Increased Number Of Grid Slots
Discussion
Since the demise of the 26-car grids of yesteryear, I've missed those back-marker teams ebbing and flowing. We had a crazy period of almost 'money-no-object' racing before the proposed cost controls about a decade ago, and eventually we seem to be there now.
On one hand, now seems a great time for new F1 teams as they can at least buy the kit for reliable racing within an agreed annual budget. As we know, the existing teams (especially the less-well funded ones) don't want to dilute the revenue stream by allowing more players in. Surely there's a solution - if not, how do the Yanks get on with all their Indy & Nascar teams on the grid? Maybe there's an argument that more teams make more viewers. Either way, I don't think existing teams should be able to influence the decision to accept new ones.
Imagine 26 cars on the grids again!!!
On one hand, now seems a great time for new F1 teams as they can at least buy the kit for reliable racing within an agreed annual budget. As we know, the existing teams (especially the less-well funded ones) don't want to dilute the revenue stream by allowing more players in. Surely there's a solution - if not, how do the Yanks get on with all their Indy & Nascar teams on the grid? Maybe there's an argument that more teams make more viewers. Either way, I don't think existing teams should be able to influence the decision to accept new ones.
Imagine 26 cars on the grids again!!!
I think your analogy is a bit bizarre. NASCAR is much closer to touring cars than F1. The costs are tiny by comparison with F1. There are 17 teams in NASCAR and a grid of 40. There are only 3 manufacturers.
Indycar has only 2 engine manufacturers and 1 chassis manufacturer. It isn't comparable to F1. An Indycar costs about $3 million. One 2 drivers are paid $1 million or more.
Yuki Tsunoda has the smallest F1 salary at a reported almost £615K. If he was in Indycar that would make him about the 3rd highest paid driver.
F1 is way more expensive and complicated than those two American series. They are just not comparable.
Indycar has only 2 engine manufacturers and 1 chassis manufacturer. It isn't comparable to F1. An Indycar costs about $3 million. One 2 drivers are paid $1 million or more.
Yuki Tsunoda has the smallest F1 salary at a reported almost £615K. If he was in Indycar that would make him about the 3rd highest paid driver.
F1 is way more expensive and complicated than those two American series. They are just not comparable.
It doesn’t need to be like that though. The “good old days” saw massively less complicated cars, simple engines and far easier routes to entry. Now we’re stuck in a closed circle where no one new can join the party, just a few name changes, but the same old. No one can afford to join such a complex series and the prize money allocation thing just works against a new team joining.
I can remember at least half a dozen cars turning up for pre-qualifying in the early 90s, some packing up and going home on Friday night. Their cars were barely more than the F3000 cars of the same period but they’d be back at the next race to try again. Sadly it now feels like the FIA and Liberty want a slick, “professional” series without the grubby back markers.
I’ve always said, if Liberty/FIA/F1 had any sense, there would be regional (continental?) feeder series to support F1, potentially using a year or two old cars, so smaller teams could get involved and not have the huge costs associated with a 20+ race global commitment.
In short, F1 is hugely broken but ironically Liberty will claim it’s reaching a bigger audience and making more money than ever, but the problem starts way down at F4 as the ladder is in the control of the FIA and won’t be fixed for a decade. There is no alternative route to F1 so teams have to pay whatever they have to.
I can remember at least half a dozen cars turning up for pre-qualifying in the early 90s, some packing up and going home on Friday night. Their cars were barely more than the F3000 cars of the same period but they’d be back at the next race to try again. Sadly it now feels like the FIA and Liberty want a slick, “professional” series without the grubby back markers.
I’ve always said, if Liberty/FIA/F1 had any sense, there would be regional (continental?) feeder series to support F1, potentially using a year or two old cars, so smaller teams could get involved and not have the huge costs associated with a 20+ race global commitment.
In short, F1 is hugely broken but ironically Liberty will claim it’s reaching a bigger audience and making more money than ever, but the problem starts way down at F4 as the ladder is in the control of the FIA and won’t be fixed for a decade. There is no alternative route to F1 so teams have to pay whatever they have to.
