Or the best, if you’re into the whole “half full” thing. And there’s no shortages of possible answers. Honda has dumped F1, but Toyota hasn’t. Subaru and Suzuki are dumping the WRC, but Chrysler‘s just “throttling back” (the technical term) its NASCAR involvement. Incidentally, NASCAR just settled a lawsuit for $225m involving “23 specific incidents of sexual harassment and 34 specific incidents of racial and gender discrimination.” And then there’s Ferrari, who is staying in F1 but at the staggering price of a Tata Motors sponsorship. Meanwhile, I’m still waiting for Tata to field the first-ever factory LeMons team. There may well be more storylines that I’m missing, but the trend is clear. Thanks to the economic downturn, motorsports aren’t the priority they used to be in terms of brand building. Or are they? Or did they even matter much in the first place?
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i wonder what the long term effects will be on Subaru. I don’t think it will matter to Suzuki too much as they don’t have a turbo/4wd version of the SX4, but I think it could be a bad move on Subarus part (not that their rallycars as close to their road cars like they used to be).
it reminds me of when Ford Australia dropped the V8 from their Falcon range in the early 80’s and didn’t bring it back till the early 90’s (and i think this is correct) didn’t race the Falcon during this time either.
I think this has been hugely detrimental to the Ford Falcons image, especially with 30-40 year olds (the Holden Commodore and Ford Falcons target buyer group). The Commodore is the ‘cool’ choice, the Falcon not so much
Toyota’s decision to stay in F1 following Honda’s withdrawal is easily the worst. They have the largest budget in F1 with absolutely nothing to show for it. No victories, no constructor championships, no driver championships in the seven years they have been in Formula 1 racing.
Their decision to stay in F1 when you consider all of this is contradictory to any Toyota devotee who admires their sensible business acumen. For all the money they spend on F1, none of the racing heritage that they could potentially draw upon trickles down to any of their production vehicles.
This strikes me as odd since Honda uses their racing programs as a means to sell their sports cars and bikes, and Subaru used their rally involvement to change the attutudes of an entire generation of drivers who once saw their cars as quirky. Even Chrysler managed to gain something out of their NASCAR involvement. If nothing else, they can advertise their cars to 75 million race fans during the weekend.
For Honda, Chrysler, and Subaru, they have already used these high-profile events to suit their marketing needs, having pulled out of these events will not hurt them since the cars they sell are already linked to those motorsports activities. Audi still rides the coat-tails of what their Quattro all-wheel-drive system did for rallying, and they haven’t participated in any events since the end of the Group-B era. Toyota, on the other hand is wasting their money on their Formula 1 exploits. The program is unsuccessful, and to rub even more salt into this wound, they have no sports cars to link the racetrack to the showroom. In short, they have no reason to be involved in any kind of racing. It is a pointless money-wasting exercise for them and it goes against everything people admire about Toyota.
Toyota was selling lots of cars before they ever got into NASCAR. Chrysler re-entered NASCAR in 2000 (I think) and saw an epic sales decline every year since.
How did the NASCAR thing work out for GM’s market share and profitability? Or Ford’s?
So my vote for worst decision is the D3 NASCAR efforts. A few domestic execs need to get over their egos and realize that this is a huge waste of effort and money.
On message sponsoring motor sports can enhance the brand.
The Subaru and Mitsubishi rival in rallying & drifting or Audi using their Diesel tech to win Le Mans are examples of sponsorship done right.
Toyota and the D 2.8 paying huge sums to NASCAR to have a shell that has a vague resemblance to their vehicles placed over the standard issue “car of tomorrow” not so much.
As long as Subaru continues to support rally cars in events like the X-Games, I don’t think dropping the WRC will hurt them in the US. And I don’t think they make much money off WRC in Europe. Mitsubishi seems to be selling Evos well enough without WRC racing and they even kept the 2.0L engine.
