F1 2015 Cost Cap plans abandoned

[go_Rubens]

http://www.autosport.com/news/report.php/id/113319

This is a shame it had to come this way.

[mario]

http://www.autosport.com/news/report.php/id/113319

This is a shame it had to come this way.

But not surprising given that the wealthiest and most powerful teams, all of whom have a strong incentive to keep things as they are, hold the voting rights and can therefore dictate terms to the FIA. I suspect that we won't see really strong efforts to cut costs until at least one team goes to the wall, if not more (with the difficult seasons Sauber and Lotus are having, the possibility that they will both collapse cannot be ignored), by which point a rapidly shrinking grid might force something to be done.

[Rusujuur]

The only way to enforce a cost cap is a spec series but we also don't want that. I seriously hope that evolution will enforce less spending in the long run, but I can't be too optimistic.

[Londoner]

RIP F1

I apologise for the gloomy prediction, but half the grid is already struggling with funds. I really wish Max Mosley had just held his nerve, called Formula Elaborate Bluff's bluff, and forced through his budget cap in 2009.

[Eifelland]

If they lose enough teams they'll turn round and take a look. Even if they only lost 1 or 2 (and amongst them probably a historic one, like Williams or Sauber), I would have thought enough people would stop and take it seriously. It depends whether or not Bernie is allowing 2 new teams in to make up for the impending loss of 2 current outfits or not...

[DanielPT]

I am afraid that if no real cost cutting measures are enforced (from which the cost cap plan was the best idea), then smaller teams will start to disappear. From that I can see the dreaded 3 car teams join the frame as a knee-jerk reaction which would probably reduce the variety of teams even more. I think the ideal way forward would be to bring back costumer cars, one off entries and larger grids with fixed prices by FIA on the cars/engines depending on performance. That could help smaller teams to have a profit on their chassis designs (and win some money on their way to survival while having a real business) by leading more people to buy and use 'lesser' cars. It would also help those who don't have any means to produce a good enough chassis but do have the cash to invest some money by buying a ready to race car.

[pablo_h]

How can they have a cost cap while they mandate dodgey fuel sensors they have to buy then pay thousands to calibrate them and toss the bad ones?
A cost cap is a good idea, but not when there's outside materials teams have to buy from some mate of someone influential in the FIA just to meet some FIA rule that has nothing to do with the sport.

[F1000X]

Not that it would help much, but other sports have salary caps for athletes.

That said, the FIA has nobody to blame but themselves. God only knows how much the engine suppliers have spent on developing the new engines and energy recovery systems, and the teams have no choice but to foot the bill.

[mario]

Not that it would help much, but other sports have salary caps for athletes.

That said, the FIA has nobody to blame but themselves. God only knows how much the engine suppliers have spent on developing the new engines and energy recovery systems, and the teams have no choice but to foot the bill.

Mind you, the FIA were kind of damned if they did and damned if they didn't over the new engine format given the major pressure that Renault was putting them under.

Given that Renault were supplying the most teams on the grid, including the world championship winning team, that would have given them a sizeable amount of leverage. There is also the possibility that Honda may have been exerting pressure on the FIA to adopt a new engine format as a condition for them re-entering the sport and Porsche, who recently admitted that they actively considered an F1 engine program before their LMP1 program was approved, may have been exerting some pressure as well. Those are some pretty major manufacturers weighing in to push the new engine format...

[Wallio]

I called this. I have to find the thread because I believe I won an avatar challenge......

[Cynon]

Given how unsporting most of the frontrunners in the sport are... I would count on customer cars being a thing in F1 on the condition that customer teams would have to forefit places to works teams. Not like Ferrari and Benetton haven't done this before with Sauber and Ligier. Not to the extents I mentioned... but would anyone be surprised?

[AndreaModa]

Given how unsporting most of the frontrunners in the sport are... I would count on customer cars being a thing in F1 on the condition that customer teams would have to forefit places to works teams. Not like Ferrari and Benetton haven't done this before with Sauber and Ligier. Not to the extents I mentioned... but would anyone be surprised?

Nope, not surprised in the slightest. I'll still watch it because it's F1, but it will be a sad, sad day indeed if it comes to three car teams and customer chassis. The team bosses, the FIA and everyone in FOM don't quite value the F1 brand as much as they should in my view. They just don't treat it with any respect. The same happened with IndyCar in the States, and look what happened to that. That series still hasn't got a pot to piss in despite being second only to F1 in terms of prestige. It'll take years before that series is as successful as it was pre-split. The same will happen to F1, and events are already in motion.

[Wallio]

Given how unsporting most of the frontrunners in the sport are... I would count on customer cars being a thing in F1 on the condition that customer teams would have to forefit places to works teams. Not like Ferrari and Benetton haven't done this before with Sauber and Ligier. Not to the extents I mentioned... but would anyone be surprised?

Nope, not surprised in the slightest. I'll still watch it because it's F1, but it will be a sad, sad day indeed if it comes to three car teams and customer chassis. The team bosses, the FIA and everyone in FOM don't quite value the F1 brand as much as they should in my view. They just don't treat it with any respect. The same happened with IndyCar in the States, and look what happened to that. That series still hasn't got a pot to piss in despite being second only to F1 in terms of prestige. It'll take years before that series is as successful as it was pre-split. The same will happen to F1, and events are already in motion.

That's not an apt analogy at all though.

