Marussia's return blocked by F1 Strategy Group

Marussia F1 Team.jpg

The possibility of Marussia returning to the grid in 2015 appears to be finished, as yesterday’s meeting of the F1 Strategy Group voted down their wish to use their 2014 car this season.


Administrators had only announced on Wednesday that Marussia would be taken out of administration later this month with a view to racing this year, and the team was also on the official entry list as Manor. Given the Banbury team’s huge debts and the loss of many of its staff to other teams, preparing a 2015-spec car would be impossible, so hopes of racing rested on a unanimous vote by the FIA, Formula One Management (FOM) and the top six teams which make up the Strategy Group. Since this has been turned down, unless some sort of deal can be arranged before the F1 Commission meets to rubber-stamp the decision, there is basically no chance of Marussia competing this year.

There were widespread reports that former J Sainsbury chief executive Justin King was interested in taking over the team so long as it received the prize money for finishing ninth in the Constructor’s last year, estimated to be at least £30 million. It’s been speculated that the other teams blocked the move in order to redistribute the money amongst themselves and ease their own financial struggles. BBC Sport namedropped Force India as a “no” voter, a team whose own financial health is being questioned at the moment, but Bernie Ecclestone told The Independent that "It needed all the teams to agree and there were three or four of them that didn't agree.” Hinting at the pressures the rest of the grid faced, he said: "Maybe the other teams would have liked to use last year’s car. The trouble was that you can’t do these things for one team, you have got to do it for everybody."
 
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They are currently trying to build a car (or adapt the 2014 one) according to the 2015 regulations.
If they can do it they might be able to start in Shangai..

Personally I am against this, they would come last (of course) and probably be gone again a few races later. This would help nobody...
 
This would help nobody...
^^ That.

Formula 1 should not be the playground of half-bankrupt racing teams. If F1 is truly still the pinnacle of motorsport they should get rid of the teams that only fill up the grid and never perform.

I miss the days of big spending, big innovations and big, loud, fuel burning engines :inlove:.
 
We're in a situation now where a team that's been rumored to be on the ledge of bankruptcy or closure since late 2012 (Force India) now has to cannibalize another under-funded team (Manor/Marussia) and squash their chances of a comeback just to keep themselves afloat. Surely not unprecedented, but in today's age, that sends awful signals.
 
This is the problem with F1, in my opinion they will soon lose their top spot in motor sport as it is just too difficult for new teams to start out. Mainly because of the price and most of the revenue generated by the sport is given to the top teams, surely that is not fair?
 
This is the problem with F1, in my opinion they will soon lose their top spot in motor sport as it is just too difficult for new teams to start out. Mainly because of the price and most of the revenue generated by the sport is given to the top teams, surely that is not fair?
It really isn't.

Meanwhile, in WEC, they have a top class filled with top drivers, four innovative and unique solutions with an open rulebook, and not once do you hear any complaining about how much it'll drive the cost of the sport or how bad it is now that Marlboro isn't bankrolling half the teams any more. I think the only prominent "vice sponsor" they have is in the form of Tequila Patron ESM!
 
I think it stinks, and the following is my reason why.

"There were widespread reports that former J Sainsbury chief executive Justin King was interested in taking over the team so long as it received the prize money for finishing ninth in the Constructor’s last year, estimated to be at least £30 million. It’s been speculated that the other teams blocked the move in order to redistribute the money amongst themselves and ease their own financial struggles"

So Ferrari, Mercedes, Redbull and the other top3 who all have unlimited financial resources blocked Marussia and ripped off their constructors prize money from last year, F1 is nothing but a pack of thieves with Bernie leading the parade.
 
I think it stinks, and the following is my reason why.

"There were widespread reports that former J Sainsbury chief executive Justin King was interested in taking over the team so long as it received the prize money for finishing ninth in the Constructor’s last year, estimated to be at least £30 million. It’s been speculated that the other teams blocked the move in order to redistribute the money amongst themselves and ease their own financial struggles"

So Ferrari, Mercedes, Redbull and the other top3 who all have unlimited financial resources blocked Marussia and ripped off their constructors prize money from last year, F1 is nothing but a pack of thieves with Bernie leading the parade.
It was supposed to be Lotus, Force India, Sauber among those who blocked, not Ferrari, Red Bull & Mercedes.
 
