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How to cut costs without a cost cap?


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#1 mathewking21

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Posted 06 April 2015 - 15:09

looks pretty clear that a budget cap is never going to get agreed , but what regulations could cut costs in small chunks ..relatively speaking

any thoughts on what might be done without altering the character of F1 ?

how about brakes ? if ~I understand correctly the big teams get through a couple of sets of everything each race whereas the poorer teams make do with one

so 40 sets of everything cost ? my guess $1million per season , half that for the small teams then ; we already have a 5 engine rule or is it 4 or......well whatever it is with all the bits and pieces
why not the same for brakes , say 5 sets of everything , easily achievable by the manufacturers for 10thousand Km for a season , slight loss of efficiency , but not much
ok peanuts for the big boys but for the small teams 10 items like that would be serious money AND level the playing field

any ideas ? what would one front wing for the season save ? homologated after pre season testing ?
or a simpler front wing as well ?

you get the drift ...couldn't it work ?



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#2 Ross Stonefeld

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Posted 06 April 2015 - 15:45

Restrict income.



#3 MatsNorway

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Posted 06 April 2015 - 17:28

If you take a step back and look at the lap times,the car and their price For F1. You realise that the cars are silly when it comes to performance/cost ratio.

 

One thing that cuts costs very effectively in Radio car racing is weight.

Weight is the single most important thing for performance in onroad racing. in 1/12 scale racing they therefore do not even run dampers up front because the weight alone is a bigger disadvantage than the gains from the dampers. And when the new lipo batteries and Brushless motors came around the just lowered the weight limit.

 

Although you can argue the cars are "expensive" being all carbonfiber and aluminium with some titanium drissled in. The car you buy is basically equal to the car the professional has.

 

This is the chassie of a car that can pull wheelies at the start and leave the more expensive Touring cars with double the power, 4WD and independent suspention and better gearing behind.

 

VBC-Racing-Lightning12-112-Pan-Car-Kit-DE12A6334_1024x1024.jpg?v=1379686978

 

 

Once the weight is down you might get faster than you want. To negate costs further and get the speeds in check, you mandate things such as single element frontwing with single element endplates.

 

Then you force a steel suspention of an common alloy. No more carbonfiber suspention. You do not need that for impressive performance.

 

Then you force a 5-6 speed gearbox. Less gears, less costs.. And less weight.

 

You also allow teams to freely choose hybrid or not. As the weight and packaging might not be worth it. Let the teams pick their solution. Caterham looked good until they had to get hybrid tech on their car.

 

If speed is still too high you force smaller tires.


Edited by MatsNorway, 06 April 2015 - 17:32.


#4 Nemo1965

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Posted 06 April 2015 - 17:59

The only way of restricting the costs of F1 is when, say Red Bull, will be beaten by a team that spends much much less than them... Only then the big teams will willingly cut in their budgets, because there are very few (none I would say) that would spend 200 million a year when a team spends 100 million... and beats them.

 

The question then, of course is: how would you do that? Well, my answer is and has always been: you have to have a supply market with excellent second-hand parts. The Ford Cosworth-era was so succesful because a good team could with - what we now would call a skelleton - small crew build a car with a modest but reliable and cheap engine the might of the big manufacturers. World championship-teams like Williams would basically run engines that were revised second hand engines... for years. Carlos Reutemann was known for saying things like: 'Cosworth engine 103... that was a good one.'

 

This is what the FIA has tried to with the engine-restriction, naturally... but it has not worked, especially because of the new technology. Perhaps a good idea would be not a cost-cap but a kind of forced mass-build of the engines, like what happened with endurance-cars in the 60's. 'You can run any engine in F1 as long as 30 people can buy it on the open market for price x.'



#5 gruntguru

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Posted 06 April 2015 - 22:42

Ban wind tunnels - little or no road relevance. CFD only.



#6 imaginesix

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Posted 07 April 2015 - 00:04

Cost is solely and directly related to the size of the audience. That means the ONLY way to cut costs is to make F1 less popular.



