I wounder if 2 of the 3 teams that are in money troubles, Caterham, Sauber, and Marussia, fall out if Bernie will pressure Haas to start early to keep 20 cars in the field.
My offer to Caterham for free tires worn down to racing depth still stands. Yet no one calls. I'll extend that off to Sauber too. First one here gets them.
So, if the Hamster winds up back in the loving arms of his Momma, Big Mac, will Mercedes hire Alonso, or will they decide they don't need him and bring up someone from their own young driver's program? And if Mercedes doesn't hire Alonso, where will he go? Williams maybe? Enquiring minds want to know!
I'm willing to bet that Sutil's out at Sauber. Not that I'd wish that on Alonso, but maybe Magnussen could go there, and Alonso return to McLaren.
I think the rules say if the numbers drop below a certain point the other teams are required to field three cars. Even so, he would have trouble getting any of them to do it. Some have said the 2015 season is already too close for them to scale up and at least one said they wouldn't do it unless Bernie throws them some money to pay for it. If he thinks the fall-back option is to move up Haas' schedule, my guess is it could only happen if he's willing to both 1) throw a BIG sack of money at Haas and 2) figure out a way to allow them to team up even closer with Ferrari than planned, almost to the point where it's really Ferrari building four cars and Haas otherwise fielding them with a different livery. Ferrari probably wouldn't be willing to do it (maybe wouldn't be able to do it) anyway. I don't think even Bernie would try to force that to happen, it would be harder than getting all the other teams to each field three cars.....and, you know, there's that big sack of money.
Marussia haven't decided whether to field just one car in Sochi, two (with Rossi) or sit it out altogether.
It's Bernie's contract that states the 3 car thing. I agree it's too short of notice for 3 cars. Yes, Bernie would have to twist some arms to allow Haas to use a custom car. I don't think a bunch of money could have a new car ready, but I could be wrong.
Yeah, I was thinking of money to buy customer cars (presumably from Ferrari since they're already contractually linked at the hip) and to rush the setting up of the team and related infrastructure. I don't see it happening for a number of reasons, just trying to guess what Bernie might need to fund if he wanted to make it happen. I don't think Haas would hate the idea altogether. After all, it's sort of what he said he wanted to do back when he was still shooting for a 2015 start. Said he wanted to buy a full chassis from someone like Dallara and partner very closely with an engine supplier and spend the first year just participating and learning the ropes and move on to building their own car later. It's just too late in the season unless he can buy the whole car from an established team...or take over one of the back-markers.....
If anyone is wondering about the declining appeal of F1, just look here How to watch F1 around the world - F1 Fanatic It breaks down how much money it costs per year to have a paid subscription to a service that broadcasts F1, by nation. Most people have to pay hundreds of dollars a year to get access to a race, including those of us in the States. I don't have a cable subscription myself, which is why I couldn't watch any race at all if I didn't have other means. Dumb, imo. It should be on the OTA networks if they want to regain the audience, or have cheap high quality streaming for those of us who would rather use a 21st Century viewing apparatus rather than the last century methods. If they put an F1 channel on my Apple TV (or roko, or chromecast, whatever) that I could pay a modest yearly subscription for, I'd do it. A la cart streaming is the future. Hell, it's the present but a lot of people don't realize it.