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

[RZS10]

Small teams "made sense" or were useful many years ago when they managed to operate with a small budget and allowed young talented drivers to gain attention and maybe a seat in a "big" team ... now they are just driving around at the back without any progress on closing the gap to the pack... instead they are giving their seats to the highest bidder.

I mean... does anyone actually care that HRT left? - I don't - I almost forgot they ever existed tbh.

A third driver fighting with Lewis and Nico for the Championship would make this season way better, well depending on who the driver would be ofc

[wesley123]

Small teams "made sense" or were useful many years ago when they managed to operate with a small budget and allowed young talented drivers to gain attention and maybe a seat in a "big" team ... now they are just driving around at the back without any progress on closing the gap to the pack... instead they are giving their seats to the highest bidder.

Minardi drivers, and later Jordan drivers too paid for their seat.

[Moxie]

Small teams "made sense" or were useful many years ago when they managed to operate with a small budget and allowed young talented drivers to gain attention and maybe a seat in a "big" team ... now they are just driving around at the back without any progress on closing the gap to the pack... instead they are giving their seats to the highest bidder.

I mean... does anyone actually care that HRT left? - I don't - I almost forgot they ever existed tbh.

A third driver fighting with Lewis and Nico for the Championship would make this season way better, well depending on who the driver would be ofc

They could let all the drivers drive Dallara's. Then we'd really see the talent of the individual drivers, and there would be great competition for the WDC.

The prize money is not given for winning the WDC. F1 is a competition of engineers as well as drivers, and they currently compete as two car teams for prize money that is distributed according to WCC standings. To have a competition, it is necessary that there are teams competing. A WCC that has been dominated by only a few teams has been pretty boring in this regard, but we have been fortunate to see Williams rise from the ashes, and Force India make a great deal of progress over the past several years. Forcing already underfunded teams to compete against a teams with a third car...well so much for competition between constructors.

[RZS10]

Didnt they pay a relatively small amout of cash compared to the "paydrivers" nowadays? But i meant the ridiculous events at caterham and Marussia these days ... i mean seriously... Lotterer?!

[wesley123]

I thought Lotterer didn't pay for his seat? At least quite sure he didn't.

Also those "ridiculous events" you describe too happened years ago. Friesacher comes to mind. Giorgio Pantano too was replaced by Jordan in 2004 because of cashflow reasons.

[Manoah2u]

what we need is not 3 teams. what we need is testing re-introduced. i'd like to say non-fia official races, but the calender is too busy and we've got enough races.

Adding testing is wayyyy cheaper than adding a 3rd car to the park. that's dozens of million dollars just for 1 car.
Tires, engine, gearbox, chassis, not to mention parts (that get damaged), and the driver, plus the aforementioned
logistical costs etc. An awful HRT costs around 20 million each. I'd say a RedBull costs atleast 4 times as much.
So cheapest solucion: introduce testing again, no way that'll cost 20 million a team each year (for the cheapest team).

You get GP2 drivers happy to become test drivers. You get 'retirement' drivers that can still be usefull to the team.
You save a whole bunch on 'theoretic' development budgets.

In reality; cost-saving through windtunnels and computers is not that rewarding. I'd like to compare it to having an university student that went through all the books and theories, that gets computer realistic simulators, then suddenly making him perform an actual open-heart surgery with complications. it gets complicated and it doesn't work.

And if F1 needs to do anything, it's get back on TV instead of behind the decoder
I'm pirating the races through torrents after they went, so i'm first of all missing out on the 'sensation' i had untill 2 years ago, meanwhile i won't buy or pay for a decoder just to 'please moneywh*re ecclestone', and TV has losses of viewers that normally look F1 or racing. in the long run, you'll lose even more becuase there will be no more zapping on TV and all of a sudden somebody 'discovers' f1.

[GSBellew]

If we must have 3 car teams I would prefer if it were set up in such a way so that the bottom teams get to run
three cars, two of their own design, the third being that of one of the top teams.

For instance, if we had 11 teams, the bottom 3 would have 3 cars giving a 25 car grid.
Last years bottom team would run two of their design & one of the WCC winners design, next the second placed team,
next up the third placed.

The higher placed teams would have to pay for and support the lower teams third cars, but they would be branded
and liveried as the lower team not the supplying team.

The supplying team has the advantage of the data from an extra car, the lower team has the advantage of what
should presumably be a competitive car or at least more competitive then their own, giving them a fighting chance of
climbing in the standings & learning from the higher teams & moving up the standings.

I personally would prefer if there were some way for smaller teams to be able to compete in their own right, but faced
with the scenario of the top teams being even more dominating I'd rather see a levelling of the playing field even if artificial.