#7 Greg Locock

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Posted 07 April 2015 - 00:09

" little or no road relevance"

 

Porsche 2010

GM 2014

Lotus 2010

Jaguar 2003

somebody else soon.

 

I guess the OEMs didn't get the memo. Having spent a while working with the CFD guys who also spend time in tunnels, I'd say you need both, even at only 100 kph.



#8 gruntguru

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Posted 07 April 2015 - 04:18

" little or no road relevance"

Not a reference to wind tunnels as such but the kind of "incremental DF on open wheel cars" development that wind tunnels do in F1.


Edited by gruntguru, 07 April 2015 - 23:14.


#9 Wuzak

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Posted 07 April 2015 - 07:40

Restrict income.

 

I think more to the point is to have more even distribution of income.

That is reduce the income the top teams get while boosting the income of the middle and lower teams.

 

That way the top teams have to think how to spend the budget and the smaller teams have more chance to compete.



#10 mathewking21

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Posted 07 April 2015 - 08:36

Mates.. So happy to see these repliess. :drunk: :drunk: :drunk:



#11 mathewking21

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Posted 07 April 2015 - 08:36

If you take a step back and look at the lap times,the car and their price For F1. You realise that the cars are silly when it comes to performance/cost ratio.

 

One thing that cuts costs very effectively in Radio car racing is weight.

Weight is the single most important thing for performance in onroad racing. in 1/12 scale racing they therefore do not even run dampers up front because the weight alone is a bigger disadvantage than the gains from the dampers. And when the new lipo batteries and Brushless motors came around the just lowered the weight limit.

 

Although you can argue the cars are "expensive" being all carbonfiber and aluminium with some titanium drissled in. The car you buy is basically equal to the car the professional has.

 

This is the chassie of a car that can pull wheelies at the start and leave the more expensive Touring cars with double the power, 4WD and independent suspention and better gearing behind.

 

VBC-Racing-Lightning12-112-Pan-Car-Kit-DE12A6334_1024x1024.jpg?v=1379686978

 

 

Once the weight is down you might get faster than you want. To negate costs further and get the speeds in check, you mandate things such as single element frontwing with single element endplates.

 

Then you force a steel suspention of an common alloy. No more carbonfiber suspention. You do not need that for impressive performance.

 

Then you force a 5-6 speed gearbox. Less gears, less costs.. And less weight.

 

You also allow teams to freely choose hybrid or not. As the weight and packaging might not be worth it. Let the teams pick their solution. Caterham looked good until they had to get hybrid tech on their car.

 

If speed is still too high you force smaller tires.


Reallly most needed guide thank u so much.



#12 scolbourne

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Posted 07 April 2015 - 13:41

I am against artificial cost caps. I feel that teams will spend as much as they can get hold of through sponsors , government and industry support etc. This is good for the sport and if the technology developed is meaningful outside F1 can be good for mankind as a whole.

As said above to bring down the costs the "best" way is to reduce the audience. Probably not the desired path.

 

If the reason for the cost cap is to make it easier for the smaller teams, redistribute the revenue more fairly.

 

Sensible rules that allow the engineers to develop unhindered by having to only change a few parts (tokens) will stop all the waste we now have. I expect Renault and Ferrari spent a massive fortune trying to decide what to change on their engines. Probably building many test engines to choose the correct path.

 

Formula 1 should be innovative and cutting edge and is also expected to produce the fastest cars whilst maintaining safety. Restricting total fuel is a good way to achieve this. I am not so sure on the fuel flow rules that probably only add to the costs.



#13 Lee Nicolle

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Posted 12 April 2015 - 23:50

F1 has reduced its audience. Irrelevant stupid expensive ugly cars and Fox. That made the viewing audience about half!I suspect crowd numbers too are down. Though many go to those events to be seen. not too see!


Edited by Lee Nicolle, 21 April 2015 - 09:18.


