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Cake day: June 10th, 2023

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  • Macron is the president and head of state. He’s elected directly by the citizens of France.

    Attal is (was) the prime minister and head of government. He’s elected by the members of parliament. He’s appointed by the president but needs majority support in parliament.

    “To form a government” usually means that someone is tasked by the head of state (president or king) to come up with a group of people (cabinet) that has majority support in the house(s) of parliament. That’s easy for Starmer when Labour has a majority. In other countries like the Netherlands, Germany, or Italy, that usually requires a coalition.

    That will now also be the case in France.














  • I’m not saying there’s no incentive to perform well, I’m saying that’s it’s not too big an issue to come in last. At least financially speaking.

    A quick search shows Haas made $60 million in prize money last year, while Sauber (AR) made $69 million. How much more does a team need to invest to climb up a place? If it’s more than $9 million, it’s not necessarily worth it for the lower teams.

    So for the shareholders it becomes a question of whether investing is worth it. If the team is already making a profit under the cost cap, and the value of the team increases because supply is limited and the likes of Audi and Ford want to enter — is it really worth investing more?

    But all of that is beside the point, because for the shareholders there’s one thing they surely don’t want: an extra competitor. All of a sudden you could come in 11th, decreasing the prize money you get for just showing up. And when you decide to sell the team, it’s worth less because the supply has increased.

    We’ve wound up in a situation where the teams can decide against whom they want to compete. And commercial interests directly clash with fair, open competition. The email to spam is a bullshit story — if the FOM had wanted to make it work, they could’ve picked up the phone. It’s not like megadeals like this depend on one specific calendar invite.


  • The real reason is that with just ten teams, every team has a lot of inherent market value. A team like Haas can make a lot of money just by being on the grid — from a financial perspective it’s no issue that they l come in last.

    But with extra teams, the prize money has to be split among more participants, the supply of ad space increases, and the value of already having a slot drops. Sauber was worth a lot to Audi because they were allowed to compete — if new teams can show up, the existing teams aren’t worth as much, which is bad for shareholders.

    It’s all about money and it’s awful for the sport. It’s no wonder that the FIA already granted approval and it’s the FOM who are objecting.