Customer Cars The Way to Go!!!!

[SGWilko]

I would also add to that a condition that all engines should be compatible to fit in any chassis as a rule (i.e standard design on mountings etc.), making a change a bit more seamless and much less hassle to a customer team.

Now that is far to sane an idea for the FIA to get their heads around.

[Daniel]

I personally don't see why F1 can't be a one chassis championship. If I were buying a Merc, BMW or Ferrari I think I'd be more interested in how their engines are doing in F1 (although even that has little to do with their road cars) rather than how good they are at building a carbon fibre monocoque which has precisely nothing to do with most of the cars these guys make. It would make the series a helluva lot cheaper and the costs for a new team to come in would be far lower.

[AndyRAC]

I personally don't see why F1 can't be a one chassis championship. If I were buying a Merc, BMW or Ferrari I think I'd be more interested in how their engines are doing in F1 (although even that has little to do with their road cars) rather than how good they are at building a carbon fibre monocoque which has precisely nothing to do with most of the cars these guys make. It would make the series a helluva lot cheaper and the costs for a new team to come in would be far lower.

Sorry, no chance!!

That's far too sensible a suggestion!! He he....

[Daniel]

Sorry, no chance!!

That's far too sensible a suggestion!! He he....

If it weren't for manufacturers being involved it would probably have a chance of happening.....

[jens]

F1 can't be a one chassis championship, because competition in car development is the main key of the whole Formula One World Championship. We have "one-chassis" championships all over the world, folks may watch them if they like.

[ioan]

F1 can't be a one chassis championship, because competition in car development is the main key of the whole Formula One World Championship. We have "one-chassis" championships all over the world, folks may watch them if they like.

Yep, GP2 and A1GP spring to mind. I'm sure there are plebty of other smaller championships using them.

[schmenke]

I personally don't see why F1 can't be a one chassis championship. If I were buying a Merc, BMW or Ferrari I think I'd be more interested in how their engines are doing in F1 (although even that has little to do with their road cars) rather than how good they are at building a carbon fibre monocoque which has precisely nothing to do with most of the cars these guys make. It would make the series a helluva lot cheaper and the costs for a new team to come in would be far lower.

That defeats the purpose of a "constructors' championship"

[Daniel]

Well the teams would still construct an engine. So you could still call them manufacturers, contructors, teams or whatever. But the level of competition would go through the roof overnight.

[gshevlin]

Here is the underlying problem...historically, as the amount of money in a branch of motorsport increases, the chance of one well-funded or well-supported team "getting it right" and walking away with most of the races also increases. (Think McLaren-Honda, 1988)
This leads to the governing body making the design regulations ever more restrictive. Over time, this results in most of the cars looking the same. Formula 1 designers have been saying for years how little (relative to road cars) design and conceptual freedom they have, and designers such as Gordon Murray and John Barnard have more or less walked away from the sport into other forms of automotive design - Adrian Newey has also talked about designing yachts instead of F1 cars in the past.
When the cars all look the same, and they operate within a narrow band of performance, it then becomes a small step for the governing body to either mandate identical bodywork templates (a la NASCAR) or go the whole way and specify a single chassis (GP2, IRL etc.). The rationale behind this move can be a mixture of competitive (as in the case of NASCAR and GP2) or economic (as in the case of Champ Car, where there was not enough money in the series to tempt multiple chassis suppliers in any case).
I see two options for the FIA:

1. Continue to restrict design options and innovation areas. In that case, it makes sense to allow customer cars, since the variation in performance across teams using original cars and customer cars will be restricted if the customer car teams can get the most from their cars ( Exhibit A being Toro Rosso)
2. open the technical regulations back up in a number of areas, to provide design freedom and incent the teams to develop different concepts. In that case, customer cars should not be allowed since that runs counter to the innovation philosophy

An optional extra to (1) would be to restrict customer car teams to using cars from the previous year. Remember that the Williams objections to customer cars largely stemmed from the fact that until September last year, ProDrive intended to run a team this year using this year's McLaren chassis. As Frank Williams pointed out at the time, that meant that realistically, Williams were going to be shuffled another 2 places down the grid.

[MJW]

So does this mean another chance for the Prodrive F1 entry, could be convenient timing if wrc program is cancelled.