The Sports Corner

Another Formula 1 team expected to fall

In the aftermath of Honda’s stunning decision to immediately cease its Formula One programme and place its team up for sale, Williams F1 chief executive Adam Parr has forecasted further doom and gloom for the world’s premier motorsport category.

Parr believes that at least one more team, most likely another major manufacturer, will cease its F1 operations before the start of the 2009 season as the global financial crisis worsens.

“I believe that we probably will lose another team before the beginning of next season and there is a very high chance it will be a manufacturer,” Parr told a reporter from Reuters. “I had expected one or two teams to pull out of Formula One imminently. And I also said that it was not necessarily going to be just independent teams.”

Williams F1 is one of four independent teams left on the nine team grid for next season. The other’s being Vijay Mallya’s Force India, and Dietrich Mateschitz’s Red Bull Racing and Toro Rosso teams. Parr was quick to comment that Williams F1, despite having had to dramatically cut staff and its budget since the departure of BMW as a partner, will never willingly leave the championship.

“Williams would never choose to leave Formula One,” he said. “So long as we can rub together a few pennies and put together a half-decent budget, we are going to go racing. To me, it’s just completely illogical to talk about Williams leaving Formula One.”

Red Bull Racing team official and Mateschitz right hand man Helmut Marko told reporters that the future of the two Red Bull teams is safe, despite a thirty percent cut in spending for next season. Toyota F1 released a press statement shortly after the decision by Honda was published to reiterate its commitment to the sport and that despite its substantial spending the past five seasons it would continue to fund the team appropriately in an effort to record its first grand prix victory. BMW F also confirmed that the championship remains at the centre of its motorsport goals and an important research and development avenue for its road car operations.

The loss of Honda has re-enlivened the debate over customer cars and customer teams, where a team is not the constructor of its own vehicle and buys customer chassis from the manufacturers in an effort to save research and development costs. The customer car debate died a year ago when David Richard’s eleventh licensed team, Prodrive, withdrew from the championship before it ever unveiled a car due to strict interpretations of the design rules and a threat by the independent teams to institute Court action to disqualify Prodrive’s results. Another alleged customer car team, Super Aguri Racing, folded four races into the 2008 season after a difficult 2007 season where supplier Honda were forced to financially bail the team out several times.

Parr reiterated the views of Williams F1 and its chiefs, Sir Frank Williams and Patrick Head, who both are adamant customer teams should not be allowed to enter the championship. Parr believed that if another team were to withdraw from next years championship, then perhaps the FIA should consider allowing teams to run three or four cars per race rather than bolster the rear of the grid with rebadged customer cars.

“Williams would rather compete on equal terms with constructors and take our chances than mess around with customer teams,” Parr said. “My opinion is that it is far better to have seven or eight constructors than seven or eight constructors and three or four customer teams.” 

Parr told Reuters that the FIA already has standing rules for the championship that should the number of teams on the grid for next season fall below the current nine, then teams will be automatically allowed to field three cars per race. That would result in up to twenty four cars from eight teams, more than the current grid of eighteen cars from nine teams.

One thing is for sure, the next three months will be interesting for Formula One supporters.