Lucy, I wasn't comparing F1 with Nascar or Indy - merely pointing out that they obviously don't seem to mind teams joining their grids. How come they don't feel the need to restrict the number of starters to 20? I realise it'd be even more boring with fewer cars going in circles for hours on end, but don't you see what I'm getting at?
Pablo - It does need to be like that. That has been the business model for many years now. It's what people expect. You cannot say it's a series with bought in engines from 2 manufacturers and a bought in chassis from 1 manufacturer like Indycar. That was never F1. It certainly isn't F1 now, and none of the top teams would sign up to that. No one would watch it either. And do you think Hamilton and Verstappen would stick around if they paid them Indycar rates? Verstappen reputedly earns about $60 million. The highest paid Indycar driver, former F1 driver Ericsson is paid $3 million.
Do you want a series full of Minardi's and HRT's and Marussia's?
And it's the contractual model. That is what the teams, the FIA and Liberty all signed up to under the new rules. New car, new costs cap, new way of distributing the money.
There are feeder series they are called FIA: F4,3, and 2. How many of the current grid came from F2 or won it? Albon, Gasly, Hamilton, Leclerc, Norris, Piastri (joining) Russell, Schumacher (departing)
F1 is far from broken. The new rules produced closer and better racing this year. We saw positions lost, re-taken, lost, retaken etc lap after lap. Had Merc not gone down the wrong route with the car and had Ferrari had better reliability and not made so many strategy mistakes, it would have been a very close battle.
Jon - How many potential entrants are knocking on the door wanting to come into F1? There is hardly a queue, even under the new cost cap rules. Is anyone seriously looking? Porsche were looking at a tie-up Red Bull but could not reach an agreement. Andretti were doing the same with Alfa Romeo badged Sauber. I haven't heard that Porsche then had discussions with Sauber or Andretti with Red Bull. How serious were they really? Did anyone approach Haas? That team will probably be for sale at the right price. Looking at Aston Martin's finances you have to think they would be too. Did anyone approach Williams and they will definitely be for sale, because that's how venture capitalists work.
Andretti then claimed that they would just set up from scratch. Do you believe that was serious? No factory, no staff, no equipment, no wind tunnel. You'd seriously do that rather than hit the ground running by buying Williams and save $200 million to boot, because that is the entry fee that a new team has to pay.
Do you want a series full of Minardi's and HRT's and Marussia's?
And it's the contractual model. That is what the teams, the FIA and Liberty all signed up to under the new rules. New car, new costs cap, new way of distributing the money.
There are feeder series they are called FIA: F4,3, and 2. How many of the current grid came from F2 or won it? Albon, Gasly, Hamilton, Leclerc, Norris, Piastri (joining) Russell, Schumacher (departing)
F1 is far from broken. The new rules produced closer and better racing this year. We saw positions lost, re-taken, lost, retaken etc lap after lap. Had Merc not gone down the wrong route with the car and had Ferrari had better reliability and not made so many strategy mistakes, it would have been a very close battle.
Jon - How many potential entrants are knocking on the door wanting to come into F1? There is hardly a queue, even under the new cost cap rules. Is anyone seriously looking? Porsche were looking at a tie-up Red Bull but could not reach an agreement. Andretti were doing the same with Alfa Romeo badged Sauber. I haven't heard that Porsche then had discussions with Sauber or Andretti with Red Bull. How serious were they really? Did anyone approach Haas? That team will probably be for sale at the right price. Looking at Aston Martin's finances you have to think they would be too. Did anyone approach Williams and they will definitely be for sale, because that's how venture capitalists work.
Andretti then claimed that they would just set up from scratch. Do you believe that was serious? No factory, no staff, no equipment, no wind tunnel. You'd seriously do that rather than hit the ground running by buying Williams and save $200 million to boot, because that is the entry fee that a new team has to pay.
F1, having been bought and sold several times now finds itself in a weakened position where it has ceded too much power to the current teams. It has billions of debt and more than anything needs to protect its revenue. Hence the big increase in numbers of races (income) and the limit to the number of teams (cost).
The current team owners can't believe their luck as they find themselves with potentially billion dollar franchise team values. And so you end up with the likes of HAAS who pretend to compete, but in reality will never invest in production like the larger teams and exist to simply tick the boxes until someone stupid enough to write a cheque for a billion dollars turns up. It is a sad state of affairs.
