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Strike caused late arrival for Sauber at Silverstone

Published on 03 Jul 2015 10:02
1
By: Rob Veenstra

Sauber mechanics were working overtime in the Silverstone pits on Thursday. That was because, as of 6am, the Swiss team's trucks carrying the cars for Felipe Nasr and Marcus Ericsson had yet to arrive at the British grand prix venue. Germany's Auto Motor und Sport reports that Sauber left Hinwil on time, but got held up in France during a Eurotunnel strike and blockade.

The transporters diverted, but got caught up in a four kilometre traffic jam, meaning mechanics are now racing against time to prepare the Ferrari-powered cars. Meanwhile, team manager Beat Zehnder has hit out at some of the proposals put forward by the Strategy Group to spice up F1's future.

He told Speed Week that speeding up the cars by increasing tyre grip and downforce will affect overtaking. "I don't think a TV viewer notices if a car is three, four or six seconds faster," said Zehnder. "Much more important is that the racing is exciting, but how does that work if the drivers cannot overtake?"

He also questioned the very credibility of the decision-making group, arguing that only 10 per cent of what it proposes is ever actually adopted. "Let's face it: what have they done so far? Drivers cannot change their helmets. Drivers can keep their race numbers. Double points at the finale in 2014. All of this made the sport better?"

"I've been in the sport a few years now," said Zehnder. "The big difference is that the team bosses also used to be the owners, but this is now largely no longer true. Today you have a lot of highly paid bosses who need to deliver results in a very short time," he charged, "and so they'll do anything for that. How much money is wasted doing it, they don't care. These people have little interest in what is in the long-term best interest of F1," Zehnder added. (GMM)

F1 News Felipe Nasr Marcus Ericsson Sauber Ferrari

Replies (1)

khasmir

Posts: 893
F1 management has gone so wrong in the last 10 years it will be very difficult to fix things unless they make some really hard decisions.
There needs to be a clear line between the competitors, the organizers and the rule makers. Just like any modern democracy there should be a clear line between the people that set out the rules (FOM), the people that need to enforce them (FIA) and the law binding citizens (racers/teams). There should be committees (including racers/teams) that propose changes to the rules to benefit the greater good of the sport but in the end, the people that set out the rules need to decide.

At this time F1 is a stuck self-perpetuating spiral of death. It needs to be broken with some hard and decisive measures. That also means people taking up their responsibilities. It boggles my mind to see Bernie criticizing the sport while he should be its main promoter...

Another huge problem is the people that should define the rules don't want to take any real decisions so they let the teams (strategy group) decide. Just because they don't have the will, the guts, or any real long-term plan to do it themselves. The FIA can only govern the rules they have been given.

Maybe the whole thing is a scheme to lower the value of F1 stocks so they can easily be sold to someone else close to Bernie...
- + 0
- Jul 3 2015 - 20:58