Good News for GSC...I mean Caterham!

The administrator for Caterham has revealed they are in talks with a potential buyer who is "linked to Formula 1".

http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/0/formula1/30190179

"I am honestly talking to somebody who would like to take this over within the next month," administrator Finbarr O'Connell said.

Not so keen about the other news, that they apparently intend to keep the team as it is. Surely changes are in order to make the team more competitive? A new design team and drivers would not go amiss...

"They (the potential buyer) would like to take it over with the same people, as the same team with the same infrastructure, and that would be the dream result for me." O'Connell added.

O'Connell would not name the interested party but said it was someone "who is linked in to Formula 1".

"This is somebody who feels the same as me that if we don't do something quickly then the team will drift away," he said.

"If that works, and this is a credible person with credible backers, that will be the best solution.

"Talking to people with no Formula 1 involvement at all, who don't know what this is really about, adds that huge risk factor.

"But this is somebody who actually knows it, and who wants to do it.

"If it's serious and it goes ahead then we'll announce things as soon as we can."

With all his recent talk about needing to help smaller teams, I wonder if Eddie Jordan is considering a return to F1?


In other news, the FIA are to renew their appeal to teams to keep costs down. Good luck with that...

Like I have said before dyrewolfe it is not about poor design or poor quality staff working on these teams it is all down to funding. They cannot afford top notch materials and equipment or drivers. It is all down to money constraints. Lotus are a prime example of that - last season they were very competitive but this year they were awful. Why? They cut the budget spent on the car as they were overspending so had to cut back to prevent going bust. Another example of what I say is if you look at someone like Sir Jackie Stewart who certainly knows much about F1. A few years back he tried starting up a F1 team (Stewart GP) but yes you guessed it - it was destined to collapse.

Hmm...suppose I was a tad unfair. After all, they could barely afford to keep the car running, patching the suspension when it broke, rather than replacing it.

That said, Ferrari and McLaren have had shedloads of money, comparatively and still struggled.

I do think having more money would let them hire more competent staff, who would be more likely to produce a good design from the off, rather than struggle to figure out where they were going wrong over the season. Would be cheaper that way too...

As for Jackie Stewart (and anyone else who has ever started a team) its one thing knowing how F1 works, but another thing entirely being able to keep sponsors' money rolling in, hire good competent staff and attract good drivers.

Even the power of celebrity and being a multiple world champ doesn't guarantee success, unless you have so much money you can simply buy in all the best talent, like Red Bull did.

In a nutshell, its better to try and get it right first time and be at least close to the mark, rather than just trying to get a car ready in time for the season and working on the problems race by race.

Better staff gives you the best chance of doing that...and correcting any problems that do arise...

Yes but the Ferrari and McLaren's of the F1 world can afford a poor season or five owing to the amount of money being chucked at them by the FIA and other outside resources. The lesser teams do not have that luxury of a bottomless pit of money to spend unless they have a billionairre in charge. They start at the bottom and getting off that bottom rung is practically an impossibility as so many new teams have proven in the last five or ten years.

Great news for Caterham, if a buyer is found. GSC, you might want to take a look.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/0/formula1/30272621

They were like five seconds off pace this year, just imagine next year, after Mercedes have pulled out another second in performance gain.

Yeah I read that.

As if they didn't have problems enough!

Until they sort out the prize money distribution, any new investor in a back-of-the-grid F1 team has to be prepared to invest serious money to help them develop the car. You have to continuously improve just to stand still.

Why would anyone buy a team and expect them to run such a dog of a car for another season?

Caterham selling up, Marussia rejected.

What a day

GSC wrote:Caterham selling up, Marussia rejected.

What a day

Here - have some tissues so you can clean up after yourself.

This topic went well huh?

Well, nothing in life is guaranteed...except death, taxes and internet tomfoolery...

http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/0/formula1/31757211

Guess who's back? In the words of GSC, Stephen Fitzpatrick, boss of energy firm Ovo, should of just got a lighter & burned £30m

I'm sure you could do a 19 date pub crawl for less than 30m

It just shows how much has changed in F1. Can anyone ever envisage seeing a privateer team again in F1? Whereas in the 1970s you had privateer teams a plenty led by Williams - sadly we will never see those days again. The sport is strictly off-limits for privateers.

Forest won 2 European cups in the 1970s. Doubt that's happening again either. Sports woken up to its commercial value.

GSC wrote: Sports woken up to its commercial value.

In other words it is not talent/skill that counts as much as money in the bank account. I know which I'd prefer to see thrive and it ain't the latter.

Money buys talent/skill.

GSC wrote:Money buys talent/skill.

You are missing the point here. Point is money BUYS success - it doesn't earn it through its own merits or talents. I don't call that sport. Muhammad Ali did not purchase his silky smooth skills he was endowed with them. Stephen Hendry ruled snooker playing with a cheap patched up cue - talent won him his titles. You see those are sports where it is talent that brings you through. In F1 you could be the most talented privateer with a motor racing team out there but they can forget making it in F1 as money throttles competition.

To an extent you've always had to pay staff, designers, pay for materials etc. You've always had to have money, the cost nowadays are higher than relative inflation though.

We can go back and forth on source of money again, but I really cant be bothered, to me certainly Manor, HRT and Caterham had neither the requisite funding, nor the competency you speak of.