#14 desmo

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Posted 13 April 2015 - 00:02

Well, good news then. As the audience wanders off, the budgets will inevitably shrink as well.



#15 bigleagueslider

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Posted 13 April 2015 - 05:05

Well, good news then. As the audience wanders off, the budgets will inevitably shrink as well.

That's a great point. But there is a disconnect between broadcast numbers and sponsor dollars. The team sponsors commit for a year or two based on results, while the FIA has locked-in broadcast fees for many years.

 

The F1 starting grids this year are quite small, and there is not much parity among the teams. Minimize the amount of technology development and put more emphasis on driver skills.



#16 Wuzak

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Posted 13 April 2015 - 11:30

The F1 starting grids this year are quite small, and there is not much parity among the teams. Minimize the amount of technology development and put more emphasis on driver skills.

 

Isn't that a move towards a single make series?

 

Or, put another way, a move further away from F1's DNA?


Edited by Wuzak, 13 April 2015 - 11:30.


#17 desmo

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Posted 13 April 2015 - 14:48

That's the thing of course, F1's DNA as a technical competition runs directly counter to current thinking about racing as a business, and trying to run a middle course between a controlled spec series and a test bed for technical innovation often kills the upsides of either approach.  You wind up with cars and development programs that are hugely expensive and at the same time a set of regulations so narrow that innovation is unnecessarily stifled.



#18 MatsNorway

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Posted 13 April 2015 - 15:02

Technological development can reduce the production cost. Best example i can give is 3D printing. We had a start up cost of 20k NOK and then the parts was at 20NOK we needed like.. 3000pieces.. ish... 3D printing gets discussed and my collegue makes a model and gets the cost down to like.. 10NOK ish.. starts to save some when you want tousands of something.

 

But the materials will allways be expensive. You do not need titanium/unoptainum parts to go fast. That said. 3D printed parts is not cheap once you do it in aluminium and steel. Too long production time..


Edited by MatsNorway, 17 April 2015 - 13:27.


#19 bigleagueslider

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Posted 15 April 2015 - 06:03

Isn't that a move towards a single make series?

 

Or, put another way, a move further away from F1's DNA?

Not necessarily. Why not separate the technology development efforts from the race team efforts? Independent groups and auto OEMs could develop specific new technologies for F1 racing conforming to common regulations, but the new technologies must be offered to all race teams at the same cost and at the same time. All F1 teams would have the same opportunity to use whatever combination of chassis components and powerplant they wanted at the start of the season, and then swap to something else as the component/system becomes available.



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#20 gruntguru

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Posted 15 April 2015 - 23:46

 . . . and the incentive to develop technology is drastically reduced.



#21 desmo

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Posted 16 April 2015 - 02:47

Institute a claiming rule: calculate the average cost across the grid to roll a race ready car minus spares and support hardware into the cargo hold and give any entrant the right to purchase any car represented on the podium at each race straight from parc ferme for that figure--to do whatever they please with it.  Now obviously another team won't be able to race that car competitively without all the knowledge, parts and tools that went into developing, building and maintaining it, but it would make trying to win simply by outspending your opponents that much more difficult. And it would also deal a blow to getting cute with the rules, you couldn't put any part or system into your car you weren't prepared to see made fully public. Plus it'd add major drama to the show.



#22 Wuzak

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Posted 16 April 2015 - 07:04

Institute a claiming rule: calculate the average cost across the grid to roll a race ready car minus spares and support hardware into the cargo hold and give any entrant the right to purchase any car represented on the podium at each race straight from parc ferme for that figure--to do whatever they please with it.  Now obviously another team won't be able to race that car competitively without all the knowledge, parts and tools that went into developing, building and maintaining it, but it would make trying to win simply by outspending your opponents that much more difficult. And it would also deal a blow to getting cute with the rules, you couldn't put any part or system into your car you weren't prepared to see made fully public. Plus it'd add major drama to the show.

 

Wouldn't allowing customer cars be easier?

