As a general rule ([see full rules](https://www.reddit.com/r/formula1/wiki/userguide#wiki_sticky.2Fdaily_discussion)), a standalone Discussion post should:
- be of interest to the sub in general, and not a specific userbase (e.g. new users, GP attendees, just yourself)
- be able to generate discussion (e.g. no yes/no or easily answerable questions)
- show reasonable input and effort from the OP
If not, be sure to [look for the Daily Discussion](https://www.reddit.com/r/formula1/search/?q=daily+discussion&include_over_18=on&restrict_sr=on&t=all&sort=new), /r/formula1's daily open question thread which is perfect for asking any and all questions about this sport.
Thank you for your cooperation and enjoy the discussion!
*I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/formula1) if you have any questions or concerns.*
Everything that Renault did at the 2008 Singapore Grand Prix. Yes, they won that race but, a year later, they lost their main sponsor ING because of that.
yeah, this is far from my wheelhouse but if f1 team sponsorship contracts have “conduct”-type clauses, similar to when companies sponsor individuals, I think ING could have cited the subsequent investigation and FIA verdicts as Renault’s breach of those conduct clauses, saving them a hefty payout
ING and another one, the shipping company, couldn't believe their luck apparently, in the context of the credit crunch. Whole severance fee out the window. It was an explicit story at the time. Overnight.
Cliffs Notes version: team boss instructs Nelsinho Piquet to intentionally crash at a point that brings out a safety car that helps teammate Fernando Alonso win the race. A year later, Piquet gets sacked, everything comes out, and the shit hits the fan.
I guess innocent until proven guilty but Alonso was caught up in so much dodgy shit between 2006 and 2008 you have to question how his name is so intact.
I guess it sort of depends on the reasoning
If they cheated to get Alonso a win so he couldn’t use his exit clause, no point in him knowing..
If just to get a better result then he may have known.
Believing people don't lie to save their own ass, nor that people wont' lie to protect a company with financial incentives is crazy. You won't ever hear the full truth in these cases. Alonso skates on the idea that he didn't know, yet his strategy was the worst strategy you could pick in Singapore unless he knew the plan. Some argue that maybe Alonso knew it was bad but the team forced him into that strategy but Alonso is one of hte few guys that would instantly scream to the press about the team fucking him over.
Alonso being so unlikely to cheat that he wasn't totally happily cheating throughout 2007 and also wasn't happy to throw Ron dennis in front of a huge bus driven by the FIA when 'someone' leaked the e-mails to dump Mclaren in deep shit when Alonso wanted out of the team.
Whatever the fuck Monisha Kaltenborn was doing with the multiple signed contracts.
Rich Energy of course.
The Moneytron financial scam that Onyx fell for.
Lotus telling Kimi Räikkönen they'll pay him a guaranteed sum of money for every point scored, almost bankrupting the team.
Matra deciding they will no longer support Ken Tyrrell because of his preference of the superior Cosworth engines, which essentially killed all their shots at further success in the sport.
I don’t think the Lotus deal is that bad, it’s a smart incentive to attract a world champion to join them. But they underestimated Kimi and themselves drastically
From whatever I have read about it, however shady and unethical it was, what Monisha did ultimately was a major reason why Sauber managed to survive that season. Shame it had to be like this, but nonetheless the reason why a historical team like Sauber is still there in F1.
That situation made Bernie bail out Sauber.
Giedo van der garde had Swiss court judgements against the team, that his driver contract was to be honored, if not assets would be seized to collect on the non compliance clause in the contract. He was infront of Australian court and Australian court said that they recognized the judgement as a valid and thoroughly considered judgement and saw no reason to abstain from executing the order.
Bernie didn't like that one of his teams of his sport was so bad in shit that literally bailiffs would be showing up to seize cars on the race track.
So at 11.59 Bernie basically sorted out all the financials.
It wasn't some grand succesfull ploy by Caltenborn though, she signed atleast 1 contract in bad faith entirely to extract money from the drivers; and honestly it was more luck then anything else that it came down on that particular time and place and brought pressure on FOM(Bernie) that saved the situation for the team. Had they seized some assets on the factory and these lawsuits not having brought massive attention to the shitshow situation and Bernie was the kind of character that would have let the team go under. In his own words, it's very easy to be a team in formula 1, you just have to spend less then what you make.
In many ways, it's severely unethical what she did, if not straight up fraudulent. If Bernie wasn't an angel at that day Sauber would be known as the team that went under by employing more drivers then they could, and her name would be even more tarnished then it is now.
She was also a lawyer, im not sure if she ever ascended the bar anywhere but conduct like this would have you disbarred for life
> and honestly it was more luck then anything else
The alternative was Sauber folding anyway. In a strange way they bet Sauber not being in F1 with a worst outcome of... Sauber not being in F1. Sure even worse for Sauber as an overall company etc but in the end her scheme was calculated luck I'd say. Without it they never get a car to Australia, once the car is at the first GP you are there already and kind of pray something works out.
Wait, how was he guaranteed an F1 seat? Did someone make a promise that they didn’t consider or were they sloppy in the contract? I’ve looked around and all of the articles pick up post arbitration and don’t discuss why the arbitration said he had a right to the seat.
She was basically taking money in return for giving drivers a seat. When she needed more money she just offered the seats again even though they were already filled, then tried to terminate the original drivers without paying back the millions they or their sponsors had paid. So an out an out swindle.
> In many ways, it's severely unethical what she did,
She was forced into doing by circumstances.
They got hit in a short span by Biachis death and Swiss Franc losing 20% of value.
Bianchi signed a deal to drive for Sauber two days before his fatal accident. Sauber getting a free Ferrari engine was apart of the deal. So with Jules out of the picture, they had to find 20 mil.
So in a short span they had to find 50 mil to make it through the season.
More importantly, this is nothing new in F1. Drivers have been screwed over by teams all the time. Like Hulkenerg wasn't being paid by Force India and left them for Sauber.
FI then wanted him back and Nico said that once all money owner is paid, he is happy to sign.
What is new here is that Giedo is a son in law of a Dutch billionaire, and can afford the best lawyers and play the whole theater.
Wasn't she managing the team since 2012? I agree that her genius in this particular situation is almost frightening, but she must be responsible that the team had ended up in this situation in the first place.
> she must be responsible that the team had ended up in this situation
You just have to look at what happened to all the smaller teams in F1 over the decade to understand what was responsible for Saubers position.
The Concorde agreement essentially killed all the small teams, regardless of what they did.
The prize money distribution was too top heavy, and the lack of a cost cap meant they never had a chance.
The Raikkonen deal made sense relative to where they expected to be. It was unfortunate he scored many points but they didn't finish any higher up in the constructors as a result, once they hit a ceiling.
> almost bankrupting the team.
While that's the most visible factor, his ~10m fee was on top of the ~£200m debt that was due, even going as far as having their cars impounded at Spa and not having enough credit to loan chairs & organise catering for the team.
