Ladies and Gentlemen,

And there were races 5 left…

We are heading to Russia for the 15th round of the season this weekend, and if the racing hasn’t been particularly good this year (it will be worst at Sochi) at least we have our own Championship that has been the most exciting in our long history.

F1 news in the last couple of weeks came mainly about BUT staying another year at McLaren, the rumor that ALO can leave his contract after the initial races of 2016 if the car continues to underperform, that next year Manor/Marussia will get Mercedes engines but Honda confirmed will not supply Toro Rosso, Sauber and Force submitting an official complaint to the European Union for F1 unfair business practices, that engines will be louder in 2016 and the early announcement of a 21-race calendar for 2016 that is not making the F1 community happy at all.

But the real issue in everybody’s minds is how Red Bull’s future will impact F1 as a whole. Right now their only engine option is Ferrari, problem is the italians are not convinced they should supply them for the obvious competitive reasons, but also because the most famous name in Grand Prix racing don’t want to be the target of Red Bull’s criticism as they learnt from Renault's bitter experience. Red Bull is different from any other team because they exist only and exclusively for marketing reasons, they don’t have love or passion for the sport. When their return on investment declines they will have no problem leaving, and probably no one will miss them as a team except for one thing: Red Bull is the biggest promoter F1 has ever had. Their departure will impact the commercial value of the series, as Pirelli already warned publicly if the energy drink company leaves F1 will lose its best marketing tool and the italian tyre maker will probably quit too. According to Niki Lauda who’s friends with fellow Austrian Dietrich Mateschitz the Red Bull owner has lost interest in the sport. We might not feel the same loyalty towards Red Bull that let’s say for Williams, Lotus or McLaren, but RBR has been a revolution with their ‘out of the box’ approach to F1; they’d created a driver development system through their 2-team structure with fantastic results, from VET, RIC or KVY to their new talents SAI and VER.  They’d became a powerhouse in just a few years, their car designs and race strategies had been as different as effective in taking and beating the established GP teams. Let’s face it, we can’t afford to lose them. I’m sure Bernie is losing a lot of sleep about this.

But let’s get our attention to the race starting tomorrow, unfortunately at the awful Sochi Circuit. Forget that parking lot in a casino in Las Vegas in the early 80s, this the worst racing track F1 goes to, but this is what we have so let’s get to work for our valuable CFA points.

Tomorrow

Cheers

Cato