Winning the Formula One economy drive

Formula One is digesting the most important technical changes in its history just as it faces serious financial challenges. The reality of the global economic meltdown hit F1 when Honda made a swift exit in December. That distant boardroom decision refocused the minds of the remaining teams, the governing body and the holders of the sport’s commercial rights.
That is the backdrop as we embark on a new season. The opening salvos were fired last week with a highly provocative plan for 2010 announced by FIA president Max Mosley, under which teams who agree to an audited budget cap — set at £30m, or 80% less than the current spend of the top teams — will be allowed significant technical advantages, such as higher engine revs and less restrictive aerodynamics.
Amid that dust storm, we look set for a fascinating season. Recent testing suggests that world champion Lewis Hamilton will struggle in the early races with a midfield car, while 29-year-old Jenson Button, who was potentially staring at the end of his career a few weeks ago, could be top Brit at the front of the field with Brawn GP, which has risen from the ashes of Honda.
Hamilton down the grid? Button at the front? Honda replaced by Brawn? That’s just for starters. This year sees radical regulation changes, with aerodynamic and tyre alterations, the incorporation of regenerative energy KERS devices, no in- season testing, and a limit on the use of engines. The FIA also declared that whoever won the most races, regardless of points, would be crowned the world champion. It’s a concept not far removed from Bernie Ecclestone’s idea of a gold, silver and bronze medal system, and it might have been Hamilton’s best hope of retaining his title, given that he could fall behind on points if his McLaren team struggle.
I was sanguine about this proposed change if it created more aggressive race action. However, after a challenge over its validity because of a lack of unanimous team support, this hot potato has been deferred until at least 2010.
Although McLaren appear to have made last-minute progress, further track time is now largely restricted to Grand Prix weekends, when tyre and engine availability issues come into play. This could be a long, hard season for Hamilton, who has not driven a midfield car in his career.
The general testing form has confounded most insiders. Designers, engineers and drivers were predicting that the regulation changes would spread the field, but the opposite appears to have happened. While Ferrari and BMW have looked consistently strong, Toyota, Renault, Williams and Red Bull have been very closely matched too. Joining the party just before the music stopped — with a hurriedly bolted-on Mercedes-Benz customer engine, and sticking to the track like a Scalextric car going round for hundreds of laps faster than anything else — has been the Brawn.
The drivers face fresh challenges too. The new “slick” dry tyres yield more grip to the front end than the rear — because removing the four grooves on the narrower front tyres has given them proportionately more rubber biting into the track — so the performance of the rear tyres is fading more quickly. Regulations dictate that drivers must use two different and more widely spaced rubber compounds during a race. The result is that a badly handled or aggressively driven car will destroy its rear tyres exponentially faster.
Furthermore, the drivers must manage the KERS energy recovery device from a button on the steering wheel, using either a trickle of extra power generated from the normally wasted braking energy for improved lap time, or as a burst of energy to defend or pass. These costly devices are not compulsory, and less than half the grid will have them fitted at the first race next weekend, which rather sends out the wrong message.
KERS brings associated problems of weight distribution, cooling and safety, but there is every incentive to get on top of such problems, given that an extra 80 horsepower is available, representing a 12% power boost for just under seven seconds each lap.
The new aerodynamic rules tax the drivers further because of a cockpit-adjustable front wing flap. The angle of the flap can be changed twice per lap over a six-degree range to fine-tune the car, especially when following others in close formation and turbulent air. Despite their intention to halve aerodynamic downforce, the skill and resources of the teams have limited this to 25%. With the extra grip of the slick tyres, the cars are only about a second per lap slower. But in the rain, with the same wet tyres as before, it’s a different matter. It could be chaos — although Stirling Moss would have loved a quarter as much grip in his day. The drivers will just have to manage.
Welcome to the year of the intelligent driver. Michael Schumacher, Ayrton Senna and Alain Prost would have loved these cars. Of the current crop, you’d have to back Fernando Alonso’s ability to out-think his opponents.
The team bosses are on the offensive too, judging by the reaction of Ferrari chairman Luca di Montezemolo to the FIA’s announcement of second-tier budget-capped teams for 2010. This is explosive territory, in that “Fred Bloggs Racing” will be able to run a car with a significant and variable technical advantage over Ferrari, McLaren, BMW and Toyota for a fraction of their budgets. In reality, the minnows should still not be competitive, but a two-class field could be confusing.
The politics run deeper. There is now no binding Concorde agreement between the teams, the FIA and the commercial rights-holder, Ecclestone’s Formula One Management. The Memorandum of Understanding they operate under expires in 2012. With this plan, while also moving to protect F1 from the recession, Mosley and Ecclestone are trying to protect their control of the sport by having some alternative and more manageable teams filling the 12 available franchise slots.The teams’ association, FOTA, has been punchy in announcing its own blueprint of F1’s future, along with predicted 50% budget cuts. I suspect the new £30m budget limit is a negotiating stance, but I have never seen the teams so galvanised and cohesive. Mosley and Ecclestone will be assuming that when they start racing and protesting against each others’ cars, such accord will dissolve.
I doubt that it’s possible to audit and police the F1 spend of global organisations such as BMW and Toyota, with multiple facilities. The cost allocation of myriad research and development, parts, materials and overheads will be impossible to agree. It will be easy to create value for key personnel in other ways.
I dislike contrived equivalency formulas in motor sport. They are a necessary scourge of touring car and sports car racing, but not F1. This appears to be an invitation for the manufacturer to reduce its operations drastically and fall into line, or leave the sport.
It must be said that Mosley is fundamentally right, in that the current costs are unsustainable and the teams have been too slow to react.
Ecclestone’s view is that the capped budget teams are not going to be running at the front because they will not have comparable know-how. He is probably right, but F1 is all about excellence, not the lowest common denominator. He says he is more concerned about not having a grid full of cars, which is valid.
Amusingly, the only costs allowed outside of the proposed budget cap are motorhomes to keep the paddock looking smart, and FIA fines. Until now the teams have attempted to bring Mosley and Ecclestone along with them in their vision of the future, almost naively expecting agreement. Historically the teams have lacked the resolve, continuity and balls to win, but they seem more organised now. Everything depends on what Di Montezemolo at Ferrari wants to do. The climbdown on Friday on the “winner takes all” regulation was a big U-turn for the FIA.
Let battle commence, on and off the track.
GRAND PRIX CALENDAR
Mar 29 Melbourne Apr 5 Kuala Lumpur Apr 19 Shanghai Apr 26 Bahrain May 10 Barcelona May 24 Monte Carlo Jun 7 Istanbul Jun 21 Silverstone Jul 12 Nurburgring Jul 26 Budapest Aug 23 Valencia Aug 30 Spa Sep 13 Monza Sep 27 Singapore Oct 4 Suzuka Oct 18 Sao Paulo Nov 1 Abu Dhabi