Toyota is making the worst decision by not dropping out of a few series. Mainstream motorsports has completely lost touch with the cars the fans drive.
I just can’t imagine life without the inevitable blue WRX with bright yellow livery on the side.
Subaru is to WRC what Ferrari is to F1… I just can’t imagine one without the other.
Honda did the right thing. The british mafia has changed the rules for years. First they reduce rpm so the Mclaren stays together, they still lose because their driver is too stupid, then they force everyone to race with McLaren ECM’s and they still need a third rate Toyota driver to stop in the last turn to win.
F1 died two years ago when they allowed McLaren to race with a stolen design.
Blunozer : Subaru is to WRC what Ferrari is to F1… I just can’t imagine one without the other.
That’s exactly how I felt. I have unfortunately never owned a WRX, but I’ve always been a huge fan. It’s the car that truly upped the performance ante among sport compacts when it was brought to the U.S. – a real game changer. And in my mind, what always made it cooler than the Mazdaspeed 3 or Cobalt SS was its rally heritage. It was race-proven, and you can’t say that about many cars anymore.
So yeah, maybe leaving the WRC will save Subaru some cash, and make them more “mainstream” – that’s what the ugly new Impreza aimed to do – but they are a lot less special to me now.
I feel like all these companies are jumping the gun by abandoning motorsports. Are things really that bad?
highrpm, the “huge sums” that GM and Chrysler is paying to sponsor a NASCAR team pale in comparison to the amount of money Toyota shovels into Formula 1. You want a huge waste of money? Try the half-billion dollar operating budget Toyota has for their F1 team, with no victories in the seven years they’ve been racing.
PG:
Actually, the ‘ugly’ new Impreza was designed in part to improve rally handling. Subaru’s rally driver, Petter Solberg, was partly responsible for the hatchback on the STI because he feels a hatchback is better for rallys.
I have a 2004 WRX wagon and yes, it has the rally heritage but it’s a rally car like the Monte Carlo SS was a NASCAR car (before they went to COT).
One of the biggest downfalls in ALL the motorsports are the egos of the owner/rulesmakers. They want to dictate to the actual payers new rule changes, more “equitable” funding strategies, more “balanced” driver/sponsor/ad buying measures, all to “enhance” the viewership. It’s all bogus justifications for them to keep lining their pockets with that so important TV revenue.
It’s killed the sports. The cars have become banal, the radical elements – either constructors or drivers have been driven away and viewership is falling because it isn’t entertaining anymore and the costs are going out of sight.
Weirdly, it’s ALL non amateur motor sports, not just a few that this is hitting. They’ve killed the golden goose.
Hi quasimondo. I completely agree with you that Toyota’s F1 racing budget is multiples higher than any NASCAR budget. And like you said, they aren’t exactly known for their motorsports prowess despite their involvement in F1 and even their almost-victory in LeMans some years ago with the GT-One. In fact, most folks don’t really want to think of their trusty Toyota as a motorsports-oriented company.
I was torn between the Toyota F1 decusion being the worst or the D3 NASCAR decision. The deciding factor for me is that GM and Chrysler were literally days away from bankruptcy, yet they would not eliminate NASCAR support. Considering that their sales have been sliding every year this century, I would hope that someone inside the D3 realized that maybe NASCAR is not the best way to spend marketing dollars.
with out a doubt Max Mosley.
F1 is becoming a hollow shadow of itself.
Enzo started making Ferrari road cars to financially support his racing, not the other way around.
Anyone staying in F1 is stupid.
Highrpm, how else should they spend those marketing dollars? Why wouldn’t any company put their advertising weight into a sport (to use the term loosely) that hosts the second most popular events behind NFL games, holds the attendance records for 17 of the 20 highest attended events, and boasts over 75 million fans (casual and otherwise) worldwide? If NASCAR advertising wasn’t that effective, we shouldn’t see cars being turned into the rolling billboards that they are. I’m no fan of the series, but I can’t argue against those kinds of demographics.
