76 replies to this topic

[SophieB]

It is unfortunate but what teams want out of F1 and what fans want out of F1 don’t always align, and nowhere is this more apparent in the prospect of two star drivers in the same team. The team bosses hate it - it splits garages, causes bad feeling within the team and paranoia of preferential treatment erodes trust on all sides. Any sense of working as a whole team is lost and on top of everything else, you’re spending a fortune on two top salaries. Luca di Montezemolo spoke of wishing to avoid two cocks in the henhouse and I think it’s hard to think of situations where many teams have willingly embraced the philosophy. It’s more common to emerge by accident either by sudden driver unavailability elsewhere or simply by virtue of non-one knowing how good the other guy really is.

 

Still, as teams are the employers of drivers, they can hire who they want on the terms they want, which means it’s unlikely we’re going to get Verstappen v Hamilton in the same team anytime soon. But could we? With a blank sheet of paper, can you come up with a workable, realistic model that would still attract drivers to the series and be sustainable to fund things? The only way I can think of it working is if the drivers worked directly for Liberty and got placed in car seats. Obviously top drivers still commanding higher salaries but maybe no longer than three years in same team. But I’m not convinced they have that kind of dough.
 

Anyway, over to you. I suspect it just doesn’t work but keen to see more imaginative solutions!

[PayasYouRace]

Use ensign14's idea of only the 2nd finisher from each team scoring WCC points. Place some value on the second car that the teams can't ignore.

[Kalmake]

10M salary cap per driver.

 

Lower scoring car counts double in WCC total.

[Massa]

This sport was fine 20-30 years ago without these kind of things. F1 need to stay F1. We can't complain because of too much rules or restriction and then imagine to force the team to hire certain drivers.

We don't need that to have a great sport, the solution is simple but people likes too much complexity

Edited by Massa, 09 August 2020 - 12:06.

[Anja]

Scrap the WDC. Drivers work solely for the team's points tally instead of individual glory, no reason to fight your teammate, so two equally good drivers are not a problem. Done. 

 

As a bonus it would more closely reflect what F1 really is about, which is the cars 

Edited by Anja, 09 August 2020 - 12:06.

[TomNokoe]

We also need 3 new teams to cram full of F2 juniors. I don't care if it's customer cars or what, but we have to expand the grid.

[smitten]

Liberty employ the drivers, and teams draw lots for which drivers they actually get each weekend.  Carnage would ensue....

[SophieB]

Use ensign14's idea of only the 2nd finisher from each team scoring WCC points. Place some value on the second car that the teams can't ignore.

 

 

10M salary cap per driver.

 

Lower scoring car counts double in WCC total.

Fine, but on this,  if I’m Mercedes, I’m hiring Hamilton and Bottas which doesn’t seem to be moving the needle much. 

[ARTGP]

Fine, but on this,  if I’m Mercedes, I’m hiring Hamilton and Bottas which doesn’t seem to be moving the needle much. 

 

  yes in this case it does not seem to have the intended effect!

 

But we can only hope that if the cars close up in 2022, that Bottas's race pace becomes a liability.

 

It's ironic because on the technical side, teams are known for "Stealing" talent from one another. Yet Mercedes won't steal Verstappen from Red Bull 

Edited by ARTGP, 09 August 2020 - 12:17.

[Muppetmad]

I'm going to ignore the premise of the topic and come up with a system that solves a different problem 

 

If you want a range of drivers in various different teams, you need drivers to move around. There are also lots of worthy up-and-comers who never get a shot in F1. So, I'd propose a three-car-per-team system, whereby the third car has to be occupied each year by a rookie. Once a rookie has completed their season, they can then be picked up as a full-time driver in the first or second seat of any team. That makes a nice big grid, with a third of it being rookies looking to prove their worth to secure their future in the sport.

 

Financially viable? Of course not. But it'd be fun, right? 

[chhatra]

The highest place driver from the team that doesn’t win the championship get’s to drive for winning team the following season. Imagine LeClerc or Verstappen in the Mercedes. Sparks indeed.

