Haas prove resources aren’t everything – Magnussen

F1 Fanatic Round-up

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In the round-up: Ex-Renault and McLaren driver Kevin Magnussen says his new team Haas show what can be achieved without the resources of the wealthiest teams.

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@Proesterchen points out another problem with a budget cap:

Imposing budget caps on well-capitalized teams like Mercedes, Red Bull, Ferrari and so would force them to fire hundreds of highly-skilled, well-payed, securely-employed people each. It would force the entire industry into decline. (not to speak of the impact on said people and their families.)

And for what? So that teams that are OK spending at the current levels are forced to take a profit instead?
@Proesterchen

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65 comments on “Haas prove resources aren’t everything – Magnussen”

  1. WeatherManNX01
    20th January 2017, 0:11

    Please, please, PLEASE, let Bernie be on the way out.

    He revolutionized the sport and grew it and its revenues, but his time has come and gone. He clearly has no clue what’s going on around him, and all that matters now is how much money he can get.

    1. Sith lords don’t step aside.

      1. The ‘h’ is in the wrong place.

        1. +1 Goodbyyyyye Bernie! *happy dance*

    2. I don’t see any reason why Liberty Media should fire him, he is very good at his job, and I’m sure he can change tune when asked to. That doesn’t mean I agree with what he has done, I don’t, but as far as I can tell (at least from the TV rights perspective) Liberty Media’s CEO’s comments seem to be consistent with Bernie’s own philosophy.

      1. Bernie Ecclestone is not “very good at his job”. Not even close.

        Every action of his in recent years has seen the sport decline in the interests of his own bank account. F1 has become unstable, grossly unfair, unable to attract outside investment, and is doing its best to destroy teams who want nothing more than to compete in F1. He has made the sport drop classic European GPs in historic locations, and replaced them with awful tracks in lands run by dictators. He takes a hugely disproportionate salary from the sport’s earnings, a salary he no longer deserves.

        The only way F1 can flourish is for Bernie to leave – or get kicked out.

      2. Bernie does do good job getting the tracks and setting it all up financially. But when it comes to sporting decisions his ideas are just plain horrible. Double points, the qualifying catastrophe format and all the crazy stuff he says. And when you add his total ignorance of the way people consume sports there are just too many things where he is hopelessly out of date.

  2. I’m not a fan of people saying what they think the Schumacher family should or shouldn’t do. You know who knows? The Schumacher family.

    If you were a fan of Michael’s, or even a co-worker, great. You got to see him race, and you got to enjoy years of achievement. You have a right to be concerned for his health, and you have a right to care.

    You don’t have a right to information. You don’t have a right to dictate the terms on which he and his family go through probably one of the biggest, most difficult tragedies of their lives, and you damn well do not have a right to demand that it be made a spectacle for your viewing enjoyment.

    If you’re ever unlucky enough to go through this kind of tragedy, your life quickly becomes totally out of your control in a way that is impossible to imagine for people who haven’t gone through it. Every day is a struggle and a new challenge. You want to support a sportsman whose career you enjoyed? Let him and his family dictate the terms of their new existence. Period.

    1. +1, they don’t owe us any more

    2. Perfectly said. That right there is tomorrows COTD.

    3. Personally I think it is stupid of them to not say anything and hide how bad/good he is doing. Personally I think that even him being able to speak into a telephone (the example that Weber uses in the interview) would probably be too much to ask.
      I think fans are keeping false hope to ever see him even walking around and talking. And the family helps them keep that hope (and the families hope??) up. Also it makes tabloids keep interest (because they know people would read it)

      1. @bascb fully agree. Michael was a public figure with many fans, to just cut everyone off without a word is something I don’t understand. But it is up to the family and I respect that. On the other hand I no longer care what happens next because I’m kept in the dark. A simple ‘he’s doing fine, but has a long way to go’ would go a long way.

      2. Doesn’t matter what your opinion is, or mine.

        It’s their choice.

      3. I personally agree with all of that @bascb; Though I do have some sympathy for the family not wanting to do so and thus admit to not just the world but themselves that hope is slim for much recovery, as you say.

      4. It isn’t stupid for the family to not say anything because not saying anything is part of what they believe is best for Michael and themselves. You don’t need new information to keep praying for him and his family.

