Richard wrote:If the goal is to ensure a certain number of teams are able to compete then the costs have be managed to ensure that happens. Otherwise the small teams go bust.
If however that has too much of stench of communism then forget about aiming to have a full grid and allow survival of the fittest. There will be fewer teams on the grid who'll form a cosy cabal because they're the only people who can participate in the arms race.
Reality needs to lie somewhere between those two extremes. Reward success but also give a helping hand to those small teams that are trying to get a foothold in the sport.
ps - There is a wonderful irony that much of this conversation has an undercurrent that people who don't care for racing are ruining the sport. However the biggest advocates for maintaining the engine freeze are the employees of Ron Dennis, Frank WiIliams and Nicki Lauda.
Two of those men are benefiting from the engine freeze. Anyone allied with Mercedes currently is going to argue in favor of an engine freeze. I haven't seen any of them present any good argument for it.
Here's the thing with F1 and technology in general, F1 has to decide whether or not it wants to continue pretending to be cutting edge, or if it wants to be entertainment. When it tries to do both, it does both poorly.
Say F1 strives to be entertainment first and foremost as opposed to this road relevant myth, the teams could start dusting off the old engine blueprints from the 3.5L formula days and start using those. It's weird, because when F1 as a whole wasn't so dead set on trying to prove itself as both entertainment and sport, it was incredibly engaging to watch. It's only when it became obsessed with both things that it progressively became a clusterf*ck.
