Donington, Buemi and more

It’s been an interesting week for news, with the Buemi announcement, Donington getting its planning permission, FOTA making further cost savings ...

It’s been an interesting week for news, with the Buemi announcement, Donington getting its planning permission, FOTA making further cost savings and more on the Honda buyout. Here is my take on the week’s news digest.

Donington was granted planning permission to gear up for hosting the Grand Prix is 2010. This was the stage at which the Brands Hatch bid failed a few years back, so Simon Gillett and his team have done well to overcome that hurdle but many are still sceptical about the viability of this project. Ron Dennis voiced his concerns this week saying that the pound’s depreciation against the dollar will make the contract 25% more expensive for a start. He is also doubtful about the debenture scheme. I mentioned in an earlier blog that Gillet told me in December that the debenture funding was in place through Goldman Sachs and IMG.

Dennis’ voice is a significant one, but you also have to remember that he is a lifetime Guardian of Silverstone, along with Frank Williams, appointments the BRDC put in place a few years back to ensure that there would be protection against the track being sold in the future. So Ron does have a vested interest in this story.

As for the public transport scheme to get fans into Donington, Montreal gets them all in by train, Monza has a huge park and ride scheme, so we shouldn’t be too sceptical. But I can’t see how Gilette can get the East Midland Airport shut down for the weekend, that does sound ambitious!

* * *

The 2009 season begins in earnest this week with Ferrari, Toyota and McLaren unveiling their new cars. We already know that they will look very different from the cars we’ve become used to, but we’ll very quickly become used to their appearance, especially if they give us great racing.

The engineers who worked on the overtaking working group, which was behind the new ideas on the cars, say that the idea was to reduce the speed differential needed to overtake in F1 from about 2.5 seconds per lap to around 1second per lap, in other words a car which is a second faster than the one on front will be able to pass him. We will see.

Ferrari and McLaren put a huge amount of effort and resource into developing their cars right to the end of 2008. Although they have more capacity that BMW, Toyota and the rest, that will have hurt their 2009 cars. It’s very impressive that Ferrari is first to launch, but all eyes are on the BMW unveiling in nine days time. I think they will start the season as pace setters and the story of 2009 will be whether BMW can keep the development rate high enough to stay in front and how long it takes Ferrari and McLaren to catch them up.

* * *

One of the worst kept secrets in F1 was made public this week as 20 year old Sebastien Buemi was unveiled as Toro Rosso’s new driver. He was hanging around a lot towards the end of the 2008 season and Red Bull even managed to persuade the FIA to let him drive the safety car at the final few events so he could learn tracks like Brazil, Singapore and Fuji (although we return to Suzuka this season). I remain to be convinced by Buemi. He’s quite quick, but hasn’t looked anything special in the junior formula and GP2 races I’ve seen him in. He’s not some real charger who demanded attention. He is a favourite of Dr Helmut Marko, an Austrian ex F1 driver, who reports directly to Red Bull owner Mr Mateschitz and has a huge influence on what happens with his two F1 teams.

* * *

The executive committee of FOTA met again this week to take the cost cutting process further,. This organisation already has a lot to be proud of. The engine agreement reached before Christmas was a major achievement. If you think back a few years the idea that Ferrari, McLaren and the rest could agree on something as massive as that would have been inconceivable. The credit crunch has focussed minds of course, but the change of personnel has played a significant part too, especially Stefano Domenicali replacing Jean Todt as Ferrari boss.

This week they agreed that gearboxes should last 6 races and cost just £1.4 million per season, a saving of about 90% for some teams and that customer engine supply should cost £4.5 mill per season, as saving of 75% for many independent teams.

Now they turn their attention to improving the show. They want to listen to the fans’ view about what F1 should be, which is laudable. But the recent ING F1 Racing survey showed that it’s easy to ask the wrong question, or rather, to ask the wrong people the questions. With all due respect most of you reading this will watch the majority of the F1 races anyway and if the spectacle is improved, without losing the core values which make F1 special, then you’ll stay committed. The people FOTA need to talk to are the 16 year olds at school, young women, the unconverted. Why don’t they watch F1, what would make them watch it more? There’s no point fiddling around to fine tune things for the converted, you need to see how you can attract a whole new constituency.

* * *

Finally there was an interesting story this week in the Telegraph about the sale of Honda . Nick Fry, the CEO, was at the Autosport show and the idea emerged that he is looking at leading a management buyout of the team, which is no great surprise as no-one knows that operation better than him, having been there through BAR days and Honda days. He’s a very determined man and he has proven himself to be a survivor, but this is his most ambitious plan to date and to succeed he will need a wealthy partner or investor as a shareholder.

The factory has had £75 million of capital investment put into it in recent years and it’s all there to get the job done. Honda now has to decide whether to sell the operation to one of the potential bidders, shut the whole thing down, or whether to listen to Fry and his group, which appears to include Ross Brawn and subsidise a handover to a management group, which happens quite a bit in business. I can see this option appealing to Bernie Ecclestone as long as there is a solid backer behind it all and he may well be helping them to find one. It’s a shame the timing was wrong for Vijay Mallya, that he bought into Spyker a year or so ago, as this is a much better opportunity than Spyker was. The lease on factory was recently extended for four years and it’s all ready to go. The team is due around £30 million a year from Bernie Ecclestone’s pot, but the team will need to raise at least that much again in sponsorship to have even a basic operation with 200 staff. And sponsor finding has always been that team’s weak point, going back to the BAR days.

That said, the costs of competing are reducing all the time, especially for 2010 onwards. Honda subsidy for 2009 would get them started and then it’s about staying in the game, becoming an independent and benefiting from cheap gearboxes and engines.