Unless Jean Todt forms his own racing series with Monaco as its centerpiece, aligns with DTM and holds an open-championship" on all stock car tracks with a grid filled with FR3.5 rejects in old cars paid for out of Todt's own pocket, while Bernie and the teams run the F1 series with all the teams, drivers, names and tracks for over a decade, until they run out of money because they don't have Monaco and the series isn't owned by a billionaire. They then become a spec series for a few years, before being bought by Jean Todt's series in a "merger" and all the scrubs and stock car tracks are abandoned and it becomes F1 again. They only problem is DTM is number 1 in the world, F1 is still a spec series, and they fire publicly the awesome new leader brought in to fix shite and rehire the idiot billionaire Todt who caused this mess in the first place! Meanwhile, DTM, after aligning with Todt, is now the biggest series on earth.

Only if all that happens, then will F1 be in the shape Indycar is in, which all things considered is pretty damn good actually.

[Waris]

Given how unsporting most of the frontrunners in the sport are... I would count on customer cars being a thing in F1 on the condition that customer teams would have to forefit places to works teams. Not like Ferrari and Benetton haven't done this before with Sauber and Ligier. Not to the extents I mentioned... but would anyone be surprised?

Nope, not surprised in the slightest. I'll still watch it because it's F1, but it will be a sad, sad day indeed if it comes to three car teams and customer chassis. The team bosses, the FIA and everyone in FOM don't quite value the F1 brand as much as they should in my view. They just don't treat it with any respect. The same happened with IndyCar in the States, and look what happened to that. That series still hasn't got a pot to piss in despite being second only to F1 in terms of prestige. It'll take years before that series is as successful as it was pre-split. The same will happen to F1, and events are already in motion.

That's not an apt analogy at all though.

Unless Jean Todt forms his own racing series with Monaco as its centerpiece, aligns with DTM and holds an open-championship" on all stock car tracks with a grid filled with FR3.5 rejects in old cars paid for out of Todt's own pocket, while Bernie and the teams run the F1 series with all the teams, drivers, names and tracks for over a decade, until they run out of money because they don't have Monaco and the series isn't owned by a billionaire. They then become a spec series for a few years, before being bought by Jean Todt's series in a "merger" and all the scrubs and stock car tracks are abandoned and it becomes F1 again. They only problem is DTM is number 1 in the world, F1 is still a spec series, and they fire publicly the awesome new leader brought in to fix shite and rehire the idiot billionaire Todt who caused this mess in the first place! Meanwhile, DTM, after aligning with Todt, is now the biggest series on earth.

Only if all that happens, then will F1 be in the shape Indycar is in, which all things considered is pretty damn good actually.

Am I the only one who thinks this scenario is actually hilarious and that it should be an alternate history storyline in the Perry McCarthy memorial forum?

[mario]

Given how unsporting most of the frontrunners in the sport are... I would count on customer cars being a thing in F1 on the condition that customer teams would have to forefit places to works teams. Not like Ferrari and Benetton haven't done this before with Sauber and Ligier. Not to the extents I mentioned... but would anyone be surprised?

Nope, not surprised in the slightest. I'll still watch it because it's F1, but it will be a sad, sad day indeed if it comes to three car teams and customer chassis. The team bosses, the FIA and everyone in FOM don't quite value the F1 brand as much as they should in my view. They just don't treat it with any respect. The same happened with IndyCar in the States, and look what happened to that. That series still hasn't got a pot to piss in despite being second only to F1 in terms of prestige. It'll take years before that series is as successful as it was pre-split. The same will happen to F1, and events are already in motion.

I don't think that the major teams would obviously force their customers into moving over for them, instead opting for more subtle methods of controlling their customers.

When Toro Rosso ran a customer car, Red Bull tended to control their relative performance by restricting the rate at which they transferred upgraded parts from the works team to their customer - Honda adopted a similar approach to Super Aguri, and at times also utilised their financial leverage over their customer to keep them in check.
However, there are times when the parent team might find it advantageous for their customers to be quicker - a couple of years ago Red Bull were accused of cutting right to the limits of the restrictions on the transfer of intellectual property to Toro Rosso over the design of their blown diffuser in an effort to move Toro Rosso further up the WCC, therefore increasing Red Bull's take of FOM's prize money for the year.

[AndreaModa]

Wallio, I'm not directly comparing F1 now to how IndyCar was shaping up in the mid-90s. As you say, that analogy is irrelevant and well wide of the mark.

My point is IndyCar in its current guise is a spec series with a bunch of broke teams touring the US having used a variety of gimmicks and rules over the years in an attempt to spice up the action. No respect was paid to the brand at all, numerous sponsorship deals saw both series during the split re-named to meet the requests of those stumping up the cash, and consequently few Americans, let alone the rest of the world, could identify with the brand.

F1 risks the same sort of situation where it looses track of what it is all about. The premier motorsport category in the world turned into a gimmicky mess with customer cars and only a handful of actual proper teams and a bunch of drivers no-one really cares about. I'm not saying that's how it is now, rather that is where it could possibly end up in 10 years time if Bernie, the FIA and the teams don't show enough respect to the brand.

[Wallio]

Wallio, I'm not directly comparing F1 now to how IndyCar was shaping up in the mid-90s. As you say, that analogy is irrelevant and well wide of the mark.

My point is IndyCar in its current guise is a spec series with a bunch of broke teams touring the US having used a variety of gimmicks and rules over the years in an attempt to spice up the action. No respect was paid to the brand at all, numerous sponsorship deals saw both series during the split re-named to meet the requests of those stumping up the cash, and consequently few Americans, let alone the rest of the world, could identify with the brand.

F1 risks the same sort of situation where it looses track of what it is all about. The premier motorsport category in the world turned into a gimmicky mess with customer cars and only a handful of actual proper teams and a bunch of drivers no-one really cares about. I'm not saying that's how it is now, rather that is where it could possibly end up in 10 years time if Bernie, the FIA and the teams don't show enough respect to the brand.

I can't argue with any of that. I would say though that it started earlier, when CART was formed. That was the beginning IMO. And I still say Indycar is actually doing pretty good, considering the last 20 years.....