More than ever before Formula 1 racing would benefit from a budget cap. Those who argue against such an idea are simply protecting vested interests, or at least they think they are, as they probably have more to gain from saving money, rather than trying to win cash.
The current situation, in which the Formula One group takes more than half the money out of the sport, makes it is illogical to spend to win, rather than saving to create profit. There has never been a doubt that those that spend more money can gain an advantage in F1, if they know what they are doing. There has also never been a doubt that engineers will spend all the money that they are given – and always ask for more.
But that does not make for good businesses… Just as purist attitudes do not make for better races in the modern era.
What does make sense is cost-control, to stop money being spent on things that are utterly useless, and budget caps to restrict the cash that is eaten up by F1 at a time when sponsorship money is not easy to find. There are still some team owners who race because they love it; others are on massive ego-trips. More and more are looking for value in the business.
There is no doubting that F1 would be far healthier if the teams were all profit centres and any changes of ownership were because of potential profit, rather than the previous owners running out of cash. This would create brilliant win-win situations with big companies who could use the sport to promote their products, and at the same time make a profit from the racing. That would mean that every F1 “franchise” would have more value than it does today. There are only 12 of them and there are plenty of big companies that might decide to get involved in F1 if the sport created profit, gave them what amounted to free publicity and created technology that was actually useful.
The idea of a budget cap is not new. Ford’s motorsport boss Richard Parry-Jones suggested in 2004 that a system of budget-capping was the way to go.
“It’s unrealistic,” said Jean Todt, then at Ferrari.
“Impossible to police,” said McLaren’s Ron Dennis. “I just totally and utterly disagree with it. It’s an absolutely unpoliceable proposal.”
“It’s competition to get the best deals and we fight each other fairly, in the commercial world, like all companies do,” said Frank Williams.
Tony Purnell, the boss of Jaguar Racing, disagreed.
“I like the idea because it makes the cleverest, most efficient company win, rather than just money muscle.” he said.”It would make it a very interesting business and technical exercise to try and do the best job on a fixed budget. It would certainly revolutionise the sport. I don’t see it to be as difficult to police as people imagine.”
Whatever the arguments, the idea died a death. FIA President Max Mosley tried to revive it a few years ago, but he ran into other troubles before the plan could be introduced.
In recent days the F1 teams have managed to reach an agreement on cost control with 80 percent of the teams saying they are in favour. That was necessary before June 30, after which unanimous agreement is needed for changes to next year’s rules. No document has yet been signed by the team’s agreed and that was minuted at the last meeting of the Sporting Working Group.
We hear that a proposal for a budget cap is coming which would restrict budgets to something like $175 million in 2013, $150 million in 2014 and $120 million in 2015. This would not include drivers, marketing or administration costs and would be independent of cost control ideas relating to powertrains. The latter would need separate agreements, but this would be a self-policing system as it would involve car companies not just messing about in racing, but rather using their core competences. There are two things to be gained from such a system: the first is that multinational car companies dare not be caught cheating on such things; and secondly they could use their success for advertising, showing that they won races when everyone had the same resources. It is worth reflecting that the car industry used to be deeply opposed to crash-testing, but today uses it to sell vehicles. F1 could be the same.
There are still people who argue that it cannot be policed, but they do not understand the concept of forensic accounting. An FIA-enforced cost cap, administered by a global accounting firm, would encourage more teams and manufacturers to enter the sport.
Ultimately it might be better for the teams to work together to control the commercial rights of the sport. They are incapable of doing that, so the next best thing is to create more value for everyone.
“What does make sense is cost-control, to stop money being spent on things that are utterly useless, and budget caps to restrict the cash that is eaten up by F1 at a time when sponsorship money is not easy to find.”
All racing series have to control costs. Ask the CART/CCWS refugees in the USA. Or going back a way, Trans-AM and Can-AM refugees. Series that cannot control costs, and speed for that matter, are doomed to a sudden collapse.
Having said that, a “cap” is a great idea on paper, and lousy in practice, which is why it has been summarily dismissed.
What is stopping Toyota, for instance, from burying dyno time in their Prius budget? What is stopping Ferrari, for instance, from doing F1 wind tunnel exercises with stuff attached to their newest version of a production car? How would we stop the allocation of F1 administrative / travel costs to other parts of each team?
In the USA, the sad solution has been to make rules that effectively makes all cars identical (NASCAR), or are in fact made by the same manufacturers (IndyCar). Such is obviously repugnant to F1 people. However, tightening the rules seems to be the course F1 has taken (otherwise, wouldn’t we have cars hovering 6 cm off of the ground doing 300 mph in the corners powered by uranium or something?), and so we look forward to more movement towards spec racing.
Great article Joe. The fundamental problem is hinted at in the article. Over half the money raised by F1 is paid out to Bernie and CVC ($1.5bn) dividend last year.
Whilst an absolute cap may be difficult to enforce, a fairer distribution of F1′s vast richest would go some way to help.
To expect the 3 new teams to survive on $40m pa each plus whatever sponsorship they can muster (difficult when you always at the back) is ridiculous. At the same time CVC et al get no less than $500m.
The premier league (often criticsed for unfairness) awards £40m to bottom team to survice – and £800,000 increments for every place above that. This means the prize money nearer the top of the league is c. £56m less than 50% increase on the money awarded to the bottom team.
The arbitrary consistently shifting reasons from Bernie for awarding money to the teams is absurd.
The “franchise” mentioned by Joe is operated in the North America in Hockey, Baseball and Gridiron. They appoint a regulator and the franchises receive all the commercial and tv rights (No Bernie and CVC).
This would require the teams to stick together, challenge the F1 commercial rights owners and probably race under a different name eg”World Grand Prix Series”. CVC/BE only own the rights to the name “F1″.
The huge increase in funding to around $100m for smaller teams rising for better performers, would transform the sport. It would also help stop the non-oil funded tracks losing GP’s as the race fee’s demanded could be more reasonable – prices to attend would be more reasonable and free to air TV could also afford the fees.
VIVA F.LIBRE!!!
I feel we will end up with a Spygate-type scandal with this budget cap. If money can be spent to go faster, it will be spent one way or another. Yes, multinational car companies may not necessarily cheat, but a budget cap means it’ll be a lot easier for other entities to enter the sport… and do whatever they can to win.
In the same way that rulemakers can be outsmarted by designers, accountant auditors can also be outsmarted by other accountants. They’re only human, after all.
A few more out of nowhere wins by someone like Williams lucking into the random/minuscule window of perfect tire performance and maybe the big teams will just stop spending all that money on building better race cars and hiring top drivers?
I can just see an FIA run “budget cap” denying Williams the right to rebuild after a fire.
The less this bureaucracy is involved, and that’s day dreaming of course, the better in the long run for Formula One.
Why is this relevant. An insurance claim should cover any losses and not therefore affect the cap.
You still end up with the problem that Ferrari, Mercedes and McLaren all have automotive interests where F1 research and development can be submerged: The f70 needs flexing CF bodywork, MP4-12C runs trick suspension and cornering aids that need to be further developed for their ‘hyper car’ coming next etc.
I think the ‘new 3′ teams don’t get enough respect for agreeing to come in at £40m and then being compared to teams with 3 times that budget.
Hi Joe,
I’d put myself in the category of not understanding how a budget cap could work (as opposed to saying it can’t work). Can you shed any light on it and what you mean by “Forensic Accounting”? How for example would this be able to detect spend that was on a P&L account for road car development but was actually being used (directly or indirectly) by a manufacturers F1 team?
Growler — Bernie would have to have a team of permanent investigators with the powers to go everywhere, see everything and talk to everyone w/ power to punish in case of perjury. I just don’t see this working.
