Future of F1.

[Rollo]

Now while not Invincible the top teams are clearly in a decent position to stay in F1, but looking down the grid some teams are less than likely to be around for long. After all in F1 history how many teams last 20 years?
Red Bull, Ferrari, Mclaren I would all expect to stay in F1 for the next few years and longer. Even if Red Bull sells up its now a well run team and I believe would carry on.
Now the teams behind that could last anything from 1 or 2 seasons up to 5-10 years probably.

In F1 history how many teams last 20 years? - I could be wrong, but I think that I've only found 7 teams who have ever had any run of more than 20 years of continued existence in F1: Lotus, McLaren, Tyrell, Ferrari, Brabham, Williams and curiously Minardi.
Not even teams like March Engineering or Benetton can claim that.

I expect that because Ferrari and McLaren are the only two F1 teams which sell road cars (go on the factory tour, they are adamant that Ferrari is an F1 team and not a car company) they have the best chance of being around in 20 years.

I think that once Red Bull's results start to head downwards and Mateschitz loses interest it would be sold off. I actually think that Williams will be around in 2023 because once Sir Frank dies, Jonathan and even more so Claire will take over. I've seen Claire being interviewed and she seems prepared to take even less nonsense than her father.

I honestly always expect to see someone like General Dynamics or Boeing enter F1 to give their engineers a challenge but it hasn't happened yet.

[dj_bytedisaster]

I think something has to be done about how the money is distributed. It is a travesty that Marussia doesn't have a concorde agreement yet only because Bernie doesn't want more than 10 teams. They were hardly world beaters, but both Caterham and Marussia resisted the urge to go the pay-driver only route by keeping Kovalainen and Glock. Now that both teams have been drained of resources, getting nothing back for their effort, they have to revert to pay drivers and proven podium candidates have lost their rides in favour of mediocre guys with fat wallets.

I can understand that Williams isn't too hot on customer cars, but there is an easy solution. First of all, if you buy a customer car, it must be one from the year before - adapted to any rule changes. And it must be from a team that was at best 4th in the standings. The big three get an extra wad of cash from Bernie, but by allowing a newcomer team to buy last years Sauber or Lotus would give those teams a way to generate income and the newbie team a reasonably competetive car. Certainly better than anything that HRT came up with on their own.

[Garry Walker]

1. Equal distribution of revenue amongst all teams. Even though I'm Tifosi and always will be I don't agree with Ferrari getting more money. I also don't agree with payments being awarded based on position in the WCC. It's not fair on the small teams and even though they aren't fighting for the championship they contribute to the show and should be compensated as such. Nobody wants to see a grid made up of just Ferrari, McLaren and Red Bull. Teams get prize money for winning races and championships so success is still rewarded but the small teams get a stable revenue base that they can build upon.

How typical of the attitude so often met these days in every aspect of life, trying to hurt those who actually are good at what they do.
Failure should not be rewarded, winning should be. You want the money, well, be smart about things and be better than others, then you will get your share. It would be idiotic and unfair to give a joke of a team like HRT the same money as to teams who actually are serious about winning. The less jokes like HRT we have on grid, the better. I am very happy we won't have them on grid this year, the only thing good thing they ever did was having that idiot bieber crash into their car at Malaysia last year, the rest of the time they were just slowing down the leaders when getting lapped.

3. Free up the technical constraints on engines. Let the engine designers go nuts and keep them in check by limiting the capacity of fuel tanks. If the cars get too fast reduce the amount of fuel they can use. The engineers will be constantly balancing power and economy. The car manufacturers should find this enticing as fuel economy and alternate power sources a big issues for the future. I think this would create a big link between F1 and road cars that the manufacturers would be keen to exploit.

Yeah, that sure will be cost-cutting and will help the little teams to keep afloat.

[Knock-on]

Oh bugger, I have to agree 100% with Gazza. How sickening is that!!!

I hope whoever suggested an equal share of the pot was trying to be funny because if not, I despair.

[Garry Walker]

Oh bugger, I have to agree 100% with Gazza. How sickening is that!!!

You know you love it

I hope whoever suggested an equal share of the pot was trying to be funny because if not, I despair.

They were not joking, some people actually think that. How sickening is that?

