re:Alfa racing

[Joe Elliott <jee@domain.elided>]

At 3:12 AM -0500 12/5/01, alfa-digest wrote:
>To ad to Zamani's post though, I don't think it is a case of F1 being too
>expensive for Alfa Romeo but rather a situation where it will not make sense
>for Fiat to compete against itself in one type of motor sport - Why enter both
>Alfa Romeo AND Ferrari into F1? Who would get the most financial, and
>technical backing? Imagine the internal politics within the Fiat management of
>which team must get the most benefit. Also if this would happen, it would be
>only to the advantage of the other F1 teams!
>
>That is why I think Alfa Romeo is being heavily involved in saloon car racing
>(like the Touring Car series) and Ferrari in the more prestigious F1...
>
>Regards,
>Phill

I think what Zamani and others meant was that back when Alfa Romeo 
was independent and it was up to their management whether or not to 
compete in F1, it was not economically feasible, and even when they 
thought it was, it was too expensive to allow them to develop a 
competitive package.  Obviously, today, FIAT redundancy is the reason 
for not entering Alfa in F1.  But I've often wondered why, instead of 
giving old engines to Petronas to sell to other teams and get their 
name on the side of the car, why not provide factory support for them 
(but always use the previous year's engine so as not to compete with 
Ferrari) so they're *almost* as powerful as the front-runners, and 
badge them as Alfa Romeo or Maserati?  Maserati desparately needs 
some motorsport involvement, and I think that the image FIAT is 
trying to present Alfa in could benefit from something a little more 
prestigious than production sedan racing.  If I were running FIAT 
right now, I'd be planning a Maserati assault on Le Mans, but alas, 
I'm not running FIAT right now.  As far as last year's Ferrari F1 
engines are concerned, even Lancia could benefit from it's name on 
the side of a middle-of-the-pack F1 car.  Other luxury brands like 
Mercedes Benz and Infiniti have put their names on engines supplied 
to open wheel racing teams.

Joe Elliott
'82 GTV6

--
to be removed from alfa, see /bin/digest-subs.cgi
or email "unsubscribe alfa" to majordomo@domain.elided