Subaru withdraw from 2009 WRC season

[was_tansu_now_badhedgehog]

OMFG.

No Subaru next year at all.

So in response to the question from the other day, yes actually, the downturn is really affecting rallying a lot worse than we thought.

This is really dreadful news.

Comments

[phonemonkey.livejournal.com]

Fucking hell.

I'm surprised actually, I thought sport always did well during economic downturns because people badly need the escapism.

[tansu.livejournal.com]

1. Top flight motorsport is very very expensive. F1 is hideously expensive, top flight rallying merely shockingly expensive - a WRC car costs about $1 million (this is why I was calling the ban on gravel crews false economy - wrecking one of these cars is very expensive. Even one of the front bumpers is well over $10 000).

2. An expensive sport that isn't well enough promoted won't get enough money in to justify the bottom line expense. The promotion of the WRC has been less than optimal in recent years, and promotion and sponsorship are becoming more problematic all the time, in this downturn.

3. Car manufacturers are in serious, serious, serious shit right now. They want any loss making projects off the books - even if it's more for show than actually the best way of saving money. So you have Honda withdrawing from Formula One, Suzuki and now Subaru withdrawing from the World Rally Championship.

The decision to homologate 2010 WRC cars based on the current S2000 spec rather than the current Group N spec has kind of shafted Subaru, because it means that they'd have to start really from scratch for 2010. So their parent group, Fuji Heavy Industries, has decided that the whole thing is a waste of money. Prodrive, the British company that runs the team and the technical side, intend to put something together for the 2010 season and run a team then. And both Subaru and Prodrive are committed to provide customer cars for customer teams and private entries this year. Prodrive will employ as many mechanics etc as possible in other areas of their business. But there is at present nothing for Petter Solberg and Chris Atkinson and their codrivers to do next year. Luckily, Chris Atkinson is a qualified stockbroker, so their is a career for him in financial serv... oh, wait.

I wonder if Marcus Grönholm's shopping centre is hiring till operators.

[phonemonkey.livejournal.com]

They want any loss making projects off the books - even if it's more for show than actually the best way of saving money.

So exactly the same syndrome as when a company posts grisly quarterly figures and decides that the way forward is clearly to stop giving its employees free tea and coffee. (Free beverages happen to be the most cost-effective way to boost employee morale, but who cares about that?)

[oldhubcap.livejournal.com]

That's sad!

:(

[austengirl.livejournal.com]

I just heard the news about Subaru on radio 2 and texted A, who's waiting for a flight at Manchester Airport. He supports Petter Solberg, so I figured he'd be disappointed. He asked what would happen to Marcus Gronholm's return and I came straight to your journal...

He has a shopping centre? I find that oddly hilarious. At least it's a revenue source, albeit a potentially shrinking one.

[tansu.livejournal.com]

Yeah, Marcus and his wife own a shopping centre (called Strand) and restaurant in his home town of Inkoo/Ingå.

[winnowill2.livejournal.com]

We're kind of wondering about the fate of NASCAR over here for the same reason - the only non-Big 3 manufacturer in the circuit is Toyota.

[tansu.livejournal.com]

I'm getting a worrying feeling that next season's world rally championship might be as good as cancelled. The remaining two manufacturers, Ford and Citroën, are having an emergency meeting. Maybe they'll decide it's not worth carrying on with just the two of them. Or maybe they will carry on, who knows.

Although Ford are in deep shit, their rally team is backed by the Abu Dhabi tourism authority, and that money is safe unless... the Abu Dhabi tourism authority decide that a half-baked championship season won't provide them with the publicity that they thought they were going to get.

Maybe there will be a situation like in 2006 when Citroën pulled out, but the same technical team ran the cars under the Kronos banner. But at the moment where is the backing going to come from? Maybe the Abu Dhabi sheikhs will pay M-Sport directly to run the Ford team as a "Abu Dhabi / BP (Ford)" team. Or maybe not.

Plans that looked pretty solid only a couple of months ago have just disappeared into nothing. It's all very uncertain.

[thethirdman4476.livejournal.com]

Yes, sport is really feeling the pressure of the recession, isn't it?

Over here in the US an entire league (Arena Football) has shut down entirely. There are suggestions that some other sports are considering shutting down teams (National Hockey League) or entire leagues (Women's National Basketball Association). So, it's not looking good.