Glenn Northrop

As a F1 fan (ex Ferrari owner, new Porsche owner) I was wondering if anyone knows why Porsche doesn't support a F1 effort? With the new V10 coming for the GT, you'd think it would be a natural. As an ex-automotive exec who has some experience with factory sponsorship, I don't believe it entirely has to do with "money". Seems like the F1 crowd would be more "spot on" to Porsche's target market.

Any comments or info would be appreciated.

Greg Fishman

#1 reason I would guess is $$$$. That is the reason they aren't at the top ranks of sports car racing. Whatever the budget is for sports car racing multiple that by 10x (or more).

I think Ferrari's F1 budget is in the $100million a year range. And they pay two top drivers probably another $50 million give or take.

Greg

Joe@Fabspeed

Porsche is a great company BUT extremely small in terms of engineering and financial muscle to compete head to head with Mercedes, BMW, Honda, Renault, and Toyota. The money spent is in the 100s of millions and even after one has spent that money (ie Mercedes) you have to keep spending money to try to stay in front forever....

Porcshe has a disaster in F1 with the arows team and great fortune with McClaren with the TAG turbo engine until Honda got hot with Senna.

Endurance sportscar racing is where Porsche gets the most mileage and Supercup is a great marketing venue in F1 racing

pig4bill

I suspect another part of it is they fear being uncompetitive. Look at the Indy car failure - nowhere near as technically advanced as F1. The flat 6 is not a competitive design. So not only do they not have any experience working with the types of engines they would need, but whatever they develop would not be of much use in their production cars.

BTW, Ferrari doesn't foot the entire bill, they have some sponsors too.

E. J. - 993 Alumni

[quote]Originally posted by Greg Fishman:
<strong>I think Ferrari's F1 budget is in the $100million a year range. </strong><hr></blockquote>

Sorry Greg, but The big three have budgets this year between $200 and $250 - including driver contracts. This of course does not include the hundreds more spent on capital improvements to the home facilities like McLaren's new shop and Williams new wind tunnel... <img src="graemlins/oops.gif" border="0" alt="[oops]" />

The back markers on the grid are expected to pay close to $75 a year, and they don't pay the drivers usually.

E. J.

Danno

"Seems like the F1 crowd would be more "spot on" to Porsche's target market.

Well, seeing Porsche foray into the SUB market with the ChiliPepper, I would think that Porsche is endearing itself to a market completely different from the one that enjoys F1 racing and other activites that made Porsche famous...

ked

I saw more suvs in the Indy GP parking lots than I saw sports cars.

Geo

[quote]Originally posted by pig4bill:
<strong>I suspect another part of it is they fear being uncompetitive. </strong><hr></blockquote>

Bingo. I may **** off the faithful here, but they slinked away from their last F1 effort and from the Champ Car effort - even after landing Fosters as their primary sponsor after putting an ad in the WSJ looking for a sponsor. They land the sponsor and leave a year later. Pretty shabby.

[quote]Originally posted by pig4bill:
<strong>Look at the Indy car failure - nowhere near as technically advanced as F1. The flat 6 is not a competitive design. So not only do they not have any experience working with the types of engines they would need, but whatever they develop would not be of much use in their production cars.</strong><hr></blockquote>

Well, that is Porsche's problem - stuck in a rut. And I dare say that indeed what they learn would be valuable to their road cars.

[quote]Originally posted by pig4bill:
<strong>BTW, Ferrari doesn't foot the entire bill, they have some sponsors too.</strong><hr></blockquote>

The Ferrari F1 team pays its own way through sponsorship these days. The thing is, a company like Porsche should be able to raise that kind of sponsorship. They're just too busy building trucks these days.

Jim Sullivan

Porsche's post-war racing success came about when a small company could try a little harder and with a modest budget meet with considerable success. We are now living in a different world, thanks to Roger Penski and Bernie Ecclestone.. Roger for showing everyone that money, organization and a fresh paint job made a difference on the track, for inventing IROC (ironically with Porsches the first year) and introducing the notion in the US that TV and auto racing was a viable moneymaker, and Bernie for doing roughly the same thing in Europe by organizing the F1 teams in protest of being cheated on TV and prize rights, and then craftily stealing those rights for himself and creating a masterful monopoly in a continent that really takes it's racing seriously and is willing to pay big money for it.

Porsche has always picked it's spots carefully, with an eye towards virtual guaranteed success on the track. They have also made miscalculations such as Indy, but consider what a modest bank account could do. Tony Bettenhausen bought a year old McLaren with a budget of $60,000 in '81 and came in 7th in the Indy 500, 2nd at Michigan, and 6th in the final CART standings that year. The world was already changing with the arrival of Penski, Patrick and the "superteams," and by the time Porsche came on the scene, they were DOA because budgets had escalated into the millions.

I'll bet Fiat/Ferrari spends something on the order of $350MM in 2002 F1, and the cheapskates at IRL will see Penski drop $20-30MM over there before he's through. Where's little Porsche going to go with these types of figures? Nascar's Grand Am has come up with a new formula that will see lots of Porsche engines, and they've got another good year pushing the GT3RS's minus BMW and they can keep their hand in Audi's RS8 program somehow in American Lemans, but that's about it I'm afraid. The big leagues may be simply be out of reach.

Danno

So we'll just have to buy more high-priced SUVs so Porsche can go F1 racing then!

Jim Sullivan

Danno, I can't help but wonder if the Cayenne is just a little too late coming to market. I think management thought they had something unique, but now there's a stream of these "Crossover" things coming out from every conceivable direction in Europe, US and Japan,and some of them are a whole lot better looking than the Porsche. I will give Porsche credit for stepping up with the massive TT power from the GT2 though!

eugene

Ferrari's 2001 F1 budget was around 285 Million USD !!!!!!!

pbs911

My friends in Italy tell me that the County actually subsidizes Ferrari racing. Until Germany begins to subsidize Porsche's racing, Porsche will not have the funds to compete.

Anir

I recently came across this factory Porsche poster on ebay. Is this text accurate, i.e. was Porsche considering F1 involvement as recently as 1991?

"This is an original Porsche factory issued promotional showrrom poster which was printed back in 1991 to promote the Formula One entry by Porsche and the Footwork Team. The picture shows the full image, which is now very rare as Porsche didn't enter the car in any race and actually withdrew the poster and destroyed it."

pig4bill

[quote]Originally posted by pbs911:
<strong>My friends in Italy tell me that the County actually subsidizes Ferrari racing. Until Germany begins to subsidize Porsche's racing, Porsche will not have the funds to compete.</strong><hr></blockquote>

Didn't seem to stop BMW.