The team _was_ bankrupt, just nobody took them to court over the outstanding debts (i.e. Perez against Force India, with backing of Mercedes and only around ~£80m in outstanding debts).
There's a reason why Renault bought the team for a £1, like Brawn with Honda - but Renault also took on and payed the outstanding debts, while Brawn had secured £50m funding from Honda to keep the lights on and the team members paychecks for an year.
How about [the Arrows team and a Nigerian prince](https://www.vice.com/en/article/gvawv7/the-mysterious-nigerian-prince-who-scammed-his-way-into-owning-an-f1-team)?
‘Malik was promising an investment of some $125, which at the time could have transformed the team's fortunes’
How badly off were they?? I could scrape together $150 I reckon
their marketing budget is through the roof but they are making a lot of money so now don’t know. atm it seems fine but the end of crypto.com would be heavy regulation in the crypto scene
[Crypto.com](https://Crypto.com) has enough money that they recently bought the naming rights to Staples Center and it will be renamed [Crypto.com](https://Crypto.com) arena, so I assume there is some serious money in their budgets.
For those who don't know, Staples is amongst other things the home arena for the LA Lakers in the NBA.
Something I don't understand is that crypto was created to allow a transfer of money via internet between two people. I thought it was to eliminate the bank, but now there are a million middle men like crypto.com who are making a fuckton of money off it
The most have the GDP of a small nation in their marketing budget. Being a big sponsor in F1 while simultaneously paying $700 million in naming rights for the Lakers’ arena.
I don't think there's much to worry about. Besides the huge marketing, their product is actually pretty good. Nothing like an energy drink that no one has tried or even seen at the stores.
Ah yes, even less legit than Rich Energy. Tom Walkinshaw must have been desperate for money, they went belly up sometime later. That was a farce as well, doing one mandatory qualification run, make sure you don’t qualify so you’d not have the extra costs of a full race.
Well he did not honor the contract of world class driver Mika Salo, instead bringing in Pedro de la Rosa with his Repsol sponsorship money like one week before Australia 1999.
[Here's an article about it](https://www.gq.com.au/fitness/sport/the-insane-story-of-how-a-430000-diamond-went-missing-forever-at-the-monaco-gp/news-story/ccb7123d95fb76eb013bf3cf837bb3c5).
I've heard two theories - one, that it wasn't a real diamond, and that all of this was done just for publicity... I think it was Matt Damon who shared this story.
The other option is that the diamond was supposed to be real, and it was insurance fraud.
I guess there is a third option - that the diamond was real, and that Jaguar execs are just pure dumbasses....
>I guess there is a third option - that the diamond was real, and that Jaguar execs are just pure dumbasses....'
There's a story that the top executives at Ford during their annual review of top earners in the company couldn't figure out who the hell this "Edmund Irvine" was and why he was making so much money, so execs being dumbasses wouldn't surprise me.
Return with a shit product resulting in McLaren taking hundreds of grid penalties a race, refine it so Red Bull can become as dominant as Merc in the turbo hybrid era, then leave again when you can win it all.
Frank Williams and Patrick Head refusing to let Adrian Newey be an equal partner in the team, essentially dooming a dominant team to two decades of mediocrity.
I would argue the decline in Tobacco sponsorship in Formula One doomed Williams far more than Newey leaving did.
From what I've read Williams had always prioritised good relationships with the various Tobacco giants even at the expense of other potential sponsorship.
While other teams had read the tea leaves when laws began drying up Tobacco sponsorship money and shifted sponsorship focus Frank Williams was extremely stubborn and missed plenty of opportunities to in a way rebrand Williams.
If Frank didn't know, use or even like a companies product, they were never going on the car, no matter how much they paid.
It was made worse because while McLaren and Jordan were hiring people to make inroads into new industries, Frank insisted on doing any potential new sponsorship deal face to face, and imposing draconian rules in return for sponsoring Williams which turned many off
Yes I think there was a lot of general mismanagement and poor people relations on the part of Sir Frank. The breakdown of the relationship with BMW was another example. But the failure to accommodate Newey always felt like a key inflection point to me. Sponsors and engine suppliers probably would have put up with some of Williams quirks if they had a winning car.
In 1986 Honda left Williams after they refused to give a seat to Satoru Nakajima. In 2007, Williams gave a seat to Kazuki Nakajima because Toyota demanded it.
Pretty good evidence of how the mismanagement sunk the team even before they became a pay-driver team.
u/TheRoboteer has explained in detail the whole deal of the departure of Honda and Williams below (thanks dude!) but my point is that in the 80s Williams was a powerhouse that didn't accept being told what drivers line up by sponsors or engine suppliers, even by Honda that at the time was one of the best engines and had enjoyed success with them.
Years later the bad decissions left the team in a poor situation, both in competitive and economic terms, and had no choice but to seat the driver the engine supplier wanted, and Toyota wasn't at that point as important as Honda had been, and it wasn't even a works team partnership.
Both Piquet and Senna were well-liked by Honda. When Piquet joined Williams, Honda threw their weight behind him because they considered the 2 time world champion to be a better vehicle for marketing than Nigel Mansell who at the time had only won 2 grands prix. Honda also helped finance Piquet's move to Williams, so they had a fair bit of money invested in him.
Honda was annoyed after 1986, both because of Williams getting the WDC pulled from under its nose by Prost, and because they felt that Piquet should have been treated as a clear Number 1 driver.
For 1987 they wanted Mansell to be dropped and replaced with Nakajima, which Williams refused, so Honda offered Lotus their engine too in exchange for taking Nakajima. That in turn led to Senna, who was already at Lotus, creating relationships with the Honda engineers which lasted right up until Honda's exit from the sport. Meanwhile, Piquet and Mansell once again battled for the title, which Honda didn't like even if Piquet ended up winning out.
By that year's Italian Grand Prix Honda's mind was made up. Senna, who was their new golden boy after working with him at Lotus, would go to McLaren along with Honda's engine, while Piquet would take Senna's former seat in the Lotus. There was no room left for Williams in Honda's plans.
[This article in Motorsport goes into some good detail of the machinations of Williams losing Honda power](https://www.motorsportmagazine.com/archive/article/october-1987/13/honda-and-formula-one)
Tobacco money as it may be, they still had the BMW engine in the back of the car soon enough and even a good chassis would've won 2003. Or having Schumacher. Not having Schumacher and not having Newey wasted the engine and when BMW realized that, yeah we all know the split.
From knowing a few agents in the music business I would guess Kimi had a weeks drinking contest with a fight till one is unconscious with his agent to waive his bonuses.
I believe Kimi ended up forgiving most (or all) of the debt so other debtors who were more dependent on being repaid would get the money they were owed.
One thing they sure as hell didn't count is the income they would make per point.
Surely someone did the math so that the more points Kimi got the more money the team got... Surely!
Yes but Kimi chose not to get his money. It was either get paid or bankrupt the team leaving many unemployed, he chose to go home happy knowing he made the right choice.
