03/11/2009
FEATURE BY MIKE LAWRENCE
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There are many reasons to admire BMW. Here is a company whose staple product was once the Isetta bubblecar made under licence from the Italian maker, Iso, but which went on to make some superb machinery.
After the 1939-45 Unpleasantness, BMW's only car plant, in Eisenach, found itself in the Russian Zone which became the DDR. Munich did not make a car until December, 1952, but while Bavaria spawned a prestige brand, Eisenach finished up making Wartburgs, a marque banned from the UK because the cars were unsafe.
I have never desired to own a Beemer, they come laden with too much image for me to be comfortable in one. That said, I have long admired BMW, and I've driven a few, until the Sauber saga.
Peter Sauber is a proper F1 team owner, not a billionaire with an expensive hobby. He made his first racing car forty years ago and with it won the 1970 Swiss Hill Climb Championship. He built a series of other competition cars, little known outside of Switzerland and its near neighbours, though Saubers did run at Le Mans.
In 1985, there began a relationship with Mercedes-Benz in sports car racing, the high point of which was a 1-2 at Le Mans in 1989. The programme also brought along Michael Schumacher, Heinz-Harald Frentzen and Karl Wendlinger.
Since 1993 Sauber has been in Formula One and Peter Sauber has shown himself to be the canniest judge of driver talent since Colin Chapman; he plucked Kimi and Felipe from obscure series while Robert Kubica and Sebastian Vettel are both from the Sauber school of talent.
Anyone can understand why, in the present economic climate, BMW decided to pull the plug on its F1 programme. What I do not understand is why a company which has a long tradition of being sure-footed, has left Sauber out on a limb. Honda behaved impeccably and did not throw hundreds of people out of work.
Honda's reputation has soared. Okay, it is we enthusiasts who know and appreciate that, but in every workplace there is someone who knows about cars and that person's opinion is important. Ford UK realised this in the late 1950s and set out to impress those people. It was deliberate policy by a company whose strongest selling point had been the ready availability of spare parts when something went wrong.
I have never understood why BMW wanted to be in F1 as a team owner and regular readers will know that I predicted BMW would fail. The culture that makes a strong motor manufacturer is not the same that makes for motor racing success. As an engine supplier, BMW won races with Williams and if Williams cannot deliver the results you crave, examine yourself carefully.
Williams-BMW won nine Grands Prix in six years, BMW-Sauber has won a single race in four seasons. I would love to know the cost per win in each case.
It was ludicrous to believe that Sauber, a decent back of the grid team, plus an injection of cash, technology and personnel from Bavaria would do better than Williams. It's a fantasy, like you or I believing that if only Cameron Diaz had the opportunity to get to know us, really know us, we could score.
Big companies often do not understand the buccaneering spirit of successful racing outfits. Ford had the opportunity to buy Cosworth and did not because Ford feared that corporate culture would smother what it valued in Cosworth.
Sauber is first reserve for 2010. Sauber could have got an entry, bringing the number of teams to 14, but Williams vetoed it. I can understand Sir Frank's thinking, there is only so much sponsorship to go around, but I disapprove of his action. I can remember when Williams struggled with a March 761 and pay drivers and think it is a shame that he doesn't remember.
Had Peter Sauber lost the plot, as Eddie Jordan did, I'd say that was fair enough. Formula One is Darwinian and some great marques have bitten the dust. When Sauber went into partnership with BMW, I do not recall anyone saying that he was wrong. Sauber has never had enemies and everyone was pleased that he had landed a plum deal. I don't think that anyone thought that BMW could be so brutal.
With a place on the grid assured, Sauber had value and it was value for BMW's shareholders. A racing car factory has value in many parts of the world, but not in Switzerland. Circuit racing has been banned in the land of yodelling yoghurt since 1955 and Peter Sauber bucked precedent by running a team from his homeland,
Control of Sauber could have returned to Peter Sauber, with Munich money as lubrication, just like Honda and Brawn. Had BMW done the decent thing, and allowed Sauber to sign the Concorde Agreement, the team had a value. It would have been guaranteed a place on the grid in 2010 together with a slice of the TV revenues. Peter Sauber would not then have looked so desperate to find a buyer.
