It was a very busy weekend at Silverstone, but without much in the way of real F1 news. The only big news of the weekend was that America’s Tim Mayer is going to stand against Mohammed Ben Sulayem in the FIA election in December. Mayer is a good candidate and by deciding to stand, he has indicated that he believes he can win. His explanation of why he wants to stand was well-delivered, hard-hitting and entirely logical and sensible. Mayer fell victim to the vagaries of the FIA President a while back when Mohammed Ben Sulayem got upset about police motorcycle outriders.
Weird, but true. Mayer says his candidacy is not about revenge. I believe that. Tim is someone who cares about the sport and is not someone who seems driven by the desire to be a boss. This is unusual in an FIA presidential candidate as most have stuff in their pasts that drive them to need recognition, power or whatever. Tim is a pretty normal chap from an extraordinary background. He has nothing much to lose and said things in his speech that others have not dared say.
And really that tells a story of its own. The fact that people are afraid to speak is itself an indication that things are not right. Mayer will now tour the world and try to convince the FIA member clubs that things will be better with him in charge. We will have to see if he convinces enough of these people. One way of the other the FIA will get the president it deserves and that will define the FIA in the eyes of the world.
It should perhaps be noted that there are people out there who believe that the FIA needs to be sorted out with help from the real world beyond the land of the blazers. There is very definitely an investigation going on in the shadows into Ben Sulayem. Who knows what this will uncover or if it will all just go quiet, but the most interesting thing is that no-one knows who is behind this. But someone is paying for folks from the spooky world to dig around in the past of Mr President…
There was tittle tattle about Max and Mercedes and more chatter about Ferrari not wanting to renew its deal with Fred Vasseur. Otherwise it was rather quiet. Christian Horner shrugged and said there not much to report.
On Monday after the Grand Prix I hurried (or tried to hurry) down to London for an event to remember Eddie Jordan, as he was one of my oldest friends in the business. The roads were all clogged with traffic and so I took to the country lanes to try to get to London in time. On my travels I found myself encountering a strong of very English village names, which you would be hard-pressed to find anywhere but in England: Marsh Gibbon, Gubblecote and Cow Roast being three on or close to my route.
With all the traffic, the shocking state of the roads and even a team who delayed things because they were filling potholes, I finally made it to London, with its endless bus and bicycle lanes and 20mph speed limits. I was lucky to make it to Westminster in time. I do understand what they are trying to achieve and I agree that it is important but by the time I reached my destination I had concluded that I am not going to go to London ever again in a car. I guess they have achieved what they wanted, but in future I’ll spend my money elsewhere instead. This made me feel rather sad as London was part of my life for so long. Wherever I went I had memories of the old days before I departed to live in Europe.
The EJ event was brilliant and spectacular and quite unlike anything I’ve ever been to before, with music, dancing and even a bit of opera. There were so many faces from the past that it felt like my whole racing life was there in one room. It was a reminder that a career in motor sport is made up of so many brilliant and fun people.
I recalled the first time I ever met Eddie. It was in Zandvoort and he came up to me and, to be fair, the word f*ck was only the third word he said to me. “What the f*ck are you doing here?” he asked. “Do you know how many f*cking people in this f*cking pit lane have got f*cking university degrees?” I had no idea. “There’s two,” he said. “You and the f*cking car designer.”
It was not an introduction that one forgets easily.
Sadly, I did not have time to hang around at the party as I had to cope with more 20mph limits before I could get to the ferry boat to get me home. It was nonetheless a great event and a perfect way to remember EJ – in all his idiosyncratic glory.
When the news broke of Horner’s departure on Wednesday. It was a massive surprise. With 20 and a half years in charge of Red Bull Racing, Christian was the longest-serving of them all, by a considerable margin. Toto Wolff has been in charge at Mercedes since 2012, but after him the team principal who has been in the job longest is Andrea Stella -and he has been there for just two and a half years. The others are all newer than that. One would be forgiven for thinking that being an F1 team principal is like being a football manager.
