Motorsport Off Topic Thread

Skeeter said:
Had the FIA chosen well we would have 12 teams anyway.
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To be fair, they were promised a budget cap which didn't materialise. The new cars all seemed solid during the V8 era (other than the abomination that was HRT), occasionally threatening to break into the established teams' stronghold, but when the costs rose last year for the new power units they (understandably) couldn't cope.

Could they have picked more suitable candidates based on a stronger long-term plan? I've no idea. Obviously the FIA wanted entries concentrated around the Cosworth engine, but I don't know if any of the rejected candidates, such as Dave Richards's effort, were better suited in the longrun.

If they were conceived back in the 90s they could have been the modern equivalents of Jordans or Stewarts, mixing it in the midfield and perhaps leading to winning races and titles years down the line, but that's as much a reflection on the rules they were designed for as their limited ability. Correct teams at the wrong time, or just a reflection of the poor situation for customer teams that F1 finds itself in?

I just think the costs involved are ridiculous. For £60-90m a year you can get the back of the grid. Or attempt to come in as a manufacturer and you either settle for mediocrity in the midfield or push hard and end up with a PR horror show initially until you've got the chance to become competitive (Honda)... and by then the goalposts might have changed anyway! Where's the incentive for anyone to enter F1 other than a pipe dream?

In the meantime the WEC are allowing you to set the goalposts.
 
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Hmm, if they do move to customer cars are they going to mandate a fixed engine mount system? Fixed dimensions, attachment points and attachment process? That way you could buy a Williams Chassis and a Ferrari Engine or a McLaren Chassis and a Mercedes Engine.

Would really make a mockery of the 'Constructors' championship though.
 
They already do. All those things are already standardized.

And the Constructors championship would go back to a Teams championship. F1 has had customer cars for more of its life than it has banned them.
 
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Skeeter said:
And the Constructors championship would go back to a Teams championship. F1 has had customer cars for more of its life than it has banned them.
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Not quite.

50's, 60's and a bit of the 70's they were all allowed.

80's, 90's 00's and 10's (so far) they weren't permitted (and most of the 70's) (let's ignore the infamous Ligier JS41 and Sauber C23).
 
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The Super Aguri's and the first few years of Toro Rosso were pretty much customer cars. You could probably argue that the Manor this year is a purchased Marussia chassis.

There is reluctance from the teams currently in F1, but there seems to be no consideration for all the potential teams out there who might jump at the chance to be a customer team. Haas is getting as close as they legally can, I expect theres loads more too.

Is there another single seater series in the world where teams must build their own chassis? I don't think there is, and its hardly like single seater racing is sparse because of it :p
 
Skeeter said:
Is there another single seater series in the world where teams must build their own chassis? I don't think there is, and its hardly like single seater racing is sparse because of it :p
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Not that I'm aware of. Some IndyCar teams tried it in the 80s and 90s to get a competitive advantage. Thehe March/Lola/Reynard customer car brigade got all bent out of shape if a manufacturer tried something "new fangled" like Porsche using carbon fibre .... which had been used in F1 for about 10 years by the time they built an all carbon chassis.
 
Some rumours have popped up on my Google Now suggesting ART could be the new team, running as a McLaren-Honda B team.

If customer cars are not going to get the go ahead (and it doesn't sound like they will any time soon) then I actually think this B team structure is a good thing. Sure people moan about STR all the time, but they have never had to run a pay driver, and have brought some genuine talent onto the grid. They have done far more for F1 than Sauber or Force India have done recently for example.

If there are big players with big money at the top of the grid, why not encourage them to fund the rest of the grid too. Haas are coming in with massive Ferrari backing. If this ART rumour is true it would be a new team with large funding from Honda. Perhaps if Sauber and FI stopped complaining about customer cars and instead focused on getting in bed with someone like Mercedes then we might see the whole grid compress up and get more competitive.

Just a thought.
 
ART are already linked with McLaren so I can see it... McLaren have some good talent ready to fill the seats too, although Honda might want some young Japanese driver in one of the seats.

I don't have a problem with 'B' teams and with RB having TR and Ferrari to have Haas it makes sense for other big teams to also. So long as the are ran independently it could work out well.
 
Be an ideal way to get Vandoorne on the grid next season (though I guess he might get Buttons seat anyway) and Honda need as many engines running as they can to try catch up a bit!
 
Yeah it would make sense for Honda to have another team running their engines. After all they did practically bankroll the entire Super Aguri team just to get Sato a seat, so funding a team to double their engine development is hardly far fetched.

JeditOjanen won't be a fan though ;)
 
The Ferrari engines came as part of running Bianchi, who is a Ferrari backed driver. Ferrari also then went on to invest in the team further.

They didn't get to the same level of partnership that Haas will do however.
 
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From the Autosport article it sounds like after 2 crash filled races the drivers were told if they caused crashes in race 3 it would be stopped. And they then went and... caused another crash.

So not only can they not drive, they also can't listen to instructions :p
 
Skeeter said:
From the Autosport article it sounds like after 2 crash filled races the drivers were told if they caused crashes in race 3 it would be stopped. And they then went and... caused another crash.

So not only can they not drive, they also can't listen to instructions :p
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Read that earlier, I would have been ridiculously annoyed if I had gone to that race to watch it.
 
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