        1. I do think that it is unwise of them @drycrust. I can understand it (afterall, Schumacher allways used to be quite protective of his privacy), and they have every right to do as they see fit. But it doesn’t suddenly make it a good choice.

          I don’t need any new information at all, no. And as I mentioned, I never really expected to hear anything positive since we learned of his injuries. This is not about me.

    4. Roth Man (@rdotquestionmark)
      20th January 2017, 9:32

      Absolutely spot on. It’s their business and their business only.

    5. petebaldwin (@)
      20th January 2017, 10:34

      That is true however you have to be realistic and the fact is that stories will continue to be created whether they are true or not until the Schumacher family says something. With all the money they have, they could hire a PR firm to deal with this and provide non-descript updates that tell you nothing but make you feel like you’re in the loop…

      If you walk up to someone with a coin in your hand and say “look, I have a coin”, no-one will care. If you close your hand and walk up to people and say “I can’t tell you what you have in my hand”, people will be desperate to find out what you are hiding from them even though it doesn’t matter. It’s just how humans work.

      1. Roth Man (@rdotquestionmark)
        20th January 2017, 11:09

        Yes but you’d have to assume that they are getting their wish of privacy because nothing has been leaked at all regarding Michael’s health. So that’s all that really matters. If people external to their family want to make up stories then so be it, leave them to it. I just find it bizarre that someone like Weber would insinuate the family is doing something ‘wrong.’

      2. @petebaldwin Realistically no PR firm feeding ‘non-descript’ nothings would stem the flow of tabloidy shark like behaviour…it would only feed them.

        And if someone walked up to me and told me they can’t tell me what they have in their hand I’d just walk away and not waste my time. I certainly wouldn’t feel ‘desperate’ to know. I’ve just been told I won’t know.

      3. What you’re saying is, because journalists have nothing better to do than bother people dealing with a personal tragedy, those people should open up to the public.

        Hell no.

        Respect their wishes, stop making crap up, and leave them alone. If that wasn’t what they wanted, they would have said so by now.

        To go back to your coin analogy, what’s really happening is you’re minding your own business, and people keep coming up to you demanding to know what’s in your pocketssses– and when you refuse to tell them, they start making up stories about what you’ve got, why you’ve got it, and where you got it.

        They are bottom-feeding pond scum with no trace of decency, humanity or empathy left in them. Anyone who buys their magazines, or pays their subscriptions, or supports this sort of “journalism”, is equally complicit in harassing the Schumacher family.

        1. @grat Well said. Sadly entities have only gotten better at making fake news look real and getting more people to believe it, so all the more reason the Schumacher family keep completely private. That way they stand the best chance at fake news truly being only one possibility…fake, not that it will stop some slime from trying anyway.

        2. petebaldwin (@)
          20th January 2017, 20:37

          I’m not suggesting they aren’t bottom-feeding pond scum or that they are decent people. I’m saying they are going to keep doing it – that’s the world we live in. It may only be the business of the family but if people grow up idolising someone and are left without any sort of closure on the situation, there will always be a desire to know if he’s OK.

          I guess the best way to explain it is that when I think of past drivers, I always think back on their F1 careers… If someone says Hakkinen, I think of his overtake at Spa. If someone mentions Bianchi, I think of his result at Monaco… You celebrate their successes because that is what defined them. When someone mentions Schumi, I just get really sad and hope he’s OK and you can sense it on the F1 coverage – there isn’t showing him driving at the moment in any of the clips they use and when he is mentioned, the mood goes very sombre.

          I’m not suggesting they should go public to appease me or anyone who cares about Michael as none of us would want that against their wishes – I just don’t see how they are going to be able to stop speculation from being printed unless they find a way of giving people some sort of closure.

    6. @helava I agree completely. And I think it is incorrect to assume that going public would put tabloidy speculation to rest. It wouldn’t. The family is already speaking volumes in their silence. They are saying this is the way it is. For me they are saying just remember Michael the way you last saw him or saw him throughout his career. That’s what he would want.

      1. Roth Man (@rdotquestionmark)
        20th January 2017, 12:30

        I agree completely @robbie. Their silence is very dignified and tells me all I need to know. I just wish them all well. Anyone that can’t accept that is just being nosey.