Toyota was willing to navigate through the labyrinth of regulations that were completely foreign to them so they could get a share of the NASCAR advertising pie. Obviously, they saw gold in those high-speed ovals. It would be stupid for Detroit to just hand their share over to Toyota.
Let’s not forget that just as people can’t imagine F1 without Ferrari, it’s just as impossible to imagine NASCAR without Ford, Chevy, and the rivalry held between the two.
Toyota’s participation in F1 has to be easily the worst decision they have made and to continue the silliest.
They have shown near zero connection with their F1 effort and their product.
At least in some respect their rally effort seemed to have some relation to product in the showroom.
(I might be a bit biased. I applied for a job at Toyota Team Europe to work on rally car differential software).
Toyota Team Europe
I love racing. I love racecars.
So yeah, I’m putting on the Nomex right now. Because some of you who don’t already want to burn me at the stake, just might want to…
Racing doesn’t improve the breed. Breeding improves the race. Yes, there were some developments that have trickled out of racing, but for the most part, the tech flows from production programs into racing.
Yes, racing is a neat test bed. Yes, Jim Hall was a god. (As soon as I figure out how to keep the cops from pulling me over every 10 feet, I’m putting sucker fans on one of my cars. I just think they’d get testy about the gravel spray.)
Be honest. It’s great for racing to have a little skunkworks with some engineers helping your team out, here and there. But, short of very niche vehicles, win on Sunday sell on Monday is a rationalization of the 9th magnitude. Continuing to spend ridiculous sums with no ROI is just irresponsible.
If racing returns a bit more to it’s roots, i.e. this is something close to what you or I could buy, *then* some of that credibility will ‘trickle down’ again.
I so want Ferrari to leave F1. That’s about the only way to kick Max and Bernie out the door. F1 would be an empty shell without “the red cars”.
FIAT (aka Ferrari), BMW, et al. should have stuck to their guns about starting up an alternative formula.
So, the worst decision (not yet made?) is Ferrari staying put.
The only race I would really love to go see is LeMons. The rest of it has become largely silly and irrelevant.
Toyota dumping money into F1 has to take first place in the dump moves list though. Or maybe it is Toyota dumping money into Nascar. I’m pretty sure no good ol’ boy suddenly thinks buying a Toyota is cool because they are in Nascar. Likewise, how many Italians suddenly want to buy a Toyota because they saw ’em at an F1 race?
Useless comment of the day:
Did you now “racecar” spelled backward is………….. racecar?
Wow, TTAC enters motorsport reporting. And here was me thinking that that would never happen. Welcome!!
FIAT (aka Ferrari), BMW, et al. should have stuck to their guns about starting up an alternative formula.
If you’re referring to the GPWC, I don’t think Ferrari were ever officially a part of it. As I remember it, MB, BMW, Toyota, Honda, and Renault wanted to form the breakaway series. Ferrari never committed to either F1 nor GPWC until 2005. Soon afterwards, Honda and Toyota went back to F1 and the other three followed suit.
As for the topic at hand, Toyota’s continued commitment to F1 is the worst motorsport decision. I believe a survey a few years showed that they ranked the lowest of the teams in F1 in terms of fan support. So they aren’t really gaining anything, and are losing vast amounts of money in the process. Though it will be interesting to see what happens with the FIA’s cost cutting directives.
Subaru does have other racing endeavors (believe it or not), but WRC was the only one worthy of note. Their sales may not suffer that much but they’ll certainly fade from a lot of people’s minds.
What is Chrysler supposed to do with all those cars in the sales bank? Make a charitable donation of Calibers to the 24 Hours of LeMons.
And Nissan needs to sponsor TTAC’s Datsun 240Z LeMons car. Just sayin’.
