Componi Comunicato Stampa

Blazefp quits F1 - Interview - Part 1

07.04.2015 - F1... The ultimate motor sport. It's the dream of every driver to race there, of every engineer to work there and of every manager to rule one of its teams.

It's counter-intuitive to think that anybody would quit the highest job of a successful team, even more after they've manufactured the fastest car in their history.
Then again Blazefp isn't quite the usual guy, wouldn't be the first time he'd drop off a successful employee before it starts to go down the failure road.
But was that really the reason behind his resignation as the main manager of the WAR F1 team? Blazefp Magazine set out to find what made Blazefp leave the team he's been managing since F1 started in MRC.
For the sake of keeping it readable we've split this interview in 2 parts.

Interviewer: For a short period of time it seems that you've been the most busy person in MRC, being an ambassador is enough for most people but on top of that you've also been leading WAR, the Portuguese Racing Team, the Luso-Brazilian Championship, Cup and SuperCup and it seems your driver is following the footsteps of your previous one. Was shortage of time what made you quit WAR?

Blazefp: Not at all although I understand your point, I have indeed been running low on free time with all these duties but that's far from being the reason to leave WAR.

I: I see, rumors have spread that last season's under performance might have had something to do with the sudden resignation.

Blazefp: No, it's not that either. Of course not getting results doesn't help the motivation much but the will power to succeed and the joy of managing a F1 team was still burning strong in my heart.
I'll save you the trouble, I left F1 because of certain...philosophies that seem to have gotten impregnated on an otherwise beautiful project. Philosophies so wrong in my point of view that I feel I could not carry on or else I'd be consenting with them.

I: What do you mean? What are said philosophies?

Blazefp: Well, what would you think about a company that makes around 28M/season in self earned funds and spends around 30.5M/season just in employees contracts and facilities maintenance? Not such a great managing job right? They're losing 2.5M/season after all. But on top of that add over 10M/season in regular projects, another several millions in side projects and 4M+bonuses for a single driving seat for 1 season. Not to mention the costs of improving the company's facilities and the team image budget.
This sounds ridiculous right? Surely there's no way a company could survive longer than a couple of years under this management, right? Well it happens that these are real numbers of a F1 team in MRC and the way they can issue shares* every season in exchange of over 25M assures that they can not just survive forever with this plan but can also thrive.
The way F1 is now it encourages said behavior and penalizes good management.

*For those who don't know what I'm talking about, it's an "option" that allows a team to get 60% of the gap between their earnings and the highest earning team.

I: I don't quite get it, what does this have to do with WAR?

Blazefp: F1 was made to steer teams into issuing shares every season and I'm actually okay with that. But that cannot overcome reality, that cannot make F1 a pay2win project or I don't want anything to do with it. It's absurd that a team can be so much in the red (slang for losing funds per amount of time) and get not just saved but also boosted up with one simple share issue. If a low rated team gets a sudden 25M injection of cash, it'll obviously overtake any team in close/medium range that doesn't do it. This means those teams are forced to issue shares or they'll be overtaken by every team. However, you only have 2 "choices" if you want to issue shares, you either go to your own pocket and buy said shares or let someone else get 9.09% of your team. Overtime you'll loose grip of your team if you let someone else take that chunk. So your 2 "choices" suddenly become clear - pay to keep the team or lose it.
Pay or lose. That's what I'm against, that's what I can't agree with, that's the reason I left F1.
To top it all I've heard there was some inside knowledge of F1 by some managers before it started, letting said lucky managers grab onto precious employees before anyone else knew of anything, but that's the past and I can understand some mistakes on a project as big as this one, what I can't consent with it the pay2win philosophy.

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End of part 1