Reducing the outlandish cost of F1

[WardenOfTheNorth]

Hello. Most of you are probably aware that F1 teams have 1,000 or more employees. Many of these employees are focused on designing the cars. The designers seek greater performance while the association seeks to make the cars identical through more and more restrictive rules. This tug of war between the designers and the association is expensive and the designers lose because substantial improvements are banned.

Why not just make all the cars identical? Build all the cars to the same blueprint. The teams could make their own cars, or buy them from constructors.

This move would foster closer racing and save hundreds of millions of dollars. The savings could be passed on to us, the spectators, in the form of less expensive admissions and streaming fees.

We spectators would also enjoy closer racing.

You're describing a different sport.

F1 is as much about the constructors competition as it is about the drivers.

A spec series would not hold anywhere near as much interest for many fans.

[Just_a_fan]

Hello. Most of you are probably aware that F1 teams have 1,000 or more employees. Many of these employees are focused on designing the cars. The designers seek greater performance while the association seeks to make the cars identical through more and more restrictive rules. This tug of war between the designers and the association is expensive and the designers lose because substantial improvements are banned.

Why not just make all the cars identical? Build all the cars to the same blueprint. The teams could make their own cars, or buy them from constructors.

This move would foster closer racing and save hundreds of millions of dollars. The savings could be passed on to us, the spectators, in the form of less expensive admissions and streaming fees.

We spectators would also enjoy closer racing.

You're describing a different sport.

F1 is as much about the constructors competition as it is about the drivers.

A spec series would not hold anywhere near as much interest for many fans.

Exactly so. One of the central parts of F1 is that the team designs and builds the cars themselves. Sure, that's been watered down with teams buying gearboxes/rear suspension with PUs, but that really just an extension of the time when most teams bought in engines e.g. Cosworth, and gearboxes e.g. Hewland.

[Alan]

It would be exciting to see racing that rewarded smart design. Remember Canam? But the F1 system bans significant innovation and strives to make all the cars identical. And the F1 system has all the power in this tug of war.

Can you tell one F1 car from another without color and livery? Given the specifications of any F1 car, could you tell its team?

I'm not objecting to the system because it fosters competition between drivers, which I love. The cars are already almost identical and the teams (collectively) spend billions seeking tiny loopholes in the rules, while the system bans substantial improvements that designers invent.

THE (COLLECTIVE) DESIGN BILLIONS SPENT BY THE TEAMS ARE NOT DIRECTED AT TECHNICAL ADVANCES IN THE SCIENCE OF RACING CAR DESIGN. NO, NOT AT ALL, THEY ARE SPENT IN PURSUIT OF LOOPHOLES IN THE F1 RULES.

I would love to watch races determined solely by driving skill. Wouldn't you? Is Hamilton still great and just hindered by his car(s). Or, at 40, is he outclassed by younger pilots? It would be exciting to find out. But we never will find out. If he loses, pundits will say his car is inferior. If he wins, other pundits will say it's because of a better car.

[hollus]

It would be exciting to see racing that rewarded smart design. Remember Canam? But the F1 system bans significant innovation and strives to make all the cars identical.

It is a bit bizarre that in the other thread you advocate for zero downforce, yet here you long for innovation like CanAm, which produced some aero monstrosities (both in looks and performance).
It is hard to give freedom everywhere but then restrict freedom “only here”.

[Alan]

Would you like to see races determined solely by driving skill?

[Juzh]

You're in the wrong sport.

[JordanMugen]

It would be exciting to see racing that rewarded smart design. Remember Canam? But the F1 system bans significant innovation and strives to make all the cars identical. And the F1 system has all the power in this tug of war.

Can you tell one F1 car from another without color and livery? Given the specifications of any F1 car, could you tell its team?

It was already like that even when the bodywork regulations were only one paragraph long. Really the 1970's was the only exception in F1 (which was the time of Can-Am too). In every other era, the stragglers have a tendency to just copy the fastest car.

