Ferrari to Quit Formula 1?

[giovanni]

Originally Posted by alan h

sorry gio - couldn't resist doing my last post - I thought it would get you going!

I think Brawn may have 'peaked' - I expect [hope] that the others will soon be running at similar pace [or better] and then things will really get interesting. [I dislike races where one car is way out in front]

Even Ferrari are improving, and they should be up there on the podium before the end of the season - but no championship for them this year I think.

Ross Brawn is one hell of a competitor and with Virgin on board, it surely would take something just short of a miracle for button to be caught. You would need 2 teams and 3 drivers to have better pace than the brawns for one of them to have aq chance of catching them. Now if that happened and regardless if button was caught or not that would be the making of one hell of a season.....

[giovanni]

“Maranello 12 May 2009 - Ferrari’s Board of Directors, chaired by Luca di Montezemolo, today analysed the first quarter results for 2009. Despite the current international economic climate, which has hit the automotive sector in particular, Ferrari’s figures were in line with the record levels reached in 2008. Turnover for the first three months was 441 million euro compared to 455.7 million euro...

[Charles Phillips]

The Chrysler, perhaps GM deal, is set up to be entirely separate from Ferrari and Maserati - racing or road-going - which won't form part of Fiat Auto. That deal will have no impact on the racing team.

[giovanni]

Originally Posted by Charles Phillips

The Chrysler, perhaps GM deal, is set up to be entirely separate from Ferrari and Maserati - racing or road-going - which won't form part of Fiat Auto. That deal will have no impact on the racing team.

Ferrari is already a separate entity to FIAT spa, as GM found out to their cost only a few years back when they were forced to give Fiat over 2 billion dollars to NOT buy Fiat out!

I confess i do not know how these things work, but..thats how it is/was.

[Sibillini]

There are, I think two strands to this argument between the Constructors Association, its not just Ferrari, of which Luca di Montezemolo is Chairman and Max Mosely. Firstly, this is about money, but perhaps not in the accepted way. The teams and indeed Max Mosely would like to cut the funding required by teams and lower the cost of entry, one way of doing this is to increase the amount of money flowing to the teams from television rights, hospitality, etc etc which is currently pocketed by Bernie Ecclestone. No GP makes a profit because the majority of the income flows to BE. This being the principle reason that GP's at the historic tracks such as Silverstone have been replaced by state sponsored new tracks such as Malasia and Bahrain.

Secondly, it is about how you move to a lower cost model, big bang as Moseley is proposing with its tiered approach, which is anathema to the major teams, or a phased approach. Fundamental to Ferrari however is the need to have the research and technological development which transfers over time to the road cars. A compromise will be found, most probably by Bernie, because F1 without the major teams will be even less attractive than it has become on its sanitised tracks and that means even less money for Bernie!!

As for Ferrari, they would I suspect love to stop developing the current car and concentrate on the 2010 design. The problem is the Abu Dhabi GP which is the last race of what is likely to be a close season. The Abu Dhabi Royal Family/Government are major sponsors of Ferrari through Mubadella / Etihad and a major component of the Yas Island development is the Ferrari World Theme Park. They will therefore want Ferrari to be competitive. So I guess Ferrari will soldier on and improve, but unfortunately not enough.

[sarahandmark]

Whilst on the subject, has anyone seen this news about Rome hosting a Grand Prix? F1 : Rome presents F1 project - F1 - F1-Live.com

[giovanni]

Well the battle has heated up even more so, whilst an apparent fruitless meeting was taking place between all parties, it became apparent Ferrari have taken legal action against the FIA in Paris! They"Ferrari" are after an injunction concerning the planned money cap as the deadline for acceptance gets nearer..........I have to say i am quite surprised no one has taken a vote of no confidence against mosley, a man who claimed he would retire this year!