Ferrari to leave F1 in 2010; will not submit car registration!
May 12, 2009 by Negative Camber
Filed under Parc Fermé
The Ferrari Board of Directors has met to discuss the future of Ferrari in F1. The answer?
“The same rules for all teams, stability of regulations, the continuity of the FOTA’s endeavours to methodically and progressively reduce costs, and governance of Formula 1 are the priorities for the future,” said the statement.
“If these indispensable principles are not respected and if the regulations adopted for 2010 will not change, then Ferrari does not intend to enter its cars in the next Formula 1 World Championship.”
“No F1 in 2010 if the rules do not change. Ferrari confirms its opposition to the new rules imposed by FIA and does not intend to register cars for the 2010 F1 world championship,”
Toyota have announced their exit from the series should the budget cap concept offered by the FIA stand and now Ferrari have made it clear, ratified by the Board of Directors, that they will follow suit unless the FIA changes the regulations for 2010.
Why is this important? Ferrari already announced they had serious concerns of continuing in a two-tiered sport via Luca di Montezemolo’s letter to the FIA last week but the rebuttal from Max Mosley is the key to understanding Ferrari’s board meeting today. Let’s recap what Max said in response to Luca’s letter from last week:
“I hope and think that when a team goes to its board and says, ‘I want to go to war with the FIA, because I want to be able to spend £100m more than the FIA want me to spend,’ the board will say, ‘Why can’t you spend £40m if the other teams can do it?’”
Notice that Max has clearly insinuated that Luca may not be in touch with what the Ferrari board of directors would most likely feel regarding the budget cap. Today’s meeting of the Ferrari Board of Directors has sent a resounding shot back across the bow of the FIA. The board was offered the options and decided that Max is very much mistaken. They would choose to leave F1 rather than to participate in a budget cap scheme or two-tier regulated sport.
This is a very large decision for a team that has been in the sport for 60 years. It is the premier marque of F1 and as such carries tremendous weight. Toyota have announced their intention and BMW has as well. Will FOTA gather around the lead taken by Ferrari’s board of directors and place pressure on the FIA to do away with the budget cap concept? FOTA has offered to help provide realistic measures to reducing costs that represent a unified voice from all teams but the FIA has rejected that offer. Sir Frank Williams says he has no choice as a pure racer but to sign the application for car registration for next year as it is his sole reason for existence. The coming days should be very interesting politically and all of this is on the heels of the tragic loss of Max Mosley’s son Alexander. The pressure must be enormous for him personally and while I am sure the teams feel reticent about doing business, the show must go on.
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And then the trumpets sounded and the throngs of warriors raced downhill, every single one of them oblivous to their obvious demise. They would not perish, they were armed with certainty of reason and faith…
The battle for Formula 1 begins!!
Read Tolkien much do we….
My dear friend,
Hyperbole is the GREATEST thing ever!!!
:)
I would say being on a date with Jessica Alba, drinking 100 year old Scotch whiskey on a bear-skin rug in front of the fireplace would be the greatest thing ever.
That is not Tolkien, but then again, it is also fantasy literature, isn’t it?
:)
Todd: Time to secure lemansblog.com.
Who else follows Ferrari? BMW? All the manufacturers?
Wow. Interesting.
Why does Max (thats who really is doing all this) have to make mandates to these huge teams who are backed by huge corporations that approve the budgets for these teams every year. They all know what they are doing. SO, why does Max have to always dictate rules to these teams without trying to work on “Workable Compromises” for new rules???
Well if they all leave I guess LeMans will be chock full of competition!! Anyone see the Free Download of the Audi Team Documentary of Last Year’s 24 Hours of LeMas? Really fired me up over that type of racing (Prototype, GT, etc.)
A better bang for their buck is LeMans or Indycars (with Indy) or NapCar with a huge market that they want to win over anyway.
Would they ever consider a breakaway series of their own? How would that work?
Ferrari – 3 Cars
McClaren – 3 Cars
Red Bull – 4 Cars
Renault – 2 Cars (they are cheap)
BMW – 3 Cars
Toyota 3 Cars
May be a workable grid numbers wise but could it be put together in a year?
Lots of questions loom now!
if all the teams that u meantioned quite the current f1, then possible. Anyway fia 2 tiers means 2 different standard, might well have a breakaway new f1.
The FOTA FIA meeting before Monte Carlo just got a whole lot more interesting.
I think that the FIA is going to have to back down, or risk major fallout. They can’t lose Ferrari.
SO: what’s the new budget cap figure for 2010? If I were a betting man, I’d say a MINIMUM of 80 million pounds, but mandatory for every team.
My hunch is that teams will want around $90-150 million. That’s my hunch.
80 million pounds is about $90 to $150 million, right?
Will it be inclusive of everything? Drivers salaries, marketing, etc. … or just the “performance-related” spending of the FIA proposal?
And, at $150 million — it’s meaningless, right? Especially if it is only for on-track spending?
80 million pounds is about 115 million USD… That’s clearly a lot for car development only, but I can’t imagine the big boys settling for much less – especially if they can’t write their 2010 development off on the 2009 expense account.
I heard whispers from the mighty Bernie that a 60 million pound (c. 90 USD) cap might be the way forward. Still seems low to me, but then again, I’m against this scrimping and saving, so I suppose it would seem low to me.
I just don’t see how Ferrari and McLaren can run a company with 1,000 highly trained staff (or even half that figure) on 40 million US dollars. Surely that would hardly cover the payroll, let alone production?
Wait! You’re in direct contact with Mr. E? Can’t you put a stop to all this nonsense.
It seems to me like the budget figures we’re talking — lets say $120 million, especially if it is limited to the car development and performance — would cover a pretty substantial part of a Ferrari or McLaren program. And, surely, to some extent they wouldn’t mind a bit of a cap… I know they want to win, but doing so without totally breaking the bank wouldn’t hurt, right?
Here we go! Bishop to Queen-4. Your move Max. Not even sure Bernie can play the arbiter for you now.
Here’s an idea:
How much would FOTA have to pay CVC to buy Formula 1 from bernie?
And would it be worth it?
Bernies not selling and eve if they did there would still be the issues with the FIA. I have to agrree with Todd the magic number is around 100 million, but I have a feeling FOTA would use this opportunity to get changes made to the aero regs as well. I don’t imagine their is any coincidence Ferrari announcing their attentions prior to the Monaco GP. If Ferrari, Toyota, BMW, and Red Bull show up at the biggest race fo the year(in the opinion of some) united in the intention to leave Max may have to give in
It is the biggest race of the year, Jim!
And we’re starting to see the aero regs haven’t had the intended effect of more overtaking and slower times. Just scrambling things up so some of the better drivers (Lewis, Kimi, Massa, Alonso) are mid-pack and so overtaking is resulting from their driving, moreso than the cars.
So I’d not be surprised to see some more wiggle there.
Oh, and to repeat: Monaco is the biggest race of the year!
Although, if I end up going to the last Monza race for a while with Ferrari… hooooooooo boy!
I know it is Skid just not one of my favorites
It’s a symbiotic relationship both Ferrari and F1 need each other to a degree. But maybe F1 needs Ferrari a little more.
Ferrari has plenty of other racing interests to promote the brand.
However Ferrari is a flagship in F1. For F1 to lose Ferrari would be a great loss to the sport overall. But all things change and it’s going to be a fascinating but worrisome time watching all this sort out.
I hope the sport can be improved rather than destroyed.
Very well put DF. It is a symbiotic relationship but I fear Ferrari could very easily look to the ACO and Le Mans for credibility and take on Audi in a very well respected sport.
I do wish Ferrari all the best and hope they are very competitive in whatever they chose to do.If they leave F1 they will surely be missed. The beginning of the end of F1 I fear.
Bernie and Max are trying to turn F1 into a spec series. The universal (McClaren) ECU is already a step too far. And, Ferrari are not going to stand for it — they’ll still sell all there inventory and simply concentrate on endurance racing if FOTA don’t break away.
Bernie and Max are killing Formula One. Long live Ferrari!
I am trying to create a web petition to help propel Bernie and Max to retire. I would appreciate any help possible to develop and spread the message,
http://www.webpetitions.com/cgi-bin/print_petition.cgi?99504409
However It will take some good writing and getting the message out to have any effect.
I would like all F1 Fans who feel Max and or Bernie should retire to contribute to developing this petition.I am a rookie at this but feel strongly that if thet leave things might go better for F1.
Please help Downforce
In the end the fans have the power with the wallet.We are the ones who in the end determine the future of F1.
We need to speak out and be heard as a team!
Let’s tell F1 what we want! What should the future of F1 be? Perhaps creating a poll asking what F1 fans what would they really like to see? Or what direction should F1 be moving toward.
The F1 blog could be a great place to start it!
More fan involvement in what will be a changing F1 might help in acheiving a better final result for the fans.
FOFA the F1 Fans association.
NC might be the chairman if he could assume a neutral position teamwise. Ha Ha
FIA FOTA FOM And all those other F organizations all answer to FOFA in the end. Sponsors know it!
Ferrari quit threat is empty, writes Oliver Holt
http://www.mirror.co.uk/sport/2009/05/13/ferrget-this-threat-to-ditch-f1-115875-21354256/
Just a thought
can’t say I know Oliver Holt, or his work, but I dislike him already.
Oliver Holt is Max Mosley’s ghost name…
I have been following the news realated to Fiat daily.
It would not be unthinkable that Fiat might be behind this saying it’s not economically viable for Ferrari to be in F1. Cost vs Benefit at this time in the car business as Sergio sees it.
