The opening month of the 2015 F1 season has been a mixed bag. And since I would prefer to end my column on a positive note, I will first mention the negatives.
Red Bull Racing has threatened to quit. Renault too! The partnership that won four world championships on the trot hit an all-time low after a dismal performance in the opening round in Australia. Instead of gaining ground to Mercedes, they seemed to have lost even more.
I have been a part of intense debates on my blog and podcast on whether Red Bull Racing is issuing blank threats (a la Ferrari) and if they’re bad losers after all. They’ve requested the FIA to intervene and ‘equalise’ the sport and stop the Mercedes dominance. From a sporting point of view, an intervention by the FIA is something I wouldn’t support – but if you see the sport as a business and / or entertainment, then you will find it hard to disagree that single team domination is ruining the sport and riding it of its fans.
The other issue that Red Bull Racing faces is in regards to its engine partner, Renault. The French manufacturer has claimed that they could possibly have a winning engine only by 2016. The other engine solutions would be either with Ferrari or Mercedes, both of whom are competition.
Sporting reasons aside, Red Bull Racing is built on the empire of some classical marketing skills. They bought a lowly Jaguar team, invested in it, grew the brand (massively) and now wouldn’t be hesitant to sell it if they received a price they deemed was right. This is what marketers do.
A lot of responses I got argued that these were blank threats. That Red Bull needed the sport of Formula 1 to reach out to global audiences. While there is some truth in that statement, my view also is that Red Bull has a whole host of global and regional sports marketing activities that deliver brand value in the regions they seek. In the case of Ferrari, Formula 1 is their sole platform – this is why I would personally take the threat a little seriously.
As for Renault, I am surprised that they are unable to cope with the regulations. They were the first team to have lobbied for these ‘road car friendly’ regulations, and my guess is that both Red Bull Racing and Renault didn’t anticipate what they were getting into. It’s sad that the last few months have been about teams struggling to make it to the grid, of driver-team battles in the courtroom, and of many fans questioning the future of the sport.
The only positive piece of news last month was that of Sebastian Vettel and Ferrari pulling off a surprise win against Lewis Hamilton and Mercedes. It was the first time in the last year (or so) that Mercedes were beaten on pace and strategy. The heat and early Safety Car period played into Vettel’s favour as he pranced to victory in only his second race with the Scuderia.
The beauty of Vettel’s win was that it reminded fans of the good old days of Michael Schumacher and how he steered them from the doldrums to dominance (and, as Dhruv said, Vettel even tried the famous Schumacher leap). It was heartening to hear the German anthem followed by the Italian one, and this isn’t where the similarity between Vettel and Schumacher ended. It’s beautiful to see how Vettel is attempting to build on his legacy rather than overwrite it.
Ferrari has closed the gap to Mercedes in 2015, but I don’t think they’ll be as strong on circuits where tyre strategy plays a less important role. Mercedes still seem too strong for that. Ferrari’s hope will be to capitalise on the two-and-three stop races coming up in the near future. Hopefully there, they can prevent it from becoming Formula Yawn. Over to China and Bahrain...
Read Kunal’s views at his F1 blog.
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