这是今年三月金融时报对F1做的一版special report. 当时看了觉得很受用，但是一直忘在电脑的某个角落里.............现在贴出来好像也不晚。一共六篇文章，缓慢更新中。都是对F1现在财政状况很深入的分析，一些观点很有启发性，各位有想去欢迎抱走~~
Sport needs dash of excitement
Concerns over funding damp hopes for a more competitive season, say Roger Blitz and
James Allen
Lewis Hamilton, Formula One’s reigning world cham- pion, is hoping not to have it all his own way this season as he sets off in pursuit ofanother title.
“You’re hoping that it’s a bit of a better
year for the likes of McLaren and Ferrari so that we have more people to race,” the 30-year-old Briton said in an interview this month.
Stars such as Hamilton, who drives for Mercedes, are meant to have an unsentimental, single-minded approach to their sport. And deep down, Hamilton clearly does.
But his hankering for a more competi- tive season speaks volumes for the state of F1. For all the global reach of the sport and the excitement associated with fast cars, wealthy backers and exotic race locations, these are difficult days.
Funding issues are proving trouble- some. The big question among F1’s team principals, owners and investors is: Where is the money coming from?
Big TV rights deals secured in the past 12 months by the English Premier League — ￡5bn over three years in the UK market alone — and the US National Basketball Association ($24bn over nine years) make sports such as F1 tremble. If football and basketball are picking up bigger slices of the TV rights pie, where does it leave the rest?
F1 receives some $1.5bn a year — not a bad showing. But growth is hard to envisage. F1 appears to be in managed decline, on the basis of most indicators such as TV viewing figures, race ticket sales and number of participants, while TV rights fees are fairly static. Sponsor- ship deals trickle, rather than flow.
The German Grand Prix, a mainstay of F1, may not take place this year due to financial issues with the promoter, as interest in the sport in Germany declines.
Some good news is that race hosting fees are increasing, thanks to deals to stage Grands Prix in Mexico, Azerbaijan and Qatar. But stakeholders question the long-term viability of hosting three races in the Middle East — Qatar joins Abu Dhabi and Bahrain on the calendar — and Germany is not the only Euro- pean Grand Prix where promoters are struggling to make the numbers add up.
Lack of new money is being fell acutely on the grid. Towards the end of last season, two teams went into admin- istration, Caterham and Marussia, while questions remain over the financial resilience of Sauber, Force India and Lotus.
Staying in F1, let alone being competi- tive, is a daunting challenge. All teams are struggling to find new sponsors, while the hybrid turbo engines, intro- duced last season, more than doubled a team’s engine bill to $20m a year.
Marussia (now renamed Manor Marussia F1) has been thrown a lifeline and is being rescued by a consortium including Ovo Energy boss Stephen Fit- zpatrick and ex-Sainsbury’s chief execu- tive Justin King.
Fitzpatrick is a brave man. He has committed to a budget of ￡60m a sea- son, funded from the team’s prize money from last season and from spon- sorship linked to its drivers, but also from his wallet.
The plight of Caterham and Marussia has thrown a harsh spotlight on the une- qual distribution of F1 prize money.
Ferrari receives a fixed upfront fee of $100m, Red Bull $70m, McLaren $50m and Mercedes and Williams roughly
$10m each from a separate fund, from which the other teams are excluded.
This unbalanced distribution will per- sist through to 2020. But there is little sign of the big teams being willing to yield on this. No surprise, then, that the smaller, less-established teams have started to voice their frustrations pub- licly.
There is a real prospect that one or all of the independent teams may fail before the end of the season. Force India is struggling to make it to the first race, because of problems with suppliers.
Although there are signs that F1 chief executive Bernie Ecclestone is willing to offer a financial leg-up to the three teams struggling for survival, suspicions remain that he is eyeing a new make-up of the grid, involving fewer teams field- ing either a third car or a B team.
To his detractors, Ecclestone is a bar- rier to the change that teams and other stakeholders consider vital for the sport’s growth. For example, he eschews social media.
He is not blind to the sport’s short- comings though. F1 narrowly avoided a “lousy” championship last season, he said in his end-of-season review, thanks to the competitive tension between Hamilton and this fellow team driver Nico Rosberg.