Here in the States, we have college football teams who routinely hide their program’s losses in other areas of the college. If that is done with (in some cases $US25 million at stake, I can imagine that it would be done when you’ve got 10-50 times that at stake.
And the investigators wouldn’t come cheaply, so where will (how) their funding come from?
If the teams are saving tens of millions they will pay for the admin.
mmmmm….so at least some of the alleged savings won’t actually be saved…
One example of how salary cap rules are circumvented here in Australian football: – instead of paying a player more, his spouse is ‘employed’ by the club in some role, for example as a PR representative. With no apparent qualifications, apart from possibly being attractive, they are ‘paid’ a couple of hundred thousand to attend a few evening events with team sponsors. The money ends up in the same household so it effectively shifts the player’s remuneration from the highly regulated salary cap column in the club’s books into a completely unregulated one. All completely legit and not a thing you can do about it. Which forensic accountant can determine that she wasn’t worth the money? After all it’s a subjective judgement that companies make all the time.
Scale up the dollar value (and the incentive) for F1 and the scope and sophistication of the schemes would surely increase proportionately.
There’s a row brewing in the IPL on the same issue – every team has been circumventing the salary cap by giving sinecures to favoured players in the owner’s business empire. e.g. Chris Gayle was signed up as a brand ambassador for Whyte & Mackay as he plays for Mallya’s team. There’s also lots of rumours of cash-in-hand payments that don’t go through the team books.
Of course, these tricks only relate to paying your players more, and so far as I know driver wages are outside the cost cap at the moment?
This has got me wondering. Are there any figures out there as to how much of the total spent by all the F1 teams comes from F1 itself (prize money etc) and how much comes from sponsorship?
What I’m wondering is whether a solution might not be to drop prize money all together and split the revenue from Bernie equally between all teams. That sets a minimum each team has to spend on development.
Teams can still chase sponsorship and you could set a limit as to how much of that could be used for car development, with the rest being to pay drivers and for profit.
You could argue that doing away with a prize fund makes it less important to win races but I’d suggest that a winning team would be more able to attract external sponsorship while non-winning teams have more need of funds to improve their cars and are less able to attract sponsors.
This is why I’m wondering about the ‘pot’ from FOM – if you could guarantee each team say £40m and allow them to top that up with up to £20m more from sponsors that would even things out a lot more and give a significant chance ot make profits for the teams themselves. However, as I don’t know the numbers it is hard to tell if that is a viable suggestion.
Of course you’d still need auditing but any form of cost control would need that.
Standard front , rear wings and a standard underbody made for the FIA and sold to the teams this would save 12 teams reinventing the same thing every 12 months. Standard steel brakes too.
call it GP2 or World Series?
I thought world series had to be restricted to the USA only.
Bwahahaha… They could call the regular season “Series of the Americas”, then a playoff round could be called… Wait for it… The “World Series at the center of the universe”. (cause everything has to have “playoffs” and, well, we are the center of the universe right?
O Gawd!
Just…. no.
It’s also called IndyCar. F1 is about innovation and should stay that way.
Yes, a cap would work. It’s worked in all of the major sports in the US. Of course there was much hemming and hawing when first proposed and instituted, but it made for much better competition on the field of play in the long run. More parity, more excitement, more fan involvement, and as you said before Joe, more value.
The key would definitely have to be a completely transparent budget for all of the teams. I think besides one of the big 4 accounting firms performing the audits, possibly having a central authority actually run by financial experts from each team controlling the doling out of money…so say, for example its 150m per year…then as the year goes on, each of the teams’ experts can watch and track each others money so its all on the up and up…in addition to the accounting firm making sure its transparent and according to the rules.
Are there any examples of successful budget caps in non-spec-racing series?
Would anyone be able to briefly list the sort of things in the statement: “money being spent on things that are utterly useless”?
Things that have no value in the automotive industry and/or no commercial use for the F1 team.
Sorry I meant examples. I suppose the double drs would be one?
Does that mean you don’t know?
In the US, football teams routinely work around a salary cap. There is no reason it cannot work in F1, except lack of will.
I don’t really feel that salary caps in other sports are directly comparable to this though. After all the proposal in the article explictly excludes the salary of the talent – the only thing included in the salary caps in most sports.
It’s the exact same concept: learn to work within a budget framework. Apply it to other costs and it works the same way. What’s the alternative? A privateer hasn’t won an F1 title since 1997 (I do not classify Brawn as a “privateer”). At some point it becomes pointless to the privateers if McLaren, Ferrari and Red Bull/Renault win everything year after year.
Some of the best, most innovative businesses come out of recessions. A recession is one form of enforced budget cap. The arguments for a spending cap are sound provided that along with the spending cap some of the technical restrictions are removed. Give the engineers freedom other than financial freedom.
Hey Joe,
Let me be clear, I am not saying I am opposed to a budget cap and that it can’t be policed. But I think you do have some failed logic. Forensic accounting: like Gridlock already says. Big car companies can easily hide development programs within the company. Mclaren could be policed better just because of the sheer size of the company. Yes it could be done to check out all development programs within big companies like Mercedes. But at what cost?
Furthermore I am sad to say that I am afraid that there are some companies that wouldn’t mind to cheat if they could win big in F1.
Because I believe one should not only say no but also try and think of solutions. Maybe it is possible to do the following: put in the rules that apart from some heavily regulated external parts (brakes, oil, tyres, ECU etc.) all F1 teams are required to manufacture all parts in house. So the amount of external sourced parts for all teams is reduced heavily which makes it controllable. Then you put in working hours and max staff restrictions. I would think hours spent working is better controllable. Just an idea!
Again, we have the issues I (and others) have pointed to here — you’re trusting the fox to count chickens, and there are plenty of ways to fudge a chicken count, and lots of incentive to do so. For instance, you could “say” that half of your engineers at, say, Ferrari, are really run of the mill design guys who are simply toying with designs for the 2020 version of the F-whatever.
Again the enforcement measures, given the money at stake, would be staggering and very intrusive.
Accounting firms do this stuff all the time. F1 is not an island where nothing works. It just thinks it is.
Sorry if I misspoke.
Having once worked for an accounting company I can assure you that “they do this stuff all the time” means to me, “Yeah, this stuff is routinely pulled by lots of companies until they get caught.” What I’m saying is that F1 is NOT an island, that the temptations felt by the real world do enter in, and that the real world can’t police this stuff when they have the power of jail time, so why should we expect it to work in F1?
I agree, the very idea you could do this with even 99% accuracy is laughable.
May I remind people that Enron was done under the noses of accountants, and how about JP Morgan?
Cost controls are a nice dream, but you just know the likes of Ferrari will drive a truck though them.
An F150 truck?
If I’m Ferrari, I could chuck the money and design team under a different banner call them ‘team a’ and pay then with ‘team b’. Team A would do f1 design for 99% of the time and design some fancy aero for a track special version of a supercar the other 1% of the time. As long as you have some actualy on the books guys paid to do the same thing then you can hide the rest easily.
One rumour (unverified) was that Ferrari had (have?) a large number of CFD and Wind tunnel staff working for their historic racing division.
Indeed they do. My concern would be what happens when they uncover a violation. Generally when I have seen this happen with these types of restrictions in other sports it has only been well after the fact. In a recent case back home the team involved had won a premiership while over their league’s cap. For sure forensic accountants are good at a lot of things, but they aren’t fast.
For any budget cap in F1 to work, it has to have teeth even in the situation where violations are uncovered after the season is over, and personally I don’t see that happening.
joe what a great piece of jounalism, i enjoyed reading this, its simpley do or eventually die. Investers and car companies in these ecenomic times have shallow pockets….
No one is denying those truths. Costs must be controlled, especially in tight times.
The author makes that point, but then suggests that we should do this with a cap on expenditures, and ponders that it never has been implemented. Several of us suggest that this is because of good reasons.
So, our criticism has nothing to do with the obvious fact, but rather the solution.
Why would McLaren agree to earning more but possibly winning less? Can you see Red Bull agreeing to possibly less marketing exposure by winning less, but earning a (comparatively) little amount of money instead of pumping in some of that mountain of marketing budget? Ask Frank Williams whether he likes to make dozens of millions a year or instead earn just a little, but possibly win the constructors’ championship because of well-placed added R&D? The only way I can see how they could maybe be coaxed into it is if FOM guaranteed them a whopping great income no matter what, like 100m euros a year, and if you’ve got sponsors you earn money, but the spend is forensically monitored.
“but the spend is forensically monitored.” And at that point, the mice put a bell on the cat….
I’m fairly certain if you offered Frank Williams the choice of earning a pittance but winning a constructers world title he’d take the title every time. That’s the difference between a racing man and a money man.
Joe,
I know you are more knowledgeable about F1 than I’ll ever be but how would you police a bloke like Vijay Mallya? Smoke and mirrors, you can not police smoke and mirrors. Or can you?
regards,
Vijay Mallya? The name rings a bell. Does not come to races though… Something to do with the High Court?
Now you point it out there’s been a guy called Otmar (sorry if that’s not quite right) doing the tv interviews
Oh does he not? I hadn’t actually noticed!
Thank you for the first proper laugh of the week, guys! Excellent . . .
“More than ever before…benefit from a budget cap.” If you have a minute, I was wondering about the first four words: “More than ever before”. Is the present budget/spending situation fundamentally different from the past? Is there something new at play? Some unforeseen precipice?
Joe, I have to disagree.
I do have a basic understandin of forensic accounting, still – it cannot be policed.
Certainly, the team’s budgets and expenditures can be policed. Certainly, the listed sponsorships can be policed. What cannot and will not be policed is development work done by the team’s massive multi-national owners.
A proper policing would also require the team’s major backers to open up. Will Fiat Auto, Mercedes Auto, Renault Auto and Red Bull Drinks allow inspection of their books? I cannot imagine any circumstance in which they would.
Consider for instance were Mercedes Automotive to develop a KERS unit for Mercedes F1. The automotive giant could assign development to a distant subsidiary and split costs among any number of road car projects. Even were that subsidiary to be vetted, sub-components could be provided to them by 3rd party suppliers, suppliers who had been compensated for other work.
Consider were Red Bull drinks to directly pay an outside firm to develop an exhaust system? Red Bull F1 would pay a bill for the manufacturing cost of the part, but a majority of the far more expensive development costs would be incurred by a drinks company, not subject to audit.
In either case, an F1 team might be charged a tiny fraction of the actual amount spent in developing the component. Without the right to delve through the entirety of Mercedes Automotive’s or Red Bull Drink’s books – and the books of their suppliers, the subterfuge would be impenetrable. In any case, the costs of forensically analyzing companies of that size would make the scheme unworkable.
No, the auto manufactures do not want to be caught in a cheating scandal. If there were any chance they’d be caught, they wouldn’t dare, but there is nothing like the lack of policing to breed arrogance, one look at the high finance industry proves this. A Fiat or Mercedes might not immediatly embark on such a scheme, but they would, eventually – if only because they believed their opposition had already commenced a similar plan.
Were all the teams the size of Williams and none attached to, or owned by massive multi-national concerns, I’d agree that the scheme could work. As things stand now, as they teams are today, it cannot be policed.
I am basing my thoughts on what accountants tell me.
I would change accountant if I were you
I want Random as my accountant, since he seems to know the score!
Sheer madness. Did you see the ICAEW report on the child benefit changes, pages of how that in detail is a hell hole? Reason #8736073 any chance i get at having a family will not be here . .
My favorite salesman – wish he’d come back, he’s needed – qualified and was driven bonkers at Price Waterhouse. I guess being bonkers is a necessary qualification for my game though . .
I can recently add to that God Bless The IRS
Who I have to deal with because some very bright talent wants in, over there. Blimey, it’s a slog to get that going.
I really am all for simplification. I don’t think Enron’s could happen so easily unless we had shelves laden with codes and a industry “interpreting” them.
I truly think that even a temporary suspension of the complexity, would do wonders for the economy. Problem is we love out loopholes, don’t we? This is a smart crowd here, tell me you don’t get a break somewhere that you’d rather not give up . . well, I’d simply grandfather the loopholes, it’s new business we want to get and make life easier for.
Oops, being too serious. But re my idea below, it is a bit matronly to hand out the money on chits, but any decent bank can do that (you’d rotate banks so no back doors) as a basic treasury management function. Thing is, I think it could work, just would be unacceptable unless F1 was pretty much run as a collective. Could be a very profitable collective, though. Surely that idea scares the wits out of CVC and Bernie daily . .
Agree. Better said than my mangled paragraph above.
Don’t underestimate the power of documentation. Splitting costs across multiple subsidiaries sounds fine in theory, but in reality each business unit has a profit and loss line, which is documented and reported on, and these companies have pretty strong internal governance structures.
That is not to say that motivated individuals or groups can’t do dodgy things, but why would a whole bunch of distant group managers fudge the books for the benefit of some other, unrelated business unit. Organising something like that with no ‘paper’ trail is pretty difficult.
I believe it can be done. Accounting firms can do that kind of stuff. Also the teams are then forced to follow up on this,as part of their image. Think about it would a team who is aware of their sponsors and relationship throw all this away for peanuts attached to enormous risks, I don’t think so.
Ask Nelson Piquet Jr?
Or Nigel Stepney?
I do not support a budget cap, if for no other reason than accountants will make the money boring. At the moment the money side is interesting especially the ownership side and Bernie’s manipulations.
I’ve always thought that having fixed parameters (such as a non expandable budget) ends up being a catalyst for designers and engineers to come up with innovative ideas (necessity being the mother of invention and all). Some of the technical restrictions would need to be eased in order to give the teams areas to find performance differentiators that can be relevant to the auto industry, possibly restricting aero development in lew of mechanical/KERS and such.
Having a more direct line of technology transfer from F1 to the auto industry could provide teams with a very lucrative source of income but as it stands, the gap between the two industries is ever growing. The auto industry has long been in the path of small displacement engines with multiple turbos and energy recovery systems, but even with the 2014 regulations the power train of F1 cars is behind the times as opposed to the forefront of technology.
As for policing the cap I leave to smarter men to figure out, but it can’t be impossible to achieve, and it will have to be an ever evolving policing method to stay ahead of the teams trying to exploit loopholes in the wording of the cap just like they do with the technical regulations.
Here’s a simple budget cap:
a defined fraction, evenly spread, of the sport’s entire profits.
If it could be imagined all that was really for the teams.
No sponsor money to go direct, only to be paid out after an escrow period. The length long enough people won’t wait.
My partnership had a rule : no private borrowing of any kind. Not even a credit card, let alone a mortgage. Exceptions allowed only by general agreement. You then create a hard rule of no back door borrowing of services either.
All suppliers swear on oath a statement they are paid in cash in full, no credit. Or if they don’t no FIA accreditation to be a supplier. (which is a new idea, ought to be automatic, but so that you can exclude a company for propping up a team, also put in clawbacks for any publicity etc gained if they fanny this, as a precondition to a “sure you can be in F1″ supplier contract check)
Smart New York collective apartment buildings sometimes enforce a “no mortgage” rule.
Why? Not snobbery, they just want sensible neighbors.
Sponsorship ought to be the profit, not the reason people are there. Don;t know about you, but profit is a good motive, and F1 should stop the “hollywood accounting”.
Make it harsh, as in suspend anyone not compliant for a race. Give a handsome, as in can change career with it, reward for whistle-blowers.
Leave all that alone for drivers, as that’s how drivers get a drive. That should be, usually is, how they make their money. Then they live off how popular they are more directly, even.
I would suggest also, that who can win on spending less,ought to profit from this too.
Sorry that I cannot think of the mechanics. That is where I tripped over myself pre season, claiming I would have some good thoughts come the new year.
Anyone think any of that workable?
I would suggest all teams pay for a second auditor also. That would stop some silly possibly not very nice people getting in.
I am thinking that the bond should not be to Bernie, but to a trust account, through which all costs get paid.
Make it a FIA rule that anyone not getting paid through the trust (which has to be blind to all participants unless subpoenaed) will be blanket banned from FIA motorsports. Also write in the contract that you can name names, a hall of shame, even for minor suspected infractions. That way there is a very high risk of a team going by the back door, if their contractor can be shamed so publicly. Would discourage small outfits as much as big. A total waiver of any defamation claims must be a requisite of such a contract. Apply a general bond and insurance policy, with a totally separate organisation of financial custodians, to enforce the legal aspects, so as to keep the politics clean.
I dunno, a old mate went to do international commercial arbitration in Paris, years ago, settled down there. F1 does not have centuries of history and geo-politics to deal with. I bet Al’s office could draw up the above and make it stick in no time. Would certainly, all of this, be less headache than he is used to! (he looks ever so slightly like Max, come to think of it, but my evil grin strains too hard too say any further!
_
Doable?
In theory?
How would a budget cap entice multinational car companies to return to Formula One?
Odd to see so many folks insist that forensic accountants are essentially useless, all based on the notion that things can be hidden via arms-length bookkeeping subterfuge. If this was true, fewer corporate types would be afraid of them. (Now, watch someone insist that someone demonstrate their value in a soundbite or two.)
Whether their skills are used effectively to prosecute is decided elsewhere, e.g., the fact that no one has gone to jail for the great Wall St fiasco is not about whether bookkeeping can hide what was done, but rather is about whether those who administer the political and justice systems care to see influential people in handcuffs.
Hi RShack,
I think the really big players are not afraid, because they have so much leverage, are such a big source of money for the same auditors. Have you read the stories about Crazy Eddie, the NY discount hifi store? Those are excellent as to a basic appreciation. The guy who as CFO pulled that fraud now writes on the subject. He was in that family business/scam aged 14, so he didn’t have a lot of choice I don’t think, as in brought up bent. Link below.
Anyhow, yes, smaller operators are indeed afraid of decent inspection. But it’s like the old one, be a big fish in a small pond. You can always wangle something. That’s why I want a return to personal liability for losses, even in shareholders, to some extent. I always traded with my butt on the line, unlimited, and well that may have kept me small, but it also kept me going. Hypocrite, that now I do use limited companies, because e.g. not a naturalized citizen your way, so I have to incorporate for business in the States. But whatever happens, the mentality, the discipline will never leave me.
This is a fun link, and for anyone up for a bit of 80s nostalgia, very enjoyable along with the lessons, from the horse’s mouth:
http://www.whitecollarfraud.com/947660.html
> I think the really big players are not afraid, because they have so much
> leverage, are such a big source of money for the same auditors.
Well, I think we can agree that a corrupt system can undermine most anything. I s’pose my intent was to convey that forensic accountants are not as easy to dupe as some here seem to think. Of course, this assumes they are given adequate support and are dealing with companies who make a tolerable effort at conforming to the standards demanded by law.
I agree that these may be iffy assumptions, given the trajectories of biz and gumment the last couple decades. If nothing else, we’ve finally managed to create circumstances about which all three of Jefferson, Madison and Hamilton would agree (which is not an easy task), and maybe even enough to put the ghost of Marx back together again (just when we’d thought we’d finally banished the guy). The problem with greedy bastards is they just don’t know when to stop.
“…but he ran into other troubles before the plan could be introduced.”
That actually made me ROFL. Line of the month
Some people do not like good plans, I guess . .
Personally I am not a fan of the idea, I loved the days of teams rocking up with four cars, quali engines and testing every second day. Living in Australia one of my best trips was going to the UK GP then over to Marranello for a couple of days with confidence I could see a test session (which was brilliant!!).
F1 is about winning and racing and should be about making money (I feel). Over the history of the sports teams come and go, and sponsors and money does the same. The sport may be in a golden era in terms of popularity, but that doesn’t mean the product is as good as it has been (give me the ’70, ’80′ 90′s any day).
Like a lot of sports sponsor and tv are pushing it to become more sterile and a ‘product’ to be package and sold. Its not a product, its a sport.
I have had the privilege of being in the Paddock Club as a guest of Ferrari on a number of occasion and it is sad to say it is filled with people who don’t even watch the race (in Australia at least).
I often wonder what the sport would be like if the popularity dropped and we just got back to pure racing.
On topic, in regards to a budget cap. Money doesn’t win races just ask BAR and Toyota… both appeared to spend the GDP of small nation and nothing to show
Typo… shouldn’t be about making money
I recall the last great idea to cut costs; tell the teams that instead of throwing away engines after every race – here’s an idea – you’ll have to make them last over two weekends. Maybe we’ll extend it further then that. Oh, and then we’ll include gearbox’s on top of that. Of course Max and the FIA overlooked the engineering expenses and budget increases needed to achieve the same horsepower and rpm’s – now over double or triple the running distances. At what cost to the teams? Some quarters say it was a factor of 3x the previous years engine development budgets. And what did it do for the teams? The wealthy teams pushed further up the grid and found their closest competitor right along side them which means they all wasted money while all the others either spent more to stay at the back of the grid where they were always going to be and paid a lot more from their engine suppliers to boot. What did it do for the fans. Zilch. We cared not. Cost controls don’t even work in a Communist environment with the army helping let alone the ultimate form of free enterprise called F1. You would have to alter the very tenet of what F1 is all about in order to change things and I hardly think the teams would respond well to a ban on sponsorship… In my view we let them spend as much as they want – it’s their business – if there was no profit in it then they either sell off, lower the budget or end up in bankruptcy court. They’re big boys, I think they can handle how much they spend without some utopian Marxist experiment taking place.
Your take makes a lot of sense to me. Pure capitalism.
This time I totally agree with you. The resource restriction had a positive influence on cost. But it fell apart on the issue of the money spend on services and parts. Those costs were not audited by a strong concept. The concept also relies on ever narrower technical specs and that kills the technical race which is part of the spectacle for many spectators and racing fans.
I do not agree that you have to control the drinks company or the car company in terms of budgets and spending. It is sufficient to monitor the deals that cross the boundaries and could be influenced. There must be a consensus that in fishy cases special forensic powers are enabled which also the parent company will support.
Another problem surely will be the drive train. We urgently need a cost deal on that as well or future top teams will have to start their own engine project again.
Joe are these the same accounting firms like Arthur Andersen, now Accenture, who got themselves into trouble when some of their audit staff turned a blind eye to financial indiscretions, or were so incompetent they couldn’t see the wool being pulled over their eyes? Unfortunately we have to rely on humans, who are fallible. It might be easy to approve someone’s accounts if an AMG or Ferrari were to find its way to an auditor’s driveway…..
As commendable as your suggestion is, I fear that F1 would become the realm of bookeepers rather than engineers.
Yes, let’s devalue F1 further. Besides DRS, goofy tires, KERS, flawless reliability, standardized engines, let’s turn the sport over to a bunch of accountants. Brilliant. We could add ballast penalties for teams that spend too much of their own money. 1kg for every million over. While we’re at it, we should make the top drivers change their own tires to give the HRT’s, Caterhams, and Murussias a sporting chance.
Ferrari spending $100 million/year tire testing is silly, but a budget cap is equally silly. What is needed are smart regulations, not regulations for the sake of just doing something.