[ArchieTech]

I really like the ideas above of the second finishing driver in a team counting exclusively, or counting more, for the WCC points. It sounds like an excellent idea to incentivise teams go for the most competitive second driver they can, at least in the majority of cases

 

On the salary cap the argument I've always seen is that teams will have some sponsors move to pay money directly to drivers for a personal sponsorship or something, rather than giving the money to the team, thereby making it impossible to directly enforce a salary cap.

Edited by ArchieTech, 09 August 2020 - 12:32.

[Kalmake]

On the salary cap the argument I've always seen is that teams will have some sponsors move to pay money directly to drivers for a personal sponsorship or something, rather than giving the money to the team, thereby making it impossible to directly enforce a salary cap.

Other sports have had salary caps for a long time now so it must work. I don't know how.

[Atreiu]

Drivers should be drafter and then kept or traded in exchange for financial and/or technical support. Max contract length, 3 years.

Edited by Atreiu, 09 August 2020 - 12:41.

[Grayson]

Here’s my fantasy setup, with the understanding that it’s a complete reinvention of F1 and probably nothing like what the manufacturers or sponsors would want...

11 teams, 22 races per year (or 10 and 20).

Each driver races for each team for two randomly chosen races (one in the first half of the season, one in the second). The WDC and WCC are completely separate contests - each finish counts towards both but the drivers and teams don’t care about the other Championship.

The field of 22 drivers is made up of last year’s top 15, the top 5 from F2 and two wildcards chosen by FOM/Liberty. The seven relegated drivers have first refusal on seats in the following year’s F2.

[SophieB]

I don’t think a salary cap fixes the problem I’m describing though. Or am I wrong and you reckon Mercedes or Red Bull would hire Verstappen and Hamilton together if only they could afford it?

 

e. More posts arrived while I was typing, but this was in response to ‘bring in a salary cap’ 

[SophieB]

Here’s my fantasy setup, with the understanding that it’s a complete reinvention of F1 and probably nothing like what the manufacturers or sponsors would want...

11 teams, 22 races per year (or 10 and 20).

Each driver races for each team for two randomly chosen races (one in the first half of the season, one in the second). The WDC and WCC are completely separate contests - each finish counts towards both but the drivers and teams don’t care about the other Championship.

The field of 22 drivers is made up of last year’s top 15, the top 5 from F2 and two wildcards chosen by FOM/Liberty. The seven relegated drivers have first refusal on seats in the following year’s F2.

Who pays the drivers?

[PayasYouRace]

Here’s my fantasy setup, with the understanding that it’s a complete reinvention of F1 and probably nothing like what the manufacturers or sponsors would want...

11 teams, 22 races per year (or 10 and 20).

Each driver races for each team for two randomly chosen races (one in the first half of the season, one in the second). The WDC and WCC are completely separate contests - each finish counts towards both but the drivers and teams don’t care about the other Championship.

The field of 22 drivers is made up of last year’s top 15, the top 5 from F2 and two wildcards chosen by FOM/Liberty. The seven relegated drivers have first refusal on seats in the following year’s F2.

I believe that building a good relationship with the team is part of the racing driver’s skill set, and I’d not want to see that removed with a system like that.

[Fatgadget]

Here’s my fantasy setup, with the understanding that it’s a complete reinvention of F1 and probably nothing like what the manufacturers or sponsors would want...

11 teams, 22 races per year (or 10 and 20).

Each driver races for each team for two randomly chosen races (one in the first half of the season, one in the second). The WDC and WCC are completely separate contests - each finish counts towards both but the drivers and teams don’t care about the other Championship.

The field of 22 drivers is made up of last year’s top 15, the top 5 from F2 and two wildcards chosen by FOM/Liberty. The seven relegated drivers have first refusal on seats in the following year’s F2.

How the salary of drivers determined?

[Grayson]

Who pays the drivers?

I was imagining a system that would be a bit closer to the way things work in Tennis - a combination of prize money and sponsorship/endorsements.

Though I realise that might not be practical, especially given the conflict between a driver’s sponsors and a team’s sponsors!

[pdac]

Teams cannot retain drivers. They are made available by the FIA and teams have to pay the FIA to hire them for each race. If more than one team wants a particular driver for a particular race, then FIA will have a process to decide which team gets that driver. The FIA will have a process to ensure that no team can hire a particular driver for more than a certain number of races in the season. The hire prices are set by the FIA and they will use a pre-defined formula to work out the price for each race (based on past performance, etc).