His solution is a makeover, with more exciting-looking cars, and noisier engines producing in excess of 1,000 horsepower which are more of a challenge for drivers.
Others think the solution is to move on from the long and colourful Ecclestone era. The 84-year-old survived an end-of-season coup attempt engineered by Donald Mackenzie, the co-founder of F1’s biggest shareholder CVC Capital Partners, who wanted to shoehorn on to the F1 board a new chairman with exec utive powers. Ecclestone would have none of it, although it would be a stretch to say that his position is now unassailable.
However, this is not the first season to begin with question marks about Ecclestone’s future. In all likelihood it will not be the last either. Somehow, the shrewd, F1 chief finds a way of hanging on — to the frustration of some and the admiration of others.
But regardless of his survival prospects, the long-term problems have not gone away. Maurizio Arrivabene, Ferrari’s team principal, wants a “real revolution” in the way the sport presents itself to fans. So does McLaren’s chief executive, Ron Dennis.
For this season, F1 may struggle to set the world alight with an exciting championship. Certainly, the early signs from pre-season testing are unpromising. Hamilton’s Mercedes team has looked confident and is working hard on improving reliability — the only factor that prevented it from winning every race last season. It remains the team to beat.
Ferrari has shown some signs of sig- nificant improvement but will not be title contenders. McLaren is back to the drawing board as it beds in a new hybrid engine with partner Honda.
This leaves Red Bull and Williams as the main challengers to Mercedes. But they must catch up fast. Red Bull man- aged three Grands Prix wins last season, Williams none.
Williams uses the same engine as Mercedes, so it will be hard for it to beat the works team. The best hope for a competitive season rests with Red Bull and its Renault engine.
It does the sport no good if teams such as Ferrari and McLaren are uncompetitive. As Hamilton said: “The more peo- ple, the merrier. If the cars are close, you can have real races where you’re over- taking and battling and that’s what I love doing.”
For the world champions and F1’s fans, it may just be wishful thinking.
这是今年三月金融时报对F1做的一版special report. 当时看了觉得很受用，但是一直忘在电脑的某个角落里.............现在贴出来好像也不晚。一共六篇文章，缓慢更新中。都是对F1现在财政状况很深入的分析，一些观点很有启发性，各位有想去欢迎抱走~~
Sport needs dash of excitement
Concerns over funding damp hopes for a more competitive season, say Roger Blitz and
James Allen
Lewis Hamilton, Formula One’s reigning world cham- pion, is hoping not to have it all his own way this season as he sets off in pursuit ofanother title.
“You’re hoping that it’s a bit of a better
year for the likes of McLaren and Ferrari so that we have more people to race,” the 30-year-old Briton said in an interview this month.
Stars such as Hamilton, who drives for Mercedes, are meant to have an unsentimental, single-minded approach to their sport. And deep down, Hamilton clearly does.
But his hankering for a more competi- tive season speaks volumes for the state of F1. For all the global reach of the sport and the excitement associated with fast cars, wealthy backers and exotic race locations, these are difficult days.
Funding issues are proving trouble- some. The big question among F1’s team principals, owners and investors is: Where is the money coming from?
Big TV rights deals secured in the past 12 months by the English Premier League — ￡5bn over three years in the UK market alone — and the US National Basketball Association ($24bn over nine years) make sports such as F1 tremble. If football and basketball are picking up bigger slices of the TV rights pie, where does it leave the rest?
F1 receives some $1.5bn a year — not a bad showing. But growth is hard to envisage. F1 appears to be in managed decline, on the basis of most indicators such as TV viewing figures, race ticket sales and number of participants, while TV rights fees are fairly static. Sponsor- ship deals trickle, rather than flow.
The German Grand Prix, a mainstay of F1, may not take place this year due to financial issues with the promoter, as interest in the sport in Germany declines.
Some good news is that race hosting fees are increasing, thanks to deals to stage Grands Prix in Mexico, Azerbaijan and Qatar. But stakeholders question the long-term viability of hosting three races in the Middle East — Qatar joins Abu Dhabi and Bahrain on the calendar — and Germany is not the only Euro- pean Grand Prix where promoters are struggling to make the numbers add up.
