What if engine development from 2009-2011 was allowed...

[Conceptual]

... but only by privateer teams?

I mean that Williams could build performance enhancements for the Toyota engine, and trade them for the engines themselves. That way, you open the desire for more privateer teams by the manufacturers, and since it is a way to claw back some HP after the freeze.

I don't know if I would take it as far as buying complete cars from manufacturers, and doing all of the aero/engine work in the privateer teams, but it may be something to consider since it would remove the larger part of development costs for the manufacturers, and allow for more to be invested in a privateer outlet with money, facilities, and talent.

Obviously, each manufacturer could only have one privateer team, but having 26 car grids, or even better, qualifying for 22 spots with 26 cars would increase the spectacle, and it shouldn't be an issue with constructors points, since the works/privateer teams can be viewed as a single entity in terms of a constructor.

I think it could work.

Comments?

Chris

[CMSMJ1]

....it may be something to consider since it would remove the larger part of development costs for the manufacturers, and allow for more to be invested in a privateer outlet with money, facilities, and talent.

Obviously, each manufacturer could only have one privateer team, but having 26 car grids, or even better, qualifying for 22 spots with 26 cars would increase the spectacle, and it shouldn't be an issue with constructors points, since the works/privateer teams can be viewed as a single entity in terms of a constructor.

Chris

So what would the distinction be between a manufacturer and a privateer?

The manufacturer supplying engines and paying someone else to develop it..and gaining no performance advantage themselves out of it?

Why would they?

The privateer should build their own engine if they want to develop one. The FIA might ask Cosworth to build a "spec" engine and Dallara (or similar) to build a spec chassis so they can sell them to new entrants.

You decide to buy in and get a slow car that is on TV and in F1. Or you pay the big money to go and win by building your own.

[Conceptual]

....it may be something to consider since it would remove the larger part of development costs for the manufacturers, and allow for more to be invested in a privateer outlet with money, facilities, and talent.

Obviously, each manufacturer could only have one privateer team, but having 26 car grids, or even better, qualifying for 22 spots with 26 cars would increase the spectacle, and it shouldn't be an issue with constructors points, since the works/privateer teams can be viewed as a single entity in terms of a constructor.

Chris

So what would the distinction be between a manufacturer and a privateer?

The manufacturer supplying engines and paying someone else to develop it..and gaining no performance advantage themselves out of it?

Why would they?

The privateer should build their own engine if they want to develop one. The FIA might ask Cosworth to build a "spec" engine and Dallara (or similar) to build a spec chassis so they can sell them to new entrants.

You decide to buy in and get a slow car that is on TV and in F1. Or you pay the big money to go and win by building your own.

The distinction would be clear, manufacturers would supply the base car, and the privateer would develop it over the season. They would only be considered a single entity when it comes to constructor standings.

And the Manufacturers would not be paying someone else to develop their car, it would be a symbiotic relationship with information, test data, tyre data, and talent of two separate teams joining forces, lowering costs, increasing the number of competitive teams, and increase the amount of cars on the grid.

Oh, and since they share constructor points, there is no shame in the "B" (privateer) team defeating the works team.

And why would you commision Cosworth and Dallara to make these "buy in" cars when there are already several manufacturers already making them??? You are against teaming up privateers and manufacturers, but are OK with uncompetitive "commercials" that have zero development? WTF?

Does anyone have any serious detractions from this idea? Since the only arguments so far are "I don't like it, so NONONONO!"

Chris

[Scotracer]

To be honest, I doubt they could extract that much power over what they have whilst the rev limit is imposed. In F1 terms, at least revs = power and these engines just love doing it.

[CMSMJ1]

The point is that the distinction between manufacturers and privateers would not be distinct enough.

What is the point of a manufacturer making a car, selling it on and then entering into a relationship with a privateer? Would it be Ferrari A and Ferrari B? It is not a good idea.

The privateer would only be independant in name. Another harebrained scheme from you matey but as is the way of the world, one of these days you will come up with a cracker.
Ref the "buy in" cars - just another point to this argument. it makes no sense at all does it?

The bottom line is that if you want to win in F1, build you own car and develop it better than anyone else. Always been the case and hopefully always will be.

[Conceptual]

The point is that the distinction between manufacturers and privateers would not be distinct enough.

What is the point of a manufacturer making a car, selling it on and then entering into a relationship with a privateer? Would it be Ferrari A and Ferrari B? It is not a good idea.

The privateer would only be independant in name. Another harebrained scheme from you matey but as is the way of the world, one of these days you will come up with a cracker.
Ref the "buy in" cars - just another point to this argument. it makes no sense at all does it?

The bottom line is that if you want to win in F1, build you own car and develop it better than anyone else. Always been the case and hopefully always will be.

Sure, because Cosworth didn't build half the engines for the '79 season, right?