As a firm believer in the law of diminishing returns, I believe the automotive industry as a whole has reached the point of diminishing returns from automotive competition. Engineers have learned almost everything possible concerning safety, efficiency, handling, performance and durability from the science of racing. Hence, other than questionable “marketing” value, there appears to be no longer an “R&D” rationale for the auto companies to invest in motorsports. Either the industry learns how to support itself from fan-generated revenue alone, or it dies.
Remember, historically, races such as Indianapolis and Formula One were “prize” races, meant to spur technical advances which would trickle down to mass production.
It may be time for a “new” type of racing…hybrid or alternative fuel vehicle racing. Competition in a race series consisting of these vehicles would conceivably spur the technical advances in those technologies necessary to speed these cars to market, no pun intended. In addition, such a series could spur popular acceptance of such vehicles. I would agree with naysayers that the spectacle of a group of Pria or Insights making 1000 left turns at about 100mph would likely be somewhat less than stimulating. However, we gotta start somewhere. Perhaps a real COT? A NASCAR model with a hybrid battery assist to stretch the mileage? What red-blooded good ol’ boy wouldn’t get behind THAT?
NASCAR just settled a lawsuit for $225m involving “23 specific incidents of sexual harassment
This is vaguely phrased. The lawsuit alleged $225M (or $250M, depending on the source) in damages. The sum that NASCAR settled for is probably closer to $1M.
Subaru WRC rally cars have been million dollar Prodrive specials for a decade. Any resemblance to a street Impreza is entirely on purpose.
Hell, Subaru even makes the upshift/downshift on the manumatics backwards compared to the real rally car. Only Mazda and BMW get this right on road cars. Should be pull back for upshifts, forward for downshifts, in harmony with body movements under acceleration and braking. Duhh. And of course I have this tranny and still get it wrong after a year. Tain’t natural.
Sponsorship and participation in racing by anyone in this recession appears to be nuts, when money is so tight. If Formula One went TU, then we could rid of Bernie the Gigantic Ego, gold chains and bad hair Ecclestone, and Sieg Heil Mosley while they flail around promoting some slack assed series or another to nobody’s amusement.
NASCAR in its present form has had it. I agree with Delorenzo on that front — he’s dead right. NASCAR is wandering in a perfumed orchard where cherubs murmur sweet nothings in their ear. They’re daydreaming. And deaf.
Finally, if Tata is able to sponsor Ferrari, they can bail out Jag/LR first. Or are they like Cerberus, and unable to transfer funds between divisions of their company? Via ATM or by cheque, or by executive fiat, I’m sure it’s possible before the UK government coughs up billions to bail Tata out. Cerberus and Tata seem to share a similar outlook on this issue. Tata in F1 and your bailout bucks funding NASCAR via Cerberus, who no doubt charge a management fee to transfer the funds from Chrysler’s bank account to NASCAR. It’s all pretty sick.
The Detroit 2.x and Toyota for sticking with NASCAR. It’s strictly a marketing exercise (and even that’s now a weak defense with the advent of the CoT), and the France family and their minions wouldn’t lose a second of sleep if they left.
If you’re referring to the GPWC, I don’t think Ferrari were ever officially a part of it. As I remember it, MB, BMW, Toyota, Honda, and Renault wanted to form the breakaway series. Ferrari never committed to either F1 nor GPWC until 2005. Soon afterwards, Honda and Toyota went back to F1 and the other three followed suit.
Funny thing about that story. The UK Times is reporting that Berne Ecclestone admits to what amounts to a bribe to convince Ferrari to break ranks with the other manufacturers who wanted to form that breakaway series.
Subaru WRC rally cars have been million dollar Prodrive specials for a decade. Any resemblance to a street Impreza is entirely on purpose.
That resemblance is necessary to conform to WRC rules that require any vehicle entering competition must be based on a production vehicle with a minimum of 2500 units. This is similar to the Group A class that the WRC replaced, the main difference is that the manufacturers were no longer required to make ‘homologation specials,’ or street versions of the same cars they rally.