Lack of new money is being fell acutely on the grid. Towards the end of last season, two teams went into admin- istration, Caterham and Marussia, while questions remain over the financial resilience of Sauber, Force India and Lotus.
Staying in F1, let alone being competi- tive, is a daunting challenge. All teams are struggling to find new sponsors, while the hybrid turbo engines, intro- duced last season, more than doubled a team’s engine bill to $20m a year.
Marussia (now renamed Manor Marussia F1) has been thrown a lifeline and is being rescued by a consortium including Ovo Energy boss Stephen Fit- zpatrick and ex-Sainsbury’s chief execu- tive Justin King.
Fitzpatrick is a brave man. He has committed to a budget of ￡60m a sea- son, funded from the team’s prize money from last season and from spon- sorship linked to its drivers, but also from his wallet.
The plight of Caterham and Marussia has thrown a harsh spotlight on the une- qual distribution of F1 prize money.
Ferrari receives a fixed upfront fee of $100m, Red Bull $70m, McLaren $50m and Mercedes and Williams roughly
$10m each from a separate fund, from which the other teams are excluded.
This unbalanced distribution will per- sist through to 2020. But there is little sign of the big teams being willing to yield on this. No surprise, then, that the smaller, less-established teams have started to voice their frustrations pub- licly.
There is a real prospect that one or all of the independent teams may fail before the end of the season. Force India is struggling to make it to the first race, because of problems with suppliers.
Although there are signs that F1 chief executive Bernie Ecclestone is willing to offer a financial leg-up to the three teams struggling for survival, suspicions remain that he is eyeing a new make-up of the grid, involving fewer teams field- ing either a third car or a B team.
To his detractors, Ecclestone is a bar- rier to the change that teams and other stakeholders consider vital for the sport’s growth. For example, he eschews social media.
He is not blind to the sport’s short- comings though. F1 narrowly avoided a “lousy” championship last season, he said in his end-of-season review, thanks to the competitive tension between Hamilton and this fellow team driver Nico Rosberg.
His solution is a makeover, with more exciting-looking cars, and noisier engines producing in excess of 1,000 horsepower which are more of a challenge for drivers.
Others think the solution is to move on from the long and colourful Ecclestone era. The 84-year-old survived an end-of-season coup attempt engineered by Donald Mackenzie, the co-founder of F1’s biggest shareholder CVC Capital Partners, who wanted to shoehorn on to the F1 board a new chairman with exec utive powers. Ecclestone would have none of it, although it would be a stretch to say that his position is now unassailable.
However, this is not the first season to begin with question marks about Ecclestone’s future. In all likelihood it will not be the last either. Somehow, the shrewd, F1 chief finds a way of hanging on — to the frustration of some and the admiration of others.
But regardless of his survival prospects, the long-term problems have not gone away. Maurizio Arrivabene, Ferrari’s team principal, wants a “real revolution” in the way the sport presents itself to fans. So does McLaren’s chief executive, Ron Dennis.
For this season, F1 may struggle to set the world alight with an exciting championship. Certainly, the early signs from pre-season testing are unpromising. Hamilton’s Mercedes team has looked confident and is working hard on improving reliability — the only factor that prevented it from winning every race last season. It remains the team to beat.
Ferrari has shown some signs of sig- nificant improvement but will not be title contenders. McLaren is back to the drawing board as it beds in a new hybrid engine with partner Honda.
This leaves Red Bull and Williams as the main challengers to Mercedes. But they must catch up fast. Red Bull man- aged three Grands Prix wins last season, Williams none.
Williams uses the same engine as Mercedes, so it will be hard for it to beat the works team. The best hope for a competitive season rests with Red Bull and its Renault engine.
It does the sport no good if teams such as Ferrari and McLaren are uncompetitive. As Hamilton said: “The more peo- ple, the merrier. If the cars are close, you can have real races where you’re over- taking and battling and that’s what I love doing.”
For the world champions and F1’s fans, it may just be wishful thinking.