Beaten Manchester United see red

YOU wait an age for one shocking disintegration of poise and invulnerability and suddenly two come along at once. Eight days ago Manchester United were skipping through the forest with seemingly nothing to stop them popping trophies in their basket.
Now they are as edgy as Little Red Riding Hoods who have just seen the Big Bad Wolf. Sir Alex Ferguson scoffed that he’d need to “read more Freud” in order to fathom Rafael Benitez, but if his nemesis can fashion a win over Aston Villa this afternoon, the joke will be on Ferguson. Liverpool would move to within a point of United with a chance, thanks to the fixture list, to regain leadership of the Premier League before United play again. It is Ferguson and his players who seem in need of psychoanalysis, if only to understand what inner collapse has caused such a sudden loss of authority.
Ferguson did his best to preserve any remaining veneer of calm as the teams left the pitch. He ordered Carlos Tevez, then Edwin Van der Sar to stop harranguing Phil Dowd, the referee, but nobody was fooled.
Apoplexy overcame Ferguson in his post-match interview. After complaining about the sending-offs of both Wayne Rooney and Paul Scholes (questioning the latter, for blatant handball on the goalline seemed even more one-eyed than claiming United were “the better team” in their 4-1 defeat by Liverpool last week) exasperation caused Ferguson to tail off. “Ach . . . I mean . . . oh,” he said, “what can you say about that?”Fulham were magnificent, feisty, resolute, intelligent, controlled by United’s old bugbear Danny Murphy in the first period and kept intact by Mark Schwarzer’s heroic goalkeeping in the second. They were rocking only briefly, when United shelled Schwarzer’s goal for 10 minutes either side of the hour mark but that was it.
Ferguson’s assertion following the Liverpool defeat that “we will respond” was not borne out and for once the manager is grateful for an international break. He should have been thanking Dowd.
Cristiano Ronaldo could easily have earned the same penalty as Rooney and Scholes, who will miss United’s next fixture, versus Aston Villa, for a foot-off-the-ground lunge on Murphy for which he was yellow carded but might have seen red, and a prissy show of dissent minutes later, for which the referee merely warned him.
Dowd was more punitive towards Rooney. With a minute left the forward hurled the ball away when Dowd ordered a free kick to be retaken. He had already been cautioned for a cynical shirt-pull on Olivier Dacourt and was ordered to leave the field after being booked again. On his way off, Rooney landed a meaty punch upon the corner flag but it was United who had received the knockout blow.
Moments earlier Zoltan Gera had settled matters by scoring with a bicycle kick, teeing himself up cleverly after interplay with Andy Johnson.
Fulham’s early lead arrived when Brede Hangeland flicked on at a corner, Van der Sar saved Bobby Zamora’s header and Scholes palmed the ball away when Zamora followed up with another headed effort. Murphy stroked the penalty past Van der Sar and Ferguson’s gamble of recalling Scholes at Michael Carrick’s expense had failed. Dimitar Berbatov and Ronaldo, chosen as the front-line ahead of Rooney and Carlos Tevez, were indolent and indulgent respectively. Rooney, on at striker after replacing Berbatov at half-time, was the inspiration behind United’s comeback and it stalled the moment Ferguson brought on Tevez and moved Rooney to the right.
Fulham should have added to their first goal earlier but Clint Dempsey and Zamora missed chances and there were too many long-range shots.
Giggs released Ronaldo with a gorgeous pass and Schwarzer saved with his body when Park Ji-Sung attempted to convert the cross. Rooney went for goal with the rebound and Schwarzer saved again.
When Murphy made it 1-0 the cameras panned to the bench and you could see the gum turning round in Ferguson’s mouth at the speed of clothes in a spin cycle. At 2-0 he leaned back open mouthed. The chewing, and United’s world, had stopped.
FULHAM: Schwarzer 9, Pantsil 7, Hughes 7, Hangeland 8, Konchesky 7, Dempsey 7 (Gera 81min), Murphy 9 (Dacourt 67min), Etuhu 7, Davies 7, Johnson 6, Zamora 6 (Kamara 77min)
MAN UTD: Van der Sar 8, O’Shea 5 (Tevez 70min), Evans 5, Ferdinand 6, Evra 5, Ronaldo 5, Fletcher 5, Scholes 3, Park 5, Giggs 6, Berbatov 6 (Rooney ht, 5)
Star man: Danny Murphy (Fulham)
Yellow cards: Fulham: Pantsil, Dempsey Man Utd: Evans, Evra, Ronaldo, Rooney
Red cards: Man Utd: Scholes, Rooney
Referee: P Dowd
Attendance: 25,652
Source:the times