FORUMula1.com - F1 Forum

[darwin dali]

F1live:
Hans-Joachim Stuck, a former Grand Prix driver and now representative for Volkswagen, advises marques like BMW and Mercedes-Benz to stop spending millions dabbling in the design of the chassis.

The 58-year-old acknowledges the carmakers' past and likely future successes, but believes the necessary investment of hundreds of millions of Euros means the risk of failure is too high.

McLaren, whose biggest shareholder is Mercedes, and BMW's works team BMW Sauber, are respectively fifth and eighth in the 2009 constructors' championship, while Renault sits in seventh place.

"Nobody would spend 300 million in one year and then not be on the podium, but that is the way it is," Stuck, 58, told Bild newspaper.

"I cannot understand why Mercedes or BMW still build cars.
They should limit themselves to what they can do: design and sell engines."

Stuck said Mercedes should make its approach to Brawn GP the template for manufacturers' involvements in F1.

"Their own team McLaren is a long way behind and costs Mercedes a huge sum of money. At the same time Norbert Haug sells his engines for 10 million Euros to Brawn: they're going to be world champions and make money as well," he remarked.



Some valid points HJS has. Maybe leave it to specialized F1 crews to do the chassis and run the show on a shoestring budget rather than cook with a huge spoon. They'd still be the winner and would earn respect and PR at a much more sustainable price.

[texasmr2]

I could live with that.

[myownalias]

Well said Mr. Stuck, I couldn't agree more; racing was at it's best when this was the situation. Ferrari are different as they are racers and not mass market car makers!

[texasmr2]

Well said Mr. Stuck, I couldn't agree more; racing was at it's best when this was the situation. Ferrari are different as they are racers and not mass market car makers!

Yes I agree with your Ferrari comment in terms of they are one of if not the last totally 'in-house' F1 team left. I'm not on my Ferrari bandwagon by no means yet it is true. I do not have any issues either with engines being supplied by manufacturer's as long as the chassis is a total team effort.

[Jamie]

In the business sense to F1 that would be the best thing because then people won’t have the stresses to reporting to the bigger bosses and explaining why there cars are so bad? But I think Renault should be the only team doing that, I think Mercedes have had the right idea all along

[NateDawg80126]

I like this idea for a number of reasons, but one of the big ones is the possibility for more names to get involved in the sport. I find the fact that there are currently only 5 different engine suppliers a bit boring, I think if they didn't have to worry about the actual car and all the expenses involved with actually running a team, we could see a lot of new manufacturers developing engines for F1, it could be really good for the sport.

[7UpJordan]

I definately agree with Stuck, the manufacturers could save so much if they stuck to engine development. This idea was one of the reasons why the Williams and BMW relationship went sour, Sir Frank felt BMW were trying to put their noses in on the car development and wanted more control of the team.

The Williams Renault and McLaren Honda partnerships worked so well because Renault and Honda concentrated on the engines and nothing more whilst the McLaren and Williams designers got on with the car itself.

[bud]

I think the McLaren Mercedes structure works well. Mercedes owns 40% of McLaren but the bill for Daimler isnt as large as say BMW which has 100% ownership of Sauber. And now with customer deals with Force India and Brawn this is offsetting even more of their costs.

[myownalias]

I think the McLaren Mercedes structure works well. Mercedes owns 40% of McLaren but the bill for Daimler isnt as large as say BMW which has 100% ownership of Sauber. And now with customer deals with Force India and Brawn this is offsetting even more of their costs.

I missed that completely; I thought that Mercedes only supplied engines rather than owning a percentage of McLaren, So I guess that some of my comments about McLaren not being a Manufacturer teams has been incorrect, I stand duly corrected, when did this all happen? I have to say I enjoyed racing much more before manufacturers started up fully fledged teams and no doubt sooner or later we'll get back to that situation of having racers on the grid as opposed to manufacturers who have other agendas.

[bud]

I think the McLaren Mercedes structure works well. Mercedes owns 40% of McLaren but the bill for Daimler isnt as large as say BMW which has 100% ownership of Sauber. And now with customer deals with Force India and Brawn this is offsetting even more of their costs.

I missed that completely; I thought that Mercedes only supplied engines rather than owning a percentage of McLaren, So I guess that some of my comments about McLaren not being a Manufacturer teams has been incorrect, I stand duly corrected, when did this all happen? I have to say I enjoyed racing much more before manufacturers started up fully fledged teams and no doubt sooner or later we'll get back to that situation of having racers on the grid as opposed to manufacturers who have other agendas.

happened about 01 from memory.

[myownalias]

I think the McLaren Mercedes structure works well. Mercedes owns 40% of McLaren but the bill for Daimler isnt as large as say BMW which has 100% ownership of Sauber. And now with customer deals with Force India and Brawn this is offsetting even more of their costs.

I missed that completely; I thought that Mercedes only supplied engines rather than owning a percentage of McLaren, So I guess that some of my comments about McLaren not being a Manufacturer teams has been incorrect, I stand duly corrected, when did this all happen? I have to say I enjoyed racing much more before manufacturers started up fully fledged teams and no doubt sooner or later we'll get back to that situation of having racers on the grid as opposed to manufacturers who have other agendas.

happened about 01 from memory.

Wow that far back, I completely missed that one; noted for future comments.

[McLaren Fan]

I wouldn't mind seeing manufacturers such as BMW only supplying engines, but Stuck's arguments aren't terribly strong. McLaren Mercedes has achieved relatively little because McLaren were out of form in the mid-1990s and Mercedes were new to the sport; then there was some political dealings within the team in the early 2000s, such as the construction of the Technology Centre, Mercedes' taking over Ilmor, etc. And BMW were doing well, improving each season after taking over Sauber, until they got caught out big style with this season's new regulations.

[yamashek]

I personally think if the manufacturers can support the spending and development, then let them be.
Eventually, if things don't work out, they will adjust themselves. We won't need regulations to do that, I believe, it should be natural.

[billindenver]

"Their own team McLaren is a long way behind and costs Mercedes a huge sum of money. At the same time Norbert Haug sells his engines for 10 million Euros to Brawn: they're going to be world champions and make money as well," he remarked.

While I agree with the other points, this one is stretching it a bit. Yes, Brawn is going to make money and win the championship(s), but lets not forget the massive mountain of money that Honda put into that chassis in order to put Brawn where they are. The suggestion that you can low budget an F1 car and win championships is ridiculous to the extreme. Honda put all of last year into designing this car...that can not be brushed aside because Brawn didn't pay for it.

[headless]

Stuck has become unstuck.