Oh, now that I think on it, it is the usual Max’s pattern…

There is some logic to this position – the FIA does have a remit that covers more than championship governance and road safety. So, this lobby has always existed that seeks to make F1 relevant to the road car industry. On the other hand, you can’t get away from the fact that a number of teams – as has already been pointed out – race for no other reason than racing’s sake. So, there’s always been that contradiction.

I’m nervous about the introduction of KERS – will it actually work and be a success, or will it be one great big blind alley that the manufacturers have thrown millions at to no real avail? We shall see.

I agree with everyone else who has said that they would hate to see standard engines in the sport – F1 should be a place of technical innovation and differentiation. Mind you, if they absolutely HAVE to cut costs somewhere, I suppose I’d grudgingly – very, very grudgingly – accept a standard engine over a standard chassis… Let’s hope it doesn’t come to that!

One possible risk in this idea though is, Max/Bernie will get the teams to sign of this proposal. And next thing you know couple of cronies of Max and Bernie will be on grid (as small privateers) and any guesses who will pocket the monies received by these teams !? Yes that will be Bernie/Max.

I mean if someone has $100M to spend, guess what, they are going to spend $100M. All the teams change the aero packages substantially from the start of the season to the end and based on each individual circuit.That is a major cost and the teams will continue spending.

The problem is if people have the money to spend at the front of the grid how do you enable the teams at the back to compete? You can fix everything and those who have a faster car will romp away every race. Minardi eventually got out of F1 because they knew they were going to be a back marker forever, and Force India may well come to the same realisation.

How about some ‘out of the box’ ideas to shake things up.

1) Start an ‘equalisation fund’, for those teams who exceed a set annual budget start tapping off their TV revenues to those at the back of the grid. The further you go over the budget the more TV revenue goes to the teams at the back.

2) Fix aero packages for groupings of 3 or 4 races. That way if someone introduces a new concept they will enjoy an advantage for a number of races. This would slow the cars down somewhat too as you would not be able to optimise aero for each individual circuit apart from more or less front/rear wing.

3) Ban refuelling – no more expensive fuel rigs (or pit lane accidents).

Others????

KERS is fine but the last time I checked, the FIA was involved in governance of racing series and Road safety. It sounds like the FIA is trying to capitalize on the ‘green’ movement by placing themselves in the middle of this issues as a leader and trying to use F1 as their test bed and product to trump up their position as a global leader in carbon footprint reduction from road cars. Self-serving and arrogant but I have come to expect no less from Max.

The Main problem with that approach as someone has pointed out is ‘Unfair competition’. One of the many reasons why Michelin walked out of F1 was it was not party to have one Tyre Supplier to the sport, They always wanted to compete against a rival against whom they could evaluate their performance. Other reasons like fall out with Obstinate Max. Max changing rules on the fly ,Way Max seemed to be targetting Michelin and Max rejecting their bid for WRC are well documented and subject of separate article.

Coming back to Standardized KERS – Max Started this initiative that F1 team get to research and bring environment friendly solution to table, which has always been the foundation on which all F1 innovations have worked. If I am not wrong Smaller team like Williams have taken a fundamentally different approach to develop their KERS solution, than the Braking power charging Batteries adopted by the Japanese Teams and BMW. I am not aware of McLaren solution, but it maybe a different approach, something on lines they had used in 90′s (which was banned by Max as illegal). The point is if these teams have already invested so much (I know for Sure Ailing Williams have risked buying a company specialized in KERS research), Who is going to reimburse them for all the expenses they have incurred?

For all the cost effectiveness Talk that Max gives, his constant Flip-Flopping and on the fly changes effectively means , smaller teams will keep on folding. All the while Max will never stop harping “In the interest of sustaining F1 and the smaller teams”.

The direction Bernie/Max are taking the sport, I am sure the old men want the sport to fold within their life-time

I guess if one team needs needs 18 engines for a 17-race season on two races per engine, then with three races per engine it will need 12 (which fits with the ‘25 engines for a season’ above), so it cuts the engine purchase budget for customer teams by a third.

I don’t doubt it will save some money. In fact, if it’s so effective, we should be moving to 4 race engines the year after?

I’m just suggesting it sounds very much like the sort of proposal that a bunch of different manufacturers with different needs and requirements would come to after all their other suggestions were vetoed by someone else, but they realised they had to give something to Max or it was spec-engine time.

Future meetings to be held on reducing the cost of developing parts and extending the use of customer chassis

Which I think follows on from:

Option 3: A proposal from FOTA, backed by solid guarantees, for the supply of complete power trains to independent teams for less than €5 million per team per season to include 30,000 km of testing and all on-track assistance.”

I misread that as being Chassis, I think. I agree with you, it would be good to see Lola etc providing low cost chassis.