I fear that the removal of Horner will not be good news for the team. Red Bull Racing is in many respects Horner Racing. He built it and made it successful. Red Bull paid for it. This in part is one of the reasons for the change. Those in charge in Austria do not like the fact that Horner can be viewed as more important than they are. When Dietrich Mateschitz was still alive, there was never much politics. Mateschitz trusted Horner and Christian was in charge. He oversaw 14 World Championships, helping Sebastian Vettel and Max Verstappen to multiple titles. Success came in cycles, but when times were hard in 2015 and Red Bull failed to win a race, Mateschitz kept his faith in Horner. This paid off. In 2023 Red Bull won 21 of 22 races – a 95.45 percent record, which was even more successful that McLaren’s famous 1988 season, when Ayrton Senna and Alain Prost won 15 of 16 races.
Laurent Mekies is a good guy, but winning over the hearts and minds of Horner Racing will not be easy – and there are no shortage of jobs for experienced people to go to in motorsport valley. Those who have seen how the new Red Bull management has dealt with Horner, may prefer not to stay. I think that those who pushed Horner out will soon regret it and one can only wonder what Mateschitz would have thought of there antics of his successors. People who fiddle with F1 teams without understanding what they are doing create the Alpines of tomorrow. Successful teams have often faltered when new leaders arrived thinking they know best. Team owners are the ones who spend the money, but being rich doesn’t make you right… I can think of countless examples of people wandering into F1 minefields, thinking themselves clever, and blowing themselves to pieces.
The key to success in F1 is stability and keeping politics to a minimum. Those who do not understand this suffer. The biggest lesson from all of this is that if you are a team principal you need to have equity in a team, or at least options to become a shareholder. If you have a right to vote, you have a right to argue your case. Being only a manager means you can get dumped in a flash, even if you have brought the owners enormous success. More than a few team principals have whispered to me over time that the biggest problem is keeping their owners happy – and realistic.
Now is the perfect time to own a Formula 1 team. They are making money and their valuations are increasing with every passing month. I can imagine that Horner might wish to put together a consortium and buy another team. The loyal followers would go with him. Raising $1.5 billion at the moment is not difficult if you have a credible package. And the growth is not about to stop
F1 is going to go on growing for some years yet. The F1 film has been a big success, making $300 million in its first 10 days – which makes it the highest-grossing film ever for Apple Studios. The movie is unlikely to slow down making money as word about the film gets around. It is already one of the highest-grossing movies of Brad Pitt’s career. It rated a nearly perfect score on the popular review site Rotten Tomatoes, which is very influential among moviegoers. The movie will bring new fans to the sport and push up global interest in Formula 1. Big corporate deals have never been as impressive.
Silverstone attracted the second biggest crowd in modern history with a total of 500,000 people over four days, with 168,000 on race day. This is still short of the highest ever official crowd figure in F1 history, which was 520,000 in Adelaide, Australia, in 1995, but there is no doubt that within a year or two that record will finally be broken either by the British Grand Prix, or perhaps by the Australians or at the United States Grand Prix in Austin.
Just before this year’s British Grand Prix the F1 world paid a visit to 10 Downing Street to celebrate the 75th anniversary of the Formula 1 World Championship and to draw attention to the impact that Formula 1 has on the British economy. More than 100 F1 people, several drivers and team principals met with British Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer. The even revealed that F1 supports around 40,000 jobs in the UK and is “a fabulous business card for this country around the world”
“As Prime Minister, I’m really proud of what F1 does for our country,” Starmer said. “Not just that technology, not just that innovation, not just the money into the economy and the sheer joy it gives to so many people, but the soft power and global reputation that it gives the United Kingdom. This is really important.”
Just like Marsh Gibbon and other places with silly names, Formula 1 is very British – something that the Austrians will now learn painfully.
As to what Horner does next, we will have to see…
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