 

Big team amortise their costs over more cars, small teams do without the development costs and associated infrastructure.

 

It would get up the nose of teams that remained constrcutors, though.



#23 scolbourne

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Posted 17 April 2015 - 05:02

Institute a claiming rule: calculate the average cost across the grid to roll a race ready car minus spares and support hardware into the cargo hold and give any entrant the right to purchase any car represented on the podium at each race straight from parc ferme for that figure--to do whatever they please with it.  Now obviously another team won't be able to race that car competitively without all the knowledge, parts and tools that went into developing, building and maintaining it, but it would make trying to win simply by outspending your opponents that much more difficult. And it would also deal a blow to getting cute with the rules, you couldn't put any part or system into your car you weren't prepared to see made fully public. Plus it'd add major drama to the show.

This is the opposite of what I would like to see. I prefer to see the "mad" home builder turn up at a local hillclimb and then blitz the field with his novel idea built on a shoestring than watch big budget F1 teams run customer cars or cars built with off the shelf parts.

Get rid of rules limiting  engine usage so a new idea can be tried each race. The only way to limit costs is to control revenue entering the sport from sponsors and manufacturers and I dont see a need for this. Share revenue fairly between the teams from TV rights and winning for your sponsors is reward enough.

 

Maybe just allow one gas turbine design to be used by all teams but then leave all else open  could be a novel twist for  a short number of years.



#24 bigleagueslider

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Posted 22 April 2015 - 07:05

 . . . and the incentive to develop technology is drastically reduced.

What is the incentive for auto OEMs to spend tens-of-millions of shareholder dollars each year to develope and constantly improve/refine chassis and drivetrains that have little application to their commercial business? Everything they design, test and build for F1 must conform to some arbitrary set of rules created by a governing body that is largely unaccountable and primarily concerned with maximizing their personal profits.

 

All the teams run the same Pirelli tires, but do you think Pirelli gets a good value in advertising or technology developments for the huge amount of money they spend each year supplying tires for F1? Not likely. The 2015 F1 championship team will use Pirellis, and the last place 2015 F1 team will also use Pirelli tires. There are only about 20 cars starting each race this year. And the races have mostly been a contest to see who will finish in 4th thru 10th places.

 

Imagine if every team had the opportunity to switch over to the Mercedes drivetrain after the 4th or 5th race. It would be like starting the season all over again. Mercedes would collect championship points from every team using their drivetrain.



#25 gruntguru

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Posted 23 April 2015 - 00:25

What is the incentive for auto OEMs to spend tens-of-millions of shareholder dollars each year to develope and constantly improve/refine chassis and drivetrains that have little application to their commercial business? Everything they design, test and build for F1 must conform to some arbitrary set of rules created by a governing body that is largely unaccountable and primarily concerned with maximizing their personal profits.

The incentive lies not in developing technology they can use in road cars, but in competition success. Success in the WDC, WCC and even a single race has enormous marketing value with a TV audience of 400+ million. The FIA therefore has the ability - perhaps an obligation - to calibrate the rulebook such that this development effort moves in a direction that is not detrimental to mankind or the planet.



#26 bigleagueslider

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Posted 24 April 2015 - 05:44

The FIA therefore has the ability - perhaps an obligation - to calibrate the rulebook such that this development effort moves in a direction that is not detrimental to mankind or the planet.

Do you appreciate the amount of energy that is expended transporting hundreds of tons of cars, equipment, and personnel by jet aircraft around the globe every other week? The amount of fuel used by the cars during a race is insignificant in comparison.

 

If you're serious about the FIA "...calibrating the rulebook.... in a direction that is not detrimental.... to the planet", how about regulations that require the teams to account for every Btu of energy they consume for each race, and then put a limit on their total energy consumption for the season.



#27 desmo

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Posted 24 April 2015 - 14:07

Running the wind tunnels is probably even worse than flying the F1 circus around and, unlike flying the cars and teams to the races, is completely unnecessary to the sport. Ban wind tunnel testing.



