Kunal joins the chorus of skeptics of the F1 Strategy Group
Strategy – the one element that has offered unparalleled excitement in the last few decades and still continues to do so seems to be lacking when it comes to identifying the future of the sport and business of Formula1. I think the sports’ powers and stakeholders need to start by questioning the purpose of F1 – is it a racing series? Entertainment? A championship between technology companies? All of it, or even worse, none of it? (Bernie can have some strange answers!)
Much like strategy, F1 loves creating ‘groups’ to discuss some of the sports problems. We had the Technical Working Group (TWG) and the Overtaking Working Group (OWG) a few years ago and now have the ‘F1 Strategy Group’. This group consists of six representatives of the FOM, the FIA and six teams in the sport. Of the six, five slots are permanently occupied by Ferrari, Mercedes, Mclaren, Red Bull Racing and Williams with the sixth slot awarded to the team that finishes as the ‘best of the rest’ in the previous season. For 2015, this team is Force India.
There are several ironies of this group in that I would like to point out. Firstly, the participants are involved in writing and voting for the rules of competition – possibly the only sport in the world where such a phenomena exists. But yes, one could argue that since the teams invest in the sport more than anyone else (that too in millions), this somewhat seems right!
Second, the fact that from all the participant teams (is it 9 or 10 this year?) only the favoured teams have their say – with one slot left for all of the mid-field teams. Fairly undemocratic, I say. But this is how the sport has been and maybe it hasn’t found a compelling reason to change yet.
So the F1 Strategy Group met last month and agreed to explore a number of ideas to make the cars faster (thank you!). But besides that, the only change the Group agreed upon was to ban the change in helmet design! This is when the sport is dogged by dwindling TV audiences and circuit attendance, increase in costs, uncompetitive grid among many others.
The greater issues of the sport such as unequal revenue distribution and cost control were ignored altogether. A study of ‘customer cars’ was announced – a move that could question the current DNA of the sport and look to give greater control of the sport’s economy to a few and threaten to reduce competitiveness of an already uncompetitive grid! In this chaos, the FIA has introduced tenders for new teams to join the grid in 2016 and 2017. I wonder if investing in the sport till there’s clarity on its business would make any sense. But interestingly so, there seem to be a few takers already!
On the sporting side, Nico Rosberg’s inability to match Lewis Hamilton’s pace and skill (he’s anyway not as talented, I am told) in 2015 has me worried – and maybe it should worry Mercedes too. Though the team has scored a record number of 1-2 finishes, they need a stronger number 2 driver to challenge Hamilton consistently for many reasons. Firstly, to keep their star driver grounded and honest and secondly, to plan their driver succession. We saw what happened to Ferrari once Schumacher departed in 2006! (Their 2007 was a lucky and unexpected one!)
The world of Formula1 is cut-throat and ruthless. ‘Drivers are the easiest to replace’ is a famous saying and I won’t be surprised if Raikkonen too joins Rosberg on the list of discards. But this could be a silver lining for talented mid-field drivers such as Bottas, Hulkenberg and others. A shake-up in the driver market also brings in some much needed excitement – an element that the sport is lacking since a few seasons despite Vettel’s move to Ferrari and Alonso’s to Mclaren.
And lastly, there have been multiple reports that the ‘racing’ seems to have gotten simpler in the last couple of years. While this point is difficult to prove, that the drivers have taken time to run a ‘fan survey’ (via the Grand Prix Drivers Association) probably is an indication that it probably has!
Read Kunal’s views at his F1 blog.
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