[steveaki13]

I also dont think Prize money should be equal. I would like to see F1 reduce initial costs and introduce a way to allow new manufacturers or just new teams to enter F1.

However the prize money is exactly that prize money. Meaning if you win you collect the biggest prize.

Surely I am not too deluded to think F1 needs new teams to come in as others leave. Because leave they will, at times.

Lets hope F1 can find a way to help keep teams in F1 and bring in fresh blood.

[gloomyDAY]

F1 is a sport between a rock and a hard place. You have to come up with a minimum of $100M/annum to compete at the top, and even then being competitive is not guaranteed (Toyota). Nobody has that kind of cash to come into the sport at the present moment!

Why has the FIA been so slow to conform to a financial crisis that happened less than 5 years ago, and the eventual fallout to the teams? Look at what happened to Caterham. They were a team that had a chance to actually cut into the midfield, but they've been ostracized by the FOM and their funds have dried up, so now we get mediocre pay drivers just so the team stays alive.

I think that the suits are taking a cue out of American politics and just sticking their heads into the sand. The price for the new engines are going to cost 20% more in 2014, and that means that the smaller teams (bottom 6 teams) are going to take an even harder hit to their ability to manufacture and compete in F1. Do something, Jean! Find a way to make the teams spend less money before the sport prices itself into the ground.

[dj_bytedisaster]

I am very happy we won't have them on grid this year, the only thing good thing they ever did was having that idiot bieber crash into their car at Malaysia last year, the rest of the time they were just slowing down the leaders when getting lapped.

Why don't you just do all of us a favour and ****ing kill yourself. This is a thread where people discuss the future of F1 and thankfully for once Vettel or Red Bull weren't mentioned in it in any way. Yet you numbnut creep in and derail the thing again to sprout your hatred and get another nasty dig in. I beg thee. Please direct your pathological hatred at thyself and ****ing off yourself. We'll all be so much better off with that! Just go away idiot!

[Ranger]

Personally I'd like to see three things happen:

1. Equal distribution of revenue amongst all teams. Even though I'm Tifosi and always will be I don't agree with Ferrari getting more money. I also don't agree with payments being awarded based on position in the WCC. It's not fair on the small teams and even though they aren't fighting for the championship they contribute to the show and should be compensated as such. Nobody wants to see a grid made up of just Ferrari, McLaren and Red Bull. Teams get prize money for winning races and championships so success is still rewarded but the small teams get a stable revenue base that they can build upon.

The counter-argument is that no one wants to see more hapless teams like Mastercard-Lola turn up on the world stage and have no chance of even qualifying. Which is what would happen if you have an equal distribution of revenue.

I would be in favour of all teams being remunerated a (comparitively small) base amount of money, but the meritocracy of prize money is absolutely justified and should stay.

[zako85]

I can understand that Williams isn't too hot on customer cars, but there is an easy solution. First of all, if you buy a customer car, it must be one from the year before - adapted to any rule changes. And it must be from a team that was at best 4th in the standings. The big three get an extra wad of cash from Bernie, but by allowing a newcomer team to buy last years Sauber or Lotus would give those teams a way to generate income and the newbie team a reasonably competetive car. Certainly better than anything that HRT came up with on their own.

Normally, I am very wary of the idea of of customer cars in the light of Ferrari constantly demanding that they be allowed to put a third car on the grid. A customer car would effectively side skirt the issue of third car, allow Ferrari and others have a third (and fourth) car and screw up the mid-field teams.

Now yours is an interesting idea. This would actually help to prop up the mid-field teams. After all, I assume that the mid-field teams would get paid a fair enough price for their car designs. Fans and team managers would also be able to draw some interesting conclusions from watching the performance of back-marker team pilots in the older cars, and then comparing that to lap times of the original car from a year ago.

The distribution of money does have to be addressed, although I am against the idea of lavishly rewarding mediocre teams. Under one scheme, we could end up with backmarker teams that automatically get paid well enough to afford a customer chassis regardless of how they perform, and ride along forever. Regardless of how it may have hurt to see the original Lotus/Pacific or Ligier/Prost disappear, I think we need to agree that there needs to be a mechanism for expulsion of a mediocre team from sport in order to clear the space for the others. Being broke has worked well enough in the past.