[NTS]

They could let the teams have a choice between 1, 2 and 3 cars where 1 car team is only allowed for last year's bottom 3 teams + any newcomers and a 3 car entry is mandatory for last year's top 3. Then score the WCC by average points across all cars of a team, so divide by 3 for 3 car teams and by 2 for 2 car teams.

What would make this even more interesting is if the 3 car teams would be required to have their third car driven by somebody qualifying as a young driver. That would create 3 spots for new talent to really shake things up, and since the score will be impacted by these drivers we will see the best of the best of young talent and no paydrivers.

[Moxie]

If we must have 3 car teams I would prefer if it were set up in such a way so that the bottom teams get to run
three cars, two of their own design, the third being that of one of the top teams.

For instance, if we had 11 teams, the bottom 3 would have 3 cars giving a 25 car grid.
Last years bottom team would run two of their design & one of the WCC winners design, next the second placed team,
next up the third placed.

The higher placed teams would have to pay for and support the lower teams third cars, but they would be branded
and liveried as the lower team not the supplying team.

The supplying team has the advantage of the data from an extra car, the lower team has the advantage of what
should presumably be a competitive car or at least more competitive then their own, giving them a fighting chance of
climbing in the standings & learning from the higher teams & moving up the standings.

I personally would prefer if there were some way for smaller teams to be able to compete in their own right, but faced
with the scenario of the top teams being even more dominating I'd rather see a levelling of the playing field even if artificial.

Or FOM could restructure the prize money pay out so that the last place team isn't forced to compete at a 10:1 financial disadvantage to the first place team. They don't need a free car from Mercedes or Red Bull. They need some damned prize money so they can afford to build their own competitive cars, and maybe even pay a driver.

Note:
I referred to the last place team, in terms of prize money. To be accurate, because of the screwed up way F1 distributes the prize money, in 2013 last place, Caterham, actually received more prize money than tenth place team, Marussia.

[Phil]

If you allow 3 cars per team, how do you tackle the WCC race? Obviously, having 3 cars would yield an advantage relative to the teams with one car less - or even worse, if all teams had 3 cars per team, you would have less teams within the top 10 because the top teams would grab most of the points while the rest would be outside.

One way or the other - I would rather the sport went to one car per team, than the opposite. It might be nice to see 3 Mercedes shuffling for the win, but somehow I just suspect by doing that, you would be giving the teams too much freedom and control on how to micro-manage their race and chances - resulting in a more artificial sport. Then I'd rather find ways to reach a highly competitive sport where the competitive element is in the teams, not only among the drivers.

[Andres125sx]

Well McLaren have had plenty of number 2 drivers. Mika and Couthard, Senna and Berger. But they are also not afraid of hiring two top guys and not controlling them, Like Senna and Prost. Button and Hamilton.

As Ferrari, what about Alonso/Raikonnen?

What I mean is every team is the same, all of them have had number 1 and 2 some seassons, and two good drivers some others. It only depend on their needs at the time. Some are more prones to a specific politc than others, but all of them have used and will use any other if needed.

Senna/Prost was an exception for a reason, that car was almost unbeatable. 15/16 victories, both of them scored more than double points than third driver on WDC (AS 90, AP 87, GB 41). They didn´t need any TO. Any other scenario, you will see TOs

In regards to three car teams, only problem I see is the fact that a dominant team would lock out the podium, and then the other drivers don't have something to fight for. Everyone loves a trophy.

Good point, agree that may be a problem

[Dragonfly]

Can't confirm it, but afaik engines were more expensive than that 10 years ago.

That's not how I remember it.

The thing i remember reading was around that time Minardi had a 20 million dollar engine deal for the older Cosworths. The rest paid much more. However, there too was more manufacturer presence, with Ford, Toyota, BMW, Honda, having a manufacturer team. So for those, it would have been cheaper.

12 years ago they used to throw an engine (or more) just for qualification, spare cars, etc. So the price per unit was lower.
And I think F1 should have stayed that way - a kind of dinosaur against the ill conceived "green" image. I think it would be more attractive to the viewers that way.

[xpensive]

The entire thing is just stupid, 4 MJ is no more than 0.1 liter of gasoline, go figure.

[Richard]

The engine restrictions are about keeping budgets down. Otherwise Caterham, Lotus, Sauber etc would have gone bust long ago.

[PlatinumZealot]

I thought Lotterer didn't pay for his seat? At least quite sure he didn't.

Also those "ridiculous events" you describe too happened years ago. Friesacher comes to mind. Giorgio Pantano too was replaced by Jordan in 2004 because of cashflow reasons.

So why would Caterham let him race?
haha. You better believe he paid bags of cash for that drive.