Comments on: Poll: Allow customer teams in F1?

By: Number 38

Number 38 — Wed, 28 Nov 2007 22:01:57 +0000

Clive wins AGAIN, the most common sense response.
There’s NOTHING wrong with customer cars and what would F1 look like without them? Also consider how similar F1 chassis are becoming, they’re all very close in design, does it really matter WHO or WHERE the chassis itself is manufactured? MadMax’s regs book can define WHO manufactures it but does it really matter?

By: Clive

Clive — Wed, 28 Nov 2007 16:12:57 +0000

199 votes in, might as well close it at 200. Clearly the ayes have it – let’s allow customer cars!

By: Sri

Sri — Wed, 28 Nov 2007 09:09:39 +0000

In full agreement with milos(ROTF)! Good one mate. Toyota guys must really be envying Williams now.

I voted no, as they are supposed to be earning the dough, by the sweat of their brow. I mean, what you are telling me, is that if i had enough money, even i could buy a car and line it on the grid( As much as i love the thought, it i feel is a sick joke). No kidding, it is a dream of mine, to be somwhow working in the F1 industry, like 99.99% of us guys who visit this page do, some already work may be. However, i think it is just a sham, a ploy for Bernie to make a little more dough. The old man is epitome of greed and he worries as if he’s gonna take it away with him(sic).

By: milos

milos — Wed, 28 Nov 2007 00:52:09 +0000

I think the Barcelona test has shown one of the dark sides of the A – B team link. Aguri has no money to run all the miles they are allowed to. Aguri uses same cars during the test as Honda does, only painted in different colors. Honda places their drivers in Aguri cars and gets around the test limit agreements…

And I can’t agree that no one would want William’s chassis… Toyota would not mind

By: Clive

Clive — Tue, 27 Nov 2007 23:01:27 +0000

I think this fear of the customer car teams being the pawns of their suppliers is a bit exaggerated. Did Red Bull tell STR to stay behind their cars in the races? Okay, they rarely had the chance but it did happen on occasion. And did Honda suggest to SA that this matter of collecting more points than the factory team must stop? No, the worst they could do was refuse to pass on a new wing to the customer.

‘B’ teams are named so because they invariably get ‘B’ quality supplies from the constructor team – it’s not a matter of the ‘A’ team having to dictate race strategy to its customers but a product of second class equipment being run by the smaller team. On those rare occasions when the factory team gets beaten by a customer, generally they grin and bear it, knowing that the balance will swing again once they get their hands on the new widget coming out soon.

The fear does need to be addressed, however, and it should be easy enough for the FIA to issue a new rule that bans team-to-team instructions. Just like team orders (except those should be legalised, of course!).

By: John

John — Tue, 27 Nov 2007 20:53:44 +0000

One thing I’ve never seen mentioned is the limit on the number of teams allowed to compete in F1. I kind of feel that customer cars are incompatible with the current 24-car grid limit. If you want to have team franchises, which is what you have right now, each of those teams should be a constructor. If you want to have customer cars, then open up the grid for free qualifying. Let _me_ be able to spend some cash and buy a chassis and an engine and give it a shot (with a driver who has a superlicense of course). That’s how a ton of the current franchise owners got their start.

I’d be fine with that as long as they found some way to limit team integration so that it really was no more than 2 cars per team. It makes me sick to death when I think of the grid becoming basically 6 teams of 4 cars each. How is that exciting? Allow customer cars but find some legal way to limit information flow, etc, and it could be exciting.

By: Keith Collantine

Keith Collantine — Tue, 27 Nov 2007 19:53:42 +0000

Looks like we’re split down the middle on this: so far 61 say ‘no’ and 59 say ‘yes’.

By: Keith Collantine

Keith Collantine — Tue, 27 Nov 2007 18:50:01 +0000

I don’t think that’s the intention and I’m not sure it would be very fair if it was.

As we saw this year McLaren are perfectly capable of building an excellent racing car and then throwing away the chance of victory through poor strategy. They would hardly deserve to gain points because a bunch of guys that bought their cars off them ran a better race team.

By: chunter

chunter — Tue, 27 Nov 2007 18:27:00 +0000

If Prodrive finish in points, do the constructor points go to McLaren? It’s not a bad idea in theory except that it means that there will be an uneven amount of chassis by each manufacturer on the grid each day.

By: alan

alan — Tue, 27 Nov 2007 16:02:14 +0000

perhaps the reason why williams has declined to sanction the use of customer cars is basically no one wants their’s – they do however seem to have a knack of bringing in new drivers and when they get reasonable – (despite great protests) are sold on to bigger teams – of course rosberg is not leaving them – yet!!