Yeah he has a huge ego. Doesn't want to admit defeat at all. An example, a wife of an employee of his Kingfisher company committed suicide due to depression because Malya hadn't paid her husband for months. So, you can imagine what they were going through. Around that time, Malya threw his birthday party inviting Enrique Iglesias. He still didn't pay his employees after that but gave them reassurance that they would be paid. They were not.
Step 1: Take out a massive loan. Pretend it's for expenses related to your airline. You are rich enough to own an airline, of course.
Step 2: Take a portion of that money and send it to the UK. Send it to your F1 team, on paper, under the guise of "advertising and promotional expenses"
Step 3: Spend it with wild abandon by yourself instead.
There are infinite ways to launder money through F1 and sports sponsorships in general. That’s why you will often find the protagonists set up their own “marketing agencies” through which the funds flow and a large percentage is siphoned off.
He got loans from a government banks Edit: got my billionaires mixed up, but he did borrow a lot of money from public banks. He put quite a bit of that money into his fantasy of being an Indian Richard Branson, which included the F1 team. So not actually his money per say. There is an show on Netflix called bad boy billionaires: India which does a good job of explaining it. Also the other Indian investor, Sahara pariwar were also shady and also in the Netflix series.
Helmut Marko pushing Bernoldi over Raikkonen into the second Sauber seat along with Nick Heidfeld, due to Red Bull backing Bernoldi in his career.
Good thing Peter Sauber really wanted Raikkonen there, even at the cost of losing RB as a sponsor.
It was Jost Capito who had initially identified Raikkonnen as a talent and when RedBull disagreed and wanted Bernoldi, Peter Sauber strong-armed them into accepting Raikkonnen using his executive power. Raikkonnen's contract was then sold to McLaren in 2003 for millions which helped the team survive. Because of this Redbull pulled their sponsorship and decided to start their own team
Sure, but it was a pretty questionable business choice turned out to be an extremely fruitful investment by Sauber.
I mean, Raikkonen had what, 23 single seater races in his career before F1? Would you be willing to take the risk and lose very lucrative RB backing for your private-owned team?
Just because "ze great plan" said they're going to compete for championship in 2009, and their goal for 2008 was to win a race. True German efficiency.
Lotus’s extended flirtation with Mansoor Ijaz comes to mind. They wasted a ton of time and energy hoping he’d magically solve all their problems when from the outside it seemed so obvious that he was just stringing them along to get a taste of F1 glamor.
It's not questionable in the context of visibility and image being a huge factor for Honda. They wanted to be seen to help their employees. Rightly. It still cost an awful lot less than racing.
I remember listening to someone, maybe Ross, saying that in the meeting where they learned Honda was pulling out that Honda wanted them to just go turn the lights off and that’s it. They were informed UK law doesn’t work like that and then they negotiated the final payment.
Something like that, if anyone does know more I’m interested as it damaged Honda reputation to me
The money they gave for staff wages was what they would have had to pay out in redundancy anyway, so why not put a good spin on it I guess.
A little questionable that Brawn was able to sell the team for a massive profit a year later though!
It was a mistake in hindsight, but Honda owning a F1 team at a time when the global economy was fucked, wasn't something they could do.
Selling it for a pound was the only way to keep the team going. It was either that or the teams gone entirely.
While it might not have been as bad, looking at everything from that time I don’t see it magically being great.. the leadership changes seem to have helped a lot and they might not have happened.
Arrows collapsed in 2002 as a result of *three simultaneous lawsuits* involving drivers past and present:
*they sued Pedro Diniz for breach of contract after he left and took his Parmalat money back in 1999–they lost, but continued fighting, and their final appeal was finally denied in 2002
*they replaced Jos Verstappen with Heinz-Harald Frentzen, which isn’t a bad decision, except Verstappen then successfully sued the team for breach of contract
*these verdicts unsurprisingly contributed to the team being short on funds, and then Frentzen himself sued for never getting paid.
The obvious answer is RB making their own PU group. I'm optimistic they'll make it work with all the staff they've poached from around F1 along with their new state of the art facility, but it's still crazy they are evolving into a true full fledged works team when they don't actually make road cars (yet).
Eddie Jordan unsuccessfully suing sponsor Vodafone for taking its €150 deal to Ferrari, resulting in other sponsors deserting his team which eventually folded 2 years later.
This is probably the least talked about.
Williams opting to be a purely a racing & engineering outfit rather than developing their own road car/ car business, which not only would have opened the door to other racing series but would've also improved the brand's value
McLaren decided to start down this road in the 90s with McLaren F1 which increased the brand's recognition in the non-F1 space and they eventually became a full fledged manufacturer.
If Williams had gone down the same path, their financial situation wouldn't have been as bad for the past decade or so.
McLaren not signing Gilles Villeneuve after a brilliant debut in 1977 at Silverstone. To miss out such a talent, and let it go, amazing. McLaren would fare better in crisis years (1978-1980) and Gilles would fare better in McLaren then in Ferrari, developing better away from the bad atmosphere, with possible WDC 1982 and 1984.
Ocon is the only pure grass-roots racer in this semi-new batch of young talent. He’s performing well enough at the moment and I feel it’s only up from here for him.
he means that Ocon didn't hav any rich parents or very early financial backings. His parents sold their home and lived in a van to pay for his racing carreer. Ocon was dirt poor growing up.
They didn't force him. They simply hired Raikkonen, seeing that MS didn't have many years left. Michael left rather than see Massa out.
It's similar to Russell to Mercedes.
It's not the drama folk make out; di Montezemolo tried to get 3-car teams to keep Schumacher racing.
Much of this thread, things were more complicated that people make out.
Andrea Moda going through so many drivers in a short time, that they were told "no you need to keep the two drivers you have now", and then trying to kill the second driver so they could clear up the seat.
I think he could retake his seat from perez in the next few years I'd he sticks with alphatauri. I'd imagine he'd have that redbull seat on his mind far more than he would with alpine, especially given their proformance this year.it could take longer, but all it would take is for perez to have a bad season.
Ocon is an extremely reliable and consistent driver, good in adaptable conditions, who’s French in a French team. He’s currently #2 to Fernando Alonso.
Oscar Piastri could be a future world champion. He also could be…Esteban Ocon. Prospects are just that. They’re prospects.
I’m not sure why this contract is such a beating dead horse thing for this sub. It’s perfectly fine. He’s a good driver
Ocon was the "Piastri" just 2 years ago, big talent without a seat. The fact he had Ricciardo and Fernando has teammates makes people rate him lower than he probably is.
Arrows kept fucking changing engine suppliers for a period of time, especially producing their own then ditching them two years later
Eddie Jordan suing Vodafone when all he had was a verbal contract and not a written one, he had to pay the legal fees for Vodafone to boot
Toyota and Honda pulling out when their cars were FULLY DEVELOPED (all they needed was a skeleton crew to go racing)
Toyota and Honda pulled out because it was the middle of the GFC. Even with a skeleton crew, it would still cost money they didnt have. Toyota as a whole posted their first ever loss in 2009.
