What's in an F1 name?

F1 News
Date: 14/October/2011

If you own an F1 team you can call your car whatever you want, right? Wrong.

In order to provide stability and prevent frequent name changes, teams must either get unanimous agreement from all their rivals or forfeit prize money associated with the previous identity.

The rules help stop cars, for example, being renamed annually to suit the latest title sponsor. So while the team name can be easily modified to include a title sponsor, changing the official Constructor name (Ferrari, McLaren, Williams etc) is no easy task.

But is the process too difficult and even open to abuse? A selection of team principals spoke about why the rules exist and the consequences of them during Friday's opening day of the Korean Grand Prix.

"We’re a team that has changed its name a number of times over the last 10 to 15 years," began Mercedes boss Ross Brawn. "We started as Tyrrell and that is the same company all the way through to now, with some variations of our name.

"I think it would obviously be very, very disappointing if a brand of the strength of Ferrari changed its name. But we know that’s never going to happen and if it suits the commercial purposes of teams to change their name and it helps them survive then we should consider it.

"We wouldn’t stand in the way of a sensible proposal. We don’t want any names that are perhaps derogatory to Formula One… but otherwise we have no strong views."

The discussion was particularly apt since the name Lotus is, confusingly, associated with two different teams this year - as a title sponsor for Renault and as a separate Lotus Racing (constructor) entry.

Although a court decision allowed both to use the name this year, the Renault constructor name is expected to be changed to Lotus for 2012, with Lotus Racing voluntarily switching to a new team and constructor identity (probably Caterham).

Red Bull principal Christian Horner, fresh from celebrating Sebastian Vettel's title defence last weekend in Japan, agreed that the current Lotus confusion should be sorted out - but warned that brand names must be protected.

"I think the situation is a tricky one in many respects because there are two sides to it. On one side, it doesn’t make any sense for a team to be called Renault when it isn’t Renault, therefore a name change in a situation like that makes sense," he said.

"I think that where Formula One needs to be a little bit careful is that the teams are brands and when the promoter is selling Formula One around the world, can sell Ferrari, can sell McLaren and now sell Red Bull Racing and Mercedes – they are all strong brand names.

"As Ross says, if there’s a logical, sensible reason then why not, but I think we also have to be careful that it just doesn’t end up in a merry-go-round and companies that have the same company number just change effectively [the] entrant name on a yearly or biannual basis."

Brawn then revealed that 'favours', which might be viewed as a form of blackmail, were made by some teams to ensure the change from 'Brawn' to 'Mercedes Benz' went ahead for 2010.

"I guarantee those teams that are trying to change their name [for next year] will have had approaches from other teams who want different favours paid in order to agree to the name change, and that’s not correct," he said.

"I know that happened to us when we wanted to change our name. People sought to get favours from that decision. That’s what we mustn’t have. If there’s a genuine reason why a team shouldn’t change its name, because it’s not in the interests of Formula One, that’s correct, there should be a proper debate. It needs to be done in an adult way and not used in a divisive way."

Second only to Ferrari in terms of F1 heritage is the McLaren team, which is taking part in its 700th grand prix this weekend.

"This is the 700th Grand Prix of McLaren, but in that time 107 teams have failed," revealed McLaren team principal Martin Whitmarsh. "Now that’s a sobering thought.

"I think we should be doing everything we can to help and facilitate teams and as Ross said, if they come up with a clearly silly, divisive name or a name that’s damaging to Formula One, then we should be able to use good judgement to prevent it.

"But if it’s clear that the name change facilitates the funding and the retention of that team within Formula One, then we shouldn’t use the polemics and politics of Formula One to prevent it."