BMW had invested mightily in the Hinwil factory with two super-computers, Albert 1 and Albert 2, costing more than ten million pounds between them. BMW could have continued to supply engines now development is frozen and a team is allowed only so many.
BMW could have made a batch of engines and said, 'When they're gone, they're gone.' All the design and tooling costs have already been covered. There are major jobs on a F1 engine which only require someone to load the machine and press a button. Years ago, John Judd showed me F1 engine blocks, badged as 'Yamaha', being machined around the clock and we were the only people in the room.
When Toyota entered sports car racing in the early 1990s, they calculated that it was cheaper to build 80 engines than to establish a rebuild facility. At the time it seemed extraordinary, but it was good thinking. The big money is not in the metal, it is in the design and tooling.
Formula One engines are expensive because the major investment is spread over a few units. There are exotic materials, but the total amount used is not large and most metals can be recycled. There is skilled labour involved in assembly, but that was already in place. If you have craftspeople of F1 calibre, you either make them redundant or retain them to do less exacting work. Either way, you squander an asset.
There is a lot that BMW could have done to have departed the scene with a little more grace and dignity. I know, from the shop floor at Hinwil, that there are hundreds of unhappy and insecure people and staff are leaving.
Few people are guaranteed employment and there have been hundreds of redundancies in the motor racing industry this year. Outfits no longer maintain a separate test team, so they need fewer mechanics, fabricators, truckies and the rest. Sauber has been let down not because it did a bad job, it raised its game, but because the board of BMW clearly does not understand Formula One, though it committed hundreds of millions of pounds to it.
I bet none of the decision makers raised serious objections to being flown around the world and treated like royalty, at the expense of shareholders.
The possible demise of Sauber is not like the demise of so many teams, which have simply failed to deliver. It comes because BMW failed to appreciate what it had.
Not many at Hinwil are assured by the arrival of Qadbak and its spokesman, Russell King. Russell King (not the name by which he was known at school) has served time for fraud. We, at Pitpass, are unusually well-informed about King who recently had nearly two million pounds of assets frozen by a court in Jersey.
Not all readers may know that Jersey, in the Channel Islands, is one of the tax havens which the British government maintains for the benefit of the wealthy. As in most tax havens, if you transgress the rules, courts come down hard.
Having nearly two million nicker frozen by a court is not the sort of thing to inspire confidence. How a convicted fraudster acquired such dosh must be an inspiring story involving a dream and long hours of dedication.
Sauber is now waiting for one of the new teams to fail to show in 2010. I suspect that may happen despite the FIA's investigation of proposals. Here I am in good company, Bernie agrees and some of my private correspondents know which team is top of my list to fail, and why. In fact, I hope none of the debutantes fail because I respect the dreams and aspirations of the newcomers and want them to have their chance. Since I abhor the franchise system, I also wanted Prodrive, Lola, Stefan GP, et al, to be able to fight for their place in the sun.
The franchise system is a contamination of sport which Bernie brought in with the complicity of Max. It makes sense for investors, but it is an abomination from a sporting perspective.
Franchises operate in several American team sports but few outside of America care about those sports. On the world stage, they mean nothing. Franchises were introduced to give stability to games which were played in national leagues and involved travelling vast distances by train. It is as though Arsenal and Moscow Dynamo played in the same league.
The franchise system is peculiar to America and its size. It did not take hold in any European national league. Rome could play Milan because it was a few hours, not several days, by train.
Franchising benefits a few people, already rich, who have pulled up the drawbridge. The reason why it happened, in one country, has been forgotten, or never even considered. Today, Australia is closer to Europe by air than New York was to Los Angeles by train.
Sauber is an established marque with a 40-year history. Peter Sauber is a fit and proper person to run an F1 team, I have never heard even a whisper against the man. That he now has to wait for another team to fail, is an indictment of BMW and the FIA.
Peter Sauber is a proper Formula One team owner with his roots in the sport and the way he has been treated is a disgrace.
Mike Lawrence
mike@pitpass.com
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