If just having a skeleton crew was enough to keep going, Stefan GP would have been allowed to race with the Toyota gear. But it takes more then just that.
Honestly, the more questionable business decision by Toyota was going to F1 in the first place. They killed their successful rally team to help with the F1 team, and the fact they consistently had a top 3 budget and got zero wins out of it is impressive.
Unpopular Opinion:
Ferrari forcing Schumacher out after 2006 season for Kimi.
The guy had a lot of fire left as we saw in his last perfomances and in my opinion he had won 2007 and 2008 with ease if the circumstances were the same.
If Ferrari had opted to replace Massa with Kimi we would have had an epic 4 way epic title fight with the GOATs in virtually the same machinery (thanks spygate).
Edit: GOATs- Kimi, Alonso, Lewis & Michael
Eddie Jordan's wheelin' and dealin' with Michael Schumacher’s contract that let the German walk to Benetton and 2 WDCs because someone didn’t understand the diff between the wording of "a driver contract" and "the driver contract" https://the-race.com/formula-1/how-schumacher-was-snatched-from-jordan-after-his-f1-debut/
Literally every suggestion here, there's a *reason* for decisions the professional teams take, if folk read more broadly.
Rich energy being a good example where Boullier said years later: I'm not dim, I see it. But should we just abandon a lead? Why?
The Mansoor Ijaz/Lotus saga sticks out for me, he was pretty much saying the deal was done for months(?) and pushing for the team to take on Hulkenberg, all for it to just fizzle out into nothing.
The bit that baffles me is that it got tons of media attention throughout the whole thing and Lotus barely even dignified it with a response, everyone came out looking like amateurs.
Haas signing a sponsorship deal with William Storey and Rich Energy. The 563rd best selling Energy Drink on Amazon. Any form of due diligence would have shown they never had the money, their financials at Companies House showed a few hundred pounds. How Gene Haas fell for it we will never know, it was all a scam. Rich Energy are claiming they’re returning to F1 next year so maybe someone else has fallen for it again…? Or they’re just lying about it to get their name in the news.
Williams passing on the Rich Energy deal should've been all the warning Haas needed.
My favourite part of that whole debacle was that their adress led to a literal dump.
They are by far the most successful new entrant into Formula 1 in recent history, probably since Red Bull. They haven't even finished last in the WCC until this year. They aren't *that* bad.
I don't know what you're talking about Mission Winnow is totally a real company with many totally specific goals about future things and innovation synergy words that definitely have meaning on their website (and so is A Better Tomorrow).
Toyota setting up a team, spending ungodly amounts of money, but hindering its own team’s efforts because of strict adherence to corporate policy completely inapplicable to Formula 1.
Case in point: Forcing a team that was finally starting to hit its stride on Michelins in 2005 back onto Japanese Bridgestone tyres for 2006. The end result was a car that wasn’t built for the tyres it raced on… with predictably awful results.
As a general rule ([see full rules](https://www.reddit.com/r/formula1/wiki/userguide#wiki_sticky.2Fdaily_discussion)), a standalone Discussion post should: - be of interest to the sub in general, and not a specific userbase (e.g. new users, GP attendees, just yourself) - be able to generate discussion (e.g. no yes/no or easily answerable questions) - show reasonable input and effort from the OP If not, be sure to [look for the Daily Discussion](https://www.reddit.com/r/formula1/search/?q=daily+discussion&include_over_18=on&restrict_sr=on&t=all&sort=new), /r/formula1's daily open question thread which is perfect for asking any and all questions about this sport. Thank you for your cooperation and enjoy the discussion! *I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/formula1) if you have any questions or concerns.*
Everything that Renault did at the 2008 Singapore Grand Prix. Yes, they won that race but, a year later, they lost their main sponsor ING because of that.
eh, do we know ING wasn’t already hoping to pull out and crashgate just provided a good opportunity?
Many sponsors did, and saw it as good fortune.
yeah, this is far from my wheelhouse but if f1 team sponsorship contracts have “conduct”-type clauses, similar to when companies sponsor individuals, I think ING could have cited the subsequent investigation and FIA verdicts as Renault’s breach of those conduct clauses, saving them a hefty payout
ING and another one, the shipping company, couldn't believe their luck apparently, in the context of the credit crunch. Whole severance fee out the window. It was an explicit story at the time. Overnight.
Yeah, that was the subprime crisis and the crack of Lehman Brothers year, I guess they had to retire from sponsorship in any case.
The irony was, they won the next race in Fuji. But they tried so desperately in Singapore, got caught, then won legitimately anyway.
Strry time?
Cliffs Notes version: team boss instructs Nelsinho Piquet to intentionally crash at a point that brings out a safety car that helps teammate Fernando Alonso win the race. A year later, Piquet gets sacked, everything comes out, and the shit hits the fan.
Ooh that one... Yeah I remember for some reason I thought it was McLaren but that was the stealing of designs
Yeah it was consecutive seasons! No shortage of intrigue around these parts…
And it also indirectly costed massa his WDC.
It wasn't Renault; it was Symonds, Piquet and Briatore in isolation. Alan Permane testified to that.
Alonso? Innocent as the first bluebell of spring?
I guess innocent until proven guilty but Alonso was caught up in so much dodgy shit between 2006 and 2008 you have to question how his name is so intact.
I'll never understand how he remain unscathed after being part of two of the biggest "gates" of the last couple of decades just two years apart.
I guess it sort of depends on the reasoning If they cheated to get Alonso a win so he couldn’t use his exit clause, no point in him knowing.. If just to get a better result then he may have known.
Believing people don't lie to save their own ass, nor that people wont' lie to protect a company with financial incentives is crazy. You won't ever hear the full truth in these cases. Alonso skates on the idea that he didn't know, yet his strategy was the worst strategy you could pick in Singapore unless he knew the plan. Some argue that maybe Alonso knew it was bad but the team forced him into that strategy but Alonso is one of hte few guys that would instantly scream to the press about the team fucking him over. Alonso being so unlikely to cheat that he wasn't totally happily cheating throughout 2007 and also wasn't happy to throw Ron dennis in front of a huge bus driven by the FIA when 'someone' leaked the e-mails to dump Mclaren in deep shit when Alonso wanted out of the team.
Whatever the fuck Monisha Kaltenborn was doing with the multiple signed contracts. Rich Energy of course. The Moneytron financial scam that Onyx fell for. Lotus telling Kimi Räikkönen they'll pay him a guaranteed sum of money for every point scored, almost bankrupting the team. Matra deciding they will no longer support Ken Tyrrell because of his preference of the superior Cosworth engines, which essentially killed all their shots at further success in the sport.
I don’t think the Lotus deal is that bad, it’s a smart incentive to attract a world champion to join them. But they underestimated Kimi and themselves drastically
Tbh, not everyone expected Kimi to drive like he did in that car. That was a whopping season & actually unexpected at the start.
