Get Your Pessimism Here 10/10/2008 Practice for the Japanese GP proved only that the McLarens and Ferraris are closely matched, as expected. Timo Glock's surprising fastest lap in the second session was most likely a PR exercise achieved on very low fuel, whereas Alonso's second spot was largely the result of his ability coupled with improvements to the Renault. Come the race, it will be business as usual, I expect, with the big two teams romping away from the rest.Adrian Sutil impresses in practice for the Fuji GPAway from the track, some interesting things have been happening. Vijay Mallya is reported to be talking to McLaren-Mercedes about an engine supply for next year - which is somewhat surprising, given that he has a deal with Ferrari for 2009 and the Italian engine is reputed to be the most powerful at the moment. Word is that Force India do not get the engines "adjusted for reliability", however, and the team is limited to the power available at the beginning of the engine freeze as a result.At this point we are entitled to ask "What engine freeze?" With some teams exploiting the rules to extract more power from their supposedly frozen engines while others have stuck to the spirit of the rules, it has been apparent for some time that the freeze is not working. Even Max Mosley has been forced to admit its impracticality with his announced desire that the engines should be equalized, if necessary by the introduction of a standard engine.That has the manufacturer teams in an uproar, since it would negate the very reason for their being in the sport. FOTA becomes a hotbed of alternative suggestions (just as Max intended) and Mercedes announces that it is prepared to supply engines to other teams - a fairly obvious ploy to be the chosen designer should the standard engine become fact. It used to be that each engine manufacturer could only supply engines to one team apart from their own but the FIA have rather blown that one away by allowing Ferrari to sell engines to both Force India and Toro Rosso. If Mercedes want their engine to be used by three or even four teams, the FIA can hardly refuse now.Which illustrates the state of permanent change in the sport at the moment. The teams have been complaining at the way in which the rules are constantly being tinkered with and have asked for stability; instead, they hardly know what will be required for the next GP, never mind next year. And every rule change means more expense, making a nonsense of the FIA's determination to cut costs.The problem lies in the exceptionally bad rule-making that the FIA indulges in. They have introduced a series of rule changes over the last few years, all of which have proved unworkable or damaging to the racing. And so they fiddle with settings, trying to get bad rules to work as intended, and usually end up making things worse. The present safety car rules are an example. Introduced to prevent a theoretical problem, they have given rise to all sorts of injustices in the races. This will be changed in the new year, apparently, although the chosen solution is not ideal.We are left with the impression that the sport is being run by incompetents. While the FIA is very good at setting lofty goals such as stability, economy and eco-friendliness, they seem even better at devising rules that make a mockery of such ideals. And FOM is no better, summarily axing races without warning, then giving mealy-mouthed explanations like "contractual differences", which we all know means the organizers cannot afford to pay Bernie's ludicrous asking price.The wonder is that F1 somehow manages to continue as the great sport it is. If anything is constant in its rarefied atmosphere, it is that the best drivers still compete in the best cars and we are provided with a championship that goes to the wire whether or not the stewards interfere. How long this can go on while the basis for the sport remains so much in turmoil and flux, I do not know; but I suspect that the manufacturer teams are getting extremely fed up with it all.To me, it seems that the sport can go one of two ways. Either the present regime stays in power and the growing discontent in the teams reaches boiling point (and that would pull F1 apart, whether or not a rival series is set up), or Max and Bernie are somehow deposed and a more realistic and able leadership instituted. The second option is extremely unlikely, given the way the two have entrenched themselves, but that leaves only bloody revolution to look forward to.I hate to say it, but it looks increasingly as though F1 is about to self-destruct in the same way CART did in the last decade. And at the root of both there are a few greedy, power-hungry guys without a scruple between them.Okay, enough doom and gloom for the moment - I'm still looking forward to watching the Fuji race in the small hours of Sunday morning.
