Yesterday in an interview with the media, Force India Team Principal Vijay Mallya says if Bernie Ecclestone wants the teams to run three cars next season, he is going to have to pay them for it.
With the future of some of the current teams on the line, the debate over running three-car teams next season has hit high gear. F1 supremo Bernie Ecclestone is in favour and has told the teams that “if we lose three teams the other teams will run three cars.”
However in his interview with the media yesterday, Mallya is resolute that if Ecclestone wants him to field another car and employ all the personnel needed, he is going to have to help finance that car. Mallya stated the following:-
‘We were going to demand compensation to build a third car, we’re not going to do it for free. I’m sure the commercial rights holder realises that, he’s got to make economically viable.
‘But then, this year you see both the Mercedes ahead of everybody else. In the last few years we had Red Bulls in front of everyone else – so now you want the entire podium to be occupied by one team. It doesn’t make too much sense does it?
‘I can’t comment on the other teams, whether they can survive or not. The situation will only arise if someone else departs. The situation otherwise cannot be enforced on anybody.’
As Mallya has stated in his interview, it is clear that Force India is not going to build a third car for free and I believe that they should receive money from the FIA in order to achieve this objective if the direction of Formula One goes the way that Ecclestone believes that it will.
Even though Mallya makes a valid point in regards to Red Bull dominating for the past few seasons and now this season we have seen Mercedes dominating at the front of the grid, at the end of the day, the team who makes the fastest car on the grid will always be at the front. And it is up to their rivals to make the ground up and achieve the same. But I understand Mallya’s point of view and if that does happen, it wouldn’t help the sport either.
Of course Mallya doesn’t know what the thoughts are regarding the other teams on the grid and he cannot enforce his perspective on them. But I strongly agree with him that it will only take one team who will not have the means to survive and compete in the sport before issues of cost are taken seriously and steps need to be taken before this happens.
Mallya has also hit out as Formula 1’s revenue sharing, saying the only reason some teams are struggling to survive is because the bigger teams get the bigger slice of the pie. Further on in his interview, Mallya said the following on the subject:-
‘I know that it’s been talked about at every race, talked about at every opportunity in the Formula One paddock about whether certain teams will survive or not. Why is there this uncertainty? The uncertainty is because of this imbalance and certain irrationality about how revenues are shared.
‘The big teams take a major slice and the smaller teams get less as a result. That is what is adding to all this speculation. The best way of doing it is to make a more rational Formula which gives everyone a chance to not just survive but compete and make Formula One even more interesting.’
As Mallya states in his interview yesterday, there is a lot of speculation regarding if certain teams will be able to survive and keep on competing and racing in the sport and once again this comes down to finances and what they receive at the end of the year from FOM.
It would seem to Mallya that what the big teams receive and what the smaller teams receive is once again the source that is adding to this speculation. What Mallya suggests is very valid which is to create a more rational Formula that gives every team the chance to survive and race well and this would make the sport interesting if this happened.
But I just don’t see Mallya’s vision of Formula One being more rational happening. I can’t see all of the teams agreeing to this, even if they believe it could be the right thing. At the end of the day, I agree completely with him and with all the speculation on the smaller teams of the grid such as Marussia, Caterham, Lotus and even Sauber in financial trouble, it will only take one of these teams leaving the sport for Formula One to take this matter seriously.
And we cannot see this happen. The smaller teams have every right to be on the grid as the bigger teams and something must be done to ensure that they survive in the sport for as long as possible before it is too late for anything to be done. As without these smaller teams, Formula One wouldn’t be the same anymore and the magic of Formula One giving these teams even a possibility of becoming the best team on the grid would be gone and that part of Formula One would be a thing of the past.
Personally, something needs to be done to ensure their survival before this situation occurs and it needs to be done now before it is too late for them and the sport to do anything about it. Smaller teams need Formula One and Formula One needs the smaller teams. As without it, the rest of the remaining teams would lose their challenge and that cannot be allowed to happen.