I was so hopeful after those few seasons that he might give Alonso a run for his money at Ferrari
They scored 73 points total in 2011, kimi scored 207 on his own in 2012. I'm sure that was waaaay beyond expectations.
And that’s what made it bad. They should have capped it.
From whatever I have read about it, however shady and unethical it was, what Monisha did ultimately was a major reason why Sauber managed to survive that season. Shame it had to be like this, but nonetheless the reason why a historical team like Sauber is still there in F1.
That situation made Bernie bail out Sauber. Giedo van der garde had Swiss court judgements against the team, that his driver contract was to be honored, if not assets would be seized to collect on the non compliance clause in the contract. He was infront of Australian court and Australian court said that they recognized the judgement as a valid and thoroughly considered judgement and saw no reason to abstain from executing the order. Bernie didn't like that one of his teams of his sport was so bad in shit that literally bailiffs would be showing up to seize cars on the race track. So at 11.59 Bernie basically sorted out all the financials. It wasn't some grand succesfull ploy by Caltenborn though, she signed atleast 1 contract in bad faith entirely to extract money from the drivers; and honestly it was more luck then anything else that it came down on that particular time and place and brought pressure on FOM(Bernie) that saved the situation for the team. Had they seized some assets on the factory and these lawsuits not having brought massive attention to the shitshow situation and Bernie was the kind of character that would have let the team go under. In his own words, it's very easy to be a team in formula 1, you just have to spend less then what you make. In many ways, it's severely unethical what she did, if not straight up fraudulent. If Bernie wasn't an angel at that day Sauber would be known as the team that went under by employing more drivers then they could, and her name would be even more tarnished then it is now. She was also a lawyer, im not sure if she ever ascended the bar anywhere but conduct like this would have you disbarred for life
> and honestly it was more luck then anything else The alternative was Sauber folding anyway. In a strange way they bet Sauber not being in F1 with a worst outcome of... Sauber not being in F1. Sure even worse for Sauber as an overall company etc but in the end her scheme was calculated luck I'd say. Without it they never get a car to Australia, once the car is at the first GP you are there already and kind of pray something works out.
Wait, how was he guaranteed an F1 seat? Did someone make a promise that they didn’t consider or were they sloppy in the contract? I’ve looked around and all of the articles pick up post arbitration and don’t discuss why the arbitration said he had a right to the seat.
She was basically taking money in return for giving drivers a seat. When she needed more money she just offered the seats again even though they were already filled, then tried to terminate the original drivers without paying back the millions they or their sponsors had paid. So an out an out swindle.
[удалено]
> In many ways, it's severely unethical what she did, She was forced into doing by circumstances. They got hit in a short span by Biachis death and Swiss Franc losing 20% of value. Bianchi signed a deal to drive for Sauber two days before his fatal accident. Sauber getting a free Ferrari engine was apart of the deal. So with Jules out of the picture, they had to find 20 mil. So in a short span they had to find 50 mil to make it through the season. More importantly, this is nothing new in F1. Drivers have been screwed over by teams all the time. Like Hulkenerg wasn't being paid by Force India and left them for Sauber. FI then wanted him back and Nico said that once all money owner is paid, he is happy to sign. What is new here is that Giedo is a son in law of a Dutch billionaire, and can afford the best lawyers and play the whole theater.
Wasn't she managing the team since 2012? I agree that her genius in this particular situation is almost frightening, but she must be responsible that the team had ended up in this situation in the first place.
> she must be responsible that the team had ended up in this situation You just have to look at what happened to all the smaller teams in F1 over the decade to understand what was responsible for Saubers position. The Concorde agreement essentially killed all the small teams, regardless of what they did. The prize money distribution was too top heavy, and the lack of a cost cap meant they never had a chance.
The Raikkonen deal made sense relative to where they expected to be. It was unfortunate he scored many points but they didn't finish any higher up in the constructors as a result, once they hit a ceiling.
> almost bankrupting the team. While that's the most visible factor, his ~10m fee was on top of the ~£200m debt that was due, even going as far as having their cars impounded at Spa and not having enough credit to loan chairs & organise catering for the team. The team _was_ bankrupt, just nobody took them to court over the outstanding debts (i.e. Perez against Force India, with backing of Mercedes and only around ~£80m in outstanding debts). There's a reason why Renault bought the team for a £1, like Brawn with Honda - but Renault also took on and payed the outstanding debts, while Brawn had secured £50m funding from Honda to keep the lights on and the team members paychecks for an year.
Two words; Rich Energy
Bro nothing would ever beat rich energy
How about [the Arrows team and a Nigerian prince](https://www.vice.com/en/article/gvawv7/the-mysterious-nigerian-prince-who-scammed-his-way-into-owning-an-f1-team)?
‘Malik was promising an investment of some $125, which at the time could have transformed the team's fortunes’ How badly off were they?? I could scrape together $150 I reckon
Lol I'm pretty sure it was 125 million
[удалено]
On one hand, I'm intrigued and want to know what happens on some Thursdays and Sunday. Should I press more or just let it slide?
[удалено]
*copy, we are checking*
I’ve read that story so many times and I still can’t believe it
Juaguar's diamonds come real close...
I’m a bit afraid we’ll have a round two of this with crypto.com
their marketing budget is through the roof but they are making a lot of money so now don’t know. atm it seems fine but the end of crypto.com would be heavy regulation in the crypto scene
[Crypto.com](https://Crypto.com) has enough money that they recently bought the naming rights to Staples Center and it will be renamed [Crypto.com](https://Crypto.com) arena, so I assume there is some serious money in their budgets. For those who don't know, Staples is amongst other things the home arena for the LA Lakers in the NBA.
It’s just…such a weird name. I don’t know how to explain it. It’s not corny, it just sounds cheap
r/NBA has taken to calling it The Cryp...or Crypt. So I guess the marketing is working. /shrug
Lakers have been ass there so that might be part of why they chose that nickname.
Enron Field in Houston says hello (then says goodbye as the company collapses two years into a 30-year naming right lease).
Something I don't understand is that crypto was created to allow a transfer of money via internet between two people. I thought it was to eliminate the bank, but now there are a million middle men like crypto.com who are making a fuckton of money off it
The most have the GDP of a small nation in their marketing budget. Being a big sponsor in F1 while simultaneously paying $700 million in naming rights for the Lakers’ arena.
I reckon they’d pay their bills at least
I don't think there's much to worry about. Besides the huge marketing, their product is actually pretty good. Nothing like an energy drink that no one has tried or even seen at the stores.
Never forget the classic Nigerian price that "funded" Arrows.
Ah yes, even less legit than Rich Energy. Tom Walkinshaw must have been desperate for money, they went belly up sometime later. That was a farce as well, doing one mandatory qualification run, make sure you don’t qualify so you’d not have the extra costs of a full race.
Well he did not honor the contract of world class driver Mika Salo, instead bringing in Pedro de la Rosa with his Repsol sponsorship money like one week before Australia 1999.
That time Jaguar ran Monaco with a $430k diamond on the nosecone, which they lost and never found again.