The viewing figures show you are in the minority on this one Michael. I think most people would rather not see a return to the bad old days of 2 overtakes per race. Where the GP served as nothing more than background noise to a post-Sunday roast snooze.
The viewing figures?
The spy in the sky is more like pie in the sky.
Don’t get sucked in with that load.
This has been an exciting year. Although, viewership is not necessarily an indicator to the state of F1. F1 needs to be careful. The sport is on the verge, if not already there, on being gimmicky. The integrity of sport should be compared with entertainment value and growth. Intelligent decisions need to be made, not short-sighted ones vested in self interest. Please keep in mind who pays Joe and where that party’s self interest lies.
Who would benefit from a cap?
It’s incredulous that Joe would put this idea out there without even touching on the issues. It’s completely irresponsible. How many hundreds of jobs will be lost in the industry by such a drastic move that at best would be difficult to police? He tosses this out there in such a cavalier manner, as if there is no repercussions. This would hurt a lot workers and their families, for what? To assist the back of the grid?
This is not what F1 is about.
And, I am an auditor. This would open can of worms. I deal with this everyday. It would be a world blanketed in shades of grey. A world of no clear cut right or wrong answers. The teams would not approach this in the EXACT same manner in which they approach the technical regulations. They will push it right to the line, and often over it.
This is the problem when a journalist takes benefits from a party he should be reporting on. How people that read this blerb casually thought . . . cap?. . . maybe not a bad idea.
The reason I put the idea out there is that it is being discussed by the F1 teams. I was trying to give my readers the heads-up. Take that or leave it.It has got nothing to do with Caterham. If you do not trust me, go and read someone else. I am really not interested in this sort of crap.
First, your comment on people not understanding policing a cap and forensic accounting is not correct and is a bit ironic. You should be referring to just standard auditing to insure compliance to a set of agreed principals. That is administration. Forensic accounting is used mostly in litigation. If it goes to that, it’s probably a debacle because the FIA doesn’t have legal authority, which will make any investigation and any reconstruction half ass and difficult.
You think engineers and designers are smart, wait till you get to the lawyers and accountants. They’ll show you real creativity and you’ll probably never know about it. How are you going to know if research on materials in Paragon or Maranello is for F1 or road cars? It’ll be whatever they’ll want it to be. The level of reverse justification to substantiate a position a team is taking on a cap issue will be quite inventive (and entertaining).
I’m not advocating not doing anything, but it should be with the regs. Make it fiscally inefficient to through spend mounds of cash on a particular technical aspect.
I’m annoyed not because you’re reporting a story, but it is an incomplete story. You know full well, a cap will cost jobs and these people will have a tough time finding work elsewhere. You have access, and you know this, yet you didn’t even mention the controversial aspects and negative impacts.
If teams cannot pay their bills because budgets are too high, then jobs will be lost. You forgot to mention that.
You are partially correct. If Ferrari, McLaren and Red Bull dominate, with HRT, Caterham, and Marussia struggling, those back of the grid will have more difficulty finding sponsorship. I concede that. Although, the strength of the top teams doesn’t mean a back of the grid team can’t be run well and pay their bills. The two are not necessarily correlated inversely.
I’m sure you’re hearing a ton of whinging from the direction of the back of the grid, especially from Caterham. But, these teams are the masters of their own destiny. Quit whinging and get sponsorship and build a quicker car. Some will make it, some won’t. It’s F1 and it’s a tough business. They knew that when they signed on the line that is dotted. If a team can’t compete financially or on the track, just get out. The responsibility is with the team principals, senior management and the owners.
Don’t blame the top teams. Besides, when Vijay Mallaya’s mind is made up for him that he can’t afford F1, rank and file Force Sahara employees will probably keep their jobs. So your criticism is off base.
Over time a new team, like Caterham, has to climb up the grid. For Christ’s Sake, beat HRT or Marussia. That’s why they are struggling. Look at Red Bull. If memory serves, that used to Stewart/Jaguar Racing and what a disappointment Jag was. Now they are world champions.
My understanding is that there were few if any net job losses in the sector when the cap came in. Those jettisoned by the big teams were hoovered up by the new small teams, who owed their existence to the cap in the first place.
If there were any losses, surely these are in the interests of the long term future of the sport, and hence all of the jobs that it generates.
I remember Joe being a big supporter of a budget cap YEARS ago, when it was first mooted by Max, long before Joe’s Caterham connection came about. To insinuate, no, state, that the latter is the main reason he’s coming out with this is pretty insulting, not only to Joe but to those of his readers who read him back then and have a functioning memory.
So if we assume Red Bull broke the last FOCA ‘budget cap’ as was reported, then perhaps they might feel that they could do again because 1) they can, 2) forensic accounting is only as good as the forensic accountants doing the digging being better than the forensic accountants doing the burying and 3) accountancy is not a 100% objective discipline. So lets say they overspend by a few million – what happens? They get named and shamed as cheats? OK, fair enough. They get chucked out of F1? Vettel loses his drive? One of F1′s “best” sponsors gets barred from entry? I don’t think so…!
Will the cost of hiring accountants be outside the budget cap? I can imagine the best ones signing up for F1 driver-sized salaries….
I worry that a cost cap would lead to lots of creative accounting and plenty of claims that other teams are spending more than allowed.
Other formulae went wrong when costs became too high, because the logical question is “why am I paying this much to do F3000/CanAm/WSC etc when I could be in F1 for that?”
There’s nowhere to go from F1 – one way or another the FIA has by accident or design ensured no other series has the profile.
Not that they can do anything about NASCAR of course…
I’d love to know what John (other John) has to say on the subject.
I have to admit the thought of a series full of teams solely run as investments by various global corporations leaves me cold. Red Bull Racing have been very successful, albeit at a cost under the current setup, but it all seems a bit soulless to me. That said, I’d love to see a situation where the budgets allow another Williams or Jordan to come in and be competitive.
I’m no accountant, but I’ve got a question for those with better understanding than I :
What would happen if all F1 teams had to be stand-alone companies listed on a stock exchange somewhere?
Would it be possible essentially to list on a stock exchange (therefore, be beholden to stock exchange rules on transparency and accounting) but without actually requiring much share trading to go on? Could Mercedes list “Mercedes F1″ and simply hold all the shares?
More to the point (perhaps) is whether this would gain us anything?
Some of the teams are listed on stock exchanges – in one way or another. Williams, of course is now a publicly traded company, but Mercedes F1 is owned by the publicly traded Mercedes Auto and Ferrari by publicly traded Fiat.
Even were each F1 team required to be publicly traded, the large multinationals that currently own many teams would continue to own majority share holdings in the teams. For all effective purposes, these massive companies would still own the teams.
Subjecting teams to securities regulations wouldn’t solve the real problem. The problem of policing arises not from a lack of transparency within the teams, but from a lack of transparency within their corporate parents. Even were the teams subject to the standards of public companies, their corporate parents could invisibly violate any spending cap on the team’s behalf. Violating a spending cap is not a violation of civil law.
Since it’s incredibly unlikely that the large multinational owners of the various F1 teams would ever submit to forensic accounting of their books, they could spend with impunity.
They wouldn’t have to buy any components or provide any parts to the teams, they’d only have to pay for the research and development for the components. Wind tunnel time, CFD time, designing and testing many iterations of aerodynamic parts, passing the winning design on to the teams. This trial and error R&D sucks up a much larger chunk of the top team’s budgets than constructing the final parts.
I suppose you could make a synthetic stock, bit like listing a ETF?
However, what is the motive to list? Do teams make profits? Most are in it to get by, and barely manage that. So the critical function of needing investors is a bit unlikely, if you can’t deliver something to them.
