I have an idea for cutting costs...

[ShiftingGears]

Ban all sponsor advertisements/logos on the cars. Surely that would mean less corporations spending money on formula one in order to gain publicity, therefore, less money is spent on the cars, due to less money from sponsors.

Therefore, reduced costs. Then we can all party like its 1967.


Thoughts?

[Jonesi]

So who would do the ban? It's contrary to the interests of everyone in a position to influence the rule making process.

[ShiftingGears]

But I would hope after Max gets the boot then someone would be willing to help cost cut by getting sponsors logos banned. Its a better idea than proposed 4-race engines :(

Hopefully it does happen, in the best interests of the drivers, teams, and spectators.

[EuroTroll]

But I would hope after Max gets the boot then someone would be willing to help cost cut by getting sponsors logos banned. Its a better idea than proposed 4-race engines :(

Aren't you actually talking about income cutting, rather than cost cutting?

Interesting idea though. Not necessarily good, but interesting. :p : Not good in my view, because it wouldn't eliminate the difference in resources that teams have. Someone is always going to have more money than the others. So what's the point, really?

[Azumanga Davo]

Will never happen. No other sport would do it either...

[ShiftingGears]

Aren't you actually talking about income cutting, rather than cost cutting?

Interesting idea though. Not necessarily good, but interesting. :p : Not good in my view, because it wouldn't eliminate the difference in resources that teams have. Someone is always going to have more money than the others. So what's the point, really?


Less income = Less money availiable to spend = less cost.

The cost cutting idea is not so all teams have equal money, but simply to lower the costs.

[EuroTroll]

Less income = Less money availiable to spend = less cost.

The cost cutting idea is not so all teams have equal money, but simply to lower the costs.

Lowering income doesn't actually lower the cost, though. You'd notice that if you gave away all your money and then went to a car dealer to buy a Porsche. ;) The majority of supplies for an F1 would team would probably cost whatever they currently cost, regardless of how much income the F1 team has. If they had less money, they'd just buy cheaper components. And what's the purpose of that?

You could say, lowering the entry barrier for new teams. But we currently have more new applicants than vacancies, so again we come back to the ever persistent question - what's the point?

[samuratt]

If you cut the income of the teams, how would Ferrari pay Michael's salary, or McLaren Fernando's salary???

Not a very good idea to me!

sorry mate!

[ShiftingGears]

How they used to...

With their own money.

[DocF225]

Without sponsorship and nobody to "pay the bills" every form of racing would be down to a handful of works teams with a very wealthy privateer or two and not much else.

No advertising also means no TV coverage, no product tie ins (ie model kits, apparel, diecast etc.). Without sponsorship all forms of motorsport would collapse under their own weight.

Let's face it, the best way to make a million bucks in racing is to start with two million. ;)

[Sleeper]

So you get rid of the sponsors. Who the hell pays for the sport then? ferrari will have money from merchandise and some sponsors, like Phillip Morris, will still pay for the brand asociation even if you dont see the logos. the manufacturer teams will still have money but then we loose 4 Red Buls, 2 Spykers and 2 Super Aguri's and the 2 prodrives will never show up.

Wow, what a great pan. :rolleyes:

[Dzeidzei]

Aren't you actually talking about income cutting, rather than cost cutting?

Interesting idea though. Not necessarily good, but interesting. :p : Not good in my view, because it wouldn't eliminate the difference in resources that teams have. Someone is always going to have more money than the others.

There is only one way to cut down the cost and that is by setting a limit on your budget. If you can only spend.... lets say 200M euros, youd be forced make some more intelligent decisions than the other teams. This has been done in other sports (see NHL where they have a limit on on players total salary) and with some good results.

Of course you would need to have public budgets and some sort of system for the control of it all, but thats the only way.

All the ideas to cut costs so far that have come out of Mosley´s head (dont know which one) have been stupid. The only good one so far is the freeze of the engines and thats only because Kimi is driving the Ferrari next year. If hed still be a Mac guy, Id be cursing Mosley to the lowest hell.

[EuroTroll]

There is only one way to cut down the cost and that is by setting a limit on your budget. If you can only spend.... lets say 200M euros, youd be forced make some more intelligent decisions than the other teams. This has been done in other sports (see NHL where they have a limit on on players total salary) and with some good results.

Of course you would need to have public budgets and some sort of system for the control of it all, but thats the only way.

Yes, I think so too.

[schmenke]

There is only one way to cut down the cost and that is by setting a limit on your budget. If you can only spend.... lets say 200M euros, youd be forced make some more intelligent decisions than the other teams. This has been done in other sports (see NHL where they have a limit on on players total salary) and with some good results.

Of course you would need to have public budgets and some sort of system for the control of it all, but thats the only way....