If you have a better "scheme" that aligns the best interest of all teams, reduces cost, raises competitiveness, and actually give a non-manufacturer team a chance to win a race, I am very interested in your proposition.

Until then, please don't pound on me when I suggest solutions to these issues that you don't personally agree with.

It rather makes you look like a bigot.

Chris

[CMSMJ1]

Cosworth only ever built the one chassis (4wd chassis in 1968 IIRC) and only supplied half the field with engines in 1979.

You are talking about making 4 car manufacturer teams and this is not going to reduce cost or make anything more competitve.

For a guy who is so keen on F1 you need to look into the archives a touch. F1 for you started in 2004.
For me it started in 1985 and I would guess that gives me a little more to look at when I compare your schemes to the now and the past.

Am not getting personal mate but for you to call me bigotted in regards to F1 opinion I might hold is not good.

[Conceptual]

You are making assumptions as to the outcome that do not line up with reality.

You can bet that the teams will always do what is in their best interest automatically, and most "creative interpertation" of the rules end up in this direction, usually leading to a performance advantage.

What that does is make the outcome of certain situations very predictable. Kind of like playing chess. If you always make your best possible move, you win more. Especially when you know what move your opponent will make next, because you can identify THEIR best possible move before making YOUR move this turn.

If the FIA were to set the scenario in F1 to synergize the best interests of the manufacturers, privateers, tyre suppliers, and FOM, then you can be fairly sure what is going to happen. They will feed off of said synergy, thus increasing their ability to make a performance advantage in the most cost effective manner.

I am not saying that the privateer/manufacturer system would work without alot more variables being figured out, but it is a realistic and logical way to align the teams best interests with the fans best interest, and that is reducing the gap from first to last, and making the racing more exciting.

Maybe at that point, we can see the manufacturers investing their saved money into feeder series' to develop the top level drivers necessary to compete in F1. Thus, giving us MORE racing to watch!!!

Do you have a better solution? Or do you just not like mine?

Chris

[donskar]

Conceptual, I'm generally with you on this one (that's a change):

Obviously, each manufacturer could only have one privateer team, but having 26 car grids, or even better, qualifying for 22 spots with 26 cars would increase the spectacle, and it shouldn't be an issue with constructors points, since the works/privateer teams can be viewed as a single entity in terms of a constructor.

"Generally" because I don't think it has to be terribly complicated, with any sort of co-development required. It COULD work SOMETHING like this (off the top of my head, not thoroughly thought out in detail):

- F1 constructors are allowed to sell cars to other teams that meet FIA regs.

- The constructors (of course) can require that the purchaser use their engines and/or other components (or not - their choice)

- Only the original factory team (limited to 2 cars) scores points toward the manufacturers championship. So if Ferrari were supplying cars to Williams, Force India, RBR, and STR (as an extreme example) only Kimi and Massa's point would count toward the manufacturer's championship.

- ALL drivers, regardless of what they drive, score points for driver's championship.

- Prize money is awarded based on the driver's finishing position (ensuring the privateers go all out to beat the manufacturers)

This would work very simply with an engine freeze, but would be a little more complicated if engine development were allowed.

What I like most about your idea is the end result -- more teams, more drivers, more color and maybe even a personality or two.

I've been called a romantic in this forum and I'm proud to be a dinosaur who remembers F1 as far back as the 1960s, but large fields and small teams in F1 for SPORT are NOT ancient history -- Exhibit A: Minardi; Exhibit B: Super Aguri. And I'm sure every poster on this forum was alive when 30+ cars showed up for an F1 race.

Imagine that - having to earn a spot on the grid.

[donskar]

I hope we can all agree on one thing:

more teams are better (assuming they are not embarrassingly slow/inept)

More teams allow more sponsors to test the waters, get more young drivers into F1 rather than forcing them to go to America or Euro touring cars, get more nations involved (through sponsors and drivers), give us a chance to see more minorities, more color and spectacle.

Conceptual's idea is intriguing. I tend to go for a simpler approach, feeling there are so many bureaucratic and political hurdles in any event that a simpler approach has a better chance.

I don't pretend to be an F1 historian, and I don't make any attempt to memorize or file away statistics, records, etc. BUT I DO remember grids that had both factory entries and privateers in Lotus, Cooper, and BRM. Yes, today only the enormously rich factory entries can win, but rich men, fast drivers, and brillaint designers will still take them on.

For those of you who like to fancy yourselves hard-headed realists, good for you. You say it is impossible for small, new teams to enter the sport, and you seem to not even want them. Now consider the next race from your "realistic, business" perspective. How many teams/drivers have a REALISTIC chance to win in Valencia? I'd say 8, possibly 10. Following the position that F1 is a business, throw out the dreamers, we would end up with a grid of 8, 10, possibly 12 cars. Do we ban STR, Honda, F1India, et al because they are not capable of taking on Ferrari and McLaren?

