Picture the scene. You have millions of pounds of sponsors behind the racing team. Maybe you have a few company chiefs visiting the circuit and eating pasta in your hospitality tent. Then the car breaks down. Disappointingly so. The inevitable TV, trackside and website interviews happen, so what do you say? Clearly, your investors are number one priority.
See that wing flapping? Alan Gow's personal fault that is.. |
You see. Crisis avoided. Wasn't the teams fault, blame it on the regs. Sponsors happy. Or are they...? Here's the rub. Things break. Fairly often. Especially in racing. It is part of the game. I don't think anyone would really begrudge a team and their backers if once in a while the car broke down as fans expect it to happen a few times in a season. So firstly, to blame specific parts failures on the governing body so quickly puts everyone's back against the wall. You certainly wouldn't here something like "well, the Brembo brakes broke and we didn't make them so it's not our fault. Honest". There are thousands of components in a racing car, a lot of them made by outside companies. Do drivers signal out Xtrac by name every time there is a drivetrain problem? No, of course not.
But more prominent is that all this finger pointing is negative for the series and the set of NGTC regulations as a whole. These are newish rules. Most teams are new to the rules. Lets go to MG as a case study. At Croft, they had an electrical problem that appeared at the end of qualifying and for the first race of the day on one car. A certain driver was then understandably upset. In an interview it is fair to say that the TOCA supplied electrical components we heavily critised.Thus shifting blame from the team and hopefully pleasing the representatives of MG, who were visiting the race meeting from China. But, if you point the fingers at the TOCA parts, this is ultimately undermining the regulations and you could see the case of Tesco & MG thinking their money could be taken to another series. Mention TOCA parts and problems too many times and it damages the reputation of the series, potentially making it harder for sponsorship deals. Not just for your team, but others in the championship too.
Will impresses his sponsors |
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