Agreed, however, it's easier said than done. The financial structure of an F1 team can be quite complex. I would think that it would be difficult to monitor or audit the expenditures.
An NHL team, on the other hand, is quite easy since the spending limits are limited to the players' salaries, and each team has a payroll that can be verified quite easily.

[jens]

I agree that banning advertisements will have a more devastating effect on private teams. So that this idea is disputable.

[Dave B]

How would you police spending limits?

Say, for example, that Toyota decide that their road car devision could benefit from a nice compact V8 which revs at 20,000 rpm. What's to stop them researching it for a couple of years before abandoning the idea and selling their research for a fiver to the race team?

[CarlMetro]

All this talk of cutting costs in F1 is not a new thing, it's been a topic of discussion for many years. The one thing that all the teams realise is that to be any good you have to get the best personel in your team and that costs money.

You also have to come up with the best product possible and that means testing what you have and making improvements on it, and that costs money too.

One thing is for certain, if F1 is to remain the pinacle of motorsport then the teams wishing to enter should be allowed to spend whatever they feel they need to to gain sucess. All the talk of budget capping is nonsense. The theories behind stock ECU's, one-make tyres and even standardising gearboxes is all fine but each team will still have to carry out a lot of testing to enable them to maximise the performance of the standard parts with their engines, chassis etc.

Reducing the income of a team by banning sponsorship would be highly detrimental to the smaller privateer teams such as Red Bull, where as the likes of Ferrari and Toyota would keep on stumping up the cash themsleves.

[555-04Q2]

Less income = Less money availiable to spend = less cost.

The cost cutting idea is not so all teams have equal money, but simply to lower the costs.

You would disadvantage the smaller teams further and the bigger teams with road car backing would walk the series :(

Every sport is now a business, not a sport anymore. Money is numero uno now, not the sport. The sooner we fans realise this, accept it wont change and move on, the happier we would all be ;)

[wmcot]

Less income = Less money availiable to spend = less cost.

The cost cutting idea is not so all teams have equal money, but simply to lower the costs.


How would it be if the company you work for took their branding and advertising away? Would you have a job in 6 months?

The limited budget idea is the best, but there are far too many loopholes that would have to be plugged, especially by the manufacturer sponsored teams. The FIA might spend as much in investigating and policing budgets as teams do on F1 research. Not to mention the embarrassment that litigation would bring to the sport for those found exceeding their alotted budget.

[agwiii]

Ban all sponsor advertisements/logos on the cars. Surely that would mean less corporations spending money on formula one in order to gain publicity, therefore, less money is spent on the cars, due to less money from sponsors. Therefore, reduced costs. Then we can all party like its 1967. Thoughts?

It would probably turn F1 into a pure manufacturer's series. That might not be bad. Reducing costs? Not so sure about that, since the Toyota-Honda rivalry would continue as would the Mercedes-BMW.

[jso1985]

Banning sponsor would mean the official death of any privateer team, plus F1 would be harder to market and very few Tv stations would be keen on broadcasting it.
Police budget caps really difficult as Dave Brockman(who's on a break until the next season starts ;) ) pointed.
I still think the only way to cut costs is cutting on testing

[Scuderia ferrari]

Ban all sponsor advertisements/logos on the cars. Surely that would mean less corporations spending money on formula one in order to gain publicity, therefore, less money is spent on the cars, due to less money from sponsors.

Therefore, reduced costs. Then we can all party like its 1967.


Thoughts?

Who really cares? I mean, it's interesting to see what the teams do with the money, coming up with new cars and aerodynamics packaging, and if they go wrong with their money, they go bust. That's what it is all about in F1.

Also, the cars would have no orginaity, or anything, making people become less interested and then switch of all together, then, robots will be comentating on a not even live race (like WRC)

Very bad idea IMO

[Mikeall]

The only cost that needs to be cut is the minimum. Generally higher costs exist because there is more money available. If more money is available more poeple are employed, more technology is developed and more money goes into the companies supplying the teams. This is all good for the economy particularly in Britian. At the moment there are 11 healthy teams with one more to be added soon. There is no crisis. In 1967 you would be lucky to even get 20 starters and 7 manufacturers. An example would be the first race of the season when of the 18 starters, 5 were Brabhams and 5 were Coopers.

In the late 80's on the other there were up to 20 teams and 39 entrants and sponsorship was everywhere but then again many of those teams were way off the pace, unreilable and were incapabale of competing for more than a couple of years.

[winer]

Very bad idea IMO

Good. We are all agreed then. F1 really is all about the money, and the results that can be achieved by spending it. No money - no F1 racing series (in it's present form).

[jso1985]

You always needed money for racing in F1, no matter the year

[agwiii]

Racing has always been about money. Instead of a fool's quest to reduce costs, we need to simplify the rules, raise the level of competition, and encourage innovation.