McLaren’s CEO Ron Dennis announced that costs would be drastically cut in Formula 1.
“I think the top teams will manage to reduce their costs from between 10 and 50 percent,” Dennis said at the International Automobile Festival. “But for the smaller teams it will be more dramatic, to the order of 30 to 50 percent. That is the aim we have this year.
“We are certainly going to take into account the smaller teams, who will be able to make the most of cheaper engines and gearboxes.
“A big team, which does all the developmental work and research, will still spend from 100 to 130 million euros for its engines and gearboxes while smaller teams, who will not do the same amount of developmental work, will be able to have exactly the same products for just 6.5 million euros.
“Major efforts have been made to make Formula One viable but we will not stop there and will do even more,” said the McLaren boss. “We mustn´t damage the DNA of the sport, its showbiz side.”
From the mouth of FOTA? Ron seems focused on protecting the smaller teams like a mother hen and that is a good thing and sign that FOTA have agreed to collectively keep everyone’s interest germane in its goal of unity among teams. The upside is if the big teams can swallow their pride and envision a small team having the same ability for a drastically reduced price. In effect it is the large teams buffering smaller teams to keep the sport alive and in the face of a global financial crisis; i think we should at some level be thankful for their willingness to do so. It is not optimum to the pure racing spirit of stomping the bile out of your competition but in the end, we must carry on with the show and remain competitive.
we’ll see how amenable Ron is if Williams and BMW start passing Lewis…something tells me nasty, mean Ron may surface. He may like a lot of things but losing isn’t one of them.