Sergio a former accountant is doing some questionable stuff.
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/LAC.20090511.RREGULY11ART1943/TPStory/Business
What we see on the surface may indeed be something else.
Just posted
http://formulaone.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/05/13/renault-joins-ferrari-and-the-others-in-threat-to-leave-f1/
Max and Bernie have some work to do now.
Without Ferrari there is no F1 for me, all those late night and early Sunday mornings will now be my own.
Max and Bernie are trying to make F1 into another NASCAR which is losing it’s real fan base to all of it’s rules- but NASCAR can’t see it because of all the “it’s the in thing” people there now, they will go and with the base fans run off the sport will fail.
A mass exodus from F1 led by Ferrari will definitely pave the way for a new FOTA-based series. I suppose the short term effect is that there will be a clear path from the new F2 to the new F1.
idjk makes an interesting comparison to NASCAR. If F1 becomes so highly regulated that it essentially turns into a spec series, then all the FIA needs to do is add a slightly lower spec class below F2 to create a three-tiered product line that will be tightly integrated. Then these three series can be co-branded and marketed as a complete entertainment product.
If FOTA then rolls out its own series, we will see if a sophisticated technical series would be preferred over an entertainment-based series. We’ve already seen this happen in America with the CART/IRL split. And the techies lost. CART had the initial momentum but as the best teams (backed by manufacturers) slowly siphoned off to the other side, CART survived a few more years as Champ Car but then died from lack of participation.
Instead, if the FOTA teams do not form their own series and focus on sports cars and LeMans, then we might see the biggest shift in autoracing in nearly a century. In America, open wheel racing has already been greatly marginalized. We might be witnessing the same thing happening in the rest of the world if virtually all the big names leave F1.
It would be a sad day to see F1 drivers going around in circles just to get a steady ride/paycheck. Sadly I believe you are correct.
I feel ill just thinking about it.
Great comments
It’s posturing and they all know it. Most F1 technical/regulations changes go like this..
1. Max/Bernie decide they want to make a rule/reg change.
2. They wheel out something which is their core proposition, but has outrageous parameters or conditions attached.
3. The teams are predictably outraged and say they want nothing to do with it, they’ll quit the sport, form another series, go to the moon etc.
4. Max/Bernie come back with the same basic proposition, except now the demands don’t look as crazy – especially compared to what they said in the first place.
5. The teams are less outraged, a compromise is quietly reached, and Max/Bernie gets what they actually wanted.
Max is better at it, IMO. For instance, there’s not much wiggle room in Bernie’s ridiculous medals idea, so he was highly likely to end up with egg on his face there. But this budget cap discussion has been going back and forth for years now – so, Max thinks, how to make it actually happen? Well of course, stop trying to negotiate it and “mandate” something preposterously unrealistic to make the alternatives look a whole lot more attractive.
Bottom line, Ferrari won’t leave F1. Nothing else registers even close on the radar for their clientele. Sports car/endurance racing is all very well, but Le Mans doesn’t come close to matching Monaco for glamour, profile or status. So what else is a big series? Why, NASCAR of course.. well it’d be hilarious to see a Ferrari NASCAR team but I think the closest we’ll come to that is the scene at the end of ‘Cars’ where ‘Michael Schumacher Ferrari’ visits Radiator Springs :D
Nah, it’s a big game of chicken. But instead of somebody swerving off the road at the last minute, both parties will slowly come to a stop, just barely touching.
Before its always been team personnel making the threats. This time came directly from the Board of Directors. I wouldnt exactly write this off as a typical threat against new a new wing adjustment rule…
Great comments
Can’t they all just get along? Ha Ha
Formula one is Ferrari and other eighteen cars.
Great comments everyone. I also have grown accustomed to the typical regulations negotiating tactics of Max and Ruby, as pointed out by G60, but as the Ferrari Board has actually voted on it; it does raise the bar a little. This has a different complexion than other chest-pounding scenarios from the past and one only has to look at Bernie’s words lately to get that sense. I still think G60 is probably correct in that it will get ironed out but it will be a while.
If you ever want to see a reader’s feedback , I rate this post for 4/5. Detailed info, but I just have to go to that damn msn to find the missed bits. Thanks, anyway!
Sorry about that Bert. We do give some of the news to launch discussions and usually, when applicable, provide links to the original story (admittedly not always). As a Journal of F1 opinion, we are just that. The news sites that cover F1 are fantastic and we lay no claim there but we are delighted to have you here and thanks for the honest feedback.
Would love your opinion on events posted with respect and decorum of course. Thanks for stopping by.
To everyone above:
Great comments folks. some very well thought out opinion and suggestions. You guys are brilliant. I did start Grand Prix Fans Association, Downforce. Just FYI. :)