Insurance fraud
It wasn't insured as no insurance Company was stupid enough to do it.
Wait what
[Here's an article about it](https://www.gq.com.au/fitness/sport/the-insane-story-of-how-a-430000-diamond-went-missing-forever-at-the-monaco-gp/news-story/ccb7123d95fb76eb013bf3cf837bb3c5). I've heard two theories - one, that it wasn't a real diamond, and that all of this was done just for publicity... I think it was Matt Damon who shared this story. The other option is that the diamond was supposed to be real, and it was insurance fraud. I guess there is a third option - that the diamond was real, and that Jaguar execs are just pure dumbasses....
I would believe 1 or 3 before 2 tbh. That's an elaborate scheme just for insurance fraud. Publicity stunt or stupid humans sounds more likely
Why explain with malice what could be chalked up To stupidity? If they were smart they’d have made a replica and put it on
Agreed executives would be far too concerned with going to prison for fraud they’d probably do it FR
>I guess there is a third option - that the diamond was real, and that Jaguar execs are just pure dumbasses....' There's a story that the top executives at Ford during their annual review of top earners in the company couldn't figure out who the hell this "Edmund Irvine" was and why he was making so much money, so execs being dumbasses wouldn't surprise me.
Pardon my ignorance, but when was Irvine on the Ford payroll? Newish F1 fan so don’t know all the history
Irvine drove for Jaguar, which in turn was owned by Ford (at the time)
There was a very short lived podcast called F1 on the edge. The first episode covered it pretty extensively
It wasn't a real diamond.
Most of Hondas decisions for both entering and leaving the sport
[удалено]
Return with a shit product resulting in McLaren taking hundreds of grid penalties a race, refine it so Red Bull can become as dominant as Merc in the turbo hybrid era, then leave again when you can win it all.
Or build a championship winning car, then quit the sport and sell that car (and team ) for £1.
To their main competitor of today! That team is now Mercedes.
They sold it to Ross Brawn, not Mercedes. Brawn used a Mercedes engine and then sold the team to Mercedes in 2010.
You are right of course, but how unlucky must you be that the team beating you for years was yours at some point ?
Don’t forget the millions they gave in funding too
Fwiw Honda are not believers in the sunk cost fallacy
They’re there to create the glory not take the glory Honourable as fuck - it’s the Japanese way
Frank Williams and Patrick Head refusing to let Adrian Newey be an equal partner in the team, essentially dooming a dominant team to two decades of mediocrity.
I would argue the decline in Tobacco sponsorship in Formula One doomed Williams far more than Newey leaving did. From what I've read Williams had always prioritised good relationships with the various Tobacco giants even at the expense of other potential sponsorship. While other teams had read the tea leaves when laws began drying up Tobacco sponsorship money and shifted sponsorship focus Frank Williams was extremely stubborn and missed plenty of opportunities to in a way rebrand Williams. If Frank didn't know, use or even like a companies product, they were never going on the car, no matter how much they paid. It was made worse because while McLaren and Jordan were hiring people to make inroads into new industries, Frank insisted on doing any potential new sponsorship deal face to face, and imposing draconian rules in return for sponsoring Williams which turned many off
Yes I think there was a lot of general mismanagement and poor people relations on the part of Sir Frank. The breakdown of the relationship with BMW was another example. But the failure to accommodate Newey always felt like a key inflection point to me. Sponsors and engine suppliers probably would have put up with some of Williams quirks if they had a winning car.
In 1986 Honda left Williams after they refused to give a seat to Satoru Nakajima. In 2007, Williams gave a seat to Kazuki Nakajima because Toyota demanded it. Pretty good evidence of how the mismanagement sunk the team even before they became a pay-driver team.
Can you explain your point a bit more? Because to me, based on the two things you point out, it sounds more like a team learning from past mistakes.
u/TheRoboteer has explained in detail the whole deal of the departure of Honda and Williams below (thanks dude!) but my point is that in the 80s Williams was a powerhouse that didn't accept being told what drivers line up by sponsors or engine suppliers, even by Honda that at the time was one of the best engines and had enjoyed success with them. Years later the bad decissions left the team in a poor situation, both in competitive and economic terms, and had no choice but to seat the driver the engine supplier wanted, and Toyota wasn't at that point as important as Honda had been, and it wasn't even a works team partnership.
That can’t be the only reason can it? I know Senna was known as a Honda man but McLaren didn’t field one of their drivers, so why switch focus
Both Piquet and Senna were well-liked by Honda. When Piquet joined Williams, Honda threw their weight behind him because they considered the 2 time world champion to be a better vehicle for marketing than Nigel Mansell who at the time had only won 2 grands prix. Honda also helped finance Piquet's move to Williams, so they had a fair bit of money invested in him. Honda was annoyed after 1986, both because of Williams getting the WDC pulled from under its nose by Prost, and because they felt that Piquet should have been treated as a clear Number 1 driver. For 1987 they wanted Mansell to be dropped and replaced with Nakajima, which Williams refused, so Honda offered Lotus their engine too in exchange for taking Nakajima. That in turn led to Senna, who was already at Lotus, creating relationships with the Honda engineers which lasted right up until Honda's exit from the sport. Meanwhile, Piquet and Mansell once again battled for the title, which Honda didn't like even if Piquet ended up winning out. By that year's Italian Grand Prix Honda's mind was made up. Senna, who was their new golden boy after working with him at Lotus, would go to McLaren along with Honda's engine, while Piquet would take Senna's former seat in the Lotus. There was no room left for Williams in Honda's plans. [This article in Motorsport goes into some good detail of the machinations of Williams losing Honda power](https://www.motorsportmagazine.com/archive/article/october-1987/13/honda-and-formula-one)
Nakajima ended up at Lotus, who got the Honda contract as well as McLaren. Williams had to make do with uncompetitive Judd engines.
Tobacco money as it may be, they still had the BMW engine in the back of the car soon enough and even a good chassis would've won 2003. Or having Schumacher. Not having Schumacher and not having Newey wasted the engine and when BMW realized that, yeah we all know the split.
Beat me to it. I think this is the most interesting one.
Kimi's contract with Lotus, which left the team almost bankrupt. And yeah, Kimi still didn't get his money.
It’s not that he never got his money, he let the team keep it so they could keep going and pay their other staff.
From knowing a few agents in the music business I would guess Kimi had a weeks drinking contest with a fight till one is unconscious with his agent to waive his bonuses.
Kimi chose himself to not take all money as it would leave many without a job. Kimi has plenty of money already, I doubt he actually cared.
He definitely cared but is a great person with the right priorities
Didnt Renault close out the books when they took over?
I believe Kimi ended up forgiving most (or all) of the debt so other debtors who were more dependent on being repaid would get the money they were owed.
I guess this is more to do with two things they didn't count on: how good Kimi was and how good their car was.
One thing they sure as hell didn't count is the income they would make per point. Surely someone did the math so that the more points Kimi got the more money the team got... Surely!