Do these cars look different from each other to you, even though the bodywork rules are only one paragraph (no maximum width, no maximum height, no maximum length, no fuel tank position specified...)?

1950:


1955:


1959:


1962:


1965:


1968:


1969:


Even with the prescreptive 2022 rules, we saw 10 quite different cars launch. It's only now in 2025 that they all look the same (to a broad approximation, obviously small details differ) because everyone copied the fastest car.

Sure a new design concept appears, but if it's not copied within weeks, it's then copied within no more than one or two seasons by everyone else... Even when there were hardly any rules.

1980:


1985:


1988:


1992:


1999:


While the 2022 rules and 2026 rules are perspective, it seems unfair to blame the rules, when really the culprit is other teams copying the fastest car very quickly after anything new and better comes along.

[Alan]

I enjoyed viewing the photos you posted. At a glance the cars look alike. But closer inspection reveals more differences than in today's cars.

I watched the Dutch GP on ESPN. Despite my keen current interest in F1, I found the event boring. I've read many discussions about concerns regarding races like this. It looked like a parade.

At first glance it looked like the #8 car was lapping at the same speed as the #1 car. He just had a different slot in the parade. Yes, I know the parade is gradually stretching out. But it's subtle and not perceivable without reference to the table of times.

Imagine if this race were run in identical cars. Now I know your clever minds are thinking of retorts. But just for a moment, imagine this race in identical cars.

Regards,
Alan

[WardenOfTheNorth]

I enjoyed viewing the photos you posted. At a glance the cars look alike. But closer inspection reveals more differences than in today's cars.

I watched the Dutch GP on ESPN. Despite my keen current interest in F1, I found the event boring. I've read many discussions about concerns regarding races like this. It looked like a parade.

At first glance it looked like the #8 car was lapping at the same speed as the #1 car. He just had a different slot in the parade. Yes, I know the parade is gradually stretching out. But it's subtle and not perceivable without reference to the table of times.

Imagine if this race were run in identical cars. Now I know your clever minds are thinking of retorts. But just for a moment, imagine this race in identical cars.

Regards,
Alan

The Dutch GP run in identical cars would not have been any different since overtaking at Zandvoort is almost impossible.

The problem with current F1 is not that the cars are very much alike, it is that they are simply too big for many circuits.

The footprint of a modern F1 car is around the same as a Mercedes Sprinter....

The best way to improve overtaking would be to reduce the size of the cars.

Personally I would advocate for opening the technical rules up further, give the teams more freedom and use the budget cap to keep costs in check.

That would be far preferable to me over a spec series.

And do they need to bring costs down? Aren't all 10 teams now operating at a profit?

[CMSMJ1]

I agree that there needs to be more innovation and the point made by Alan that the teams are really so restricted that they search only for loopholes rather than ground breaking designs.

A rule book that was thinner and tried not to regulate everything to an nth of a degree would be a bonus. Mandate a set of safety regs/crash tests/driver protectoins and then a car footprint, a minimum weight and send them on their way - you have to travel 300km + lap and you must be safe while you do it.

Design intention will converge onto the current flavour of the month but there will be room, lots of it, for freedom in expression.

Spec series - no. We have several spec series with fast cars and were the audience really wanting to see "who the best" is - they would watch these over and above any series that had a built in car deficit.

MotoGP is a good case to review - the bikes are all similar, they are all bonkers fast and their lap spread is very close - they have converged (with Yamaha finally taking the jump this week) onto a platform of V4 motors and are bewinged like nothing else these days.

@jordanMugen - loving the pics - but I am sure you could have named most of these cars just by the pics...they are not al the same to us - but maybe to a casual viewer they cannot see it??

[jjn9128]

A rule book that was thinner and tried not to regulate everything to an nth of a degree would be a bonus. Mandate a set of safety regs/crash tests/driver protectoins and then a car footprint, a minimum weight and send them on their way - you have to travel 300km + lap and you must be safe while you do it.

Yes please

From when I had the time to write for the front page. Article 3 (the bodywork bit of the regs) was nearly 24x longer in 22 than back in 94.