 

It's just like figuring out the rules for a fantasy formula one game, but for real.

Edited by pdac, 09 August 2020 - 14:19.

[kumo7]

Very interesting topic. Love the idea.

 

An (silly) alternative will be to use US Presidency model, or even a severer one, that any driver is allowed to drive for a team for maximum duration of two Years. Contract recognition board shall be instated to take any wrong doing. No driver can drive for the same team unless he does fulfill three different contracts. 

 

This might force team to get the best option in rotation and allow more aggressive racing.

Ham would drive for Merc, RedBull, Ferrari, and so on. At the same time, Merc would take Bottas for two years and then to move on to Max...

Edited by kumo7, 09 August 2020 - 14:54.

[McLaren]

Use ensign14's idea of only the 2nd finisher from each team scoring WCC points. Place some value on the second car that the teams can't ignore.

That would be idea terrible for the lower teams. As most often when they do get into the points... it's only 1 driver that sneaks in there. E.g Last year Magnussen finished 6th for Haas in the season opener.. but Romain retired.

[NewMrMe]

Teams in the top half of the previous year's constructor's championship must run the highest placed drivers in the previous season's drivers championship. Drivers are allocated in championship order to teams in championship order with the condition that a team cannot run the same driver pairing as they did the previous season. Teams in the bottom half of the championship are still free to select whatever two drivers they wish.

 

Based on the 2019 championship positions it gives us these line ups for the top 5 teams.

 

Mercedes - Hamilton, Verstappen

Ferrari - Bottas, Leclerc

Red Bull - Vettel, Sainz

McLaren - Gasly, Albon

Renault - Ricciardo, Perez

[ThadGreen]

Put the drivers names in a hat, put the team names in a different hat and have someone pick out a team name and then a driver and that driver drives for that team all weekend. Do that for every race and see what happens.

[Anderis]

Honestly I think it's nobody else's business to tell the teams what drivers should be driving their cars. It's the last area I would focus on if I wanted to make F1 a better spectacle. 

[NewMrMe]

I don't think any of the above will stop any grumblings. It will just give people a new load of things to grumble about. Imagine the following scenarios.

 

- If you had the rotational system and say there was a dominant car which retired once due to technical problems. Imagine what fans of the driver who was in it at the time are going to say, particularly if they narrowly missed out on the championship.

- Forced allocation of drivers by any method is obviously going to lead to an uneven balance. Some people will get lucky allocations and others unlucky. This will create lots of complaints.

[Mark521]

Maybe do the old "Le Mans Start" and let the drivers pick which car they jump into to 

[MasterOfCoin]

Scrap the WDC. Drivers work solely for the team's points tally instead of individual glory, no reason to fight your teammate, so two equally good drivers are not a problem. Done. 

 

As a bonus it would more closely reflect what F1 really is about, which is the cars 

I'll add the removal of driver data sharing, and have cars that can actually follow to the list....

Edited by MasterOfCoin, 09 August 2020 - 19:06.

[ArchieTech]

Maybe do the old "Le Mans Start" and let the drivers pick which car they jump into to 

You'd have to have a strategy there - do you go for the fastest car and risk getting delayed because everyone else wants it too, or head straight for a slower car and get going immediately. Decisions, decisions...

[Beamer]

Putting top drivers in lower teams at random would make them leave f1. Top drivers want and demand top material. So any system in which a top driver can be forced to drive for a lesser team won't work.

Salary cap won't work either, there's ways around that with 'personal sponsors'.

Cost cap for teams (in a way that is properly manageable) and better distribution of prize money would close things up the most I think.

[r4mses]

Such utter nonsense. If forced to take a certrain driver, the likes of Mercedes, RBR etc will just leave.... heck, even Ferrari will say ,,|,, ...and you're stuck with some amateur sport. Same goes for the drivers. Do you expect HAM/VER being interested in driving a Williams? Seriously. Stop this nonsense.

Edited by r4mses, 09 August 2020 - 17:02.

[ensign14]

Scrap qualifying and make teams bring a third car, which would have a 1 hour race on the Saturday to replace quali.  Only drivers allowed are those without a WC race start.

