It's the pits as austerity drive slams brakes on good old days of F1's gas-guzzling excess

IT was the sport that measured success by the size of the yachts and wingspan of the private aircraft.

IT was the sport that measured success by the size of the yachts and wingspan of the private aircraft, a dream world floating on a sea of champagne bubbles that epitomised the spend, spend, spend generation. But now Formula One is facing the end of the era of financial excess and looking forward to a more frugal future.

As culture shocks go, this is one of the biggest in all sport: Formula One has spent 30 years on a global smash-and-grab raid, pulling in billions of dollars to fuel gas-guzzling cars and turning drivers and team owners into multimillionaires. The huge motorhomes, the elaborate glass and steel palaces awash with champagne, could soon be a thing of the past after McLaren, one of the biggest and most successful teams of the modern era, disclosed it was thinking of "downsizing" from its three-storey mobile headquarters.

Martin Whitmarsh, McLaren's team principal, says that many of Formula One's teams are "in survival mode", with recyclers moving into the Madrid headquarters of the HRT team last week to strip out equipment and shift cars that will be sent for scrap, surely the most poignant warning for a sport that has burnt cash for fun in the past.

Bernie Ecclestone, Formula One's billionaire chief executive, claims the sport is in good health but his analysis will be contradicted by the Spanish recyclers and seven of the 11 teams on the grid said to be struggling to persuade sponsors to invest in a sport whose global television audience dropped last year despite one of the most exciting seasons.

Marussia, the Russian-backed team based in Oxfordshire, southern England, chalked up losses of almost pound stg. 50 million last year, yet is expected to receive only about pound stg. 6m ($9.01m) in payments from F1's prize pot. The neighbouring Caterham team, founded by Queens Park Rangers football club owner Tony Fernandes, has only been able to attract sponsorship to pay for a third of its pound stg. 60m budget.

Ecclestone's iron rule has reinforced Formula One's financial contradictions as the gap between the haves and have-nots grows at an alarming rate. Ecclestone has creamed off some of the biggest sponsors, such as Emirates Airlines, to put money into his Formula One business, and CVC Capital Partners, F1's City-based owners, have taken more than pound stg. 4 billion in profits out of the sport, while teams desperately scour their accounts for savings.

Even the drivers are divided, with Britain's Lewis Hamilton buying a pound stg. 20m private jet from his estimated pound stg. 50m fortune, while more than half the grid lining up for the first grand prix of the season next month in Australia will have had to pay up to pound stg. 30m for the privilege of joining the pinnacle of motor sport.

That led to an impassioned outburst from Jaime Alguersuari, dumped a year ago by Toro Rosso, who sent out an email at the weekend condemning the "auction" of driver seats by teams wanting cash over talent.

Whitmarsh believes that Formula One faces a philosophical as well as a financial reckoning, though, and needs to shed its image as a money pit if it is to hang on to fans sickened by the sport's history of conspicuous consumption.

"In the past, particularly in the 1980s, it was all about excess and that was part of the allure of Formula One," Whitmarsh said. "Any high-profile business has to realise that people are going to watch us, particularly now. If we were seen as the gas-guzzling, profligate sport that we were so proud to boast about in the 1980s, we would be out of touch with our audience."

The most obvious sign that austerity has arrived in the paddock was the lack of glittering launches that used to be a feature of the pre-season build-up. Only Red Bull laid on a champagne launch and even that was in a warehouse behind the team's factory north of London, a stark contrast to the days when the Spice Girls were hired to provide entertainment.

"There are some reality checks going around," Whitmarsh said. "Look at the launches. We used to hire Alexandra Palace and launches were a competition. People don't want to see pound stg. 1m extravaganzas anymore. Times have changed. We peaked. The challenge is how we can be smarter and more elegant."

Kicking the habit for spending first and worrying later is proving difficult, though. Ecclestone is trying to push through a new Concorde Agreement, his commercial deal with the teams that should have been signed by the end of last year. There is still no deal, which details payments to the F1 teams, while they are also at loggerheads on how to implement budget controls to prevent ruinous spending.

Whitmarsh has attempted to forge unity, only for the teams to fragment once Ecclestone waved his cheque book, particularly at his most powerful allies in the paddock at Ferrari and Red Bull, who are taking the biggest handouts from Ecclestone.

"Bernie has done a fantastic job for the owners (CVC)," Whitmarsh said. "We can criticise him but he's doing a better job than we are. He's keeping the money on behalf of his employers. That money whistles out of the sport and that's deeply frustrating for some of us, but that's exactly what he should be trying to do. If the teams aren't cohesive enough to work together, then they have to blame themselves."

THE TIMES