Backmarkers to use last years constructor chassis?

[ESPImperium]

One idea i floated about is that each team has 3 cars and 3 drivers, and either FP3 the 2 fastest from each team in that session go into Quali. Or have a revised Quali session where each driver has 40 minuites to out qualify his team mates, and then there is a Q2 session where the drivers are allowed 2 runs and then they get their grid slot.

Would make qulai just that, and you would then have team mate against team mate, and therefore make team orders un workable, unless you had teams bringing a car that was .3 faster than the other two for their No.1 driver.

It would mean that drivers would have to be propperly fast to beat not only the rest of the grid, but their team mates.

And for the smaller teams, it would mean that they would then have a third seat to sell to get better funding.

[CMSMJ1]

^^ So why would any of the top 10 teams bother with a car that was faster than any of the HRTs to have that 3rd car always off the grid.

F1 is a meritocracy - do well and all is good. Do a poor job and you are weeded out.

[WhiteBlue]

[...]

I see rocks and stick fighting happening around September if Red Bull dominates again...Remember Macca said (2009) they would consider following Ferrari if they decided to leave perhaps Mercedes would follow suit?...FOM and Bernie would be in ruins...lost revenue, fans leave to join the new breakaway, Formula 1 dies.

Outlandish speculation with no basis in reality, if you ask me.

Face it Bernie is scared that he may be stuck with a drinks company whom the owner of Red Bull drinks said that he would consider pulling the pin on the team after 2015...

Why would Bernie be scared? If does not want Red Bull to win why should he be scared if they fold and sell the team. [...]

[Richied76]

I think it's poor game if there were customer chassis. Take away 3 or more teams that dont have to develop/design a car and you take away best part of 200-300 highly trained, highly dedicated people.

I mean remove too many people and you dont get creative ideas like the f-duct, flex wings...ect ect. Think of how many people went into designing and building williams gearbox last year? If you can just go buy it, we wouldnt have seen such a incredible piece of enginering, regardless of how good it was.

Its a pity we live in a world where progress cost so much money. Develpoment cost are stupidly high. If they wernt...and the rules wernt so highly defined i would put a bet on some of the lower teams hanging there asses on the line and going with very risky develpment ideas...they dont have to much to loose unlike the front runners.

[manchild]

If a team is unable to construct a chassis, than it shouldn't be allowed to get points in constructor's championship. That would be fair, otherwise, it would just bring more money launderers in F1.

[bhall]

As far-fetched as it might seem, what would you do if a customer team outperforms its supplier?

Actually, now that I think about it, in 2007, Super Aguri had a legitimate chance to beat Honda's RA107 with the SA07, aka, the Honda RA106. It would seem a bit unfair to penalize Honda just because their customer somehow made better use of its product.

What about a system that awards team points as well as constructors' points?

[Websta]

We should keep 2 car front runner teams and get rid of the back markers. The mid field play an important role in pit strategy for the front runners, so you can't get rid of them. The back markers are just too slow, barely faster than a GP2 car. You can't have 3 car front running teams, or else McL, Ferrari and RBR are going to lockout the top 9 every single race.

[WhiteBlue]

We should keep 2 car front runner teams and get rid of the back markers. The mid field play an important role in pit strategy for the front runners, so you can't get rid of them. The back markers are just too slow, barely faster than a GP2 car. You can't have 3 car front running teams, or else McL, Ferrari and RBR are going to lockout the top 9 every single race.

You simply repeat the Ferrari position without reflection of the other political positions in F1 and the points previously made.

Whitmarsh has just stated that McLaren fully support the constructor principle. AFAIK that is also true for practically any other constructor.

Getting rid of the back markers would endanger F1 by further restricting seats and driver jobs for new talent and would reduce the team and driver market with negative impact on the total F1 economy. Fewer nationalities represented by teams and drivers would negatively impact sponsorship, ticket sales and TV audience.

[Websta]

You simply repeat the Ferrari position without reflection of the other political positions in F1 and the points previously made.

Whitmarsh has just stated that McLaren fully support the constructor principle. AFAIK that is also true for practically any other constructor.

Getting rid of the back markers would endanger F1 by further restricting seats and driver jobs for new talent and would reduce the team and driver market with negative impact on the total F1 economy. Fewer nationalities represented by teams and drivers would negatively impact sponsorship, ticket sales and TV audience.

I'm just talking about getting rid of Virgin and HRT, and they aren't exactly fielding promising young rookies this season anyway. These are teams that are 5 seconds off the pace - that's not just outside the ballpark of the other teams, they are barely playing the same sport. I'm sure F1 will not lose any sponsorship deals if HRT or Virgin were kicked out - those teams can't even attract their own sponsors. The only reason I would want them to stay is because I like Timo Glock. Sure you can't get rid of them now that they have invested so much money into their teams and employ so many people, but I question whether they should have been allowed into the sport to begin with.

