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[acosmichippo]

I agree and further it by saying that there are plenty of other teams dying to get into the sport (what was that team from Serbia called?).

are there really, though? how many people are really willing to drop hundreds of millions of dollars, let alone have the appropriate knowledge and experience, to compete in F1?

I dunno.

Can't you tell from my posts I have very limited knowledge about this?

My reasoning on this matter is that if I did have the money, I would enter a team. So therefore, logic concludes that there must be squillions of people who can afford a formula one team who want to be Formula one.

fair, but that still leaves the "knowledge and experience" part...

[LewEngBridewell]

Contrary to you Spanky, I was all for three new teams being allowed in. The more cars the merrier in my opinion.

Just to be clear, I'm for new teams, but, I'm not for pathetic back runners with no prospect of "making it". A team, to be accepted, needs to show the financial and human resources necessary to be an F1 team. They should be able to show some sort of qualifications (to get into Uni you need to graduate high school). Most importantly, they should be able to show a realistic plan that shows them becoming competitive. IMO none of the most recent 3 new teams got close to that - perhaps Caterham being the best of a bad bunch.

I agree and further it by saying that there are plenty of other teams dying to get into the sport (what was that team from Serbia called?).

The fact that we had such teams eager to get into the sport but were overlooked for this failed operation that is Marussia Virgin is a tragedy. Surely if Richard Branson was serious about F1 he would have devoted more time and money to progressing the team from the back of the grid, but maybe I don't know enough about the Virgin operation.

Richard Branson has too many other things to be thinking about to be a successful operation in F1. The team was never going anywhere under his ownership.

After sponsoring BrawnGP, he must've thought success was easy. He badly miscalculated.

[Hammer278]

What do you think Tony Fernandez only has the team to think about?? He's got his airline, now Msians' national career MAS(They have been in losses for years and need some brains on board now), not to mention QPR!

[andrew]

Contrary to you Spanky, I was all for three new teams being allowed in. The more cars the merrier in my opinion.

Just to be clear, I'm for new teams, but, I'm not for pathetic back runners with no prospect of "making it". A team, to be accepted, needs to show the financial and human resources necessary to be an F1 team. They should be able to show some sort of qualifications (to get into Uni you need to graduate high school). Most importantly, they should be able to show a realistic plan that shows them becoming competitive. IMO none of the most recent 3 new teams got close to that - perhaps Caterham being the best of a bad bunch.

I agree and further it by saying that there are plenty of other teams dying to get into the sport (what was that team from Serbia called?).

The fact that we had such teams eager to get into the sport but were overlooked for this failed operation that is Marussia Virgin is a tragedy. Surely if Richard Branson was serious about F1 he would have devoted more time and money to progressing the team from the back of the grid, but maybe I don't know enough about the Virgin operation.

Richard Branson has too many other things to be thinking about to be a successful operation in F1. The team was never going anywhere under his ownership.

After sponsoring BrawnGP, he must've thought success was easy. He badly miscalculated.

It was just a half hearted publicity stunt by Beardy Branston. Look how quickly he gave up on it!

[F1 Kingpin]

To be fair I don't think Mr Bransons heart was ever in it, you only have to look at his 2009 Australian GP interview to confirm this.

Though this might not be word for word correct it goes along the lines of:

"Ive waited until the right time to invest in to F1, when a time the sport is stable"


Basically he invested in to the quickest team on the grid in 2009 who have no money and would take any reasonable sponsorship packages. Virgin paid somethling like $200,000 a race to Brawn GP??? Once they were then estabilished and rumours were flying around that Mercedes would be buying out Brawn he realised he wouldnt get anywhere near a good of deal for Virgin. He then decides to only invest 30% in to Manor GP which is then renamed as Virgin anyway thinking that he can develop a team that could one day rise as underdogs like Brawn for probably the same amount as 2009. However he dosent invest enough in to the team to make it competitve, just enough money as sponsorship to raise the Virgin brand awareness across the world. Marussia, a new car manufactor from Russia looking to spread their own brand across Europe purchased Bransons 30% stake. Since the team has now been in operation for more than 2 years Branson probably made his money back plus more, Virgin got 2 years free advertising and Bransons made himself another tidy sum. Virgin leaves F1 and Branson is still a genius, although with no interest in F1 whatsover!

[Big Azza]

I like my Virgins slow... just not in Formula One.

Okay... that was a really poor attempt at being naughty.

Time to go back to old Aaron.

[scotty]

Hispania and Marussia are doing some demo filming today at i think Barcelona and Silverstone respectively so we should hopefully see their new cars later on.

[vlad]

No stepped nose for Marussia...

[stonemonkey]

No stepped nose for Marussia...

Looks like it has a bit of a step above the front wishbone.

[manmonkee]

Looks quite pretty, we'll have plenty of time to admire it as it trundles slowly by in the races

[vlad]

This may also be a financial move, to make a prettier car. They really need money.

[bud]

They have the technical tie up with McLaren remember, they use their wind tunnel. So maybe they had some data sharing going on.

[Cai]

New HRT..

I think this looks lush, not quite as nice as the McLaren, but definitely the second best looking car this season!

[LewEngBridewell]

Both Marussia and HRT have come up with rather nice cars. HRT still seems to lack sponsors, but at least it isn't as blatant this season ("This could be YOU", etc).

The Marussia nose looks meeeaaannn.

[manmonkee]

The HRT looks a little basic, the exhaust gasses look like there directly blown up rather than channeled into the rear of the coke bottle shape, it's not very tapered either, the sidepods look very low too.