Parr says only eight teams next year, three car teams.

[emaren]

so with that in mind a two tier championship may well be better?

We are all saying the backmarkers are boring to watch, bring nothing to the sport. But there would be more interest if they were fighting for a championship as well no?

I think that is a great idea.

Maybe have, F1 as the pinnacle, then something else, say a feeder to F1, lets call it GP2 ?

if you cannot afford to compete in F1, drop down to GP2 and build up the team and the experience and bring on new drivers.

Maybe GP2 could have a feeder series too ?

Maybe F2.....

Oh wait, that already exists

[mrluke]

It isnt just Marussia and Caterham, all of the midfield teams are struggling, lotus, sauber, force india, williams.

F1 is simply not good enough for people to pay £500m per annum just for the pleasure of competing, unless you are going to be regularly winning. Certainly there is no appetite to be a part of the team which "hasn't scored a single point since they signed up x years ago"

F1 is at real risk of going down to 3/4 teams which will devalue the series and provide less incentive for those big 4 to remain in the sport.

[astracrazy]

so with that in mind a two tier championship may well be better?

We are all saying the backmarkers are boring to watch, bring nothing to the sport. But there would be more interest if they were fighting for a championship as well no?

I think that is a great idea.

Maybe have, F1 as the pinnacle, then something else, say a feeder to F1, lets call it GP2 ?

if you cannot afford to compete in F1, drop down to GP2 and build up the team and the experience and bring on new drivers.

Maybe GP2 could have a feeder series too ?

Maybe F2.....

Oh wait, that already exists

You were obviously to interested in trying to be clever and sarcastic than realising what you are on about is nothing like what i suggested. =D>

I'm not on about feeder series, obviously. I do know GP2 exists and, i'll correct you, GP3 (F2 doesn't exist anymore )

I'm talking about the type of thing max suggested years ago, which teams at the time objected to. Then some of them left the sport anyway and the rest it would of had no impact on there following seasons either

and like i said, i was just saying i.e putting it out there

[FoxHound]

@foxhound

I know the point your trying to point out, but your not giving a clear account. I did just post a big essay on correcting this, but its an f1 forum so i removed it.

2 teams paid for success (About £500-£600M over 5 years), but paid a hell of a lot less to get it than f1 teams spend over 5 years for nothing. A lot of teams went/go into admin, but its all from miss management. Far far more carry on with no problems.

I'm giving as clear an account as is possible.

Manchester utd have missed out on Champions league football and have spent 160 million on transfer fees alone this year.
The 500/600 million you are quoting Chelsea and City is based on transfer fees alone.
The biggest cost in football is not transfer fees, but wages.

Allied to their 580 million expenditure in 5 years, Man City have a £650,000 a DAY wage bill. This is £233 million per annum. Meaning in 5 years, City have spent close to 1.6 billion.
All of this has a direct correlation to F1 in that to win, you must spend big. In every sport, it is the same.

As for the mismanagement of football clubs, why is it possible for clubs to mismanage, but not lower rung F1 teams?
If the pot of gold for an F1 team isn't big enough to compete by finishing 11th, then they should not be there.
Do you agree with this?

A realistic redistribution of the money is not going to solve the problem either.
Even if the top teams cede some money, the bottom 3 are only going to rake in an extra 20 maybe 30 million each a year.
That's 60/90 million out of the pot to lower teams that don't add much if anything to the sport.
F1 prides itself on being the pinnacle of motorsport, and yet people bemoan the fact it is expensive to compete.
It always has been.
And I would bet my bottom dollar, that if the midfield teams start feeling the heat from the likes of Marussia in the unlikely event of them becoming competitive due to an extra 20/30M extra....that the midfield teams would start to burn more cash, and then invariably the top teams start to spend more to reestablish the order.

The root cause of the issues with Marussia and Caterham, is that they were promised a stupid budget cap that didn't materialise. And because of this they were left floundering like a GP2 team in F1, which is not a slur on them....but a criticism of the situation as a whole.

[emaren]

I'm talking about the type of thing max suggested years ago, which teams at the time objected to. Then some of them left the sport anyway and the rest it would of had no impact on there following seasons either

and like i said, i was just saying i.e putting it out there

So you end up with a race-within-a-race.

A lot like LeMans. Or indeed my other passion, rallying. I remember standing in a fiend in Yorkshire watching the RAC Rally come through, the Group B cars were somewhere north of awesome, then the somewhat quieter Group A's cam by and and the field thinned. But the time the showroom-stock, Group N's came through nobody at all cared. The majority of the crown had gone and those that were left were making sure that they had all of their flasks of hot chocolate etc before leaving.

In a two hour race, I'm not sure I care about who wins the privateer cup - or the low-budget, no-hopers cup. Maybe we just need to admit that a cup for 19th is seriously wrong ?

Besides, depending on how you call it, Mercedes and Ferrari are the only factory teams at the moment, so Williams, RedBull and McLaren would be fighting over the tier 2 cup.

I'm sorry, I still do not see any advantage there....

[f1316]

3 cars teams is by the far the best option for me - in fact, I'd go as far as to say that Marussia and Caterham dropping would be a blessing in disguise if this is what it brought.

I saw that Massa said this year's title would have been wrapped mid-season if Merc had three cars; well, in a sense, yes, the constructors would have. But was it in doubt anyway? No, not for a second.

Rather the *drivers'* championship would have been even more competitive (given that the third driver was of a high quality like, oh I don't know, Fernando Alonso). Imagine that? You go into the weekend still knowing Merc are going to win - all things being equal - but rather than the race being over because Rosberg makes a mistake, there's still a third card capable of winning. Makes all the sense in the world to me.

