2021 Regulations Released

[Nitrodaze]

One very interesting aspect of the new regulation is the introduction of opensource to facilitate free technology sharing amongst the teams. The concept allows any team to innovatively develop a new component or part for their car but can share the basic design of the component with the rest of the grid. Allowing other teams to develop and improve on the design and share it with everyone else as well.

Clearly this takes a leaf from the open source software paradym that has benefited us all with operating systems like Linux etc. The implementation of opensource in the regulation is not voluntary but mandatory. Which forces innovation to be shared. Unfortunately this may inhibit innovation as few teams would be inclined to give away their competitive advantage invented at their own cost and using their own resources. And not being able to use that innovation to gain significant competitve advantage and the rewards that comes with finishing ahead of the competition from their ingenuity.

Where there are no or little inherent performance enhancement involved, l can see this area being lively with ideas, concepts and standardization of components in the future. Or at least the introduction of standards for various common components or parts evolving organically from sharing and mutual cooperation amongst the teams.

But, in reality of the competitive jungle of racing where every tiny bit here and there on the car translates to competitive advantage, there is a strong culture of selfishness that drives success in the sport which might take some time to give way for this opensource concept to evolve.

In this selfish competitve culture it is unclear if a voluntary opensource scheme would be more effective than forced sharing as imposed by the regulation. This is the main assult on the technology competition between the constructors that has made F1 unique among all other racing formula. And my main reason for having the opinion that the new regulation introduces a new formula which essentially replaces F1 as we know it.

One could argue that F1 has died a sudden death and a lookalike has been slipped in its place to foster continuity. Another perspective would be to say that the technology competition aspect of f1 has brought about spells of one team dominating for a period of time. Thus, we end up with a two tier grid of sharp end and midfield teams. You could also argue that it is the root cause driving up spending in F1. But is that really the case?