F1 should be a dictatorship - Berger

That's not exactly right. Mercedes and Ferrari and Renault and Honda all know very well who their clients are and what they want. These teams are players and suppliers but they all have other larger clients or bosses they must account to as well. Formula 1 is only but a small part of the corporate mission and 4 those for companies those Formula 1 teams are very clear who their clients are. The problem is that serving their real clients is not always in accord with the best interests of Formula 1 as a spectacle.

I think we mean more or less the same but look at it from different angles. I see F1 (FIA and Liberty) as a company that promotes and organises a specific car racing competition year round, world round. For that it invites suppliers of cars and drivers to provide the actual racing.

Where we probably differ is how we see clients. For the F1 company (FIA and Liberty) the clients are the spectators, but only if represented by the circuits and the broadcasting companies.

The teams, as I said before, are not clients of F1, they are suppliers. Their main client is the F1 company. They are not part of the F1 company as they are not owners/shareholders of the FIA, or of Liberty. (missed chance..), nor do they own the actual racing or the competition. If Ferrari leaves the F1 competition they have nothing to show with their F1 cars anymore, unless they start their own competition, invite other teams, setup another FIA/Liberty, etc etc.

The Ferrari raceteam is a profitable company last time I looked. The revenues it makes from supplying to the F1 company (FIA and liberty) and other clients generates profit and a positive cash flow. However, the people that buy Ferrari road cars are not clients of the Ferrari F1 team. That team does not build, maintain or sell road cars. And the people that watch Ferrari race do not buy anything directly from the F1 racing team either, apart from some fan merchandise.

The FIAT group uses the Ferrari race team to build and maintain a complex message about beauty, desire, technological excellence, speed, excitement and exclusivity, which they then associate with the Ferrari road cars. All car manufacturers do that, and essentially Red Bull does the same for their products

However the non manufacturers only race (williams, force india, sauber): their clients are the sponsors, and the F1 company. Again the spectators are not their clients: they don't buy anything from them, apart from some merchandise.

All parties in F1 first and for all aim to serve their direct clients. And although the spectators in the end make it all happen, they do this only via various proxies: sales of road cars, sales of tickets, sales of products advertised, and sale of merchandise. The teams and F1 company are not directly involved with the spectators, and therefore their influence is limited.

Now what this all has to do with a dictator I am not sure anymore.

Ran it well is debatable. He ran it, but milked apart multiple tracks meanwhile. Do you think Äckelstone, together with the FIA, did a good job when he tanked Nürburg, and almost killed of Monza (and now Silverstone potentially) aswell? Do you think he did a good job allowing token ideas like the token system to take place, or the current 3 PU regulations?

I've been following F1 for many years and I don't see that as being what happened at all. Bernie was going senile for years and practically ran the show like a madman at the helm making private deals that weren't in the best interest of F1 to benefit him and his friends.

That's not really the same I think. A country is not a commercial enterprise. A country belongs to its rightfull (lawfull?) inhabitants, therefore they have the right (and the obligation) to participate in the constitution of the government and its execution. The general accepted method that recognizes the right of every inhabitant is democracy. (with all its flaws and limitations). An enterprise such as F1 is owned by it shareholders. They own the company, and therefore generally decide what happens. It is by definition not a democracy. For all non shareholders is a dictatorship. Not a lawless dictatorship though. And the shareholders choose a dictator, but kick him out if he does not look after the interests of the shareholders well enough.

As for the role of suppliers (Ferrari and the other teams). I am also baffled as of why suppliers would have a veto to how the company (F1) is being run. They are not even employees!

@hombibi I agree that it should be a "dictatoriship" if you are putting an organization in charge. The way I understood the comments, and the way dictatorships usually work is with one guy in charge, like Bernie Ecclestone in the past. It's still unnerving to hear people longing for the days when Bernie was a in charge. For all the mistakes Liberty has made, I've seen more progress in the last 2 years than in the last decade with Bernie in charge. Anyway... I think we agree.

I actually agree with AJPP on this. And as I said before, remember that these words come from the mouth of the guy who seem very keen on killing DTM.

Ajpp I think so too. No argument, I appreciate the exchange of ideas first and for all.

Calle, don’t you think the merge between super gt and dtm is a good thing?

That bit Im all for, I think those are two great series that could learn alot from each other (hell I think F1 could learn a thing or two from them aswell), but there is more to it than that. I just dont think Berger has done a good job with DTM, regardless of what the exchanges with S-GT brings to the table it feels stale, and as of late I havent watched a single race. Thats just me though.

@AJPP - out of curiosity, what progress have you seen? I've looked and can't say I've noticed any significant improvements.

