It's been a common theme from media commentators, fans and the teams that have made up the rear end of the pack for many years now - F1 is too expensive, F1 is a sport where the team with the biggest budget more often than not wins the podiums and titles. Drivers, team officials, F1 owners have moaned solidly for years now about the need to "tighten up the pack" and eliminate the "top teams and best of the rest" split, so that all teams have the opportunity to succeed. And when a single team dominates because they did a good job .... well, that just intensifies the calls for something to be done.
F1 is purportedly a constructor sport. The grid is made up of teams that are supposed to build a large amount of the car themselves or contract it out to independent bodies - they cant just buy a lot of it off the shelf from another team, which was a rule brought in to try and eliminate B teams. There is still an element of things they can buy from another team, but it's drastically reduced from what used to be allowed.
However. In an effort to control spending and control the gap between teams, we have seen a move to reduce the ability of the teams to develop the cars - restrictions on engine development, restrictions on number of engines allowed per season, restrictions on testing (both physical and virtual - theres a limit on the amount of computer power a team can employ for example), restrictions on fuel flow, restrictions on areas of the car that they can develop etc etc etc.
Each year, rules changes bring more and more restrictions - those tenths get harder and harder to find, which ironically means more and more development investment, which means those tenths are getting more expensive to find. Also, the best thinkers are going to go to the best teams, which means the back of the pack are still at a disadvantage.
The restrictions are working against the original idea.
So now we have a budget cap. Which is being brought in along with a new set of rules, which means new restrictions, which means new development, which means .... you get my drift. 2021 isn't going to be the sea change everyones expecting, because the cars will be developed under 2020 cost rules, which means no budget restrictions for the front running teams.
Why not do something different? With less and less of the car up for development (especially in 2021), why not make the car itself essentially spec. Spec body work, spec suspension, spec aero, spec safety cell, spec cooling, spec brakes, spec .... you get the drift.
So where does the "essentially spec" come in, if so much is spec? The engine. Leave the engine for the manufacturers, but require them to take in fuel from a spec fuel system and connect to a spec driveshaft for the output and be cooled by a spec cooling system. They get a certain amount of space to work with, and a certain weight budget, a certain heat dissipation budget and the rest is up to them. They also have to supply the same spec of engine to any other team buying it.
Would this solve the lower teams complaints? Would this solve Liberty F1s issues? Would it keep the fans happy? Thoughts?
For the record, I am floating this to see what the discussion is like - I'm actually for the opposite, removal of restrictions and telling teams that complain that they can compete in any other formula they want, they are there voluntarily and if they don't like the costs of competing then they can voluntarily leave. No one is promoted to F1, and no one is demoted from F1. It's all voluntary.
Edited by richardprice, 11 March 2020 - 03:25.
