandatory for all teams to have constructor support. That, says Richards, will make it “not financially viable for smaller teams to enter the sport. It would be “too impractical to be competitive” he said.

Richards added that his initial premise for entering the world of F1 had been taken away since the new rules were agreed, even though an exception has been granted to the likes of Torro Rosso and Super Aguri.

Prodrive will now refocus on its World Rally Championship campaign with Subaru. Richards intends to take a leading, hands-on role, as Team Principle of the WRC team as he was in the early-90s.

But Richards acknowledges the need to be realistic running a five-year old car, and says his focus will be on improving reliability. “When the new car arrives next year”, Richards adds “there’ll be no reason why Subaru can’t win the championship”.

[Nic Jones]

REPOST!!!!!

http://www.pistonheads.co.uk/gassing/topic.asp?h=0...

And it was only on page 2 you lazy boy!

Still a real shame though

Edited by Nic Jones on Monday 14th January 15:38

[jon-]

I did check, and I even used the search function ordered by date.

Ah well, at least my opening line was correct

How did I miss that.

[anonymous-user]

Should have gone to specsavers.

[anonymous-user]

Nic Jones said:

Still a real shame though

Why? Who cares whether or not Prodrive run an F1 team?

[anonymous-user]

A large number of spectators of the sport would have enjoyed another team on the grid, as would the two drivers who would get a chance to make an impresion, as would the engineers in the team, as would the sponsors... Be that Prodrive or some other team is not the issue, we could have had a 12th team on the grid had it been handled better, but this is on the other post anyway.

[jon-]

And David Richards (however much of a cock) has motorsport in his blood. Who ever fills the 12th slot will probably just be another corporate.

[kevin ritson]

It's also the fact that Max has used the customer car idea as another of his levering tactics, without considering that it may (and did) waste a respected company a great deal of time and money.

[flemke]

kevin ritson said:

It's also the fact that Max has used the customer car idea as another of his levering tactics, without considering that it may (and did) waste a respected company a great deal of time and money.

Williams's argument was that they had invested a great deal of time and money in building a team that produced its own chassis, and it wasn't fair to devalue that by forcing them to compete against a team that had not made the same sort of commitment. One can agree or disagree.

It is interesting, however, that the FIA lice have now unilaterally decreed limits on engine development, wind tunnel usage, computer usage and other major areas of F1 technology. One does not, however, recall any concern from them about forcing the teams that have made big investments of time and money in engine programmes, second wind tunnels and supercomputers to compete against teams that had not made the same sort of commitment.
Not that one would expect the FIA to be hypocritical or employ double standards. Goodness no!

[900T-R]

johnfelstead said:

A large number of spectators of the sport would have enjoyed another team on the grid, as would the two drivers who would get a chance to make an impresion, as would the engineers in the team, as would the sponsors... Be that Prodrive or some other team is not the issue, we could have had a 12th team on the grid had it been handled better

[anonymous-user]

Some good points. They could have been competitive too with McLaren chassis. Perhaps too competitive for some of the current midfield teams! Personally, I'm not really in favour of customer F1 teams. It would probably kill off independent teams like Williams or force them to become smaller customer teams themselves. There's got to be some point in designing and building your own chassis.

[rubystone]

I think there was a thread not long ago on PH where the poster intimated that Prodrive was a house of cards with no sponsors onboard. I posted at the time that there was far more substance to the team than that and that I was aware of the existence of 2 sponsors for the team, one of whom is now out in the open as being Baugur. The other wouldn't take a genius to sniff out....

What has amused me about this is that the main objector to their appearance on the grid was none other than Williams....who have recently announced a new sponsor and possible equity partner in the team...the name of that parner?....who can give an amswer to that question?.....

[flemke]

rubystone said:

I think there was a thread not long ago on PH where the poster intimated that Prodrive was a house of cards with no sponsors onboard. I posted at the time that there was far more substance to the team than that and that I was aware of the existence of 2 sponsors for the team, one of whom is now out in the open as being Baugur. The other wouldn't take a genius to sniff out....

What has amused me about this is that the main objector to their appearance on the grid was none other than Williams....who have recently announced a new sponsor and possible equity partner in the team...the name of that parner?....who can give an amswer to that question?.....

http://www.pistonheads.co.uk/gassing/topic.asp?h=0&t=485213


Eta: You missed the post directly following your own, my friend!

Edited by flemke on Friday 18th January 13:08

[rubystone]

great minds and all that....I actually don't think FW is capable of such brinksmanship and am prepared to believe that his actions re customer teams were based on sportsmanship and to protect his considerable investment in WGPE...

[flemke]

rubystone said:

great minds and all that....I actually don't think FW is capable of such brinksmanship and am prepared to believe that his actions re customer teams were based on sportsmanship and to protect his considerable investment in WGPE...

I don't know enough (as usual) to have a worthwhile opinion.
He seems an honourable guy today, although one has heard more than one tale about shenanigans back in the old days...

In this case, I don't know that it would have required brinksmanship. I don't think that he ever had anything to lose, apart from that which he was fighting to protect anyhow.
It was natural for him to oppose the Prodrive business model per se. It did seem dubious that the legal gauntlet was thrown down at the last minute, but that may have been strategic, and may have been preceded by more polite objections long before. It still does rankle that Super Aguri and Toro Rosso are allowed to do what Prodrive was not allowed to do. As always, the FIaLTH hide behind the pretext that they are not in a position to enforce the Concorde Agreement - unless it comes to dictating every bloody detail of the formula, that is.

Losing the Prodrive deal could not have been good for McLaren. RD and FW are very tight, but it would have been too much to expect the latter to defer with so much at stake. On the other hand, Ron did sell half his stake a year ago.