Importance of privateers & garagistas for the character of F1

[Jolle]

If mass manufacturers are banned. This would include Exor NV? as they are on their way to become maybe the largest of them all? And what would be the difference in RedBull as not a car manufacturer or PMI (like they ordered some engines from Porsche for their team) putting in several hundreds of millions a year versus Daimler or Exor?

...

The big car companies are just fancy sponsors, nothing more, nothing less. PMI, Daimler, RedBull, no difference. They have a budget, buy in an engine and tech and go racing.

Who is Exor tied in with currently? Are you saying the own stakes in one of the garage teams?

"The big car companies are just fancy sponsors..." How does sponsorship affect regulations? Budgets? Rule crafting? How are sponsors drawn to the sport? As it relates: Why would a motorsports participant be overly concerned about consuming 200l of fuel on a weekend vs 400l? Among all of the other more expensive factors of racing.

It was the big car companies pushing for the current era of engine formula, not Cosworth, correct? Is the GMA V12 based on a mass market manufacturer's engineering drawings?

Exor NV îs the company of the Angelli family, who have control/ownership over Alfa, Fiat, Chrysler, Citroen, Peugeot, Vauxhall, Opel, Maserati and Ferrari (and probably forgot a few).

There are much cheaper and better engines for race use than the GMA V12, that is not the point. There are many racing series that have standard engines or very restricted to make them cheap. The Gibson V8 is a good example, or the Meccachrome V8, etc etc. But, somehow, nobody is watching those races.... F1 is the biggest because of all the money, the craziness, etc etc. Just watch how racing series went down hill after they tried to block these... DTM anyone? Want to watch an Alpine win in WEC while its a Orca-Gibson?

F1 is madness, especially compared to other series. You can run a whole field of Indycar for the budget of RedBull. And that madness is part of the attraction.

And yes, Cosworth wasn't pushing for these kinds of regs but their parent company Mahle probably were.

[Big Tea]

There were efforts to stick 2 half engines together or convert fire pump engines, but in reality Ferrari would have won 99% of the time without what was in actuality another factory entry.

That's just patently false, no? Both the Coventry Climax and Repco privateer engines won lots of races, much more than 1%.

Repco (Brabham) - 8 wins, 25 podiums from 33 starts (24% win rate)
Coventry Climax - 40 wins, 104 podiums from 96 starts (41% win rate)

Repco was Oldsmobile, Coventry Climax was developed from a fire pump engine and was more or less Judd.
There are others such as Vanwall etc, but that just gives one team each and back then they were very simple and could more or less be modified in any machine shop. This is sort of as I said the 'of the time' version of modding motorcycle engines. I can not see it happening today. But..Who knows.

[vorticism]

There are much cheaper and better engines for race use than the GMA V12, that is not the point. There are many racing series that have standard engines or very restricted to make them cheap. The Gibson V8 is a good example, or the Meccachrome V8, etc etc. But, somehow, nobody is watching those races.... F1 is the biggest because of all the money, the craziness, etc etc. Just watch how racing series went down hill after they tried to block these... DTM anyone? Want to watch an Alpine win in WEC while its a Orca-Gibson?

Sure, but I haven't suggested spec engines. I've suggested limiting involvement of conflicted interests.

[vorticism]

Speaking of 'garage' teams and non-works engines, RB have one of their demo cars at the WTAC opener.