F1 Fanatic

Putting the round-up together this evening I was struck by what appears to be some missing quotes on F1.com.

Autosport have a story titled “Frank Williams against cost control ‘interference’” which includes the following:

“I am against any kind of interference. I don’t want any third-party interference with one’s business, to have people sneaking around wanting to check this and that. It’s just like waiting for the taxman every day,” he told the official F1 website.

“Williams is not pleading for more restrictions. But I have said many times that we have to control driver costs.”

Obviously I prefer to link to the original source of quotes where possible so I went to F1.com looking for them. But they do not appear in the Q&A in question on F1.com as it appears for me at the moment:

http://www.formula1.com/news/interviews/2012/6/13507.html

It looks as though the quotes were in there originally but have been removed. A search for a portion of the quote yielded the following:

This gives the distinct impression the quotes Autosport have used were in the article originally but have since been removed – perhaps accidentally, certainly F1.com have not made mention of the changes. Unfortunately it seems there isn’t a cached copy.

The missing quotes don’t seem to be particularly explosive, though he is talking about money which is always liable to get someone’s back up. I’ve screengrabbed the Autosport article in case that also mysteriously vanishes – like that McLaren one did a few months ago.

Well now the interview doesn’t seem to exist at all in F1.com.

Curiouser and curiouser.

This Frank Williams’ interview from 27 June is in the Google cache, but while it does include some of the Autosport quotes, it omits the Ferrari and tax-man references, so maybe it was edited somewhat before being removed. Still some classic Frank in there – including Marlboro paying Ferrari for subliminal advertising.

@BerdMaylander, thanks for finding the cached interview. If someone’s taking bets on who got the interview removed, I’ll bet on Ferrari/Marlboro

Q: Will we see all 12 teams surviving the foreseeable future, or will the idea of third cars return?
FW: Formula One is very expensive. To keep a team running is always a struggle – finding sponsors, finding funds – for almost every team except probably Ferrari, but they have Marlboro in something that is called subliminal advertising in marketing terms. And even if the FIA say you can’t do it, they can’t prove it. (smiles)