BTW, I fully agree that F1 is far more business than sport. But I know there is room for the small business and the small team.

[Conceptual]

I hope we can all agree on one thing:

more teams are better (assuming they are not embarrassingly slow/inept)

More teams allow more sponsors to test the waters, get more young drivers into F1 rather than forcing them to go to America or Euro touring cars, get more nations involved (through sponsors and drivers), give us a chance to see more minorities, more color and spectacle.

Conceptual's idea is intriguing. I tend to go for a simpler approach, feeling there are so many bureaucratic and political hurdles in any event that a simpler approach has a better chance.

I don't pretend to be an F1 historian, and I don't make any attempt to memorize or file away statistics, records, etc. BUT I DO remember grids that had both factory entries and privateers in Lotus, Cooper, and BRM. Yes, today only the enormously rich factory entries can win, but rich men, fast drivers, and brillaint designers will still take them on.

For those of you who like to fancy yourselves hard-headed realists, good for you. You say it is impossible for small, new teams to enter the sport, and you seem to not even want them. Now consider the next race from your "realistic, business" perspective. How many teams/drivers have a REALISTIC chance to win in Valencia? I'd say 8, possibly 10. Following the position that F1 is a business, throw out the dreamers, we would end up with a grid of 8, 10, possibly 12 cars. Do we ban STR, Honda, F1India, et al because they are not capable of taking on Ferrari and McLaren?

BTW, I fully agree that F1 is far more business than sport. But I know there is room for the small business and the small team.

Don,

If you want excitement, you should look at my suggestion that points be awarded to first place for ever car lapped in the race. The only downside is that all lapped cars get black flagged, but the blue flags are removed, so they can fight to hold off the leader. That would probably piss off the front-runners, but it would close the gap by removing the free pass.

It would become a player-killer style contest, where points are awarded for finishing position, but bonus points for putting other cars into their garage...



Whatever guys, nothing I say matters to the guys that run F1 anyways, but it is still OK to dream, is it not?

Chris

[mx_tifoso]

It's not that it doesn't matter, but the majority of the ideas on this thread are not realistic in terms of what Formula One has been and is at the moment. Transforming it into a 'dream series' is not the best possible route to take, IMO. Changes done to the sport should be of credible and respectful backgrounds. Leaving radical changes to the lower series, since they are only there to amuse more simple minded people, and are generally not taken as seriously as Formula One.

We must take into account that Formula One is aimed towards individuals with higher levels of intelligence (for the most part). And when dreaming of new regs or aspects of this sport, it would be great to take into consideration the many people who have painstakenly given their lives to make this sport what it is eg. high level engineers, designers, physicists and people like Enzo Ferrari who simply loved it more than anything else in the world.

Before you think otherwise, I do consider and accept your personal opinions, hence no need to start calling names of any sorts.

[Conceptual]

It's not that it doesn't matter, but the majority of the ideas on this thread are not realistic in terms of what Formula One has been and is at the moment. Transforming it into a 'dream series' is not the best possible route to take, IMO. Changes done to the sport should be of credible and respectful backgrounds. Leaving radical changes to the lower series, since they are only there to amuse more simple minded people, and are generally not taken as seriously as Formula One.

We must take into account that Formula One is aimed towards individuals with higher levels of intelligence (for the most part). And when dreaming of new regs or aspects of this sport, it would be great to take into consideration the many people who have painstakenly given their lives to make this sport what it is eg. high level engineers, designers, physicists and people like Enzo Ferrari who simply loved it more than anything else in the world.

Before you think otherwise, I do consider and accept your personal opinions, hence no need to start calling names of any sorts.

Tifosi,

I am not trying to change anything. I am simply saying that F1 already has these privateer/manufacturer relationships in place, and a bit of synergizing of the regulations could seriously increase the level that F1 is currently playing on.

Well, maybe the player-killer idea was radical, but not too far fetched in the end. It is simply trading the blue flag for a black flag, and adding a metric --- ton of excitement.

If the regs were set in a way that rewarded manufacturers for supplying privateers, then it would happen more. Actually, if there were incentives like small engine development advances during an engine freeze, every manufacturer on the grid would have a privateer next race! Super Aguri wouldn't have been slaughtered by Honda, and Williams would probably get offers from the top manufacturers simply because of their history of winning.

I know it is different, and fear/uncertainty/doubt ALWAYS accompanies change, but there are some very GOOD relationships in F1 that could only be strengthened for the betterment of the sport, as well as the spectacle of the fans.

I'll stop replying to this thread now, if anyone cares to comment about it, feel free, but as mx_tifosi has pointed out, I need to take these ideas to the lower feeder series where the fans are less intelligent, hence easier to be swayed to positive change.

Thanks for the replies!

Chris