[zenren]

Originally Posted by deetjohn

What comes out of the hearing will be very interesting. Horner looks very confident and you cannot argue with his version. Looks like its all about the perspective on the Technical Directive!

Horner reveals why Red Bull 'are extremely confident' of winning appeal Excerpts:

To put additional pressure on FIA, Red Bull owner Dietrich Mateschitz has indirectly threatened to pull out RBR and STR from F1 if he is unhappy with how things are going.

http://www.bbc.com/sport/0/formula-one/26721387

"The question is not so much whether it makes economic sense but the reasons would be to do with sportsmanship, political influence, and so on.

"In these issues there is a clear limit to what we can accept."

"You have to make F1 like it used to be - the top discipline of motorsports"

"F1 is not there to set new records in fuel consumption, nor to make it possible to have a whispered conversation during a race."

"It is absurd to race a lap seconds slower than last year. GP2 partially provides more racing and fighting and almost equal lap times as F1 with a small fraction of the budget."

[deetjohn]

Originally Posted by zenren

To put additional pressure on FIA, Red Bull owner Dietrich Mateschitz has indirectly threatened to pull out RBR and STR from F1 if he is unhappy with how things are going.

LOL! That is very Lucaish.

But don't think that threat will fly. F1 is a much healthier place now with the new Power Units and their relevance to the cars people can buy. I am sure, most big engine manufacturers are watching with great interest.

[deetjohn]

A bit late, but an apology nonetheless.

Red Bull apologises for ‘Mark spec’ part

Red Bull has apologised to Daniel Ricciardo after admitting that he was disqualified from the Australian Grand Prix as a result of having a ‘Mark spec’ fuel flow meter.

‘The mechanics were tired from getting the car ready, they heard an Aussie accent in the cockpit, without thinking they fitted the Webber-grade part,’ admitted an insider. ‘That is to say, a part that isn’t as good as the one on the other car and can be used to punish Mark if he dares to beat Sebastian.’

Red Bull sources say that the race was already in progress by the time they remembered that Mark Webber no longer drives for them and there is no need to engineer-in reliability glitches or strategic failures in order to enact an ongoing series of crushing disappoints and public humiliations.

‘Daniel is new to the team and we must do everything we can to support him at this early stage,’ a Red Bull source said. ‘If he’s faster than Seb we’re certainly not going to crush his spirit…yet.’

[Maky]

Originally Posted by zenren

To put additional pressure on FIA, Red Bull owner Dietrich Mateschitz has indirectly threatened to pull out RBR and STR from F1 if he is unhappy with how things are going.

http://www.bbc.com/sport/0/formula-one/26721387

Oh how the legacy of F1 will be effected if the Fizzy drinks team pulls out. The horror!!

I'd understand such empty threats If it came from Luca, Which he did up until recently : P, Or from Ron.

[zenren]

Originally Posted by Maky

Oh how the legacy of F1 will be effected if the Fizzy drinks team pulls out. The horror!!

I'd understand such empty threats If it came from Luca, Which he did up until recently : P, Or from Ron.

It would be clearly an empty threat from Ferrari or McLaren since F1 branding has a lot of help in selling their Road cars too. These are racing outfits primarily and road car manufacture is more of a "we also do" stuff.

In the case of Red Bull, anything that catches the attention of the crowd is more or less the same and being on top of the table helps them with the "high performance drink" image while marketing. If they are no longer on the top step and doesn't see a strong chance to get there in the near term, they wouldn't invest so heavily and might consider pulling out.

Whether we like it or not, the so called fizzy drink company has enough budget to run two F1 teams in parallel when the traditional racing teams like Williams, Sauber and Lotus-Benetton are running from pillar to post for any possible additional revenue to continue in F1. If Red Bull pulls out, we might see Renault buying the current RBR team and continuing in F1 (which would mean no impact to F1) or slowly withdrawing from F1 if they cannot afford it. There are no other Renault powered teams with enough budget to fight in the front.

F1 history of 21st century clearly shows a common pattern - it started with a Ferrari domination for 5 years and people got bored of it. So the FIA changed the rules in a way to ensure Ferrari would no longer be at the top. Changes shook up the grid for a few years and Red Bull emerged as the next Ferrari. Predictably, people got bored again and FIA changed the rules again. Now we'll see may be 3 years of churn followed by another team becoming dominant and we'll see their rule for another 4-5 years followed by another rule change (1.2L 4 cylinder perhaps?).

[Maky]

Originally Posted by zenren

It would be clearly an empty threat from Ferrari or McLaren since F1 branding has a lot of help in selling their Road cars too. These are racing outfits primarily and road car manufacture is more of a "we also do" stuff.

