It’s always a tough situation but scheduling a Formula 1 calendar can’t be easy especially when you have other FIA event such as the WEC as well as other world-class racing like Dorna’s MotoGP.
With seven date clashes with MotoGP, Liberty Media’s Ross Brawn met with Dorna chief executive Carmelo Ezpeleta to discuss ways in which they two series might avoid that in the future.
Makes perfect sense to me and Ross said that F1 is humble enough to seek input from other series on how the two might work together. However, what I found interesting is Brawn commentary admiring MotoGP’s ladder system as juxtaposed with F1’s.
“We should have the 22 or 24 best drivers in the world in Formula 1,” said Brawn.
“There are commercial considerations, which means we don’t always achieve that.
“It’s a complex problem because you have to put the teams in a position where they don’t have to make those commercial decisions, they just make the decision based on the strongest drivers they can find.”
Is this a case of the genii out of the bottle? If teams know they can seek substantial pay-driver money, would they be willing to ignore that if they had a relatively equal way to cover the commercial aspect? Something tells me they would take both options.
There are some other interesting comments in the article (linked below) that you might find interesting from Mr. Brawn but I’m intrigued about the pillars of the series from a financial standpoint and how messrs. Brawn, Carey and Bratches reckon they’ll reduce race sanctioning fees, give more money to teams to allow for non-paying drivers and reduce tickets costs and produce a world streaming feed and on and on and on. These have all be thrown around in conversation and right now, that would only mean less money for Liberty Media and I don’t see that happening any time soon. neither does Ross.
Hat Tip: Autosport
Ok i’m slightly confused. Not that Liberty is following, or looking in MotoGP’s direction at least and taking inspiration because I thought that and mentioned it a lot in previous comments but I am confused as the talk about schedule conflicts.
Ezpeleta and Ecclestone long had a gentlemen’s agreement in place, guess Ross just wants to continue and re-establish it a little, but whilst the events may clash on the same day, certainly last year, MotoGP rounds moved start times for F1.
Good point Tom, there must have been an agreement in place before now because there haven’t been many clashes in previous years.
There must be a lot that L.M can learn from Espolita. Dorna have done an amazing job to navigate GP bike racing through some tough times over the past decade.
I wonder what the distribution of prize money is in MotoGP?
A wee side issue, I was sad to see the article on Autosport that Nikki Hayden is badly injured, knocked off a bicycle by a car. I hope he recovers.
http://www.autosport.com/news/report.php/id/129579/hayden-condition-remains-extremely-serious