Perhaps once Mr Wolff et all actually pass the billion net worth mark they will relent and support the call for more teams, but I wouldn't hold my breath. F1 isn't going to do anything whilst HAAS and AlphaTauri remain in theory for sale.
James Hunt in a Hesketh really is a thing of the past.
The current team owners can't believe their luck as they find themselves with potentially billion dollar franchise team values. And so you end up with the likes of HAAS who pretend to compete, but in reality will never invest in production like the larger teams and exist to simply tick the boxes until someone stupid enough to write a cheque for a billion dollars turns up. It is a sad state of affairs.
Perhaps once Mr Wolff et all actually pass the billion net worth mark they will relent and support the call for more teams, but I wouldn't hold my breath. F1 isn't going to do anything whilst HAAS and AlphaTauri remain in theory for sale.
James Hunt in a Hesketh really is a thing of the past.
Europa Jon said:
Lucy, I wasn't comparing F1 with Nascar or Indy - merely pointing out that they obviously don't seem to mind teams joining their grids. How come they don't feel the need to restrict the number of starters to 20? I realise it'd be even more boring with fewer cars going in circles for hours on end, but don't you see what I'm getting at?
NASCAR is more or less a franchise system now it has implemented its Charter system for a number of years. This was to reduce lesser teams from Start & Park - essentially turning up to qualify, run a few laps in the race and then retire and go home after picking up the starting prize money.Leithen said:
F1, having been bought and sold several times now finds itself in a weakened position where it has ceded too much power to the current teams.
Previous to Liberty's reign there was a time when the teams and manufacturers were constantly fighting with Bernie for better prize money and control of the sport.Eric Mc said:
I loved the rubbish teams. They created fun, eccentricity and sometimes even a bit of scandal. I am not a fan of over complexity, excessive expenditure and zero character.
Agreed. The grid is poorer without a Minardi/Arrows/Super Aguri on the grid. The rare days they pop up with a good result were days everyone enjoyed. The closest we have to that now is a Haas or Williams sneaking a top 6 and if that does happen I'm not sure many people care to anything like the same degree?LucyP said:
How many potential entrants are knocking on the door wanting to come into F1? There is hardly a queue,
Exactly. We’re stuck with twenty cars, the current teams and no one is interested in changing it because they are all making money as a result.
I never said it was/should be a spec series, my point was thirty years ago anyone could join the grid with a chassis they had built, a DFV they had bought and a driver with enough cash. That can’t happen now but apparently that’s a good thing? I appreciate if you didn’t know about or witness those days, it’s hard to imagine what they were like but trust me, it was better.
The extant contractual model suits the current teams, Liberty and the FIA, not the fans, not aspiring teams or drivers. I have nothing but respect for Minardi and Marissa, the latter was effectively Manor Motorsport so did it the hard way and not by signing a $200m cheque….
Every point you have made has only served to identify and highlight everything that’s wrong with F1 at present ….
Stupid wages - so max and Lewis are in it for the cash, not the racing? Fine. Introduce a driver salary limit, if they don’t like it, they can leave. Let someone else drive. Why would they not drive for say £1m a year of racing was “in their blood”… and before you say it’s dangerous etc, fighter pilots are on a lot less than that and get shot at….
Closed shop - there will never be a new F1 team, just an old team with a new name and colour scheme. As someone said, Hunt in a Hesketh will never happen again. This makes many of us quite sad.
Small grids - And still average drivers fill the seats, Stroll and Latifi are s
t, they are NOT there on merit. So when people say it’s great racing, or the pinnacle of the sport, i laugh, a quarter of the grid are has-beens or using Daddy’s money….Feeder series under FIA “management” - The feeder series are now under the control of the FIA so they can manipulate it to suit. There could be dozens of great drivers in other series who won’t get a look at F1 because the ladder is effectively F4/3 (regional/whatever it is)2/1.This isn’t a good thing. The FIA control it all and teams have to suck up whatever decision they make.
Your awareness of the wider issues is a little lacking if you really want to debate this.
Edited by anonymous-user on Sunday 27th November 21:29
Imagine if F1 worked like football and 'promotion' and 'relegation' was available between F1, F2 and F3??
