Sporting Business
If Prodrive ever do make it to the grid, there will be another very fierce rivalry to cope with. Not only will we have McLaren vs Ferrari, and Alonso vs. The World, we will have to contend with Prodrive vs. Williams.
David Richards has had a bit of a rant about Williams, upset that they played such an integral role in blocking his 2008 F1 entry. He’s called them outdated, and financially unstable, and my favourite quote of all:
“It’s run by people who want to go motor racing, not by people who want to run a business.”
Because that is so outrageous, you know, people in motor sport actually wanting to race!
Seriously though, we all know that it wasn’t completely Williams fault – they threatened legal action if the team entered, but they couldn’t have actually done anything to stop the team participating. The real issues lie, as all of them seem to do, with the Concorde Agreement. Or perhaps, with the lack of a Concorde Agreement.
Without this, it’s almost impossible to plan ahead, to secure sponsors, and therefore, get your entry together.
Richards continues his rant against the lack of support for customer cars:
“There’s no other way of allowing people to come in. And once the Concorde Agreement is written, then it’ll be very difficult to change things.”
I think that is the point of the Concorde Agreement, isn’t it? It’d be no good creating the document and then just changing it two minutes later.
This whole argument just brings up the age-old question: Is F1 a sport or a business?
Clearly, it’s trying to be both, and therefore, as another age-old saying goes, you can’t please everybody.
March 6th, 2008 at 9:20 pmthe Blue Orange Lion said:
It’s a messy business with all the agreements and underwater currents because general public has no idea what’s in the Concorde Agreement, even Joe Saward only sighs when he talks about it, weird statement though from Super Dave, on the other hand if Toro Rosso and Super Aguri allowed to compete - why can’t Prodrive to the same thing? Obviously, McLaren chassis would allow them to do nicely this season, I feel sorry for Gary Paffett - the guy deserves to compete in F1 and Prodrive seemed like his only chance for 2008…
Speaking about the definition of F1 here’s an opinion from the the garrulous Ulsterman: http://www.itv-f1.com/News_Article.aspx?PO_ID=41867
“There’s a quote attributed to Ernest Hemingway when he said: ‘There are only three sports: bullfighting, motor racing and mountaineering; all the rest are merely games,’” Irvine wrote in a column for The Guardian newspaper.
***
I’ll need five tons of caffeine to stay awake during the Melbourne race next week…
March 6th, 2008 at 9:27 pmthe Blue Orange Lion said:
probably ‘DO’ the same thing…
That’s a good one! ‘the the’??? Ha-ha! Sorry, I was watching Pulp Fiction last night - woke up at like 1:00 AM and had to watch the goddamn film, I’m glad I didn’t write any swear-words!
[comment moderated]
March 7th, 2008 at 2:02 amme said:
PLEASE NOTE:
guys, i have no idea what’s going on today, but either you’ve all been drinking red bull, or the excitement of the upcoming season is beginning to get you.
i’ve just had to send x3 comments to the moderation bin. and that’s never happened before.
please, please calm down y’all and maybe take five mins to re-read our comment policy.
try and keep things opinionated but friendly, it’s a family show after all.
sheeeesh.
March 7th, 2008 at 2:41 pmMahir Cn Doganay said:
Funny as if I would pick one team that wants to race rather than run a business, then it should be Williams.
March 7th, 2008 at 7:34 pmChristine said:
You’ve scared everyone off now.
March 7th, 2008 at 7:39 pmDan Brunell said:
All professional sports are a businesses… it just happens that F1 is more of a business than other sports. Because the management structure is so fractured among other things.
I really wish Prodrive was in this year… I always like a fresh face on the grid (as long as the pick a color other than white and blue in their livery.) As for the customer car debate creeping back, I really do not see the problem that Williams have with it.
It not like teams use roughly the same 4-5 engines, 2-3 sets of brakes, and many standard parts. Has that created a unfair advantage in the constructors championship? Plus, if Williams is successful this year… they could in turn sell their chassis to other teams. It just a ridiculous situation.
March 7th, 2008 at 10:24 pmthe Blue Orange Lion said:
Hmm, where’s me comment??? Gone with da wind???
March 7th, 2008 at 10:37 pmthe Blue Orange Lion said:
I dunno what happened - me laptop going wild ot wot? But it’s gone - so I’ll have to do it again.
A bit of both with some red red wine…
I thought it was more like ‘Sheena is a punk rocker’???
My failed Johnny Rotten imitation!!!
Anyway, I’ll lend my personal blog to those interested in swearing fair and square and without any limitations. Look for the e-mail at the bottom of the page - it has to be related to F1, please.
Swear-words are featured heavily in all European languages, there are even dictionaries of coarse slang, me used to study linguistics so it’s a subjects close to my heart. OK, good bye, good night, adios, hey-ho-let’s-go!!! Whoo-hoo!!!
March 7th, 2008 at 10:54 pmme said:
sorry, dropped into spam. fixed now.
probably due to my hatchet job the other night. will keep an eye on it.
based on the other night, i’ve concluded that once someone starts then male bravado kicks in and the next guy has to swear even more. eventually it’ll become a self perpetuating swear-fest.
anyhow, i’ll pop over to your blog for some bad language later on. cheers!
March 10th, 2008 at 8:00 amF1Wolf said:
I am happy the whole customer car thing went out of the window …
Super Aguri and Toro Rosso made use of some loopholes in the rules. Although I never seen anything official, only talk about talks, there is or should be, some sort of agreement that these 2 teams have 2 years to become proper constuctors.
With all the standard this, standard that, freeze on this, freeze on that, four races this, 2 races that, allowing team to buy complete cars would simply turn F1 into GP2 or A1 in few years …