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Ferrari - Too Big For Their Boots ?


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I quite like Ferrari, but I wonder if they've totally lost the plot now. I see that fresh from losing their court case vs the FIA and the propopsed budget capping for F1, they've now sneered at the potential new teams who are applying to join the grid next season (e.g. Wirth Research, Lola, USF1, Epsilon Euskadi, RML, Formtech, Campos and iSport), saying :

Can a world championship with teams like them - with due respect - have the same value as today's Formula 1, where Ferrari, the big car manufacturers and teams, who created the history of this sport, compete? Wouldn't it be more appropriate to call it Formula GP3 ?

Well, wouldn't they have said the same about BrawnGP at the start of the season ? Ferrari have been pretty rubbish this season. I'm sure they'll improve, but right now they're getting their behinds handed to them by a new team.

Even if the names are new to F1, those new teams can hire existing expertise etc to give them a head start.

Ferrari seem to be to be getting way too big for their boots. Or is that just me ?

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They're kicking up a fuss, but I think not intentionally at those teams - I agree with the reasoning behind it though.

It's not just Ferrari though, they're the only ones being vocal about it - Toyota, Renault and Red Bull I think are also threatening leaving with the new rules, which frankly are stupid. Max Mosley and co are setting out to completely ruin F1, and although it could still live on, it would become slightly pointless without the big budget teams in it. The point Ferrari is trying to make is that once all the big manufacturers go, what's left?

GP2 is for low budget teams in even machinery - F1 has always been about pushing the envelope, it's the absolute top end of motorsport and they spend big bucks getting a car to go as fast as it possibly can.

The fact that a low budget team like Brawn can beat the big budget boys is what makes it so great - it's about technical excellence rather than money so everyone should be able to spend as much as they want and see what they can do.

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Yeah but don't you think F1 is getting a bit out of hand, Parthiban, and pricing itself out of existence. If we were only left with a couple of manufacturers spending an absolute fortune, and some much smaller teams which are miles slower, I don't think I'd enjoy it.

The two-tier thing doesn't make sense but that's only if some of the teams don't sign up to the budget cap. $40m isn't exactly low budget, that's a lot of money.

I think a new F1 with a budget cap but encouraging innovation (less restrictions on what you can do) could be great.

I think your point about Brawn helps show where I'm coming from. You don't have to spend a fortune to do well, you just have to be clever. F1 should be about being very clever IMHO, not who can spend the most.

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Well that's exactly the point, despite the massive budgets that Ferrari and Toyota have, Brawn are still making them look stupid with their tiny budget. So in essence, what does the budget cap achieve?

In any case, I don't think anyone's opposed to a budget cap (now that they've removed driver salaries from the mix) but they are all opposed to the two tier system.

If I was running the FIA (which I probably should be :P ) I'd just make it a blanket cap for everyone, but more reasonable at around £70m and then you could always drop it later. It is totally unfair to just totally out of the blue introduce a cap of £40m to teams that have been spending in excess of £100m! What are they supposed to do, just sack their entire workforce? And who's supposed to look after them as well?

I agree with you though, a cap with more technical freedom (for everyone) could make things more interesting, and we'd get to see again how fast these cars can really go instead of trying to restrict their performance (although that could cause the same problems as the Schumacher/Ferrari era, it's not just money that creates that, it's technical excellence)

The nearest comparison is that they're trying to do to F1 what happened to BTCC..........although it's still good, it's nothing compared to the 90s when every manufacturer was in the sport..........

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Well that's exactly the point, despite the massive budgets that Ferrari and Toyota have, Brawn are still making them look stupid with their tiny budget. So in essence, what does the budget cap achieve?

Brawn and Red Bull are only doing well because of the massive regulation changes. Give it a bit of time and the big-spending teams will still pull ahead. Though the ban on in-season testing is making that process take longer than it used to.

With stable regulations, the teams doing well will still be the ones with the most money. The budget cap would make for a much more level playing field.

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Guys remember that before it became Brawn GP it was Honda and they had spent most of the 2008 season developing the car so you cant just say that Brawn GP spent hardly any money as the effort had already been put in, the only thing that honda needed to do was to get a good engine, Brawn was in the Honda team re doing the design team I believe so he knew the potential of the car.

I think the budget cap will be good, not read up on it much but arent they doing the £40 million with no restrictions or no budget cap and have restrictions to abide by ???

Ferrari's top aero guy said that some team were spending well in excess of £400 million when I was at the world motorsport symposium last year, they had their car in the wind tunnel for 8000 hours running 24 hours a day. Im sure its more but if that cost £5000 a day thats £40 million already so the spending is totally out of control.

The racing has improved this year no doubt, I think the KERS system has been a bit crap but it should develop.

Ferrari have always been to big for there boots and them taking on the FIA basically there right hand man is going to stir up some shizzle. Always hated the Italian vehicles anyways so it'd be great if they left, im sure they'd be back in a season anyways what would they do with all that spare time LoL

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Ok £400m is a bit ridiculous, I thought the big teams were somewhere between £100-200m.

Also a good point about Brawn, the car was developed with Honda's massive budget, so will be interesting to see how they continue throughout the season and into next year.

The point is that it's not just Ferrari, it's all the big teams. It's Ferrari, Renault, Toyota and Red Bull for now, and who else? Now Alonso's also said that he might move on if all the teams left, they'll just end up turning F1 into another GP2 series, and all the big players will create their own F1 either in some other series or an all new series.

But again I ask the same question, how is it possibly fair to totally spring on these teams the news that suddenly they have to go from a budget of £400m down to £40m in a year?

It's ridiculous, I think Max Mosley needs a beating (or perhaps he's getting too much of that :P )

One other thing actually, I think an F1 without Ferrari would be disastrous............there are so many Ferrari fans, and there are just as many who watch to see Ferrari fail.........they are such an important factor of the sport :)

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As a long term F1 fan I just can't think of a season without Ferrari, it would not be F1.

If Lola were to make a come back lets hope they don't suffer the same bad luck and poor results their 1st attempts were plagued with and maybe even win a GP!!

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I'm starting to get confused by all this now, Ferrari is trying to sue the FIA for the rule changes, now Bernie says he'll sue Ferrari if they leave for breach of contract.............

I don't get it.........I can understand that they can sue Ferrari if they have agreed contractually to remain in the sport until 2012, but are the FIA really allowed to make such a large rule change like going from no budget limitation down to £40m and the teams just have to agree and take them on board? :duh:

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