Bottom team in F1 constructors would have to drop down to F2 and top team in F2 constructors could have opportunity to move into F1!
Would certainly make the scrap at the bottom of the constructors more interesting and get more interest in F2 series.
It works in the premier League without damaging the commercial brand, so why not!
Bottom team in F1 constructors would have to drop down to F2 and top team in F2 constructors could have opportunity to move into F1!
Would certainly make the scrap at the bottom of the constructors more interesting and get more interest in F2 series.
It works in the premier League without damaging the commercial brand, so why not!
Entry point is simply inaccessible. You can’t really get customer chassis. Each team chassis is a very bespoke interpretation of the rules so to develop one from scratch it is simply unaffordable.
You can’t race with off the shelf parts, even with a customer engine it’s hard the chassis development. Then again if we had customer chassis than it could turn into a monomake series, better racing but less interest to manufacturers perhaps.
You can’t race with off the shelf parts, even with a customer engine it’s hard the chassis development. Then again if we had customer chassis than it could turn into a monomake series, better racing but less interest to manufacturers perhaps.
If 1 or 2 of the current teams were to collapse leaving F1 with a 16 or 18 car grid I'm pretty sure that the entry requirements would be changed because at that point F1 would need new teams. The current available slots for 2 additional teams really only exist just in case a major manufacturer decided to join and start its own team.
cholo said:
Imagine if F1 worked like football and 'promotion' and 'relegation' was available between F1, F2 and F3??
Bottom team in F1 constructors would have to drop down to F2 and top team in F2 constructors could have opportunity to move into F1!
Would certainly make the scrap at the bottom of the constructors more interesting and get more interest in F2 series.
It works in the premier League without damaging the commercial brand, so why not!
F1 is a constructors / prototype championship and so is fundamentally different to every other level in the single seater ladder series which are all spec championships. For this reason alone promotion/relegation will never work. Even the smallest F1 team dwarfs the largest F2 team in terms of personnel and operating budget. You could change F1 and allow customer chassis but that would be a fundamental change to what F1 has been for the last 40 years.Bottom team in F1 constructors would have to drop down to F2 and top team in F2 constructors could have opportunity to move into F1!
Would certainly make the scrap at the bottom of the constructors more interesting and get more interest in F2 series.
It works in the premier League without damaging the commercial brand, so why not!
realjv said:
F1 is a constructors / prototype championship and so is fundamentally different to every other level in the single seater ladder series which are all spec championships. For this reason alone promotion/relegation will never work. Even the smallest F1 team dwarfs the largest F2 team in terms of personnel and operating budget. You could change F1 and allow customer chassis but that would be a fundamental change to what F1 has been for the last 40 years.
It could work though.It would essentially mean that the team would have to source new funding/backing to make the step, but that step is not as large as it was before the budget cap.
I understand what you are saying about the rules and it would mean starting from scratch with a new car design, but that is not unheard of in F1 anyway?
It could give new teams an opportunity to build there way up to F1 over a number of years as opposed to going straight in at the deep end, failing badly and then going bust, which is what usually happens.
Obviously F1 would never entertain it, but surely it would keep things more interesting from a fan perspective and 'promotion' would not have to be mandatory.
CrgT16 said:
Entry point is simply inaccessible. You can’t really get customer chassis. Each team chassis is a very bespoke interpretation of the rules so to develop one from scratch it is simply unaffordable.
You can’t race with off the shelf parts, even with a customer engine it’s hard the chassis development. Then again if we had customer chassis than it could turn into a monomake series, better racing but less interest to manufacturers perhaps.
I would like to see customer chassis allowed for a new entrant for 1 or seasons and then they should make their own chassis or working towards this by buying old/current parts for short period of time. You can’t race with off the shelf parts, even with a customer engine it’s hard the chassis development. Then again if we had customer chassis than it could turn into a monomake series, better racing but less interest to manufacturers perhaps.
I doubt it would fully be accepted as a number of F1 teams have/would be against it such as Williams. Frank was very protective of his own business which in itself was started off from buying, selling and racing customer chassis and car parts to a decades long established race team with dedicated facilities. With Williams in competitive decline Frank would not want to be beaten by a rival team with a customer chassis which could potentially threaten the existence of Williams Grand Prix Engineering.
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