[Fatgadget]

Such utter nonsense. If forced to take a certrain driver, the likes of Mercedes, RBR etc will just leave.... heck, even Ferrari will say ,,|,, ...and you're stuck with some amateur sport. Same goes for the drivers. Do you expect HAM/VER being interested in driving a Williams? Seriously. Stop this nonsense.

Indeed. Why would a team invest gazillions in such a model? It's worse than communism!

[Dutchrudder]

Run pre-qualifying in the trucks the teams haul their equipment in. Drivers can choose their seat in finishing order. 😂

[PayasYouRace]

I don't think there's any need to reinvent the wheel so to speak. F1 can just take lessons from other series to incentivise teams putting the best line-ups possible in their cars.

 

For example, look at how US series like NASCAR and IndyCar work. Their teams are allowed to run their cars in different liveries with different sponsors. By doing so, now there's a financial pressure for each car to be fighting as close to the front as possible. Have separate pit crews for each car as well (there are more than enough mechanics in an F1 team to do this without needing additional staff), and you can create a bit more internal competition without having to favour one driver over another for strategy (the pit lanes are also long enough for each car to have its own box).

 

It would only need little changes like that to reduce the need for "compliant" number 2 drivers who won't rock the boat by competing with the top dog. Crazy schemes involving swapping seats might work for W Series or any other driver development series, but at the top level of the sport, driver team relationships should also mean something.

[ArchieTech]

I really don't like the idea of fully different liveries - I think the consistent team livery is something that F1 should hold on to. It gives a brand image but is also much easier for casual fans to know who is associated with which team. I also worry that it would be one step towards allowing different liveries at every race, something that I find makes Indycar much harder to follow.

 

However I would not necessarily mind if there were different sponsors on a base livery, so long as they were clearly similar enough to be sure they were the same team. A different name on the rear wing, that kind of thing.

Edited by ArchieTech, 09 August 2020 - 19:13.

[Loosenut]

Frank Williams and Ron Dennis have the final say on who drives for who, with the exception that Ferrari get to decide who drives for Williams & McLaren.

[RekF1]

What if teams could only sign drivers for 16/20 race weekends? They would then have to run 2 more drivers for the other 4 races. I guess that way you can use someone from another team on the current grid, or reserve drivers. I think this would be really interesting. You could end up with a driver winning the WCC for his 2nd team, etc.

[renzmann]

I think some of the ideas proposed here lead the sport into desired directions. Not only this is contrary to what sports is about in the first place (results must be open, not nudged), it'll likely be counterproductive as well. Teams will adapt by doing things we don't want to see.

 

My solution is simple. Increase measures to ensure the purest form of competition at all times - between all current and future teams. Every should be a clean sheet, and no team should be ahead of the curve. If a great team wants to repeat a dominant season, it should have to start all over again - just like other teams.

[pdac]

That would be idea terrible for the lower teams. As most often when they do get into the points... it's only 1 driver that sneaks in there. E.g Last year Magnussen finished 6th for Haas in the season opener.. but Romain retired.

 

But if they still give points for the first 10 finishers, then every current team has a chance of winning points at every race, because only one car from each team can score - 10 scoring places divided into 10 teams equals 1 per team. The only reason a team would not score points is if one of their cars failed to finish (and that could be any team, really - but it would make the starts interesting)

[McLaren]

I think some of the ideas proposed here lead the sport into desired directions. Not only this is contrary to what sports is about in the first place (results must be open, not nudged), it'll likely be counterproductive as well. Teams will adapt by doing things we don't want to see.

My solution is simple. Increase measures to ensure the purest form of competition at all times - between all current and future teams. Every should be a clean sheet, and no team should be ahead of the curve. If a great team wants to repeat a dominant season, it should have to start all over again - just like other teams.

But you are not really being clear as to what should happen? From the sounds of it you might be suggesting every season is a clean sheet..and by that a new design for the cars? If so... that would skyrocket the costs and manufactures would leave the sport.

[richardprice]

Other sports have had salary caps for a long time now so it must work. I don't know how.

