chris walrod

I didnt say the debris from Ralph's shunt is what caused the Alonso's incident. Drivers were avoiding debris between pit-out and the braking zone before either of these incidents.

The delay in JPM's black flag was more than likely due to the time involved with the race stewards and team management reviewing and ruling. It would be a huge mistake to black flag and later say, 'just kidding'

Sorry this was OT

matterhorn762

Back to the original subject of this thread... when was Porsche ever really in F1???? I think they provided an engine to a team for a year or two a long time ago, but when was Porsche ever a real F1 team?? I can't find them anywhere in F1 history....???

bet

Supplying an engine qualifies as being in F1. BMW, Mercedes and Honda are definitely in F1, and they just supply the engines and Williams, McLaren and BAR, respectively, design and supply the chassis. Engine supplying in F1 is a huge commitment and constitutes as being part of a team IMHO.

W.O.T. Freak

It´s a lot of money, and maybe, they don´t get to be the winners. Ferrari with Shumi are a great deal of a Package, and very difficult to beat.

So why entry a race and spend so much money, knowing that you will be defeated?
Maybe, it´s better to wait a bit, for Ferrari to slow down, and show signs of weakness to entry it. And perhaps, that´s what Posche is doing.

W.O.T

matterhorn762

Supplying an engine is much cheaper than the $500M tag people are throwing around (i.e. Ferrari). They won't have to pay the driver, get the sponsors, or any of that. Just built the engines... which they could probably do for under 100M, and that is conservative.

Even Lamborghini, a very tiny company was "in F1" for a few years just like Porsche was. It would be very easy for Porsche to build a V10 F1 engine. But I don't think that's what people are talking about here.

It's also quite silly to say they are waiting for Ferrari to "slow down." There will always be dominant teams in F1 and weaker teams. It would take many years of hard work for a new team to become dominant. You've got to start somewhere.

Porsche has never been a F1 team and probably never will be. Whether they put in a V10 engine or not I think is a relatively minor point. But if their marketing schemes - the oversaturation of Cayenne commecials for the daddy and his baby is any indication, Porsche is not very serious about any of it IMHO.

bet

I don’t disagree that Porsche could be an engine supplier for F1. The problem is with who and when? Porsche wouldn’t want to do it just to be involved with F1, they would want to be involved, competitive and have the ability to win. At this time there really isn’t a team in need of an engine supplier that is even remotely competitive, not to mention have the chance of winning and it is not because of the engine. The F1 package is so important and there are not many teams with the resources or ability to develop a competitive chassis. Additionally, with the future engine format undecided at this time, it makes no sense to spend the money on development of an F1 V10 when there is the possibility the engine format will be changed to a V8 in a couple of years.

I agree completely with the comment that Porsche is not serious about racing at this point. They seem content with supplying GT class cars in sports car racing, with an obsession with being the most profitable car company in the world and cashing in on the brand recognition that they developed with their past.

chris walrod

With talk of the current F-1 engine formula being on its way out, anyone would stay away until the new formula is outlined.

It seems that Porsche is still trying to get back on its feet financially, recovering from what the mid 90's almost did to them as a company.

Porsche knows they would benefit more from a sports car program vs. F-1 engine only type of program. I am sure they still have a bad tasted in their mouth from the March/Porsche Indy car days.

At this point, I would be happy with factory sports car team, similar to the effort Audi put it with the R-8 (past years)

matterhorn762

So when exactly was Porsche in F1 and who did they race with?

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McLaren TAG Porsche - they won the the drivers championship in 84-86 with Lauda in 84 and Alain Prost in 85 and 86. They won the constructors championship in 84 and 85 (Williams Honda won in 86).

Here is a cool looking page but I can't get it to translate http://usuarios.lycos.es/cporschecat...ag/tag_cat.htm

4ng crcs

They also had their own F1 team back in the early 60's... Jean Behra was one of the factory drivers.

fahren affair

then porsche stepped on their dick with an abomination of an engine, the v-12 footwork porsche of the early '90s. they basically tried to mate two of the existing 1.5 litre v-6s (same units for the mid-'80s) with dismal results...this is why you don't make an half-*** attempt at f1.

bet

I think Behra drove in the late 50's for Porsche in F2.

This is a good article:

http://www.grandprix.com/gpe/con-porsc.html

matterhorn762

What does TAG stand for and why was it used instead of the Porsche name?

bet

http://www.grandprix.com/gpe/eng-tagen.html

fahren affair

techniques d’avant garde.

way back when, i think they were a french weapons contractor then owned by mansour ojjeh. ojjeh was a huge f1 fan and was a major sponsor till he bought into mclaren.

while with mclaren, he commissioned porsche to build the twin-turbo v-6. tag also absorbed watchmaker heuer (the then official timekeeper of f1) which then became tag-heuer.