Sidepodcast

Super Aguri have been gone only 24 hours, and already the drivers are looking for the next step. I imagine it will be difficult for them to get a decent drive mid-way through the season, but you never know what’s going to happen, or who’s going to get the boot.

Davidson, in particular, has been very vocal about his desire to continue in the sport.

“I really feel it’s unfinished business for me in formula one. I feel it’s where I belong. You only begin to realise just how much you love it when it’s taken away from you.”

And also:

“I definitely feel I’ve done enough to show people that I’m quick, can race, give excellent feedback, always do a solid and professional job, and when it’s under my control, bring the car home.”

I suppose the big worry for Ant at the moment, besides finding a job, is that he might end up another Alex Wurz - always testing. Now, it’s different for Wurz because he had his chance at racing and found that he didn’t like it so much. Davidson, meanwhile, is desperate to keep racing, but he just seems to be a much better test driver.

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It was with particular disappointment that I read of Super Aguri’s struggles getting into the Istanbul paddock yesterday. My dismay came not from the desire to see the team find a safe passage to race next Sunday, but rather because I hoped they had just stayed home this week.

I appreciate this is an incredibly harsh thing to be thinking, and I’m also aware that amongst F1 fans I’m in the minority here. The problem for me is this whole process has now been publicly dragged out for far too long, leaving the Oxfordshire outfit with little dignity at the end of the day.

It’s been pointed out to me by several people during the past couple of weeks that it was SS United defaulting on sponsorship payments, that led the team into their current predicament. We know Aguri lost almost $30 million after the contributing company failed to make an expected second payment, but there was also an additional $10 million missing from the coffers after Giedo van der Garde’s sponsors failed to honour any payment.

Now these two issues may be entirely unconnected, but I’m seeing a pattern emerging here. Someone must be responsible for the failure to land the supposed income and it isn’t helped by the fact that to all intents and purposes SS United Group don’t appear to exist.

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• File: Episode53.m4a
• Length: 34:29
• Size: 31.7 MB
• Transcript: episode53.pdf

Last week we looked at the drivers taking to the grid, these week we look closer at the 2008 contenders - the teams, how they’ve changed and how they will fare.

Intro

A quick update on the status of my bad luck - this week is better but I have proof that last week was the worst ever.

Good Week / Bad Week

Bernie Ecclestone gets someone onside, Super Aguri can’t find anyone, Fuji are looking to stay in the sport, and which one is Pinocchio Schumacher?

News and Views

Alonso has his main sponsor following him around, so does that means he’s a pay driver? We’re worried about the state of mind of Toyota drivers, they seem unable to stick to an opinion. And we briefly recap a very wet testing session, and discover we’re looking forward to the return of a previously disliked figure.

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The usual process of including guest posts on a blog is for the owner to ask some of their favourite writers to come up with a piece or two to be featured. As you well know, Sidepodcast likes to do things a different way. The Facebook Group has plenty of fascinating discussions going on, and we want to bring those to the main site. The idea is for you guys to write your opinions and entries over on the group, and then we pick the best ones for feature over here on Sidepodcast. Sort of self-selecting guest bloggers, if you will. If you want to get your name in bright lights, just join the group and get writing. We read everything and everyone will be considered.

The first blog entry comes courtosy of Dan Brunell, our guest blogger guinea pig, and focuses on the plight of Super Aguri and what it means for the future of F1.

As “me” and Christine have so eloquently pointed out, Super Aguri is in serious trouble. If they last the year it will be an achievement. If they get someone to buy them it would be a miracle. However, is their slow demise a sign of things to come in F1?

It’s an understatement to say that F1 is an expensive sport. Advertising arrangements with some teams are in the tens of millions of pounds. Manufacturers themselves pour in hundreds of millions of pounds. The strong economy of the last few years have allowed many auto manufacturers and companies to spend their efforts in F1. However, as the economy goes from bull to bear and wallets get tightened; their hefty spending on F1 might be one of the first things to go from the ledger sheet.

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At the tail end of last year, on the 30th December to be precise, a Formula 1 related video documentary aired in the UK on ITV4. You may not have heard of it, I imagine most people didn’t know it was on because ITV didn’t bother to promote it.

I didn’t see any advertisements for the program, and no mention was made on their F1 website, so you can be excused if you missed it. We only heard about it because a friend of ours texted to suggest we tune in. The documentary was entitled “Life Behind Lewis”.

As it happened, we were busy at the time the program aired, so we threw the details into the PVR and went about our business. This week we managed to catch up and it turns out we got it completely wrong. The show had nothing to do with Lewis Hamilton, and made no reference to his dad at all. It was in fact a documentary about Anthony Davidson. The ‘Behind Lewis’ premise being something to do with following the McLaren driver from some distance.

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The Oxford Times ran a rather concerning story yesterday, detailing the anticipated loss of 30 jobs from Super Aguri’s Leafield factory, in the not so distant future.

The team are having to cut back due to a lack of funds, after sponsor SS United failed to make agreed payments earlier this year. There is hope that the employees affected will be picked up by other teams within the area.

On its own this isn’t a massive problem for Formula 1. Super Aguri had a fantastic 2nd year, exceeding all expectations and the lack of sponsorship payment could be considered a minor disruption. There is further trouble brewing for the team though, as an article on grandprix.com pointed out, customer cars will probably be banned from 2009 onwards:

[Super Aguri] was always aimed as being in an F1 in which customer cars would be allowed. It seems that this will still happen but only until the end of 2009 when all the teams will have to become constructors in their own right.

Finding a replacement for SS United, especially one that could fund the step from customer to constructor, could prove troublesome.

Brad Spurgeon extrapolates the idea further in the post F1 Speculative Fiction, in which he looks into his crystal ball to a future without customer cars (and then some). It doesn’t paint a very rosy picture, in fact if such things come to pass it’ll be very hard to tell the difference between F1 and A1GP.

I’m all for entrants having to construct their own cars. In principle it sounds like the ideal benchmark, but if such a requirement becomes reality then they’ll be more than 30 people looking for employment in motorsport valley pretty soon.