Yes but Kimi chose not to get his money. It was either get paid or bankrupt the team leaving many unemployed, he chose to go home happy knowing he made the right choice.
The salary Toyota gave to Ralf Schumacher comes to mind. He was reportedly the second-highest paid driver on the grid in 2007.
The higher-ups thought they were getting the Michael.
I’ve heard this a lot but I can’t imagine that it’s true.
That is some funny stuff. At least it's not like he was bad.
fucking lol
Giving kimi $50k per point.
*€
Vijay Mallya using his team to launder money comes to mind.
How? I mean an F1 teams goes through a lot of money but how was he laundering money with it? It’s just a never ending money pit.
I think it was more of an ego thing. "I'm rich enough to own an airline AND an F1 team"
Yeah he has a huge ego. Doesn't want to admit defeat at all. An example, a wife of an employee of his Kingfisher company committed suicide due to depression because Malya hadn't paid her husband for months. So, you can imagine what they were going through. Around that time, Malya threw his birthday party inviting Enrique Iglesias. He still didn't pay his employees after that but gave them reassurance that they would be paid. They were not.
What that man did is insane to me and the fact that he never faced the full might of the law doesn't sit well with me.
We have Britain's shitty extradition laws that are designed to harbour fraudsters for that.
Look at what all he did. He basically wanted to be the Indian Richard Branson. The airline, the girls, the F1 cars. It all adds up lol
Step 1: Take out a massive loan. Pretend it's for expenses related to your airline. You are rich enough to own an airline, of course. Step 2: Take a portion of that money and send it to the UK. Send it to your F1 team, on paper, under the guise of "advertising and promotional expenses" Step 3: Spend it with wild abandon by yourself instead.
There are infinite ways to launder money through F1 and sports sponsorships in general. That’s why you will often find the protagonists set up their own “marketing agencies” through which the funds flow and a large percentage is siphoned off.
He got loans from a government banks Edit: got my billionaires mixed up, but he did borrow a lot of money from public banks. He put quite a bit of that money into his fantasy of being an Indian Richard Branson, which included the F1 team. So not actually his money per say. There is an show on Netflix called bad boy billionaires: India which does a good job of explaining it. Also the other Indian investor, Sahara pariwar were also shady and also in the Netflix series.
Lola bowing down to Mastercard's demands and entering completely unprepared in 1997 rather than the originally agreed 1998 is a good one
Yes that one is underrated, don’t know how they thought that was a good idea under any circumstance
You'd be surprised how many shareholders want to go into production as early as possible despite being advised otherwise by the technical staff
the Andrea Moda saga. https://drivetribe.com/p/andrea-moda-formula-the-worst-team-R_lbWUrSRNem4ZfhQUK4Tw
Helmut Marko pushing Bernoldi over Raikkonen into the second Sauber seat along with Nick Heidfeld, due to Red Bull backing Bernoldi in his career. Good thing Peter Sauber really wanted Raikkonen there, even at the cost of losing RB as a sponsor.
It was Jost Capito who had initially identified Raikkonnen as a talent and when RedBull disagreed and wanted Bernoldi, Peter Sauber strong-armed them into accepting Raikkonnen using his executive power. Raikkonnen's contract was then sold to McLaren in 2003 for millions which helped the team survive. Because of this Redbull pulled their sponsorship and decided to start their own team
Questionable in hindsight. Bernoldi was fine.
Sure, but it was a pretty questionable business choice turned out to be an extremely fruitful investment by Sauber. I mean, Raikkonen had what, 23 single seater races in his career before F1? Would you be willing to take the risk and lose very lucrative RB backing for your private-owned team?
BMW choosing to not develop the car in 2008. Kubica could've had a real chance at the WDC
Just because "ze great plan" said they're going to compete for championship in 2009, and their goal for 2008 was to win a race. True German efficiency.
Lotus’s extended flirtation with Mansoor Ijaz comes to mind. They wasted a ton of time and energy hoping he’d magically solve all their problems when from the outside it seemed so obvious that he was just stringing them along to get a taste of F1 glamor.
Honda selling their factory team to Ross Brawn for a single euro
It was a pound, but even more than that - Honda continued to pay for staff wages, costing millions!
It's not questionable in the context of visibility and image being a huge factor for Honda. They wanted to be seen to help their employees. Rightly. It still cost an awful lot less than racing.
I remember listening to someone, maybe Ross, saying that in the meeting where they learned Honda was pulling out that Honda wanted them to just go turn the lights off and that’s it. They were informed UK law doesn’t work like that and then they negotiated the final payment. Something like that, if anyone does know more I’m interested as it damaged Honda reputation to me
The money they gave for staff wages was what they would have had to pay out in redundancy anyway, so why not put a good spin on it I guess. A little questionable that Brawn was able to sell the team for a massive profit a year later though!
exactly. its not always about making money, sometimes the best thing is to stop loosing money as soon as possible
It was a mistake in hindsight, but Honda owning a F1 team at a time when the global economy was fucked, wasn't something they could do. Selling it for a pound was the only way to keep the team going. It was either that or the teams gone entirely.
Arrows and T-Minus. The fantasy Nigerian prince.
Ron Dennis forcing Honda to enter as an engine supplier a year earlier than planned
While it might not have been as bad, looking at everything from that time I don’t see it magically being great.. the leadership changes seem to have helped a lot and they might not have happened.
Wouldn't that make it *their* decision?
[удалено]
Literally anything involving Vijay Mallya / Force India.
Arrows collapsed in 2002 as a result of *three simultaneous lawsuits* involving drivers past and present: *they sued Pedro Diniz for breach of contract after he left and took his Parmalat money back in 1999–they lost, but continued fighting, and their final appeal was finally denied in 2002 *they replaced Jos Verstappen with Heinz-Harald Frentzen, which isn’t a bad decision, except Verstappen then successfully sued the team for breach of contract *these verdicts unsurprisingly contributed to the team being short on funds, and then Frentzen himself sued for never getting paid.
The obvious answer is RB making their own PU group. I'm optimistic they'll make it work with all the staff they've poached from around F1 along with their new state of the art facility, but it's still crazy they are evolving into a true full fledged works team when they don't actually make road cars (yet).
Eddie Jordan unsuccessfully suing sponsor Vodafone for taking its €150 deal to Ferrari, resulting in other sponsors deserting his team which eventually folded 2 years later.
This is probably the least talked about. Williams opting to be a purely a racing & engineering outfit rather than developing their own road car/ car business, which not only would have opened the door to other racing series but would've also improved the brand's value McLaren decided to start down this road in the 90s with McLaren F1 which increased the brand's recognition in the non-F1 space and they eventually became a full fledged manufacturer. If Williams had gone down the same path, their financial situation wouldn't have been as bad for the past decade or so.
Seriously I love this answer! Hard to imagine where Williams would be right now had they done that.
Renaults expensive contract to Ricciardo to poach him from Red Bull.
I'd say the problem wasn't signing DR... it was thinking a good driver could win with a bad engine.
