PER 2015
Caterham who had to cease racing before the season had ended did not return to F1 for the 2015 season after falling into administration. One interesting way in which some teams generate income is paid seats. As mentioned above, Mercedes are paying Hamilton £640, 000 a week. However, if you look lower down the grid you’ll find that some drivers are doing the opposite. They are in fact paying their team to drive. For example, Venezuelan driver Pastor Maldonado has the backing of the Venezuelan state oil company. They pay £30m a year to Lotus to let Maldonado drive the car for that year. Marcus Ericssen, a Sauber driver this year has private backers who provide £15.7m a year. The last group of teams I will discuss is the group of teams owned by Red Bull: Red Bull Racing and its feeder team Toro Rosso. Red Bull’s advertising and marketing strategy is to fund extreme sports and make their name synonymous with the most extreme and dangerous athletes in the world. For example they funded Felix Baumgartner’s jump from space. Running an F1 team is just an extension of that. Red Bull has been incredibly successful over the past few years, winning four consecutive World Championships. This has lifted Red Bulls name in the world of motor sport, doing its job in making Red Bull a household name. Grand Prix: moving where the money is F1 is slowly moving away from Europe and towards Asia due simply to the fact that they are willing to pay vast sums of money to attract the 500 million-person audiences that F1 attracts. Singapore pays $65 million for the privilege of hosting a Grand Prix and there are an increasing number of races taking place in Asia with the Bahrain Grand Prix and the Abu Dhabi Grand Prix now having the honour of concluding the F1 season. Meanwhile, Grand Prix are moving out of Europe with the German Grand Prix, a traditionally rich Grand Prix being cut from the 2015 calendar due to a lack of money. Conclusion- A need for change in F1? It is clear that F1 needs to change. The system of prize money and sponsorship heavily favours the big and already rich teams. Now this may be fair you may argue, the same happens in any team sport, we live in a winner takes all society. However, year after year a team will withdraw or be bought by another simply because they cannot afford the financials of the sport. This comes at the expense of thousands of jobs. At the end of every season, the teams sitting at the bottom of the grid are biting their fingernails in anticipation of whether their team will put a car forward for next season. This type of job insecurity is unhealthy and action needs to be taken against it. However, a solution is difficult to reach. A price cap may ruin the glamour of the sport, which is important in keeping the fans interested. The large teams will find loopholes and push for leniency and Ecclestone will oblige, wanting to keep the big boys happy. A simplification of the technology required could be a solution. If the cars didn’t require such high levels of aero-dynamics or such sophisticated engines maybe the smaller teams wouldn’t get left behind. However, when it comes down to it, F1 remains a thrilling sport and very little can and will be done to remove its deeply imbedded flaws and so we might as well embrace it.
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