It’s official: F1 is splitting in two
Posted by Johann in Formula 1, Technology on June 19th, 2009
The BBC and Autosport are both reporting that the 8 biggest teams in Formula 1 will be splitting from the sport to form their own series. FOTA (the Formula One Teams Alliance) has issued the following statement:
Since the formation of FOTA last September the teams have worked together and sought to engage the FIA and commercial rights holder, to develop and improve the sport.
Unprecedented worldwide financial turmoil has inevitably placed great challenges before the F1 community. FOTA is proud that it has achieved the most substantial measures to reduce costs in the history of our sport. In particular the manufacturer teams have provided assistance to the independent teams, a number of which would probably not be in the sport today without the FOTA initiatives.
The FOTA teams have further agreed upon a substantial voluntary cost reduction that provides a sustainable model for the future. Following these efforts all the teams have confirmed to the FIA and the commercial rights holder that they are willing to commit until the end of 2012.
The FIA and the commercial rights holder have campaigned to divide FOTA. The wishes of the majority of the teams are ignored. Furthermore, tens of millions of dollars have been withheld from many teams by the commercial rights holder, going back as far as 2006. Despite this and the uncompromising environment, FOTA has genuinely sought compromise.
It has become clear however, that the teams cannot continue to compromise on the fundamental values of the sport and have declined to alter their original conditional entries to the 2010 World Championship. These teams therefore have no alternative other than to commence the preparation for a new Championship which reflects the values of its participants and partners.
This series will have transparent governance, one set of regulations, encourage more entrants and listen to the wishes of the fans, including offering lower prices for spectators worldwide, partners and other important stakeholders. The major drivers, stars, brands, sponsors, promoters and companies historically associated with the highest level of motorsport will all feature in this new series.
Note to Eds: Statement issued by FOTA on behalf of BMW-Sauber, BrawnGP, Scuderia Ferrari, McLaren- Mercedes, Red Bull Racing, Renault, Scuderia Toro Rosso, Toyota.
This is a very sad day for motor sport enthusiasts. Two seperate series, one having all the traditional circuits and the name Formula 1, and another having all the traditional cars, sponsors and drivers will result in two much weaker and more vulnerable series. I doubt that both series would be able to sruvive, and I hope the series that dies will be Formula 1 (never thought I’d say that). I fully support the teams and drivers, and completely oppose Max Mosley’s viewpoint that he can dictate the rules and change them any time he feels fit.
What makes this even worse is the legal battles that will be fought for years to come. Technically Ferrari, Red Bull and Toro Rosso are contractually bound to race in F1 until 2011 (that’s according to Mosley). The teams believe Mosley and the FIA has already broken the contract, and thus nullified this condition. There’s no doubt that this will be fought in court, and whoever loses will owe the winner hundreds of millions of dollars. No matter who’s right in this matter, it will be very messy and stretched out. Then there will be the battles over who has rights over which tracks, sponsorship deals, etc etc.
And then of course there’s the fans. The FIA has simply ignored what we want, which is to see Max Mosley leave his post, as well as transparent rules which is equal for everyone. We don’t want a two-tier championship. We don’t want to see a watered-down budget capped version of the sport. We want to see the pinnacle of motorsport, with equal rules for all. It’s as simple as that.
I can’t believe it’s come to this 
[via f1fanatic.co.uk]
How to get Twitter followers, the right way
I’ve just seen yet another tweet proclaiming that by following some system or registering on some website you can get 1,000′s of new followers in a week. Although some of these sites may work, you’ll probably only get spammy followers, looking to bury you under a sea of DM’s. As I’ve blogged before, I created a Twitter account for one of my projects. Basically what happens is I collect news stories from most South African news sites into a Digg-like site. I then tweet all these headlines to a Twitter account. When I created the account I manually followed about 200 South Africans, just to get the ball rolling. I then signed the account up to TweetLater, and checked the setting to automatically follow any people following me. That was about two months ago, and the account now has more than 1,500 followers. People just naturally started following the account.
So what does this mean to the average Twitterer? Just post regular, value-adding content and the rest will happen automatically. In addition to this, you’ll find people who actually want to listen to what you have to say, not people just looking to increase their follower count. Actually, saying (typing?) it now makes it seem incredibly obvious. Remember people, there’s no such thing as a free lunch (or 1,000 genuine Twitter followers).
BMW “gets” social media
I’m very impressed with the way BMW has been using social media to create a buzz about their upcoming small SUV, the X1. Most notably, they used Facebook to create a page dedicated to the new car. It was an awesome idea to use Facebook to do this, as BMW is targeting the car at a younger audience, which is exactly the type of people who uses Facebook. They’ve got a lot of fans on the page, and in addition to that they’re only releasing partial or blurred images until the car is officially released. BMW also has a twitter account dedicated to marketing the X1.
BMW’s attempt at marketing through social media stands in stark contrast to Volkswagen’s miserable attempt at marketing the new Golf, about which I’ll blog in the near future. Nevertheless, it’s cool seeing big companies using social media to market their products.
How to stop those annoying auto DM Twitter messages
One of the most annoying things about Twitter is auto direct messages. Someone follows you, you follow back out of courtesy, and in return you get an automated message from that person thanking you for following them. Multiply this by 10 or 20 new followers each day, and a new form of spam is born. I must confess that shortly after I joined Twitter I signed up at TweetLaterand I enabled an auto DM to anyone who followed me. However, once I started using Twitter I realised how much of an annoyance this is and I disabled it on my account. Because of automated DM’s I started ignoring all DM’s.
Fortunately, it’s possible to disable most automated direct messages. Most automated messages comes from two service providers: SocialToo and TweetLater To opt out of automated DM’s from TweetLater, just visit their opt out Twitter account and follow the instructions.
1. Follow @optmemout
2. Wait for the follow back
3. Send @optmeout any DM
4. Unfollow @optmeout
To opt out of SocialToo:
1. Visit www.socialtoo.com
2. Register for an account, filling in your Twitter account details
3. Once logged in, click on the Preferences tab at the top right corner of the window.
4. Enable the option “Turn off automatic Direct Messages from other users”
Since I’ve completed these steps, I’ve seen a drastic reduction in the number of automated direct messages. A few still comes through, but it’s not nearly as spammy as it was before.
“FEAR GRIPS GOOGLE!” – Oh really?
I just stumbled across this article, about Microsoft’s new search engine Bing, which was written by the New York Post. The article has a sensationalist headline, implying that Microsoft has finally built a Google killer, which has been acknowledged by Google in the form of a crisis management team. This is just silly. Of course Google will investigate any new possible competitors, to ensure that they don’t have any obvious advantage. As is written in the article itself, most people use Google and will continue using it. There is a certain amount of inertia involved before people will change their habits, and although Bing is good, it’s not really better than Google.
I guess this article just demonstrates that news sells, and there’s no news like bad news.
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