Its a terrible shame.

Currently F1 has a huge cost structure. The Engine Technology is very expensive presumably to "send a signal" that it is relevant to todays car technologies.
Additionally each rule change that is designed to slow the cars down means that hundreds of engineers with hundreds of millions of pounds/dollars have smaller and smaller areas of design freedom to get speed. This creates a law of diminishing returns where a for example team of 10 people might be tasked with re designing a tiny widget for 1 tenth of a second. If you havent got 300 million p.a. budget you can't compete.

Colin Chapman did a deal with Ford in the 60s and created the first design incorporating the engine into the monocoque as a stress bearing member it was made available to all teams the following year.
A Cosworth V8 was £5,000 and a rebuild was £1,000.

In the the "Golden era" of F1 the costs were pennies. A small team of less than 10 people could equip themselves and race with a budget probably the costs of 2 or 3 average houses.
Today its the cost of approx 400 average houses.

Force India is next. Anyone reading the news for the last 2 -3 years will realise that its just a matter of months before this plaything of its owner will be swallowed up by the mountain of debt the (once wealthy and inherited) parent company has now accrued.
Sauber doesnt look too chipper either and Lotus far from in robust health.

Whats my point?
A small and influential club of teams with influence are strangling the goose that laid the golden egg.
They have proved unwilling to agree on any form of budget caps as they have big budgets so it doesnt help THEM

In my view F1 needs to take practical steps to dratsically cut the cost of getting a car on the grid.
If is can do that the top teams can keep all their money as a tiny team wont need 100 million a year.
Practical steps include:
Customer cars. Red Bull, Mercedes, Ferrari, McLaren could be allowed to build a "customer spec car". Same as their main car but without the super expensive latest widgets that their 100 strong Cad Cam, Wind Tunnel, Modelling, Composite department has found.
They fabricate 2 extra cars and sell them. The customer teams use their own liveries, own sponsors.
They will clearly be 2 seconds off the pace so will race somewhere in the gap between Marussia/Caterham and the mid grid teams. So what? Is it any different to what we get now?

In my view this is far preferable to 3 car teams. We have the interest of new and different people and their trials and successes. Much more fun than an academy graduate in a 3rd car.
Top teams will no doubt fund many of the drives (Ricciardo in HRT for example).Its still in my view more interesting.
 
It is a shame. Anyone ever see that flow chart of where the money goes? Stunning. Three years of the unconscionable "Ferrari bonus" would have saved many of these teams.

I agree that F1 has to be run and performed by people with virtually unlimited capital, but it also has to be fair too.
 
They should comeback to more cheap technologies. I know F1 is supposed to be the top of motor-racing, but if it means that only 4 teams can run it without going into the red, it ain't worth it.

How many years as it been since you had some teams to pre-qualify because they were too many?

I would not force teams to reduce costs, let them have some freedom, but having a less costly "Base package" to enable new teams to get in the sport and present team to stay in it would be interesting.

Also, maybe removing the limit of team entry all-together? Having the need to do pre-qualify because of the number of team is too high would be a sign of good health for this sport, but that is my opinion.
 
Is there any point Marussia coming back if they're going to use the 2014 car? They were already a lot slower, and the new cars are already 3 seconds faster than last years, so Marussia would turn up and struggle to make 107%
 
F1 needs a right kick up the backside. Ecclestone needs to be gotten rid of. Customer cars should be allowed. Get rid of all these fancy tech that doesn't do anything. Much as I care strongly about environmental concerns, F1 isn't the place for an ecological battleground. Its about raw racing, pure speed, and lots of racing. 18 cars does not make lots of racing. Spiralling costs gave rise to that 18 car grid. The numbers need to be made up now, and costs need to be cut. Smaller teams cant afford to develop their own cars, so customer cars are the answer. Its becoming too costly for most teams to develop cars, especially as they have to replace them every year. What happened to the days when the same car could compete year after year? I've gone off on a tangent I'll stop now.
 

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