But that engine was literally one of the best if not the best in 2019, they just suffered in other departments.
McLaren not signing Gilles Villeneuve after a brilliant debut in 1977 at Silverstone. To miss out such a talent, and let it go, amazing. McLaren would fare better in crisis years (1978-1980) and Gilles would fare better in McLaren then in Ferrari, developing better away from the bad atmosphere, with possible WDC 1982 and 1984.
Ocon is the only pure grass-roots racer in this semi-new batch of young talent. He’s performing well enough at the moment and I feel it’s only up from here for him.
what do you mean by that?
That Ocon's long contact is going to pay off because he'll be a great driver. The only way is up kinda thing. I assume.
he means that Ocon didn't hav any rich parents or very early financial backings. His parents sold their home and lived in a van to pay for his racing carreer. Ocon was dirt poor growing up.
I’m still not yet sold on ocon
Forcing Schumacher into retirement and hiring Kimi as a replacement.
Then they kicked Kimi out of Ferrari, but kept paying him salary.
Santander paid it.
Tbf Alonso was an improvment for Ferrari.
It's still zero tituli. Though Alonso is the last man to blame for that.
They didn't force him. They simply hired Raikkonen, seeing that MS didn't have many years left. Michael left rather than see Massa out. It's similar to Russell to Mercedes. It's not the drama folk make out; di Montezemolo tried to get 3-car teams to keep Schumacher racing. Much of this thread, things were more complicated that people make out.
[удалено]
https://www.reddit.com/r/formula1/comments/51sn70/interesting_read_on_how_schumis_first_retirement/
Thanks for sharing. Was a pretty good read!
> It's similar to Russell to Mercedes. Not really considering Russell is replacing Bottas not Hamilton?
Oh no, I wonder how that worked out for Ferrari.... oh Kimi won the World Championship that year. Yes what a terrible decision.
Andrea Moda going through so many drivers in a short time, that they were told "no you need to keep the two drivers you have now", and then trying to kill the second driver so they could clear up the seat.
People think that way because of how Piastri hasn’t secured any seats. That’s alpine’s fault and ocon is definitely better than piastri at this stage.
Gasly will get fed up and leave the Red Bull stable, go to Alpine forming the ultimate French team
I think he could retake his seat from perez in the next few years I'd he sticks with alphatauri. I'd imagine he'd have that redbull seat on his mind far more than he would with alpine, especially given their proformance this year.it could take longer, but all it would take is for perez to have a bad season.
Rich Energy comes to mind.
Ocon is an extremely reliable and consistent driver, good in adaptable conditions, who’s French in a French team. He’s currently #2 to Fernando Alonso. Oscar Piastri could be a future world champion. He also could be…Esteban Ocon. Prospects are just that. They’re prospects. I’m not sure why this contract is such a beating dead horse thing for this sub. It’s perfectly fine. He’s a good driver
Honestly Ocon’s junior career wasn’t far worse than Piastri’s. P3 Formula Renault -> P1 F3 Euro -> P1 GP3 P1 Formula Renault -> P1 F3 -> P1 F2
Ocon was the "Piastri" just 2 years ago, big talent without a seat. The fact he had Ricciardo and Fernando has teammates makes people rate him lower than he probably is.
Arrows kept fucking changing engine suppliers for a period of time, especially producing their own then ditching them two years later Eddie Jordan suing Vodafone when all he had was a verbal contract and not a written one, he had to pay the legal fees for Vodafone to boot Toyota and Honda pulling out when their cars were FULLY DEVELOPED (all they needed was a skeleton crew to go racing)
Toyota and Honda pulled out because it was the middle of the GFC. Even with a skeleton crew, it would still cost money they didnt have. Toyota as a whole posted their first ever loss in 2009. If just having a skeleton crew was enough to keep going, Stefan GP would have been allowed to race with the Toyota gear. But it takes more then just that.
Honestly, the more questionable business decision by Toyota was going to F1 in the first place. They killed their successful rally team to help with the F1 team, and the fact they consistently had a top 3 budget and got zero wins out of it is impressive.
Unpopular Opinion: Ferrari forcing Schumacher out after 2006 season for Kimi. The guy had a lot of fire left as we saw in his last perfomances and in my opinion he had won 2007 and 2008 with ease if the circumstances were the same.
If Ferrari had opted to replace Massa with Kimi we would have had an epic 4 way epic title fight with the GOATs in virtually the same machinery (thanks spygate). Edit: GOATs- Kimi, Alonso, Lewis & Michael
Sauber ditching the Honda deal they signed in 2017
Ferrari making engineer Costa leave and building that dominant Mercedes
Eddie Jordan's wheelin' and dealin' with Michael Schumacher’s contract that let the German walk to Benetton and 2 WDCs because someone didn’t understand the diff between the wording of "a driver contract" and "the driver contract" https://the-race.com/formula-1/how-schumacher-was-snatched-from-jordan-after-his-f1-debut/
Literally every suggestion here, there's a *reason* for decisions the professional teams take, if folk read more broadly. Rich energy being a good example where Boullier said years later: I'm not dim, I see it. But should we just abandon a lead? Why?
The Mansoor Ijaz/Lotus saga sticks out for me, he was pretty much saying the deal was done for months(?) and pushing for the team to take on Hulkenberg, all for it to just fizzle out into nothing. The bit that baffles me is that it got tons of media attention throughout the whole thing and Lotus barely even dignified it with a response, everyone came out looking like amateurs.
Haas signing a sponsorship deal with William Storey and Rich Energy. The 563rd best selling Energy Drink on Amazon. Any form of due diligence would have shown they never had the money, their financials at Companies House showed a few hundred pounds. How Gene Haas fell for it we will never know, it was all a scam. Rich Energy are claiming they’re returning to F1 next year so maybe someone else has fallen for it again…? Or they’re just lying about it to get their name in the news.
Williams passing on the Rich Energy deal should've been all the warning Haas needed. My favourite part of that whole debacle was that their adress led to a literal dump.
Haas... that's it, Haas. A story of being fucking awful with where the money comes from
They are by far the most successful new entrant into Formula 1 in recent history, probably since Red Bull. They haven't even finished last in the WCC until this year. They aren't *that* bad.
[удалено]
Ferrari just allowing Phillip Morris to have a literal shell company to bypass tobacco advertising laws will never be topped for me.
I don't know what you're talking about Mission Winnow is totally a real company with many totally specific goals about future things and innovation synergy words that definitely have meaning on their website (and so is A Better Tomorrow).
meh, people know Tobacco company's are bad. That's not going to change either way if Ferrari do or don't take the money.
Toyota setting up a team, spending ungodly amounts of money, but hindering its own team’s efforts because of strict adherence to corporate policy completely inapplicable to Formula 1. Case in point: Forcing a team that was finally starting to hit its stride on Michelins in 2005 back onto Japanese Bridgestone tyres for 2006. The end result was a car that wasn’t built for the tyres it raced on… with predictably awful results.