[WhiteBlue]

I'm just talking about getting rid of Virgin and HRT, and they aren't exactly fielding promising young rookies this season anyway. These are teams that are 5 seconds off the pace - that's not just outside the ballpark of the other teams, they are barely playing the same sport. I'm sure F1 will not lose any sponsorship deals if HRT or Virgin were kicked out - those teams can't even attract their own sponsors...

You get deeper into the mire with every word you write. The history of F1 is littered with teams that were off the pace. That's not a proper point at all. But F1 has now a Spanish team in HRT and India has an Indian driver. TATA a huge engineering conglomerate sponsors F1, probably for years to come and the Russian connection of Marussia and Russian money, interest and viewer ship is obvious to anybody who has eyes to look. The economic and mediator role of the small teams is well documented and it will not cease to exist because a single "fan" decides for himself that the earth is flat.

Almost twenty years ago an obscure Austrian drinks company decided to sponsor a back marker called Sauber. Through several permutations of sponsor ship and ownership they developed into multiple world champions and Ferrari beaters. That would have never been possible if F1 had pissed them off when they were small. Time to listen and to learn something from it.

[ESPImperium]

F1 needs teams like Hispania and Marussia. In 2002 a young Austrailian dragged a Minardi that was off the pace by a 4.2 second marjin to 5th at his home GP. Where would he be now, Red Bull a top team. Where would Mark Webber be now without a slow Minardi, probably in GTs or LMP somewhere.

The year before, a young Fernando Alonso had a decent season, less than 5 years on he was a double world champion.

The small backmarkers have a place in the sport, as Laude was a pay driver in a back marker once and then became a multi time world champion.

We need back markers that are off the pace, however i think whats needed is a system where small teams can buy a 2 year old IP from one team for 3 years as 2 year old tech is in effect only 2 seconds to 3.5 seconds off the pace of current tech. However it means the new team can buy a proven design and develop it in their own direction if they have the resource, but that means it will give a small team a design team ready to rock in 2 or 3 years time for its first propper car.

However rules stability is needed for this to propperly happen. No rule changes for 5 years is needed.

[Steven]

I'm just talking about getting rid of Virgin and HRT, and they aren't exactly fielding promising young rookies this season anyway. These are teams that are 5 seconds off the pace - that's not just outside the ballpark of the other teams, they are barely playing the same sport.

Websta, to get rid of slow teams we don't need any rule changes at all. If they are too slow, the 107% rule will simple not allow them to race.

Apart from that, I am personally behind the constructors principle. I like the cars to look different, even though under the shell some are very similar to larger constructors.

Making sure that smaller teams can buy gearboxes and engines is the main task, everything else as I see it is unneeded.

[WhiteBlue]

Apart from that, I am personally behind the constructors principle. I like the cars to look different, even though under the shell some are very similar to larger constructors.

I think all technically minded people agree with that. The question really is what to do about the economic reality as described by Ecclestone.

http://www.crash.net/f1/news/177556/1/e ... focus.html

There are still too many people in F1 running around with rose-tinted glasses... The teams have to learn to be competitive without tonnes of money. They have to refocus again on the basics - on racing, spending on the sport - and not on baronial motorhomes and all kinds of entertainment. Change the colour of your glasses and tighten your belts. Stop spending more than you need to.

We have had this kind of problem for quite a while now as, of course, they spend what they have. You could install a mandatory budget for all teams - on the basis of the smaller teams - but they [the big teams] don't like it and fiercely fight against it.

It was foremost Ferrari who sabotaged the 2008/2009 talks of budget caps. As long as Ecclestone is not prepared to use his considerable power in the F1 commission to pressurize Ferrari into cost limitation there will be a stalemate. Naturally he has some inhibitions to do so because he needs Ferrari for his quadrennial "divide et impera" exercise when the Concord comes up for renewal.

In my opinion F1 cannot operate without smaller teams and without cost restrictions. Naturally the fairest way of doing it would be plugging all the holes at the same time. Driver salaries, director pay, dividends and marketing cost should ideally all be included in the spending limits.

Calling the cost cutting resource restriction did not make it more successful. The motor homes and marketing budgets were left unrestricted and gave the big teams huge advantages in terms of raising sponsorship. They also have the cash muscle to wine and dine the F1 hacks into any opinion they need to have spread. So one hopes the same mistakes are not made again.

Making sure that smaller teams can buy gearboxes and engines is the main task..

I would also mention turbo and regeneration particularly for the future power trains. This has also been identified as one of the battlefields for the future. Ferrari and Mercedes obviously would not like to see those fields being included in cost limitations while last year Red Bull tried without much success to get power trains covered by the RRA.

It shows that we are dealing with a long term issue. Although the correct solution which would see all teams on a level playing field is known there isn't the political will to implement it. One has to ask the question if F1 will go to the brink every four years as they did in 2009 or if the solution to this burning question will be found eventually.