Neat idea. Just I think a top down approach is necessary first, and the problem is, that imposing deals on the teams is at an all time level of difficulty.
Sad to see Lola in administration.
I am no doubt on the permanent moderation queue now, obviously having touched some nerve or other, though always careful not to say anything libellous or untrue. This delays the comment appearing sometimes for days and often places it out of time context, in juxtaposition to the thread, this is getting annoying.
With the above and also John (Other) making the blog difficult to read, a heavy deluge of loosely connected and seemingly unending streams of consciousness, usually making his actual comment indecipherable. (like perhaps trying to pick a particular cupful of water out of a waterfall) I am sure he is a nice bloke of good and obviously extensive education, but with issues best addressed elsewhere. I shall refrain from bothering you all in the future, it’s getting too much like work.
sorry, rpaco, i take your thoughts to heart. I may have been the reason for the moderation queue. I have not noticed delays in the comments for days, however, just glitches (some technical maybe) for a few hours, and others simply down to whenever Joe makes time to look see.
I do address my issues in real life, mind you, all the time on the case, so you may be reassured. My comments are not a cry out, but maybe a bit too much glib observation of the fact I deal with rather a lot of silly new things daily. Or a heartfelt “WTF” as to the world I don’t understand. Scribbling here has maybe become a break I could replace more often with a good walk. Yet that silliness informs me, and to stay abreast of it I am forced to learn lots fast all the time.
I do not think my comments are so indecipherable, though they may come in at very askance angles, break he flow. I’m rather tired of being a controversial meta subject here, and am struggling genuinely to modify my style accordingly. So far, my efforts are a bit random. If there’s any crisis, it’s because I feel I can never strike the right note. When I first put a comment or two here, there were less of us, it didn’t matter so much. I could be very personal, and get away with it. But now there’s a awful lot of people listening in, and my very homespun style is out of fashion. I feel superannuated by the change! Maybe a decent break, go do some research or something. I just don’t want to loose the personal touch that makes it so enjoyable. I reckon I better take some real long walks, think this over, because I am simply at a loss how to fix the kind of problem you identify, and I’m really struggling to understand what the other perspectives are. I mean, unless Joe decided not to print the worst, it’s been sorta 50:50 when people call me out. I pay more attention to the detractors than anyone saying compliments. My aim is to add, not distract. Joe’s a personal hero I intend not to blemish. This just feels a bit hard to work out how to do it right. Like you say, getting close to being work. But it would not feel that way, if I can hit a pitch that does not attract such criticism.
Oh dear, phew, I finally I saw the fun side of this!
I’m like Lionel Bart, sat atop that huge landfill tip down the Dagenham bend, presiding over it all, saying “this is my life, look at it, all trash”.
Because I am reviewing, my situation . . .
I do hope you guys get that one. Bart was someone else. When he filmed that, for BBC Arena I vaguely remember, in a – dammit, what’s the name of those coats the navvies had Donkey Jacket, i think – he’d just blown by some reckonings 16 million quid, from his royalties from Oliver! Mostly gave it away, and squandered the rest. And could still smile. No self pity, no grief, no anger, no frustration. To my young mind, that was living. I was in awe at what he just conveyed. I’ve stood on the same ground, but it’s been seeded with grass since. Walked down the road with my Gonzo lawyer pal, and someone – well the only person we had seen in hours – spoke up “There’s a bus you know, so you can leave” not in a nice way, not a exact tradition, else spil here with bad words, we were on someone’s patch, told to heave ho, and yet when we headed to this bus stop, a fair tip, row after row of projects were boarded up. I wonder if the olympic largesse has extended to fixing that neglected manor. I’ll never forget the row I had with my snobby mate, whether to go in to the single hospitable place, a pub, down that bend. I wanted to do that for the history of it all, he, well, I see him less lately, been unfairly critical, my fault, was being a snob, pretentious film buff, looking for where Kubrick shot Full Metal Jacket, which I told him was a landing quay down there.
But I do suss one thing, prompted by rpaco’s thought above: Joe’s blog is being read as a serious newspaper now. That’s very cool. That comes with expectations, like consistency, even in the comments. Also style guides, keep it in tune. Hey, I can do that. Easy peasy. Keep it on the mark. Yeah, I agree, make it easier to read. S’long as I can still puff up a few pieces personally, I’ll go with that! Serious, I’d be really happy to get this right, for all. It’s not work for me, but I am not against being professional in any walk of life when it matters.
Actually, no. I don’t think I can crack on like I did at all. People misunderstand, and get me confused with somehow I am authorized by Joe to be here, and get that mixed up again. and then to boot, when I am called up for personal notes, it’s never said to me anything on a personal level, just inerudite appreciations of what a blog might be for, basically twists of implied adhominem, inferring something implied which is presumptive to the core, and just plain overall not nice. I don’t know what it is with the expectation that the internet will deliver the imagined putative exemplary editorial of a misty past, and that maybe every commenter will be held to such standards, and then again who hosts may be pulled up as to the imagined deficit of theoretical quality in the comments he “approves” of. Nothing could be farther from the truth, or reality. I know I have been politely tolerated, for a long time now. But eventually the assumptions as to what bounds I should be held by, get bent. I think those have been distorted by the accidental fact my submissions here – poorly edited and all, in fact never edited, mea – have been quite a out-flowing. Maybe people think I am part of this blog, somehow intrinsic to it. No. I just contribute free form when I can, to entertain hopefully you, and thereby myself. I have taken every criticism so personally, because Joe is a hero to me for getting out word in the sport I love in so many ways no other would dare. Therefore, I have identified with him, because I simply agreed with him. But I think some translate that to imagining me part of the authorship. I can think of no more stupid misconceptions than that. I am a stranger to Joe, though I rate his writing highly. I am starting to feel a burden on what I write, to conform to something I am not. That, I cannot do. No matter how much I want to support what Joe says, because he should lead on, get this game fixed right for good. I simply hit my limit, poured my heart out, all intended to amuse, cajoule, provoke gently, anything to push forward the good ideas this blog was created for, and the positive ideas it beholds. Just no longer can I be beholden to the complaints of an audience I may not be able to speak with directly (for example because I guess rude replies to me have not been printed) and also because I am not responsible at all to any audience. I am just me. Every single thing I wrote here came from my heart, and was given freely. I shall not tax that, nor sully that, nor modify it. Therefore, I cannot continue. Take care you lot, because you are a brilliant bunch, and I mean that. – john
John (other John)
Please keep posting. Your posts are appreciated. And unlike some, I’ve never detected a note of mean-spiritedness from you. I HAVE found a diamond in the rough, now and again.
Tallyho and all that -
From an American F1 fan since the 60′s
Thank you, Tim. You have no idea – me neither – how much your kind thoughts mean. But they matter. Bit younger than you, I grew up on 60′s National Geographic magazines. (bought in a thrift store – only way I spent my pocket money then, a decade and a bit later) They might have been amazing propaganda (check I think June ’66 on California but there were several issues at around that time, for obvious reasons, proper boom town.) but they sold a brilliant vision. Those decided my life. Please don’t forget that. Go shut up the misery guts who are spoiling it. We all need it. – j
Oh, now, come on J(oJ)… way too much drama in the bid-thee-farewell…
Better to think “life’s too short, so eff them if they can’t take a joke”… it’s just the dang internet, that’s all it is… Joe’s slice of it, true, but just the internet nonetheless… and, don’t forget, Joe’s the one who has the publish-or-perish key that governs what appears on his slice… given all that, if he doesn’t mind I don’t quite see the point of falling on your sword…
Plus, I don’t think you really have it in you, you’ll wake up tomorrow and think, “oh, God, why in the world did I do that silly thing?” Am I right?
rpaco seems a good sort, dunno why he’s poking you… it should be obvious to all that your m.o. is not sound-bite oriented, nor does it conform to the unwritten rule of “one-screen message-length”. Seems to me that the page-down key can help the uninterested cope with that.
As for your comments being indecipherable… well, of course you wouldn’t think they are, you’re the guy who wrote them, so if anyone knows what they mean, it’s you. Silly to take that as evidence of anything, which you already know if you just think about it.
FWIW, I generally find about 15% to be beyond the pale, but nothing that wouldn’t be clear enough if we were in any sort of actual conversation rather than forced by the medium into serial monologues… too bad the only way to approximate conversation is to impose our back-and-forth’s onto the screens of others…
Rpaco
“I shall refrain from bothering you all in the future,….”.
Shame about that, I understand everything you write and usually agree with you.
Martin
but you don’t have to read it, I just scroll down and ignore, don’t make life hard for yourself. Actually I have enjoyed your contributions, don’t go.
Oh, jeez, not just J(oJ) but rpaco bidding farewell too?
All this drama seems a bit much for a dang blog.
Here’s a suggestion…
Howsabout if we all agree to each see our very own selves as a cartoon… and stop taking ourselves (and our input, and our opinions) so dang seriously?
Seems to me that the world would be a much better place if everybody would just take that one simple step…
Piece, lurv, and rock-the-roll…
Guys, I am not sure I am going to read all of this, even with aid of a stiff drink. I might have to go buy some good vodka and water. Yuri Dolgorukiy is the stuff, break with clean water only. Just about only two stores keep it in London. Frozen over night, obviously. Might yet call in my order.
All I mean is I genuinely don’t need the pulpit to preach from.
And I’ll not take someone else’s. Just principle of the thing.
Same rules apply, as to being accused when that accusation implies intent, which so far as I know cannot be imputed from written positions very reliably.
(I just scrolled down to your comment RShack, skipped the others, because I felt I left on the wrong note, thank you for your words, I take notice)
Also, I have to consider it could be screamingly dangerous for my business if anyone ever attains my identity. Unless I come up with some plan to manage that.
What I’ve written here is a window into my mind. You lot are very welcome. I talk just as openly in person. People do try to get into others’ heads, and I have bad experiences of that. That can really be abused by the wrong sort.
Consider this just briefly: I was born into a tremendously privileged life, went to simply the best school (no statistical way to deny that, and I was not a rounding error), chucked that away, probably to spite my father, who had a dark side as much as he was a truly admirable man, founded my own company aged 19, which I still have, just, fluffed it in my thirties, to the point of walking the streets homeless, maybe in part to try to hide from the violent blame put upon me by the girl I should have married, (she decided a bit too late I might be okay, really a bit too late, as in I can’t go for moral contortions but i remain tremendously sad) have been in more legal scraps at enormous financial and personal cost than any one of them i would wish on my worst enemies. And yet though I repented the life of the so – called “1%”, rejoining that crowd in some way is my only salvation from worrying how my mom’s medical bills will get paid. We all have limits, and mine is my mom taking it on the chin. If you could only know what my other family dumped on her, you’d probably puke. I have been thrown so many nasty shots in my life, I could really write books. I also can roll with it, though I am by nature hypersensitive, always have been, that won’t change. My own family may have grown to hate me because i could spot and call out emotional bullshit at barely double digits in age. My dad did the same. He wasn’t loved, just feared, the way he’d cut through pretenses. I’m the hopefully nicer version. Spitting image, almost. I recall my step brother (40 years my senior, but practically juvenile to this day) staring at me with genuine fear in his eyes – I was 15 – screaming at me I was just my / our dad, because I called him out on some nonsense. Hmm, that was bad, I laid on him a bit hard. But for all that I am no martyr and have my own failings. Actually, just the same as my dad, I like to engage with people, it’s a need to interact. This is just one way.
So I’m afraid rpaco’s comment I [sic] “may have some issues” just gets from me “you want issues? really?” and a general aghastness that I sometimes wonder if anyone else was dealt a tiny fraction of what has been poured on my head, if they would have survived. Try me. But this is not supposed to be a comments section about that, and if the subject has to be raised too many times, well no, meet me in person. Not here. By continuing to comment, I am just inviting more of this misguided misinterpretation.
Just sometimes I think I said too much. For some people, speaking out is genuinely dangerous. This place is friendly, and I have a real affinity to all here who have supported Joe because I reckon he’s the main game in journalistic realism for this sport I enjoy, and a lesson to others. That’s all good healthy stuff, very hard to find anywhere.
I mean, if we are going to make this personal, let’s. But why should i want my character to become so prominent as to distort things here, when all I was trying to do was convey some experiences from a so far half concluded life? This is a human being, writing, as far as I know. Not some egotist or monster. Or some weblog maven attention hound. I don’t need all that. Being a scribbler here in the comments does not heal my wounds or fix anything. It can’t. I would simply like to be taken at face value, any words or sentiments detached from my personal life as much as possible, even if I do find personal stories useful to relate to you what I mean. I won’t respond to the idea of intertwining my life with that of this blog, except as a pleasurable escape. The one thing I abhor in life is people’s silly presumptions. Pettiness is only ever a source of unnecessary emotional agitation.
For fun, this young actor Hiddleston is the spitting image of my dad, in this pic. Knocked me out how exact, down to the set of the trilby: http://i.imgur.com/tRZvU.jpg
I guess what I am saying, and I cannot bring myself yet to read the rest of this discussion, have not looked even one second, is I am either me or just me. I can’t invent some other person. I never wanted to write for a living. I don’t want to be some fiction. Hey, my dad did that to pay my way, and he was in fact a bastard, and I’ve been trying to find his dad (German, ca. 1906, mother married to military tailor suicide of note, had affair with a big customer) ever since. My dad was cool, until his older step brother passed in ’84, then became a monster. He was simply lost. I miss him like crazy every day. Because he was nutcase strong, dragged his mom out of real poverty. More and more, relentless in doing good things. And handsome too, nicking my mom, 30 years his junior. His first wife a mess up suicide, for which he never forgave himself. So he was always around me, had the time, suggesting what to be interested in. One of those things was this sport we are supposed to be talking about. I know all this, that’s my life, no sudden revelations. But I am messed up every time I think about it anew, because the bloody point of life is to go forwards, not hang about or prevaricate. I’m streaming with tears missing the guy just now, and he’s the whole blasted reason I ever made a comment here. Because I refused to write professionally, which is what he wanted. I don’t want to be asked any more why or how or for what reason I write anything. I don’t feel any entitlement to post comments here, nor any obligation. I just don’t want to be questioned why of how or for what reason I bother. My real name is John, and all I meant to do was entertain. Just as I was entertained, once, by my dad. He would have approved of this place, all if it.
I like the cartoon idea, RShack.
Robert Crumb, or Jack Kirby?
Now I wish I had learned to draw more than childish architectural projections.
I’m so sorry for my outbursts. I just read this all through. To me, all that I was on about is just boring life. But it looks bloody awful on a re read. No joy, no conclusion, no arc, just a blur. Incidentally, my family are so freaking awful, I did option the story rights, and just this Feb I jilted a national newspaper editor, ostensibly interested in a court case of mine, at the altar of a meeting, because I could feel the private spin was his stock in trade, not the real points of litigation which have public interest. Cool, I am vicariously glad to have pissed off the press establishment. My reason was not to lay any more poo on the pavement. (thinking back, that might have blown the option sale, which is my backstop to pay for my mom’s care. Talking five figures a month if she doesn’t pull through. To UKiasans, no this does not come free if you have assets. Goodbye business, goodbye future jobs for others) Even if they are modest and not meant for you. Incidentally, for any of my insight, I am a terrible businessman. I simply hate money. I once threw all my pocket money, unspent for months, out of the window. The joke goes – because I never spoke until 4 years old – that I was too busy with sussing my pop’s accounts books he was explaining to me. I would burn every dollar I ever earned for a thousand lifetimes, to hang with him just one day, again. My money grubbing family tied us up in legal hell, when pop died, and we are all guilty of sins. Some lesser. I burn dollars to regain myself. Or what my parents rejoiced once for. Screw money, there are more valid currencies.
But forget me. Have you ever read anything properly about Saint-Exupéry? I mean beyond thinking Le Petit Price is cute. It’s not cute. It’s the story of his broken love. He became a total hard nut mad man, over his girl. I privately think, on his last flight, he just gave up. Something – a very private faith – just switched off, the pilot light had no wick to reignite it. We are driven to things, we know not what. All we can do is observe. And tell. Faithfully.
The whole thing has become unwieldy, artificial and not very sporting.
I watched the Barcelona race, but Hamilton’s disqualification from pole was a mess, and so was Schumacher’s prang with Senna and quite honestly it was not a patch on earlier years, despite everyone saying how good it all was.
If all you want is ‘spectacle’ then there are other ways of doing it without transporting tons of gear and people all round the world at horrendous cost.
We either decide to go racing, with all that it entails, or we agree to do something else which looks like racing but is in fact a poor shadow of the real thing.
Tyres are now affecting the races in a far greater way than they ever did, and even the drivers are having issues with coming to terms with them. How clever is that?
The winner is the one that manages his tyres and fuel better than the others, but we have had that for years on road rallies and the like, it isn’t racing for heaven’s sake!
The Golden Goose is about to be cooked in its own fat.
Personally, I enjoy seeing them worrying about tires and fuel… seems remarkably like race car concerns to me… refreshing to see F1 engineers worrying about car-stuff as a distraction from their usual focus on building upside-down aircraft..
Crikey, thank you for getting my perspective switched! There was me, thinking Pirelli were playing the Bernie Hand Of God to pump the float. Now I am a bit more inclined to think they are having their own private fun. I mean, you’re not exactly participating, if you simply provide a boring, reliable part.
Hi Joe,
First of all I would like to say that my knowledge of the sport is probably a lot more limited than yours so please forgive my ignorance about the topic.
I actually agree with you 100% in saying that a cost cap in Formula 1 would be good and would probably be beneficial on the longer term. Difficulties to police it aside it would still make Formula 1 a technical challenge, and would probably make it more stable on the longer term.
My concern with that solution is that nobody actually cares of us, the people working in Formula 1. I love the sport, and would struggle to have a “normal” job, but since the budget restrictions have appeared the teams are now pushing all their staff to the extreme, resulting in more people suffering from depression, divorces and other issues.
Yes Formula 1 is a lifestyle more than a job, but not to the point where I end up giving up any social life and having a heart attack at 40 years old.
More and more of my colleagues are loosing interest in the job, and instead of finding stratagems to still pay the drivers stupidly high sums of money, teams could spend some time thinking about stratagems to retain their staff and increase the total amount of employees to keep the innovation going…
This is no rant of course, as I said I fully agree with the budget restriction, but it’s just a remark from a different point of view.
Jon
it is not so much creative accounting but the costs could not be discovered as part of a much larger operation elsewhere (e.g. at a car manufacturer or within its gazillion affiliates)….it is indeed unpoliceable! for sure!
you cannot make it a profit center either as an F1 team does not produce profits in itself but may make a contribution of the profitability through sponsorships…
It honestly couldn’t work, other sports have proved that with some creativity there’s always a workaround. And there’s always the danger that it could dissuade new entrants, especially manufacturers. Nice idea in theory, but utterly impractical.
A budget cap of £110million still disadvantages the bottom 6 teams according to estimates by Dun & Bradstreet for 2010.
• Ferrari £260m
• Mercedes £173m
• McLaren £137m
• Red Bull £134m
• Renault (now Lotus) £134m
• Williams £85m
• Toro Rosso £82m
• Force India £78m
• Team Lotus (now Caterham) £52m
• Sauber £46m Marussia Virgin £36m
• HRT £33m
Surely when Gp2 costs about £3million a year, then getting closer to Moseley’s $50million + extras etc., should have been the aim.
Personally I think that resource restriction would be a much simpler way to monitor and enforce; it works for engine and gearboxes. Starting the year with a maximum of 2, or 3 holomogated wing sets and a simplified rule of what constitutes a flat floor would make more sense to fans than iffy tyres.
Driver’s salaries should be a team’s key expenditure, like the old days.
It’s a nice idea. I just don’t see how you enforce it.
Holomogated parts are the easiest thing to check, you stick a label on the bits and compare them with deposited drawings.
It is how the engines are currently checked
Cost capping I can’t see ever working, but it would be very simple to set staff number limits, ie maximum of 50 staff attending races, maximum of 400 factory staff, excluding engines which would be managed separately.
Similarly simplifying the bodywork/aero changes, ie a limit of front wing design changes per season (say start with 3 sets, and you can update them twice during the year), or my preference which would be single plane bodywork would slash costs enormously, and massively reduce the available gains.
The goal being to make it realistic for a team to be competitive on a sensible budget, if big teams want to spend an extra $10million to gain 0.1 seconds then that would be fine, and economic forces would straighten that out in a couple of seasons !
don’t see the parallel between auditors being ‘ deceived’ and auditors checking on disparite companies
auditors for a single compny have no strong interest lose a customer if they upset them ; wouldn’t be the case if they were auditing ALL the F1 teams
and if RPJ thought it could be done i am sure it could
Hi John (other) still here and can’t sleep, feeling guilty because I seem to have triggered another several pages of emotional outpouring from you, maybe I should apologise, but your issues as I said, still, are best dealt with elsewhere, not in Joe’s F1 blog.
Some have suggested that I use the page down key to bypass your posts, but amongst the maelstrom, they do contain those gems of knowledge which I do not want to miss when they are relevant to the subject of the thread. You have been in advertising so know the need to grab attention in the first 3 seconds or the first line. Holding attention then is the problem. Perhaps it is my dull Sec/mod and tech college education, that often means I have to research your references, we got none of the classics at Kingston CFE. (lots of steam calculations though)
Maybe you should start your own blog, “on life, the universe, everything” (no, promise I won’t say 42) could that then allow you to be more direct and concise on here?
hey rpaco, man, sorry is all I can say, I’ve been on a bit of a rollercoaster. I never had any health worries in my life, save stupid injuries, and I have to admit I freaked out a bit lately. When I partied hard, real hard, see Kimi any day style, I gave up on talking to doctors, because their predictions were first all wrong, second all too gloomy. Once you are in that window of moral opprobrium, you just know you are not getting objectivity. So it all becomes worthless. I’m a bloody idiot for not following through, and just possible it all caught up with me. I’m not miserable or depressed or upset, or in fact much emotional (though that is obviously a relative thing, most blokes do not emote!) , just I have never actually felt unwell before. That must be driving me. I am also prepared to accept it’s a mid life crisis, because I explicitly denied that before.
The problem with what nuggets I might have to convey, is that half the reason I get personal is to convey the real idea of fallibility, by taking the mick out of myself. It’s not always so earnest. The more important half, is I was never trained to present myself seriously, something I believe they can teach you.
I reckon the best thing I can do is try to write something else, as you mention, not here. Neither do I think my silly life is good leverage to talk F1. I need to unlearn some habits, or arrest some proclivities. But I am forever indebted to your and everyone’s tolerance.
School pal of mine quit where we were, to go study engineering design at Kingston. Top place. Seems to attract petrol heads, most certainly. (he was my co conspirator in buying insane motors)
I shall find another way to compress the personal thoughts, because there are so many, I could write all day. Maybe I should. Just package it right.