[Andres125sx]

We then also have a delicious prospect of a Menage a trois for the championship. Amidst all this Alonso hoopla....imagine for a second, he is waiting on the 3rd car ruling to jump into a W06 next year?

Rosberg, Alonso and Hamilton all in the same car?

[Raleigh]

It isnt just Marussia and Caterham, all of the midfield teams are struggling, lotus, sauber, force india, williams.

Lotus and Sauber are struggling sure, but Force India is doing pretty well (battling McLaren for championship position despite having just 1/3rd the budget), and Williams is racking up podium after podium, holding 3rd place in the constructors and pulling away from 4th placed Ferrari...

[mrluke]

It isnt just Marussia and Caterham, all of the midfield teams are struggling, lotus, sauber, force india, williams.

Lotus and Sauber are struggling sure, but Force India is doing pretty well (battling McLaren for championship position despite having just 1/3rd the budget), and Williams is racking up podium after podium, holding 3rd place in the constructors and pulling away from 4th placed Ferrari...

I was referring to their finances rather than their finishing positions...

http://www.gptoday.com/full_story/view/ ... m_to_fold/

[Harvey]

Interesting article that pretty much sums up the (uniquely British?) feelings towards the underdog teams:
http://www.motorsportmagazine.com/f1/hi ... out-there/


I have a question about the performance (or not) of HRT, Caterham and Marussia compared to the performances of previous teams that could have been considered "backmarkers" or "new" or "small". When you look at F1 10+ years ago, the smaller teams (as the above article suggests) brought something unique to the sport - whether that was new ideas, new talent, or just a bit of fun. Minardi, for example, seemed to be able to field very well designed cars despite their budget, and were also an important feeder for driving (and probably engineering as well) talent to the bigger teams. And Jordan, at a time of unlimited testing and engines, were able to go from new boys to race winners within 10 years.
So what is so different within the sport now, compared to 10-20 years ago? Are these new engines really that much more expensive, relatively, than a years supply of 18k rpm V10s (with a new engine every race and more needed for testing and practice sessions)? Is the racing that much harder now compared to then? Or is it just that billionaire business men don't make good race team owners?

[Hail22]

Apologies for the double post, I just humbly felt this video needed it's own seperate post:

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jZSXZ2YDKXE[/youtube]

It seems things are heating up between the Team principals based on this TP press conference, a lot of varying views with the lower tiered teams quite agrieved with the higher end teams being "reckless" in spending and being "unprofessional spenders".

p.s I counted nmore than several ocassions the engine was mentioned as being a hinderance to teams, so perhaps this new formula is not the right direction with regards to sustainability in this current economic environment.

[Richard]

Thanks Hail, the TPs in that video rehearse all the arguments. Fascinating insight straight from the horses mouths!

The smaller teams main issue was the distribution of income beairng in mind the billions coming into F1. The small teams didn't ask for an RRA in their initial response, but Wolff rolled out the 'why the RRA is unworkable' spin, backed up by Boullier. Classic diversionary tactic of arguing against something that hadn't been mentioned.

I see Ecclestone said yesterday:

There is too much money being distributed badly - probably my fault. Like lots of agreements people make, they seemed a good idea at the time. I know what's wrong, but don't know how to fix it. http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/0/formula1/29868355

[Jonnycraig]

Bernie now saying there won't be third cars, presumably because it's all suddenly gotten very real and he has to pay for them, so there will be 14-18 cars next season, depending on whether Lotus & FI can make it through the long cold winter.

So not only the Mercs again a few seconds a lap down the road, but one of the smallest grids in recent memory. Like a heavy drug addict, F1 can only be saved when it wants to be saved.

[mrluke]

Its all well and good saying if you cant compete then go home, but this is a very short sighted view. It works when you have a competition with people banging on the door to get in, but when nobody else can afford to join..

Somebody always has to finish last. The team that finishes last most often is going to lose sponsorship and they lose prize money, giving them less investment for the following year, increasing the chances of them finishing last again....The team are now losing money each year so they should pack up and leave right?

Now a new team is the one finishing last...

The sport either needs to attract a regular supply of new teams or it needs to retain the teams that are already signed up.

The cars are so far into diminishing returns under such tight regulations that it is very expensive to close up that last 1-2 second gap to the front runners. There is no possibility of some innovative solution coming from the back marker teams as there isn't the technical freedom to think outside of the box.

Ultimately as is repeated ad nauseam, F1 is not a sport, it is a business. All of the teams are part of the show and any team dropping out damages that show. Points should be awarded to last place, historical bonuses for previous performance should be scrapped and all entrance fees paid by the circuit, tv rights etc etc should be distributed evenly between the teams.

The final points tally should reflect the teams performance over the year, one team finishing 11th and 12th every race should finish higher than a team that is 20th and 21st every race apart from one fluke where they finish 10th.

[kooleracer]

The problem of F1 is the costs of the sport. The only way to make the sport cheaper is the restrict the amount of ways to spend money without hurting the innovation within the sport. We all want see updates on the cars and engine update but without costs spiraling out of control.

But I think the only way to fix this problem is giving the smaller teams a competitive edge so its makes it for them easier to get in to the top 10 so the can get a bigger cut of the pot. For instance teams that don't make it in to the top 5 in the WCC can test on track /unlimited windtunnel testing / unlimited CFD/ etc during to season to gain an edge. This way teams have to work hard to gain to the top teams so they can score more points which means more money. This way you need to get a sporting advantage to get a financial advantage.

Its the same now, but without testing the smaller teams can't gain and close the gap that means that they always end bottom and get a small piece of the cake. But I don't think you should make it easy for them they should do it on merit thus making a faster car and beating there opponents on track. By giving them a competitive edge by allowing them to test as much as they can afford, we as fans will get a more competitive show and the back end teams will get a fairer shot of being competitive and getting more money for scoring more points during the season.