Tough Times for Patrick and Fernandez

[macdaddy]

From Robin Miller:

(Fernandez) is losing two of his three primary backers and that's thrown his 2005 Indy Racing League season into jeopardy.

It's believed Fernandez is leaning towards just running Motegi, Japan and Indy in 2005 unless he can find full-time funding.

Pat Patrick admits last year wasn't much fun and the longtime Indy-car owner appears to be going out of business. He's laid of his crew and his IRL cars are for sale.

Things are tough all over, and this is sad news.

[Jordi]

Sad news indeed. It is a real shame to see Fernandez's sponsors, who had been so loyal to the sport, leaving.

[extramundane]

Originally Posted by Jordi

Sad news indeed. It is a real shame to see Fernandez's sponsors, who had been so loyal to the sport, leaving.

Who says they're leaving "the sport"? They're leaving Fernandez/IRL. Big difference.

[BootsOntheSide]

Would that see Adrian himself step back, with SAFR's Matsuura entry and Sharp's Delphi-backed car being the regular entries? That'd still be a shame,a s I can see Adrian as an outside title candidate if Honda remain ahead on performance.

I feel really bad for Pat. He's a real legend of open-wheel racing, with a proud history, adn this final venture has not gone right at all. He made a mistake in trusting Derrick Walker with the equipment, as it's turned out to be of inferior quality, and Chevvy's lack of performance and Al Jr's lack of form/interest killed any real chance the team's had.

[Kicking-back]

The Patrick entry was hardly worthy of the name, but I hope Adrian Fernandez can keep it together - I wouldn't be surprised if some Honda-associated sponsor found its way on to his car.

[N I Tram]

That seems a bit harsh on Pat really. He put a lot of effort into the team, and it's not as if he hadn't ran at the back in the past. Circumstances pushing his teams down the field is actually nothing new for him, he's often battled against the odds.

[Kicking-back]

I agree N I Tram - but I got the impression that Pat's heart was no longer in it, and he may have been better staying retired from team ownership.

[Snrub]

Poor Pat Patrick.

As for Fernandez, that's sort of an interesting situation. He was dissatisfied (understandably) with the way things were happening with the CC owners so he went to preceived greener pastures where Honda would provide him millions to run. Through the season he was clearly thrilled that the environment in the IRL was such that he could perform exceedingly well. By moving to the IRL, presumably he hurt his Mexican sponsors. From his sponsor's perspective he left the world's biggest race hosted in Mexico (I'd heard that before, but I didn't believe it until fairly recently), another huge race and TV coverage for no Mexican races and no TV coverage.

I think it also brings up some interesting points on sponsorship. We've always presumed that IRL sponsors were paying substantially more than thier CC counterparts. Given the amount of money required to run a IRL car, the amount of money contributed by Honda, Fernandez's sponsors couldn't have been paying much of the bill if he's no longer able to run for a season. In the last couple of years, we've also seen a reasonable level of success for IRL teams recruiting sponsors. The fact that the ~3rd-5th strongest performing driver in the series for 2004 may not be able to get new sponsorship is quiet telling of the current realities.

It's interesting to contrast Fernandez to Jourdain. Everyone assumed that he made the move that would reduce potential sponsorship and salary. In retrospect there's little doubt that Jourdain would have won races if he'd stuck with Rahal and gone to the IRL. Perhaps he weighed the short term dangers to the long term dangers?

[Kicking-back]

Just to clarify - whatever happens with Fernandez' personal sponsors, he will run at least a two-car team for Scott Sharp and Kosuke Matsurra.

[Tenoch]

This all makes sense really for once like stated above there is no Tv coverage in Mexico or races, and the only way the IRL could go to Mexico is if that tract in Cancun happens, because Forsthye has a major share in the tracks at Mexico city and Monterray, and the rest of the tracks in Mexico arent in the greatest shape.

Furthermore one of Adrian's sponsors was TELMEX a provider of telephone services to Mexico and several other latin America countires, it wouldnt make sense for them to sponsor a car in country where they have no presence, his other sponsor Quaker State is Really Quaker State Mexico which is different than Quaker State in the US kind off like the different Coca Cola companies.

The only sponsor that would make sense would be TECATE, Finally Adrian has stated that the Visit Mexico signs he had put on there at no charge.

I hope he can find backing because I really enjoyed watching him race in that Mexican Flag colored machine of his. First Michel loses his ride and now Adrian.

[marcus]

so the scott sharp rumour is official then is it ?

[Kicking-back]

Adrian says so in the article quoted here.

[extramundane]

Originally Posted by Kicking-back

Adrian says so in the article quoted here.

Adrian also said his sponsors wanted to go to the IRL, which was a blatant lie.

[Kicking-back]

If his sponsors had not wanted to do it, they would not have been on his car this year.

