Formula 1 execs fear "a third team will collapse in the new
year as the sport dithers over a multimillion-pound plan to slash costs," according to Kevin Eason of the LONDON TIMES. After
the demise of Marussia and Caterham, F1 "will be plunged into a fresh
season without a long-term strategy despite weeks of wrangling and the
threat of an investigation by the European Union into the sport's
controversial finances." The Christmas break "should have provided
blessed relief from the clamour around the sport," but one source said, "Forget the festive spirit; we have people drinking in the
last-chance saloon this Christmas and no one seems able or willing to do
anything about it." The leaders of the "biggest and most powerful" teams -- Red Bull, Ferrari,
Mercedes and McLaren -- seem "happy to sit on their hands and allow the
smaller, independent teams to be engulfed." Force India Deputy Team Principal Bob Fernley said, "One of the team principals said he wanted to protect teams working on budgets of £50 million ($77.6M) to £70 million ($108.6M). I had to tell him he was too late -- that was Marussia and Caterham. They have gone and more than 400 people lost their jobs. ... At the start of 2014 we were warning that teams were in danger -- and Marussia and Caterham have gone. We are about to start a new year with the same warning, but no one seems to grasp what is going on and how urgent things have become. They are like sailors rearranging the deckchairs on the Titanic while the ship sinks." Pleas to "cut the cost of the new high-tech hybrid engines -- the biggest
uncontrolled price rise in the sport -- also fell on deaf ears." Instead,
F1 CEO Bernie Ecclestone is "pushing teams to bin the
groundbreaking hybrid engine technology, introduced only last season." Abandoning the high-tech hybrids would be a "desperate admission of failure" for FIA President Jean Todt and the FIA (LONDON TIMES, 12/29).