@BHURT Im not AJPP, but I can name a few. Lets start with lowering the costs for many of the more traditional tracks. Even if Silverstone still got defeated in the end, this potentially saved Monza and Hockenheim, among others. And then we have F1 TV, which we Swedes cant enjoy props to Viaturdsat... yet at least.... And some of the new graphics looks pretty rad. Love all the stuff we get to see now compared to earlier, though it still needs some polish. I'd also say that Liberty's willingness to listen to the teams isnt bad, though they could do with being a bit more decisive... No dic(k)tatorship though.

Of course, not all has been without flaws, but generally they havent done a bad job. They seem far more interested than Äckelstone was the last 3 years.

@Bhurt. The digital presence and availability of content. This has substantially improved the experience for those watching from home. F1.com is always posting new quality content to both attract and keep fans engaged.

The tone of the discussions with race promoters and teams. There are all sorts of new venues that suddenly seem possible because Liberty is much more willing to negotiate that Bernie. Furthermore, Liberty is much more interested in providing good races/shows for the fans, instead of simply worrying about fees.

Liberty has a specific plan to improve the show, overtaking, reducing costs etc. I'm not saying that it will work, but they seem genuinely interested in doing those things.

Formula TV which albeit with some technical gremlins, it's just awesome to have that option at a very reasonable price.

The new regulation that will include equitable distribution of prize money

End of the culture of secrecy and restrictiveness that Eccleston thrived on for 40 years. F1 audiences have grown 54% since 2016.

#1 - not even Bernie could have resisted the digital nonsense forever (although I still personally avoid social media like a plague with plague on it), but fair enough. They've done some good things in this area.

#2 - allow me to disagree with you here. What Bernie did was negotiate the best possible deals for his employers, i.e his job. What Liberty is doing is giving away $600 million dollars to put a race on a non-existing race track in a market where people don't watch F1 and no F1-fans wants a race.

I've seen very little evidence that Liberty has any interest in providing "good races" if by "good races" you mean races on race tracks rather than parking lots in random American cities.

#3 - they may have specific plans, but no plans or ability to make these plans a reality since they can't seem to come to a decision on anything. Bernie on the other hand would realize his plans in an afternoon.

#4 - Formula TV is a good thing, but isn't that also covered by #1?

#5 - This is indeed good.

Now let's look at a few other things Liberty has "achieved".

- replaced the F1 logo with something that doesn't even look like a logo. The reason? The old logo wasn't "recognizable" enough, where as the new one is I suppose?

- the presentation of the drivers at the American race where some boxing announcer screamed his lungs out. This is the abomination that is Liberty's idea of "improving the show" which in non-US territories is considered embarrassing.

Their "changes" so far are superficial and cosmetic at best. Nothing "real" has changed where the sport is concerned. And that's the only area of interest for someone like me who is interested in F1 the sport.

Liberty's reign to date reads like The emperor's new clothes. Much ado about nothing. If the sport indeed was in such a bad state after Ecclestone, it by definition still is because the new owners have just polished the windows on a house supposedly on the brink of collapse.

Until they do some foundation repair (go watch the Half-assed approach to foundation repair) I'll miss the days when the sport was in the safe hands of a competence.

Let's also not forget that all of Liberty's non-achievements in its first year meant the money going to the teams went down for the first time in 8 years. A more equal share among the teams sounds great, but a more equal share of less money is still less money overall. And had money to the teams gone down during Ecclestone's reign we wouldn't have ever heard the end of it from the anti-Ecclestone crowd. Liberty somehow gets away with it though.

F1 TV isnt just cosmetic though. Yes, you can watch F1 at TV, but here in Sweden, unless you are willing to settle with jus the quali and highlights, you have to spend ridiculous sums every month on a full TV box just to get the one channel with the one thing... With F1 TV, you can watch the race weekends live, or full replays later for a very competitive prize. No, it isnt Nismo TV's S-GT coverage, and we dont get it here in Sweden yet (YOUR TIME'S COMING, VIASAT!!), but its more than social media presence. Its enabling the fans to pay F1 directly instead of some rotten limp middlehand, in exchange for a service you can access on many platforms.

As for Bernie's quick decision making: thats a double edged sword. It meant that we'd get quick decisions and teams could adapt faster to the new climate, but also lead to some pretty bad things. Like the very token token system (really, who thought THAT "thing" was a good idea?), for instance. Liberty is too soft, but that careful nature could be beneficial in the long run. Could. But as I said, saving tracks like Monza is great stuff, and thats something Ecclestone wasnt interested in.
IMO, most of the stuff Liberty has been doing is behind the scenes changes. I dont think we will see much change directly, but we'll see.

Lets then at least give Bernie some credit for saving Paul Ricard and bringing F1 back to France shall we?