I voted "yes", but not entirely for the reasons the OP provided as options in the poll.
First, although F1 had customer teams for the first 30-odd years, for most of that time it was basically an almost entirely European championship and it was on an entirely smaller scale than it is today. It had yet to become dominant in the world of motorsport. And I truly believe that the constructors-only model, in which everyone must design and build their own prototype chassis to a set of technical regulations before being allowed to compete, is an important part of what makes F1 special. In my opinion it adds a lot of prestige to the championship.
Gone are the days where you can buy in any old chassis, bolt any old engine into it, and pick and choose your races. That would be easier for the entrants, and might attract more entries, but they would be lower calibre people. I think F1 would sell itself short by allowing customer teams to enter. You may counter that Frank Williams, Patrick Head and Ron Dennis weren't lower calibre people than some of the constructor-entrants we have now, but the vast majority of the customer entrants from that era were, and they are now long gone and, for the most part, forgotten.
Furthermore all the existing problems as regards engines (the dependency of the customers on the manufacturers, the controversies over customers allegedly being told by their supplier's engineers to turn down their engines when their supplier's works cars are trying to pass them, the excessive leverage the manufacturers have if they ever threaten to withdraw) would be multiplied.
And crucially, for a talented designer or aerodynamicist, the removal of small constructors would deprive them of exactly the kind of environment where they can currently make their name and establish a reputation in the sport, by being able to put their ideas into practice and run them in races. If the only people doing aero development are the manufacturers, and the teams are just buying in aero upgrades as and when, then an up-and-coming aero guy will have fewer places to go in F1. And if they do get a job for a manufacturer, if they're relatively inexperienced they will find it a lot more dificult to get their design philosophy onto the car. Ideas that fit in with the design philosophy of the established designer / technical director are what will end up on the car. This will make F1 less attractive to talented people and motorsport will lose them to other industries.
The problem with being against customer cars is that people will, quite rightly, want to know what we can do, in that case, to make it so the smaller teams can afford to run their operations and pay their bills, staff etc without running up astronomical amounts of debt, going bust and rising from the ashes, leaving a lot of innocent third parties seriously out of pocket (including former employees and the taxman). I happen to think there's a relatively straightforward answer to this, but the problem is neither the manufacturers nor the commercial rights holder like it. There will have to be a more equitable distribution of the commercial revenues. If that doesn't happen, we will end up with customer teams or third cars, or both, but then the negative consequences referred to above will follow.
Edited by redreni, 02 June 2015 - 16:11.