#28 WhiteBlue

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Posted 25 April 2015 - 11:32

A very simple measure has been missed in 2011 when they started the new engine development. Putting a cost cap on customer engines. That would have been very easy to achieve if Bernie, the customer teams and the FiA had pushed for it. I could not imagine the stupidity when I learned they did not do this. An engine price cap of double manufacturing cost would have saved all teams that have failed since then. An F1 engine is pretty cheap if you just look at the manufacturing cost. What really kills it for the customer teams is the recuperation of development cost that the manufacturers get from supplying engines to customers. The point is development cost is going to be spend anyway, watever the customer price is because the manufacturers spend it for their own competitiveness. And capping the transfer price would simply slow them down a littlke or would reduce their financial advantage over the customer teams by a very small margin. So it is really the only logical thing to do but F1 once again was sticking its head so deep in its own ass to avoid this crucial mistake. Todt and Bernie are to blame for this. First of all Bernie!!! 



#29 BoschKurve

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Posted 25 April 2015 - 13:18

A very simple measure has been missed in 2011 when they started the new engine development. Putting a cost cap on customer engines. That would have been very easy to achieve if Bernie, the customer teams and the FiA had pushed for it. I could not imagine the stupidity when I learned they did not do this. An engine price cap of double manufacturing cost would have saved all teams that have failed since then. An F1 engine is pretty cheap if you just look at the manufacturing cost. What really kills it for the customer teams is the recuperation of development cost that the manufacturers get from supplying engines to customers. The point is development cost is going to be spend anyway, watever the customer price is because the manufacturers spend it for their own competitiveness. And capping the transfer price would simply slow them down a littlke or would reduce their financial advantage over the customer teams by a very small margin. So it is really the only logical thing to do but F1 once again was sticking its head so deep in its own ass to avoid this crucial mistake. Todt and Bernie are to blame for this. First of all Bernie!!! 

 

:rotfl:  :rotfl:



#30 gruntguru

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Posted 27 April 2015 - 00:28

Do you appreciate the amount of energy that is expended transporting hundreds of tons of cars, equipment, and personnel by jet aircraft around the globe every other week? The amount of fuel used by the cars during a race is insignificant in comparison.

 

If you're serious about the FIA "...calibrating the rulebook.... in a direction that is not detrimental.... to the planet", how about regulations that require the teams to account for every Btu of energy they consume for each race, and then put a limit on their total energy consumption for the season.

I thought you were smarter than that BLS.

 

The old "look at all the wasted energy and exhaust emissions generated by motorsport" argument has been done to death. Not sure how you would imagine I was trotting it out here? The benefits to the environment and sustainable energy use, massively outweigh it. Even if there was zero technology trickle-down into road car design, the education of the participants and tech-enthusiast spectators (many of them mechanics) alone has a positive spin-off, in better maintained road cars.

 

We were discussing OEMs as participants. The mega dollars they invest in motorsport can be far better focused - at the stroke of a rule-maker's pen.


Edited by gruntguru, 27 April 2015 - 00:29.


#31 desmo

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Posted 27 April 2015 - 14:29

The mega dollars they invest in motorsport can be far better focused - at the stroke of a rule-maker's pen.


gg, I'm curious what rule changes you'd implement for F1 if it were all up to you--and why?

#32 Rocket73

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Posted 29 April 2015 - 06:42

It's not possible. We've been imposing supposed cost cutting restrictions for years now and all we have are slower, less innovative (goodbye newey) cars yet with largest budgets yet.. Whatever restrictions you make the big spenders will find other areas to throw cash at.

Wind tunnel is classic example. They'll just spend more on CFD and bring multiple upgrades to tests and practice.

Cost cap is the only way but the big teams will vetoe it by saying it's not policeable (bollocks - it's just accounting) or threaten to quit.

#33 mathewking21

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Posted 04 June 2015 - 16:26

Thanks for these valuable answers guyz  :up:  :up: