Comments on: Talking budget caps on TV tonight

By: Vesa

Vesa — Sun, 17 May 2009 15:03:22 +0000

Budget cap would bring new “Alex Yoong’s” back to F1, simply because they would buy their seat in f1 from teams that barely can afford to be in f1! Moving chicanes!

By: Mike

Mike — Sat, 16 May 2009 02:24:27 +0000

Everybody says a 2-tier system won’t work and yet the big teams and some commentators say the “capped” cars would be 1-2 seconds a lap faster, just due to their aero freedoms. If that’s the case why don’t all the big teams choose to become capped teams, then we’d have a level playing field again. They all claim to be aiming to cut their costs. No fan should care how LITTLE any team spends, as long as we have fast and CLOSE racing.

Mosley bribed Ferrari to break the original manufacturers’ teams alliance. It has been said recently that Ferrari, as a brand, commands more sponsoship dollars than any other team, by a big margin. Without a budget cap, Ferrari could dominate for a decade, just like they did a few years back. That wasn’t proper racing.

I agree this dispute is as much about governance as about budgets. Either or both Mosley’s intransigence and Ecclestone’s greed could destroy F1, but they would destroy their own influence in the process. Maybe that’s what we all really need, distasteful as it might be, until a new F1 rises from the ashes.

We live in tumultuous times. Who would have predicted GM being in, or even close to, banruptcy? F1 cannot be immune to the changes in finance and credit availability.

By: Selidor

Selidor — Fri, 15 May 2009 15:11:12 +0000

To sum up my feelings:
Budget caps are a good and necessary idea, but they need to be implemented better and differently than how Max is currently proposing.

By: Lustigson

Lustigson — Fri, 15 May 2009 14:01:14 +0000

Good to hear you’ve been on the box again, Keith. Is there any way we Continentals can see the interview online?

By: Bigbadderboom

Bigbadderboom — Fri, 15 May 2009 10:54:40 +0000

Congrats Keith, good job, you came across very well, got a nice plug for the site as well.

By: Simon

Simon — Fri, 15 May 2009 07:26:03 +0000

Bernie and Max have done a lot for F1 over the years and it would not be the spectacle that it is today without them, however. They have become arrogant and heavy-handed in the way the dictate terms to the teams. Wouldn’t it be great if Ron Dennis was secretly putting together a new series that would mean F1 would no longer exist and perhaps F-Zero would be born and all the teams including Ferrari chose to compete in this series and not F1, leaving Max with nothing to Govern and Bernie with a worthless license. I expect Max to back down as bullys always back down if you stand up to them.

By: Bhudi

Bhudi — Fri, 15 May 2009 06:30:35 +0000

Budget cap proposal is unrealistic – your telling teams that spend 300 – 400 million a year to put on the same show next year for 40 million? Say you earn $400 a week and your boss suddenly said I’m going to pay you $40 a week to live the same life – you think that would be a realistic and fair? The answer is too obvious…
Two tiered – I’ll stop watching
Ferrari leave – I’ll stop watching
The FIA need to slow their approach to this whole process, and look at making gradual changes. And I think it is time for Max Mosley to stand aside…

By: ILoveVettel

ILoveVettel — Fri, 15 May 2009 06:23:42 +0000

I completely agree with you scunnyman….
Keith you should present an article on your interview…..

By: scunnyman

scunnyman — Fri, 15 May 2009 01:24:06 +0000

Keith is there any chance of you doing an article about your television appearances please so those of us who can’t watch SKY NEWS so we can get an idea of how it went and what questions were asked and how you answered.

Maybe there is someone who has a video capture card who may have the videos of you and can upload them here for us to watch.

By: Rabi

Rabi — Thu, 14 May 2009 20:34:57 +0000

Keith could you make a written request for them to release your segments over the internet through their sports pages or give you a low quality versiont that you can put on here? Offer them an advertising space or something lol

By: H_cuddle

H_cuddle — Thu, 14 May 2009 20:29:49 +0000

I’m not against a CAP as long as it’s done together with all involved parties, and it has to be done gradualy.

One thing that no one seams to talk about is the jobs that will be lost if this cap is implemented. Many people are working in development/testing/manufacturing and these are areas that would suffer very much under a cap.

It’s not very smart from FIA in this hard economic times and the high unemployment rats in the world to make sure that even more people lose their jobs, and it’s not only people in the companies that will suffer, many people connected to the companies will get a swing of the sword.

By: Keith Collantine

Keith Collantine — Thu, 14 May 2009 20:24:16 +0000

Thanks for all your kind comments guys – sorry I’ve not got any video of it to share with you, will try and get it sorted in case they have me on again.

It’s fascinating getting to go on these things and seeing how it all works behind these scenes. Was looking at the monitors they have tuned in to all the rival stations to make sure they aren’t missing anything (BBC, CNN and Fox). That particular show I was on, even though it’s just a 30-minute segment on a 24-hour news channel, looked very complicated, the present was always up and moving around, going over to the big video wall and having to keep up with all the different graphics. Very impressive.

By: Keith Collantine

Keith Collantine — Thu, 14 May 2009 20:21:11 +0000

The chap who interview me (Matt) mentioned afterwards we’d got an extra minute, that’s the way these things go I guess.

By: Keith Collantine

Keith Collantine — Thu, 14 May 2009 20:17:57 +0000

Sorry I’ve not got a video recording card thing – will get one sorted soon for this kind of thing.

By: Keith Collantine

Keith Collantine — Thu, 14 May 2009 20:17:19 +0000

Thanks! In the ad break before the interview I took a look at his script which had “F1Fanatic.com” on it. So I leaned over and made a quick correction…

By: John H

John H — Thu, 14 May 2009 20:14:40 +0000

Nice work. They seem to plug f1fanatic quite well at the end

By: Toby Thwaites 93

Toby Thwaites 93 — Thu, 14 May 2009 19:54:00 +0000

Am i right in saying Bernie made the teams sign an agreement that they wouldnt split up and form a new championship away from FIA or something?

By: HounslowBusGarage

HounslowBusGarage — Thu, 14 May 2009 19:04:05 +0000

I meant to finish that brief comment with-
The internet blog has really come of age when mainstrema media rely on the expert blogger!

By: HounslowBusGarage

HounslowBusGarage — Thu, 14 May 2009 19:02:15 +0000

Congratulations Keith!

By: sean

sean — Thu, 14 May 2009 18:56:19 +0000

Hope you told them that MAX has caused all the problems in F1,by continually changing reg’s since the mid 90’s.
Everyone is saying that the teams spend to much etc etc and must be reigned in but the real cause is from the cars shape and performance being altered on a yearly basis.Noone is stopping these other teams from joining,the manufacturers are not saying they can’t afford it and their about to leave.MAX has started this and now it’s up to us and the team’s to get ride of him he’s a cancer cut him out.