This week's Grapevine brings you information fresh from the paddock on: Commercial Reality Formulaic Disillusion

Commercial Reality

It has to be said, Takuma Sato really picked the right moment to shine, when he brought home two points in Japan. That result, vindicating Eddie Jordan's belief in hiring him, might well be the single most important event of his career.

The bottom line is, Sato doesn't have a seat at Jordan, unless he can increase his budget sufficiently to make it happen. The Japanese driver has a testing role on offer at BAR: Honda want him to test their engines next year, so he would even get plenty of miles in. Honda are also expected to help out with his budget enough to get a drive at Minardi, if nothing else comes up, though they won't get into a bidding match for a seat there. There had been mention of some interest from a CART team, but he turned it down immediately, as the series seems to be in decline, and he had no reason to believe there would be any problem with his two-year Jordan contract.

Over the course of the season, Sato has not been cheap to run. His 'on the edge' style ensures that any mistake saw him making a beeline for the scenery. Between testing and the races, Sato's incidents have resulted in the best part of three million pounds of damage - mostly in the first half of the season. Consequently, Eddie Jordan had some words, and had his rookie spend ever more time working with Giancarlo Fisichella towards maturing his style, transforming so that even with his flat out approach, his style smoothed out. Mistakes will still leave him coming off the circuit, but he makes fewer of them.

The rumours that Eddie Irvine has a role with Jordan have not abated, especially as Benson and Hedges are looking for a British driver on the team. Bringing him on board would reputedly persuade Benson and Hedges to pay his salary - immediately making him substantially cheaper than Giancarlo Fisichella, whose multi-million pound package is looking expensive in what is proving to be troubled financial times.

Of course, Jordan is not transparent, and certainly hasn't lasted this long in the Piranha Club without being master of the game. The threat of dropping Sato for next season, immediately after he has demonstrated his potential to a home crowd, is excellent leverage to bring in some Far Eastern sponsorship. Similarly, whilst Irvine may, or may not, be bound for the team, even Fisichella knows that there is an alternative, experienced, and substantially cheaper head who could, potentially replace him: in any discussion over salaries, there's no doubt who holds the master hand in the negotiations.

Jordan's downsizing, earlier in the year, has ensured the team have continued to be a viable commercial enterprise. Jordan's astute move in lining up Ford to supply the team, mostly paid for by DHL, means that there will be a solid heart to the car for the next couple of years. Already, the budget for next year's car is in place, and Sato's points ensure the expense of attending every race next year is covered. The lawsuit with Frentzen is looking like getting sorted out of court, at a price he can handle. This leaves Jordan working on building a budget to ensure the team can develop the car strongly next year, and take it testing as often as their rivals. Friendly, family atmosphere or not, the commercial realities of attaining that capital come top of his agenda, even if it means carrying out the threat to put one of his current drivers out in the cold.

Formulaic Disillusion

As a rule, the media who cover the sport, often cynical, but generally knowledgeable, are also amongst the most die-hard of fans. Coming up to the season finale, typically, is met with mixed feelings, as it signals a fallow period. Afterwards, media coverage is limited to testing, chasing up the odd rumour of a driver or technical director being seen with a rival team, and taking any annual holiday. Whilst the holiday is welcome, the prospect of no F1 action for five months is not.

It may seem strange, but the end of the Japanese Grand Prix was met, by the media at large, with a huge, collective sigh of relief.

This season, like most, has had its ups and downs, for sure; however, since Rubens Barrichello moved over for Michael Schumacher in Austria, the impact has been fairly comprehensive. There was a sense of inevitability about who would win overall, and whilst each race in the meanwhile had some potential attraction, the interest levels had dropped. Numerous longstanding fans of the sport - including some die-hards - switched off in disgust as the prospect of what amounts to an unchallenged Championship.

The controversy of Austria boosted viewer numbers for Monaco, as millions tuned in to find out if Ferrari would be sanctioned. However, even when Michelin's soft tyre gamble gave David Coulthard a win to buck the trend, and Montoya put together a string of pole positions, the edge that marks Formula One as different was blunted.

What makes the sport special? It's not as simple as "overtaking" - there is more in both IRL and CART - or that they have the world's best drivers, in the world's best cars. The technical regulations are so tight that the days of amazing technological leaps are all but over, and the ever evolving safety advances have made the most serious of accidents survivable. However, the romance of man and machine, and the glamour of the sport persist.

That seems to be changing: the commercial interests of the big manufacturers ensures that the team have to offer a professional image at all times. Drivers are no longer gentlemen racers: they are company spokesmen. This is even reflected on the track, where drivers are frequently required to 'hold position' for points, rather than take big risks for wins. The team's media people can't do much with an on track incident, but they can make almost any finish sound respectable!

In the modern world, image is everything. The romance and glamour of the sport is what draws the great unwashed to their television screens, week in, week out. Some traditions that are understood, if disliked, by longstanding fans, such as team orders, are not understood by the average viewer. Anything that appears unsporting, such as teams ordering drivers aside, or a general lack of competition on the track, takes the shine off, so the public switch off in droves.

The nine-point plan brought forward by Max Mosley and Bernie Ecclestone is an opening shot in the battle to bring the sport up to date with its public (and reduce costs). It is clear, even to die-hard fans, that even if none of these proposals are implemented, the traditional approach to the sport, already compromised on the technical front, needs overhauling on the sporting front. The money behind the sport demands a big public, and the public demands more glamorous racing.

Williams and McLaren haven't been too happy about Max's suggestions - they are looking at the likes of Renault and Toyota closing up, and anything that breaks the status quo is clearly going to be more beneficial to the competition. Ferrari's Luca di Montezemolo has slammed the suggestions, claiming they are an attack on Ferrari, and threatens to quit the series if they are implemented: a threat with serious implications for the sport.

For years, as Ferrari were going through the doldrums, many (non tifosi) fans believed the sport's governing bodies were working towards bringing the Maranello outfit back into competitive shape. The increasing years without silverware were considered 'bad for the sport'. It's ironic that their actions as the dominant team, on and off the track, is now being considered more damaging than the twenty fallow years that preceded it.