 

Until Rugby Union went pro and removed salary caps, they lost a lot of decent players each year to Rugby League precisely because those players want to earn what every they can command.

 

Salary caps do not level the playing field, they often have the effect of pushing talented sports people elsewhere.

 

For example, if there was a $10m cap on salary for drivers, do you think Hamilton would still be driving?  No, most probably he'd be elsewhere earning much more than that in the fashion industry etc.

[McLaren]

But if they still give points for the first 10 finishers, then every current team has a chance of winning points at every race, because only one car from each team can score - 10 scoring places divided into 10 teams equals 1 per team. The only reason a team would not score points is if one of their cars failed to finish (and that could be any team, really - but it would make the starts interesting)

Yeah.. but in my scenario I gave earlier the team wouldn't bag any points. Also, if only the second place driver for each team were to get points.. you could see some word situations were the leading driver is told to interfere with cars behind to try and help out the second driver. I would only imagine this would happen if a constructors position was up for grabs by getting those extra points etc..

[pdac]

Yeah.. but in my scenario I gave earlier the team wouldn't bag any points. Also, if only the second place driver for each team were to get points.. you could see some word situations were the leading driver is told to interfere with cars behind to try and help out the second driver. I would only imagine this would happen if a constructors position was up for grabs by getting those extra points etc..

 

Well, the current situation allows for one driver to be used simply to interfere with others, but we don't really see that very much at all. Anyway, that would be part of the race tactics, would it not? It's quite different from a second driver of a team trying to hold back the lead driver of another team. For the lead driver to, somehow, manage to take the role of maximising the position of the second driver is quite a bit different and probably a lot more difficult.

 

What you could have is the both drivers trying to squeeze the pack in order that they can swap places at the end.

[Lennat]

The best placed driver in any team, gets to move to the team above his own team in the WCC if he wants to. After this, the rest can make whatever deals they want with any left over seats.

 

I'm not saying it would work for real, just that it would be interesting.

[William Hunt]

lottery 

[pRy]

It's already been mentioned but I'll repeat it. Three car teams. Firstly it increases the size of the field which is good for all parties. Second it allows for more drivers to get an opportunity to drive in F1. And third it kills off the garage split issue which plagues teams who take a gamble on two good drivers. When you've three drivers in your team it becomes a lot more difficult to give or perceive preferential treatment.

 

Issues with this: Cost to the teams. They'd need to introduce some sort of wage cap to cover all three drivers and perhaps also have a system where by the third seat always has to be filled by a rookie. The car costs would go up too. And garage space would be an issue at races. In particular Monaco. 

[Nemo1965]

I don't know about the 'forced'-angle (no idea how), but to take a wild stab:

 

1. Drivers can drive for their own team half of the races. Only those races count for the Constructor's title.

2. The other half of the races, drivers have to drive races for each team at least once a year. All results count for the Driver's title.

3. There's always one of the regular drivers present in his own team. So only 1 driver per team gets switched every weekend.

 

So Hamilton drives 10 races for Mercedes in 2021. That leaves 9 races, one for each other team. If there's a 20th race, the teams are decided by lottery. Imagine Lance Stroll getting a spot at Mercedes... and beat Lewis or Bottas in qualifying or the race. This site would explode...

 

PS: I like the 3rd car idea as well, and for the costs: what if every team gets one race per year that they have to place a 3rd car and the costs are paid by Liberty and thus all the teams? 

Edited by Nemo1965, 10 August 2020 - 10:47.

[Lennat]

It's already been mentioned but I'll repeat it. Three car teams. Firstly it increases the size of the field which is good for all parties. Second it allows for more drivers to get an opportunity to drive in F1. And third it kills off the garage split issue which plagues teams who take a gamble on two good drivers. When you've three drivers in your team it becomes a lot more difficult to give or perceive preferential treatment.

 

Issues with this: Cost to the teams. They'd need to introduce some sort of wage cap to cover all three drivers and perhaps also have a system where by the third seat always has to be filled by a rookie. The car costs would go up too. And garage space would be an issue at races. In particular Monaco. 

 

Rookies taking up a third of the grid seems excessive, it's not like half the F2 field deserves to be in F1. How about "no more than two full seasons behind him when the seasons starts", or something like that, for the third driver?