Mercedes' bombshell shows F1 its future

The bombshell that Mercedes will quit the DTM to focus on Formula E at the end of 2018 had an unintentional side effect: it showed Formula 1 the direction it should take in the future.

The reason this would have been unintentional is that the direction such a decision maps out for F1 is at odds with Mercedes' public proclamations about what it wants the pinnacle of motorsport to be.

Unsurprisingly, as the dominant force in the current era of high-tech F1 engines, Mercedes would very much like something similar in the future. It heightens the Stuttgart firm's chances of staying on top of the pile when the next era of F1 most likely begins in 2021, and it makes pitching to the Daimler board an easier sell when it comes to keeping hold of the astronomical budget required to run a world championship-winning juggernaut.

But now Mercedes has shown that it is going far further than just dipping its toe into Formula E, the need for the 'technology' element of F1 justification becomes weaker.

As Mercedes said itself on Twitter, in response to what it called "unfounded speculation" that its FE entry somehow would place its F1 programme in doubt: "F1 is the global pinnacle, FE a new start-up venture for us". Dismissing the idea of backing off its F1 involvement to go back to life purely as an engine supplier, it added: "We are in F1 as a works team for a reason."

Up to now that reason will have been a combination of boosting the three-pointed star's image and profile (which three consecutive dominant campaigns will take care of nicely) and accelerating its understanding of new technologies and super-efficient engines - justifying the spend from the parent company in two crucial areas.

But if electric vehicles are the future, and as we'll come to in a moment, that is certainly still in doubt, the technology justification for going racing can be taken care of for a far smaller investment in a Formula E programme, and in F1 Mercedes can focus on succeeding on a global platform that no other form of motorsport can get near.

If you could do that for less money, and increase how much people take notice of your success, it's a win-win.

This discussion isn't really about Mercedes, or the way it goes about its motorsport programmes - it just so happens that it did something very newsworthy and relevant while this piece was already being worked on. If more manufacturers were as committed to works racing teams as Mercedes has been over the years, many championships would enjoy a more stable, successful existence.

As a huge fan of the DTM, and a former Autosport correspondent for the series (when it only had two manufacturers), I'm gutted for the championship that it is losing Mercedes. Since the DTM's rebirth in 2000, only one manufacturer has had a full-factory effort for every season, and it's not Audi, BMW or Opel. What will end as an 19-year commitment to the series when time is up is a stint that should be commended, whatever the ramifications may be for the scorched earth Mercedes leaves behind in its homeland.

While Mercedes withdrawing from a championship that is far closer to a marketing exercise than a technological one might look like it pours water on the idea that F1 can prosper with a focus on the former rather than the latter, don't forget what a minor player the DTM is outside of Germany. F1 is playing on a far bigger chess board.

At the FIA sport conference in June, Mercedes boss Toto Wolff was quizzed about the future of F1 engines. Compared to most of his contemporaries in the F1 paddock Wolff is usually one of the best at seeing the wider picture and understanding the need for F1 to serve a greater good as well as his own employer's needs, although in this case he showed how strongly the manufacturer is behind the message of technology in F1.

"A Formula 1 car needs to be on the edge of technology. It needs to somehow show the road ahead," he said, before adding in answer to a subsequent question: "It's not going to move away from road relevance."

But now is the perfect time for F1 to break these loose ties with road relevance. Many have already questioned quite how the current V6 turbohybrid 'power units' relate to road cars, and save for the so-far disastrous Honda project, no new manufacturers have come forward since the great exodus of motoring giants in 2008-09. If F1 really is such a great platform for road relevance, by now there would be other big names climbing over each other to get a piece of the action.

At the Canadian Grand Prix this year Ross Brawn raised this point. And while meetings have since taken place about the future of F1 engines that have surely moved the debate on behind closed doors since he spoke, he was right when he said F1 is at a "crossroads", before going on to question if there really is a "relevant path for the future" in terms of a legitimate technological connection with the automotive industry.

"If we don't have fans watching, we have nothing," he added. And if you DO have fans watching, you have something manufacturers want to be a part of, regardless of the what's under the skin of the cars. Take that one step on, and if you do such a good job that F1 booms in popularity, the need for a 'technology' justification for manufacturers slides into the background.

If F1's new owners believe in their plans enough, then they should be brave enough to call the bluff of the manufacturers: 'We'll make F1 so big that you'll either want to stay on whatever terms we lay out, or if you leave, new companies will be queueing up to take your place'.

Red Bull team boss Christian Horner recently backed up Brawn's "crossroads" comments, pointing out that the pace of change in the road car industry makes trying to keep F1 at the forefront of relevant technology a futile exercise.

"Those new [engine] regulations theoretically come in 2021 and there will probably be an eight-to-10 year life on those engines," he said. "So what we are looking at actually is Formula 1's relevance pretty much up to 2030.

"Now, by 2030 how many people are actually going to be driving cars? Are they going to be autonomous? Are they going to be electric? The world is changing so fast in that sector. So Formula 1 has some serious questions that it needs to answer today in the choice it makes for the future.

