Grand Prix Rejects

I really doubt anyone these days would let Ferrari, McLaren or Williams go out of business, so it always annoys me that nobody stood in and saved such historic teams like Brabham, Lotus, Tyrrell or Arrows in their times of need, F1 needs those historic teams and its a shame we don't have more.

What's your opinion on the matter?

Ferrari, McLaren and Williams are kept alive by the power of FOM legacy payments, at least in times of trouble. These didn't exist in the time when all those classic teams kicked the bucket, and that's simply because that's not how the landscape of F1 was back then. In the 1990s, when 75% of the teams you mentioned went under, the field was healthy, so teams that were no longer competitive could disappear with others ready to step in. Tyrrell was bought out by BAR, so someone did step in, they just decided not to use the name. As for Arrows, they never really had glory days. Sauber have now been around as long as Arrows were (and almost as long as Tyrrell), with more success, and probably wouldn't receive FOM help if they were near bankruptcy.

That was a rambly paragraph, but my point is that motorsport is a business. If you can't survive, you go bankrupt. That is, unless you had so much past success that the fan lobby can pressure the commercial rights holders to give you more money for having been good 25 years ago.

I think I can safely say that I share Tommy's sentiments, and I'd also like to add that, in the case of Tyrrell, Ken had no interest in keeping the name going when he sold it off.

"Historic" teams have no more or less of a right to survive than "upstarts" like Haas or Manor.

tommykl wrote:Ferrari, McLaren and Williams are kept alive by the power of FOM legacy payments, at least in times of trouble. These didn't exist in the time when all those classic teams kicked the bucket, and that's simply because that's not how the landscape of F1 was back then. In the 1990s, when 75% of the teams you mentioned went under, the field was healthy, so teams that were no longer competitive could disappear with others ready to step in. Tyrrell was bought out by BAR, so someone did step in, they just decided not to use the name. As for Arrows, they never really had glory days. Sauber have now been around as long as Arrows were (and almost as long as Tyrrell), with more success, and probably wouldn't receive FOM help if they were near bankruptcy.

That was a rambly paragraph, but my point is that motorsport is a business. If you can't survive, you go bankrupt. That is, unless you had so much past success that the fan lobby can pressure the commercial rights holders to give you more money for having been good 25 years ago.

Sauber is probably the most underrated team on the grid when it comes to history, it seems people always forget that they are the fourth oldest team. I'm surprised that they haven't requested historical payment.

Sauber is an interesting case indeed, however, it'd be hard to see them getting any kind of legacy payment, sadly. I'm guessing that brief run as the BMW factory wouldn't help their cause either.

The problem also seems to be that the other teams don't want to help themselves or each other most of the time. It's obvious why at the end of the day---competition. But still, it would be nice if F1 could be in a position where there were at least a few established teams outside of Ferrari who weren't threatening to leave the sport, either by decision or by lack of choice.

I've just recently seen a documentary on Tyrrell Racing and its quite sad that the only option Ken Tyrrell had in 1998 was to sell his team.

He would eventually pass away a few years later which is upsetting.

F1 Livery Histories wrote:Sauber is an interesting case indeed, however, it'd be hard to see them getting any kind of legacy payment, sadly. I'm guessing that brief run as the BMW factory wouldn't help their cause either.

I suppose that the problem is that, whilst Sauber are one of the older teams in the sport, their record in F1 does not draw as much attention as, say, that of Williams.

I think that, to some extent, Force India has stolen the limelight of the best independent team from the likes of Sauber (and Williams, come to that), so already most fans probably would tend to overlook Sauber (although Leclerc has drawn some attention back to them).

Even when they do think of Sauber, most people tend to think of the more recent issues that have afflicted them, such as the disputes over van der Garde and criticism of Kaltenborn's behaviour, as well as people tending to dislike the presence of Ericsson at the team. The recent criticism casts a long shadow over the history of the team, such that it seems a lot of people tend to overlook that.