    7. Sorry but what is wrong with at least telling his fans what his state is. We are concerned and hope for the best!

      1. Nothing is wrong with it. But whether they want to or not is up to the family. Telling people against the families wishes is categorically wrong.

    8. Absolutely well said. I couldn’t have put it better.

  3. F1 teams won’t ever profit, they will always spend as much as they can.

    1. Oh I think most of them profit hugely by marketing their brands globally. They’re not just in F1 because they’re racers and it’s a bottomless black hole of a money pit and they have it to burn. It’s not all about what returns they get directly from F1 in money distribution.

  4. The only woman featured in that Red Bull video was a cleaner :\

    I liked it besides that though, hype intensifies!

    1. I noticed too, a shame as end had the first female on the F1 podium I think….

      1. Previous female on an F1 podium was Virginia Williams, replacing her husband Frank after his accident over 30 years ago. But why would a Team Principal check that before stating it…

    2. Roth Man (@rdotquestionmark)
      20th January 2017, 9:21

      I’m sure Red Bull will employ based on who’s best for the job and that alone.

    3. It wasnt a black cleaner though.

      1. Was she Mexican by any chance?

  5. It’s not Haas, it’s McLaren that teaches us that “resources aren’t everything”.

    1. I’d say it’s Ferrari.. they get by fár the most money off the top of the 5 teams that get money off the top and they are the most wanted team by sponsors I would presume and they sell cars to finance their racing as Enzo used to say.

      Yet, they have been terrible relative to their budget/the competition for almost a decade now.

      1. @jeffreyj, have Ferrari really been that terrible compared to their budget?

        I know that, in 2015 (the most recent year for which figures seem to have been published), the general consensus was that Mercedes and Red Bull had larger operating budgets than Ferrari, which was reckoned to have only the 4th largest budget in the sport as FCA have substantially cut back on the amount of money they contribute to the team.

        It is well known that Mercedes have been spending extremely heavily on their team and their engine division (which has been split out from the race team, whereas Ferrari’s engine team is embedded within their race team). As for Red Bull, they have the benefit that Renault is doing most of the heavy spending on powertrain development – if you look at the V8 era, that effectively gave Red Bull a €120 million a year subsidy (which is what Renault were spending on their engines, with Red Bull getting free engines and full factory support).

        With regards to results, since 2006 Ferrari have won the WCC twice, finished 2nd three times and 3rd four times: at worst, they have dropped to 4th place twice. McLaren, which has had a comparable budget over much of that period (being factory backed for much of it), has managed three 2nd place finishes in the WCC (you could argue about it being 4 if they hadn’t been disqualified in 2007) and three 3rd places.
        Since 2013, McLaren’s form has been the worst in their history for about four decades – the last time they had such a long sustained downturn in competitiveness was from 1978-1981. I’d agree with Gary that, despite the image that McLaren give out, they have been one of the less effective teams at managing their resources in recent years.

        1. @anon Ferrari have no excuse what so ever.

          According to Autosport (april ’16), Ferrari get the most of all of the top 5 highest paid teams: €20m more than Mercedes, €50m more than RedBull and over €100m more than Williams and McLaren…..

          http://www.autosport.com/news/report.php/id/123649

  6. Regarding Bell’s statements on Honda’s “progress” –

    “Honda’s progress has been very impressive,” Bell told Autosport. “They’ve done a great job and it’s great to see them up there.

    See them up where? What on earth are these people smoking?

    1. Well they did consistently outperform Renault in 2016, so maybe by “up there” he means “up ahead of us”.

    2. @todfod

      They went from burning through a few engines a weekend while trundling round with the Manors in 15, to scoring some points in 16, which, considering the limitations on testing and development, is pretty impressive.

      1. The Honda engine made great progress, the McLaren chassis? not so much. On tracks like monaco, singapore and hungary, where the engine is less of a factor, the Mclaren designed car and aero should have shined but they were no where on those tracks just as much as they were nowhere in Italy, Mexico and Baku.