[extramundane]

Originally Posted by Kicking-back

If his sponsors had not wanted to do it, they would not have been on his car this year.

Telmex quite clearly announced they weren't happy, but would honor the remaining year on their personal contract with Adrian, and even a blind man could notice the Amazing Shrinking Logos. Then there's the fact that Telmex also ended up on Jourdain's car and Tecate *stepped up* their sponsorship of CCWS races...Nah, I must have just imagined all that. Clearly, Telmex was looking to expand into the Marion County, IN market...

[BootsOntheSide]

Herdez have left even though their CART team is doing better and better, so why should Fernandez's sponsors leaving neccessarily be down to them racing in the IRL rather than CART?

[macdaddy]

If you're suggesting that Adrian Fernandez is a liar, extramundane, then I suggest that you defend your post with some proof.

I suggest that you cannot, and therefore I suggest that you are violating the most basic of the forum rules? Check your PM's for more information.

[mountainstar]

So I presume now with Patrick gone, Tomas Enge, if he races stateside at all, is headed to Champcar?

[GP Racer]

CC can have him. He only got that Patrick ride for his money, and he took out an old IRL favorite in Lazier.

It only hurts the IRL credibility when a driver with no oval expierience, and no time in an IndyCar comes in and grabs a seat because he has money. It just screws the drivers that have been going through the system, working hard and paying their dues.

What has Enge done for CC that you all seem so anxious to see him there? Especially when guys like Fogarty, who has always strived for a seat in CC, continually get screwed?

[Kicking-back]

Slightly harsh on Tomas Enge there, GP Racer, although I understand why.

Tomas Enge is not as sponsor-rich as some may think - he'd have been in better seats sooner if he was.

He's a quality driver, as evidenced by the fact he's now (with Darren Turner and David Brabham) part of the test-driving crew on the new Aston Martin FIA GT car.

[GP Racer]

Its not really personal against Enge.

But I would like to see drivers that work through the system get the ride first. So far, none of the drivers from the IPS are getting a ride next year, and neither are guys like Simmons, Yasakawa, Dare, the Laziers, and the like, that know this series, its history, and have worked solely for a ride here their whole careers. You may as well disband the IPS if this trend continues.

[BootsOntheSide]

Originally Posted by GP Racer

Its not really personal against Enge.

But I would like to see drivers that work through the system get the ride first. So far, none of the drivers from the IPS are getting a ride next year, and neither are guys like Simmons, Yasakawa, Dare, the Laziers, and the like, that know this series, its history, and have worked solely for a ride here their whole careers. You may as well disband the IPS if this trend continues.

Trouble is, only Simmons and perhaps Yasukawa are really worthy of a ride. The IPS doesn't give drivers the right grounding for top-level racing, for the reasons Snrub explains, and the guys who've come up from it have all flopped so far. At present drivers have little way of learning oval skills in the right setting, especially as ChampCars and Atlantics are road-course leaned. Givign tests to some of the short-track dirt course racers might be one approach, I'm not sure how they'd do. In the long-term it's worrying not only for the IRL, but for the whole concept of openwheel cars racing on ovals.

[Kicking-back]

The problem is that the level of competition in IPS (and historically Indy Lights and Toyota Atlantic) has been lower than on the European ladder.

[Snrub]

I get the distinct impression of two things, first that Atlantics provides better experience than IPS and second that Indy Lights provided better experience than Atlantics does/did. I'll agree that Atlantics guys seem to have a little less expertise than the F3000 guys. I think we are a little biased in that we've seen JPM and Bourdais come over to the best teams and performed straight out of the box. I realize Enge was car-limited, but did he really elevate the car the way aformentioned did? (keep in mind that many argue that Enge is better than Bourdais, I can't really comment on that)

As for IPS, I'll confess that I have not seen many races. But the bit that I have seen is somewhat disturbing. Granted I didn't see any in 2004 (I don't know where it was broadcasted - ESPN?). I always seem to post critisizing foot to the floor through the corners racing, but IPS seems to really bad with that. How does a driver develop the skills when lifting is required if they don't get a chance to practice it? How do they learn to help setup a car if they're not driving it on the ragged edge? (that's a bit of an exageration, but I hope you can see my point) On the plus side for IPS Maia looked quiet good in Barber Dodge. I expected he would do better in IPS than he did, so maybe the quality of IPS is improving.

[GTRMagic]

It would be sad if the Fernandez team were not able to put the lead driver into a car. Quite how a sponsor with a Mexican background would have been able to leverage a sponsorship of a car in a 100% US domestic series would be difficult to fathom... and the results may not have been as special as one would like either....

As for Mr Patrick's operation, most of the crew were rented from Mr Walker's CC operation, the very same guys were used to top up the 2nd CC car for Mr Walker in that later rounds of the season... so not really a team lost, more one that perhaps never really got going....