"What is Formula 1's primary purpose? Is it technology or is it sport and entertainment, man and machine at the absolute limit?"

Horner - of course motivated by the fact his team has never had a top engine during this era of F1 - went on to say he believes those in charge of F1 care about "creating great entertainment", and he called for a set of regulations that produce exciting racing and reduce costs. For most of the 21st century that has been considered a pipedream, but with the road car industry moving away from an existence that ties up neatly with conventional racing cars, it's now a more realistic proposition than it has been for a long time.

Legendary F1 designer Gordon Murray, speaking without the political motivations of being a current participant, is even more forthright in how he sees F1's place in the world of motoring.

"Formula 1 trying to be the leader in powertrain technology is complete nonsense for me," he told Autosport contributor Dieter Rencken in a recent interview, when the subject of engine regulations came up.

"The automotive industry doesn't know itself what path it really is on at the moment. Nobody knows who the winner is going to be. In six months' time somebody might come up with a low cost way, or a low-energy way of making hydrogen. And then we'll all need fuel cells, for example.

"Formula 1 is a drivers' championship above everything else - that is what makes people watch. There are more people shouting for drivers than for teams."

Ah yes, the debate on what fans want. If you were at the British Grand Prix recently you'd have seen a lot of Mercedes merchandise being worn, but primarily by fans of Lewis Hamilton. Just like in the days when Hamilton and Jenson Button were team-mates at McLaren, the grandstands were a sea of day-glo red/orange/pink (call it what you want) caps.

F1 teams and manufacturers of course have their die-hard fans, but Italy/Ferrari aside, loyalty in the fanbase primarily lies with the drivers.

Take Fernando Alonso's Indianapolis 500 jaunt earlier this year as another example. More than two million people watched his rookie orientation test at Indianapolis online - a single-car, relatively unspectacular day of running around a course with four left turns.

Sure, the fact McLaren was back at the speedway for the first time in decades was a fantastic story too, but if it had painted a car orange for a regular IndyCar driver and declared itself back at the Indy 500 without the Alonso factor, the spike in interest would have been nowhere near the same. The drivers are the stars, and so they should be.

That's not to say F1 should do away with manufacturers - as the editor of Autosport.com I know all too well from our detailed analytics how much interest there is at any level of the sport when there is coverage around manufacturer involvement in a championship, and F1 is no different. The recognisable brands behind the superstars add gravitas.

But imagine a scenario where F1 commits to simpler versions of the current breed of engines and stops pretending that it can change the world of motorised power in the future. The gains in technology and energy efficiency, which in fairness Wolff also spoke of at the FIA sport conference alongside expressing the importance of "keeping the sport emotional", are not thrown out entirely, but the simpler engine architecture reduces the barriers to entry.

If Mercedes and Renault, for example, left on grounds of a lack of road relevance, that would open the way for Honda to supply more teams, potentially enabling it to prosper alongside Ferrari, with other marques currently put off by the Japanese firm's difficulties and the sheer cost of an F1 project fancying a go at filling the void while there is less opposition, under new, cheaper rules.

Sure, you might get a dip to begin with, but F1 has coped with those spells before, and when the field lacks depth, there is always someone out there who sees it as an opportunity to steal a march on its industry rivals.

In F1's future, that march should be focused on marketing and image, not a technological one. Motorsport now has series like Formula E for the latter, as Mercedes has proved.

Technology is a word regularly associated with F1, and in the recent Motorsport Network F1 global fan survey it was a term that cropped up a lot in the results. But is that conclusive proof that what's UNDER the skin of the cars is what people are fascinated by?

In the media - Autosport and Motorsport.com included - the word 'tech' is regularly associated with monitoring the aerodynamic development race between teams. For Autosport Plus subscribers, this form of article is one of the most popular among our paid readers.

At least when an F1 car sprouts a new aerodynamic piece - such as a T-wing - it's immediately obvious to the naked eye. The brilliant technology under the engine cover, which has been dreadfully under-celebrated by F1 since 2014, leading to a lot of fan dissatisfaction, doesn't make enough of a difference to the majority of the audience.

For the fans who do like that area of technology, perhaps a series like Formula E, full of manufacturers pushing the boundaries of a new area of propulsion, is the place to satisfy that interest. If those fans go through with threats to stop watching a lower-tech F1, they will almost certainly be replaced by more who are pulled in by the better spectacle, where more teams, manufacturers, and therefore drivers, can compete.

Then there's the World Endurance Championship, where you can watch four amazing technical machines in the LMP1 class. The most celebrated action in that series comes from the GTE Pro class, full of manufacturers with cars that have their performance artificially balanced. Funny, that.

Right now, Formula 1 is more niche than it realises, and taking itself down a blind alley towards trying to be road relevant has played a part in that. Fans and manufacturers used to be drawn in by the spectacle of F1. The technology argument became a smokescreen for the wild escalation of costs, but now that 'R&D' money can legitimately be spent elsewhere.

That's not a threat to F1. It's an opportunity for it to thrive, free of those shackles at last.