Clive
donwatters To quote from your comments: "We are left with the impression that the sport is being run by incompetents."No, Clive, not an impression, a fully realized fact. Date Added: 10/10/2008
Steven Roy Ian Philips of Force India was on BBC five live radio commentary as he always is during FP2. He said that the motivation for talking to Mercedes is because Ferrari have no idea what they are going to do with KERS and won't know until into the new year or even the new season. Force India have to sign off on their 2009 at the end of this month so there is a fairly big disconnect there.The other rumour I was pleased to hear mentioned by the FP1 commentary team which does not include Philips was the possibility of Paul di Resta finding himself racing a FIF1 next season as part of a Mercedes deal. It was a conclusion I leapt to myself as soon as I heard of the potential Merc / FIF1 deal. Date Added: 10/10/2008
Clive Don: If it weren't enough to make a grown man cry, it would make wonderful farce. To think that F1 is reduced to the gobbledygook regularly spouted by Max and Bernie... Date Added: 10/10/2008
Clive I saw mention of the Paul di Resta deal elsewhere, Steven - also thanks to you. You're obviously doing a great PR job for him! It will be very interesting to see how well he goes.As for Force India, it becomes a matter of who can get KERS up and running in time, therefore. Now there's a blind alley, if ever I saw one... Date Added: 10/10/2008
Alianora La Canta What a mess! And that applies both to the Ferrari/McLaren/Force India KERS situation and the wider psuedopolitical one. I can see the McLaren KERS thing happening, even though McLaren has previously said it might not run one. Since they are at least willing to experiment with KERS in winter testing, that means there would be a unit available. The trouble is that the two race drivers, to the best of my knowledge, already have 2009 contracts because they were on multi-year contracts in the first place. Either di Resta is only getting a test seat (perhaps with data exchange clauses) or there is going to be expense in buying out one contract or the other. The latter scenario is yucky to say the least.As for the wider situation, there probably won't be either a revolution at this rate - simply a gradual crumbling to fundamentals and an eventual replacement of the leadership, resulting in a gradual climb back. But it will be very difficult for F1 to justify its "pinnacle" status. Date Added: 10/10/2008
Nick Goodspeed F1 manages to continue, but not as the great sport it was. The drivers have team orders despite the rules. The cars do not adhere to the rules, and some are allowed to get away with more than others. Cars and/or drivers are disqualified at the whims of ignorant bystanders who've been deputized and the politicians who run the sport no nothing about what goes on in the budgets, air tunnels or on the tracks, let alone having a clue to the cause and effect of rule making or engineering specs that they chuck out at the teams sporadically. Somehow I find it absolutely impossible to correlate these goings on with a "Great Sport!" What is happening is symptomatic of overpowering decadence settling over despotic politicians. They have manipulated the sport to a point that they have absolute power over it, and it is now falling into absolute corruption. When the dust settles perhaps the Europeans will be watching DTMs with chocolate and deturgent ads on them. cyNick Date Added: 11/10/2008
Nick Goodspeed It will be interesting to see what happens when a KERS equipped car has a bad accident. If its batteries are anything like the lexus hibrid (650 volt) there are probably going to be some arc welding going on. Driver beware! If they want to save money why don't they force the manufacturers to build there engines out of nice cheap stock blocks? Date Added: 11/10/2008
Alianora La Canta Nick, it sounds like the FIA want to go one further and force everyone to use the same manufacturer's cheap stock block... Date Added: 11/10/2008
Gusto Like Nick soon as I read about KERS I winced when considering the `Murphy`s Law` aspect of it, as someone who works with electricity, the dangers of Super Capacitor Batteries do not escape me, and was surprised that the mechanic wasn`t more severely injured (nothing like a pair of rubber shoes, to save your bacon). Capacitor`s are known to explode when they `Go South` and to think nothing will go wrong because they will be the height of modern engineering is not wise, ask the crew of Apollo 13, they will be able to tell you all about it. Date Added: 11/10/2008
Nick Goodspeed It seems to me, if F1 wants to save money, they could start by getting the hell away from Ecclestone. He's a huge money syphon, taking a disproportionate amount of cash off the top of the most lucrative deals. Once Ecclestone is gone Mosley will insist on doing as old Henery Ford did in the begining...paint em all black. Retreading the tires will save some cash. Make the factories guarantee the cars for 1 year or 10,000 km. No more throw away junk. Any motor or drive train problems must be fixed by the local high school motor mechanics class. Charge the fans to get in to the race, then charge them again to leave. Cut out Max's salary but let him sell XXX tapes with a F1 logo on them. Open a special "dictators" elite viewing gallery at a million a head a race. Once they get all the sultanates and sheiks from opec in, George W and his cronies will have to join. Stage a Hollywood Survivor GP and auction off all the small size underclothes at Paris Hilton's favourite hotel. Mosley's draconian statements about F1 going under if budgets aren't cut is absolute poppycock. He knows how powerful fear is an has now deemed it time to play this card. It has worked for thousands of years. Why not now?What he means is it won't survive as we know it today. All in all that would be a very good state of affairs as what we have today is a total sell out. I'm sure F1 would do fine with 25% of the cash it spends now.cyNick Date Added: 11/10/2008
Gusto Amen to that, F1 will still exist even if we were living in caves watching Pedal Cars go round, but with the Economy going peared shaped are the powers that be are trying to rope in more viewers so the advertising revenue is not one of the outlays the big companies drop. And what better than a bit of Spa-gate to get the masses interrested. F1 is front page news again and for all the wrong reasons, but as they say` theres no such thing as bad publicity`. Instead of engine freezes and talk of Draconian spec series this, that and the other, why not a set budget to get your car on the grid, if Ferraris attempt to re-invent the wheel with there Pit Light Release System is not a sign that F1 has become bloated, corrupt and awash with money then nothing will. Build the Cars to a 1966 spec, not only will it be cheap and cheerfu, we will see Racing that will knock your socks off, as for Bernie and F1..Spit. But let the good times roll, only six hours ( including circumnavigating the ` incorrect, try again ;-) to go after Lewis`s demostration of why the Brazilians like him. Notice I didn`t say Love....that will come with time, Date Added: 12/10/2008
Alianora La Canta F1 might go under if the financial crisis isn't accounted for correctly. But that's because the Royal Bank of Scotland (now 63% owned by the British Government) has a $2.9 billion dollar loan given out to the F1 Group, not because of anything the teams themselves are doing. It's CVC and Bernie that need yowling at! Date Added: 14/10/2008
Clive Funny how those two are always at the bottom of the shady deals in F1... Date Added: 14/10/2008
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