        McLaren were behind Merc,Williams and often Force India while all having the Mercedes hybrid V6 engines in 2014 and even in 2013 they were fighting Force India’s rather than RedBull’s Mercedes’ and Ferrari’s. Mclaren’s problem is not just the Honda engine. They have been bad relative to their budget for years.

        1. I think the mclaren aero performance has been hard to judge as it will not have been in its operating window. Due to lack of power. It probably was made anticipating more power, sometimes more drag could be accepted. We won’t know till engine and aero line up. Probably the mechanical grip we can judge. It looked OK.

      2. @beneboy

        They went from being 2.2 seconds a lap down on Mercedes in Abu Dhabi 2015 to being 1.9 seconds a lap down on Mercedes in Abu Dhabi 2016. If it wasn’t for Renault and Sauber’s disastrous season… and the fact that a Toro Rosso was fitted with a year old Ferrari engine, I reckon Mclaren would finish in the same position they did in 2015.

        Considering Mclaren are one in three teams that have a full constructor status (PU + Chassis development), they have been pretty poor on all fronts. As I’ve mentioned earlier, anything above ground zero is considered progress, but I would be shocked if any Mclaren or Honda engineer patted themselves on the back after the 2016 season.

  7. I agree with Kevin. But I still think between Haas and Renault, the latter offers a better future proposition.

    Even if the team leader don’t see eye to eye at the moment, if the result don’t appear, eventually the big bosses will come and revamp the structure, so yes, it might take a long time, but I am pretty sure Renault will reach the front runners, the same is hard to imagine for Haas atm. At the end resources will always equal performance.

  8. Yeah terrible. Haas proves, if You get Ferrari chassis, Ferrari engine, and your own crew, you are a good midfield team

    Maybe Ferrari need to make better chassis.

    1. And force India proved already that, they are efficient with what they have. Form day one Haas has been arrogant.

    2. Haas proves that Ferrari are a better racing team, better in setup etc. And that is with all the crappy strategy of Ferrari this year.
      If anything Haas has been underwhelming if not for there early season success (lucky), they were pretty crappy. I remember the testing photos with the broken of nose and remember how much they struggled with brakes and set up…

  9. I’m glad to read that Massa was happy to be offered another year, not that they were going to or ever could force him to do something he didn’t absolutely want to do. For those who think his return has sullied those glorious moments in Brazil, FM is fine and happy, so get over that.

    1. ofcourse Massa was happy and excited to be back, because he never wanted to retire in the first place. Williams needed Lance Stroll (and his dad) more, so they showed Massa the door in a polite manner, and him having no other prospects in F1, chose to half-heartedly retire.

      Those glorious moments in Brazil being sullied are not the problem, but the fact that Massa (at least in his older years) is just not good or exciting enough anymore.

      1. Well he’s good and exciting enough for Williams, and who knows, maybe he’ll be a surprise, depending on the car of course, knowing as Claire has pointed out he’s just there for a year and can just have fun.

      2. Didn’t Massa brought more sponsorship to Williams than Bottas? If it was all about the money than Williams would have gone for Stoll and Massa, no?

        The truth is, Bottas is worth several tenths in quali and several seconds/positions in the race relative to Massa and that is also worth several tens of millions in price money. If Stroll is anywhere near Massa’s level, the surplus of Stroll money is a win. In other words, Massa was fired because he wasn’t good enough.

        With Rosberg retiring and Merc calling for Bottas, Williams had slim pickins if they want an experienced driver. I read Kovalainen supposedly offered himself, then there’s Vergne and they could have maybe picked up Kvyat earlier in the season (after the Verstappen switch at RBR). The ideal situation would have been Button, but he already signed a 2 year contract with McLaren to take a sabatical in the first year and be there in case Alonso leaves after 2017.

        So, in the end they came back to Massa who knows the team, is very experienced and didn’t want to quit by his own choosing in the place….

        Overall Williams are the big losers of Nico’s retirement because with Bottas gone they now have the same ol’ Felippe Massa and a rookie who is probably going to struggle to match Massa. They might also get Paddy Low, so I guess they see that’s a good thing for the longterm. But otoh the rumours of him leaving for Williams were already there before Nico retired, so I don’t see how this wouldn’t have happened anyway.