In the case of Red Bull, anything that catches the attention of the crowd is more or less the same and being on top of the table helps them with the "high performance drink" image while marketing. If they are no longer on the top step and doesn't see a strong chance to get there in the near term, they wouldn't invest so heavily and might consider pulling out.

Whether we like it or not, the so called fizzy drink company has enough budget to run two F1 teams in parallel when the traditional racing teams like Williams, Sauber and Lotus-Benetton are running from pillar to post for any possible additional revenue to continue in F1. If Red Bull pulls out, we might see Renault buying the current RBR team and continuing in F1 (which would mean no impact to F1) or slowly withdrawing from F1 if they cannot afford it. There are no other Renault powered teams with enough budget to fight in the front.

F1 history of 21st century clearly shows a common pattern - it started with a Ferrari domination for 5 years and people got bored of it. So the FIA changed the rules in a way to ensure Ferrari would no longer be at the top. Changes shook up the grid for a few years and Red Bull emerged as the next Ferrari. Predictably, people got bored again and FIA changed the rules again. Now we'll see may be 3 years of churn followed by another team becoming dominant and we'll see their rule for another 4-5 years followed by another rule change (1.2L 4 cylinder perhaps?).

Yea Zen. It's beneficial to have a team that gives competition to the old guard at the top but I guess It's just me who finds it unappealing to see a drinks company along side Ferrari, McLaren, Williams(kind of).
Perhaps it's because of the reason you mentioned, as you say Red Bull is here purely for the marketing aspect, perhaps that's why I have little Interest/respect for the team or maybe I'm bias & it's the domination that makes me dislike them. I guess It's just me....

Old marquees such as Minardi, Lotus(real Lotus not the current pretend Lotus), Brabham, Arrows and the like. They felt like real racers not there to purely benefit from marketing for themselves, perhaps to satisfy sponsors, but they were real racers. RBR, I would like to think would pull out if they went a couple seasons without winning since their name wouldn't be plastered over the screen all that much anymore.

I feel old now.

[zenren]

Originally Posted by Maky

Yea Zen. It's beneficial to have a team that gives competition to the old guard at the top but I guess It's just me who finds it unappealing to see a drinks company along side Ferrari, McLaren, Williams(kind of).
Perhaps it's because of the reason you mentioned, as you say Red Bull is here purely for the marketing aspect, perhaps that's why I have little Interest/respect for the team or maybe I'm bias & it's the domination that makes me dislike them. I guess It's just me....

Old marquees such as Minardi, Lotus(real Lotus not the current pretend Lotus), Brabham, Arrows and the like. They felt like real racers not there to purely benefit from marketing for themselves, perhaps to satisfy sponsors, but they were real racers. RBR, I would like to think would pull out if they went a couple seasons without winning since their name wouldn't be plastered over the screen all that much anymore.

I feel old now.

Don't forget that all the F1 teams out there including the traditional ones or the new age ones employ hundreds of well qualified and highly intellectual people who represents F1. The high budgets are the reason why the best of the best find their way into F1 instead of some other racing league. If this sport gets just 25% of the current budget for a team, some of the really talented technicians and even drivers would move to a different league of motor racing where they would be better paid and get better prospects.

Innovation within the teams in F1 is history. Gone are the days where you see a 6-wheeled Tyrell or a Brabham fan car or the double diffusers or any such thing that would count as an innovation from an individual team designer. Now the FIA dictates what the innovations should be and try to come up with rules that would ensure that they can ban any discrete innovation that gives one team clear edge over the others. In the disguise of making F1 more competitive and interesting to fans, we are effectively killing the innovation which was so fondly associated with F1 cars of the past. If any team comes up with something really worthy, it is obvious that the team would benefit from it and have an advantage over the others which is the last thing FIA wants now.

How did this work out in the past when teams were not so constrained? Each major team would have enough brilliant people who explored in a different aspect of the car. One team would have the best horsepower while another would have the best aero package and a third team could have the best reliability and so on. Everyone had to wait till the end of the season to know who would be the champions. Now we know about 2014 with almost 90% surety that Mercedes would lift the crown even before the qualifying for the first race started. Thanks to the engine homologation, there is no way other engines can catch up with Mercedes through the season. May be next season.

If you think Red Bull is a misfit in the current F1 scene, think again! I feel they are in the right place. The entire landscape is changing or has already changed from what it used to be - from a sport to yet another form of TV entertainment program relying on ad revenues. Its the traditional teams that happen to be in the wrong place given the current priorities of F1.