And F1 doesn't really compare to a solo sport like Boxing or Snooker.

There are limited gains with money in comparison to team sports

GSC wrote:To an extent you've always had to pay staff, designers, pay for materials etc. You've always had to have money, the cost nowadays are higher than relative inflation though.

We can go back and forth on source of money again, but I really cant be bothered, to me certainly Manor, HRT and Caterham had neither the requisite funding, nor the competency you speak of.

Who mentioned those teams though? I speak of privateers. I speak of the likes of Williams in the 70s with nowhere near the budget of Ferrari and other works teams of that time but still not disqualified from competing because of lesser budget - that is NOT the case today.

I cant speak to the size of relative budgets in the 70s, but those teams were coming to a gunfight with a water gun. It was a urine poor investment from the start, banking on F1 to bail them out when they floundered

GSC wrote:I cant speak to the size of relative budgets in the 70s, but those teams were coming to a gunfight with a water gun. It was a urine poor investment from the start, banking on F1 to bail them out when they floundered

Williams in the 1970s had nothing like the investment of your big teams of that era ie Ferrari and yet was able to compete and WIN races. Today your lesser teams (not even privateers so have more relative funding I'd certainly say than Williams had in 70s) but cannot compete for the obvious reasons of yawning chasms between budgets of the top teams and the lesser teams. Lets remember these lesser teams are chucking millions of pounds into the sport but it is still nowhere near enough to be able to compete. Another thing you do not grasp about these lesser teams are that they are akin to your lesser teams in football that have their worth. They develop talent ie mechanics/technicians/designers move on to bigger F1 teams much like bigger teams poach talent from smaller clubs. The big boys have all the dosh but they still need the smaller fish to feed off.

GSC wrote:Money buys talent/skill.

Not always. How many talented or promising drivers have been dropped by teams in favour of ones that bring fat sponsorship deals with them?

Even on the team management / engineering side there is no guarantee shelling out huge sums of money on staff will pay dividends.



Anyway, getting the topic back on track, there is no reason why privateer (i.e. non-manufacturer/works) teams can't be successful in the future. They just need to be ridiculously well funded like Red Bull are, as well as recruiting the right staff.

There is probably enough driving talent out there in the lower formulae that, provided they also develop a young driver program, they can unearth their own Daniel Ricciardos, Daniil Kvyats and Valtteri Bottas'.

So while it might be a lot more difficult than in the past, its by no means impossible.

dyrewolfe wrote:

GSC wrote:Money buys talent/skill.

Not always. How many talented or promising drivers have been dropped by teams in favour of ones that bring fat sponsorship deals with them?

Even on the team management / engineering side there is no guarantee shelling out huge sums of money on staff will pay dividends.



Anyway, getting the topic back on track, there is no reason why privateer (i.e. non-manufacturer/works) teams can't be successful in the future. They just need to be ridiculously well funded like Red Bull are, as well as recruiting the right staff.

There is probably enough driving talent out there in the lower formulae that, provided they also develop a young driver program, they can unearth their own Daniel Ricciardos, Daniil Kvyats and Valtteri Bottas'.

So while it might be a lot more difficult than in the past, its by no means impossible.

The ridiculously funded bit though is that stumbling block. My point is you won't get another privateer team competing (unless ridiculously funded) unlike Williams in the late 70s who were privateers without funding of note and yet won races. That wonderful mix in F1 has long since gone - sadly.

Money isnt a guarantee of success indeed. Though on average I would suspect its a better indicator of success.

As for the pay drivers thing, you get better margin from a car than a driver. Always better to have a better car than a better driver

GSC wrote:


As for the pay drivers thing, you get better margin from a car than a driver. Always better to have a better car than a better driver

Well for once we are in agreement.

GSC wrote:Money isnt a guarantee of success indeed. Though on average I would suspect its a better indicator of success.

As for the pay drivers thing, you get better margin from a car than a driver. Always better to have a better car than a better driver

True - but then you still need the engineering expertise to build a good car. Again though, as we've seen from a couple of the big teams, pouring money into the design team doesn't necessarily yield results.

CaledonianCraig wrote:
The ridiculously funded bit though is that stumbling block. My point is you won't get another privateer team competing (unless ridiculously funded) unlike Williams in the late 70s who were privateers without funding of note and yet won races. That wonderful mix in F1 has long since gone - sadly.

Agreed. Once upon a time it was possible for small groups of skilled individuals to build and drive cars with some degree of success, without spending huge sums of money...but then the rules of the sport and design of the cars were a lot less complex. The sponsorship / business side of the sport was nothing like it is now. Back then it was a welcome bonus...now its critical just to keep teams running.

Now there are so many regulations you have to comply with and the competitive margins so tight, you need large engineering teams and the best talent available to eke out any kind of an advantage over your rivals. Which costs serious money.

Teams are generally in a vicious Catch-22 situation where they need to be competitive to attract sponsorship, but also need big sponsorship to fund the R&D needed to be competitive. If they don't get the results, they lose sponsors, or their pay drivers go elsewhere.

The only way any news teams are going to break into F1 (and stay around for any length of time) is to do what Red Bull did: throw huge sums of money into buying the best talent available and staying the course through the tricky first few years.

It is a sad indictment of the state the sport is in when even billionaire businessmen can't afford to bankroll teams for more than a few seasons.