        1. I agree with you on Massa, but perhaps with Bottas gone he will revive in a team leader role. Be hard to tell though as I doubt Stroll will match him. So its a bit like the year Maldonado won for them? 2012? They had an awesome car that season hamstrung by two pay drivers, although I do believe Maldonado was at times genuinely quick. Senna, nice bloke but…

    2. You had noticed that it wasn’t actually Massa himself making the statements to the press but Claire Williams?

  10. Ericsson takes free practice as a preparation for Q3.
    Did he ever made it into Q3??

    1. good point, he barely made Q2 all year! i guess he wanted to say Q1

  11. As per the QOTD, isn’t it interesting that we’re so concerned about highly-trained professionals who would easily be able to snag a 6-figure salary virtually anywhere because of having F1 on their CV? Don’t worry about the human rights violations that have went into building some of the new tracks, or that there is a trend of putting races in locales that have extreme levels of economic disparity. Let’s just accept that F1 is completely corrupt and unethical and get on with enjoying the soap opera drama of Hamilton’s latest haircut. Shame on Liberty for believing in integrity.

  12. Don’t worry about the human rights violations that have went into building some of the new tracks, or that there is a trend of putting races in locales that have extreme levels of economic disparity.

    Please do expand on some of the human rights violations that have occurred when building new tracks?? And since when did putting an F1 race track in places that have a socio-economic disparity cause any additional harm?

    Please do give your logic on this one. Considering I come from a country with one of the biggest socio economic disparities in the world, I would love to hear more about the ill effects of making a race track in one of these areas?

  13. Replying on COTD.

    It looks like 200-250 employees at Manor are about to lose their jobs.
    The reason for that are those well-capitalized teams that are grabbing most of the prize money for themselves so that they could fund themselves, leaving almost nothing to others.
    Are any of the top teams worried for Manor’s employees? I don’t think so.

    Is it really necessary for those well-capitalized teams to have around 800 employees?

    Current top teams are oversized and over-budgeted and that has to change for the good of Formula 1.
    I agree that budget caps won’t do that, but limiting number of employees, distributing prize money in fairer way, simplifying technical regulations will.

    I would rather have 15 teams with average of 400 employees and a healthy budgets, than what we have now.

  14. I find the COTD quite over-the-top—sending the industry into decline? Actually, a salary cap would be the easiest part of a budget cap to design and enforce. Perhaps Mercedes and Ferrari would be forced to shed talent—but as the argument goes, they’d also be the best-placed teams to simply move them into another division in their company. Alternatively, they could be picked up by other teams with room to expand in their cap.

    And worrying about teams being “forced” to take profits? If they took profits, they’d actually have money to create companies to spin-off their technology—and hire more people in the process. And if these spinoffs are so successful that they generate their own innovation that works its way back into the race cars? That’s not “financial doping”—that’s a healthy business model for the sport.

    In any case, the biggest targets for cost savings when it comes to salary are probably not going to be the entry-level engineers making $50,000. It’ll be the stars—the ones who actually take home the bulk of the payroll. One Adrian Newey is worth 200 of those entry-level engineers. Sebastian Vettel is worth 1000 of those guys. If cost savings are to be had in salaries, they’ll likely be had on the backs of the richest, and is that really so bad?

    And lest people think they’d never get those cuts out of top drivers like Vettel, a salary cap changes the incentive structure for hires. Under a cap, Vettel could allow Ferrari to hire 50 more engineers making $100,000 to help him get that Ferrari title he so dearly wants—if he’d just take a mere 10% pay cut. For comparison, the greatest quarterback in the NFL, Tom Brady of the New England Patriots, has accepted salaries roughly 50% below his market value the past few seasons—and most of the team’s other stars have taken similar cuts as well, which has helped them remain the best team in the league.

    A cost cap doesn’t even need to necessarily reduce the overall amount of money being spent in order to be beneficial—it can improve parity simply by forcing a more even distribution of the most expensive star talent. That creates a virtuous cycle, as making smaller teams more competitive will make it easer for them to find sponsorship. It’s not just about cutting costs, but also generating growth through stability.

  15. If Weber has any respect left for Schumacher, he should respect the wishes of his family. I do not think Michael would be impressed by him publicly disrespecting the wishes of his family.

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