Post by Admin on Oct 28, 2014 8:56:09 GMT -6
News this week that Marussia and Cartham have entered bankruptcy and will miss the USGP bring to mind an old saying. "Speed cost money, How fast can you afford to go." You hear it said every year, racing cost have gotten out of control. However for one of the few times in recent years we are seeing it to come home to roost in a lot of series.
In NASCAR Sprint Cup is is rumored that top teams such as Hendricks have operating budgets approaching $100 million annually. It is no wonder that we are seeing fewer and fewer small teams able to compete in NASCAR. And even larger name teams falling behind the front runners.
Yet this is small change compared to F1. A $100 million budget would nto get you with in 3 seconds a lap of the front running teams. With front running tams rumored to be spending over $500 million a year.
What are sanctioning bodies to do. The front running teams are against any type of cost controls that would allow other teams to catch up to them on the track. Yet we are seeing teams leaving the sport on a weekly basis. In the TUDOR USCR series there were three top GTD teams that announced they are leaving the series to move to the Pirelli World Challenge or are considering leaving the series for PWC. The top LMP2 car in the series has announced it would not run the full season in 2015 but will only run the North American Endurance Challenge races. Not a single one of the ALMS LMP1 and LMP2 teams from 2013 raced in a LMP car at the Petite Lemans this season.
The ACO has announced that the LMP2 car will cease to exist after 2017 and will be replaced with a new car with lower cost. Due to the fact that there were less than 20 full season LMP2 in the entire world in 2015. That take in the cars running in the TUDOR USCR, European Lemans Series, Asian Lemans Series and the World Endurance Championship.
The SCCA and the Spec Mazda Miata series are investigation an embarrassment from this years national run off where the top 6 finishers and two others were DQ'ed due to illegal modifications to their engines.
All of these incidents have to do with one item. Some people will spend what ever it takes to win and it drives cost up for the others. The question is what can be done about these few that are ruining it for the rest of the field. We could crack down heavily with cost caps and heavy punishments for those who violate the rules. But most of the time they will just pick up their toys and move on to another series. F1 has been under the threat of a manufacture lead break away series for some time. The FIA tried to address the issue but was sent back with it tail between it's legs when the top manufacturers rebelled against the cost cutting idea.
The series must look at what they are offering the fans and what it is the fans want from their series. What may work for one series may not work for another. Case in point cost cutting in NASCAR could be done in a way that will lower cost as long as the on track action is still good. The average NASCAR fans cares more about eh on track product than exotic technology. While F1 fans could care less about if the top two cars are even on the same lap as long as it has the latest and most exotic technology in the world. So an universal one size fits all fix is not likely. But there will come a day when more and more team owners, sponsor and auto manufacturers will look at their respected series and say "Maybe i am not getting the Return on Investment from this series that i should and it is time to move my money elsewhere". No matter which series we like to watch if there are fewer and fewer cars om the track the fans will lose interest. When that happens even more sponsors will lose interest in those series and pull out. It can become a self inflected out of control down hill spiral if these series do nothing about the issue of cost. May not be easy but some how we have to get the run away cost cat back into the bag while we still have racing to watch.