"Field Equalisation" (and cost saving) idea
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I’ve just had an idea regarding closing the gap from top teams to back-markers (and possibly helping cost savings for smaller teams) that I thought I’d regurgitate into the forum for curiosities sake…..
How about teams get as many pre/in-season test days as their previous years championship positions add up to?
If you finish (as Merc likely will) 1st and 2nd, you get three ‘car’ test days (ie 1 car for three days or 2 cars one day and 1 car another day)…. but if you finish 10th and 15th you get 25 days total.
Sure it’s a slightly artificial tool to close the grid gap, and it’ll cost the small teams more to test, but maybe they could sell days to bigger teams for a mandated fee.
I might be crazy, it’s been a long day (and lets face it team agreement, commercial interests, the FIA and Bernie would all be issues), but there’s my thought.
S
A good thought mate but it wont work or save coin. If Red Bull had three days testing they would 1) walk away from F1 and 2) use the in factory simulator. If Marussia (for example) had 25 days testing they would not have the resources to go to all of these with staff flights, accommodation and costs of running the car that much. Also if they did get the data required its highly unlikely they could actually produce the parts they need to make that faster on the track as well. There is only so much cash!
There are also cost for a circuit to hold a test. When they tested Mon & Tues after the race (Spain I think) it needs the same amount of staff and marshals etc if there are one or two teams, or the full grid, so that is not really cost effective.
Something needs to be done but I don’t know the answer to be honest. A budget is too hard to police- Mercs get their power train that is worth (I don’t know) $30mill per year. They invoice the non-F1 department say $3mill so low cost to the F1 team, overall in Mercedes its the same cost but just a price transfer- its too easy! Or Pastor gets paid $4 dollars by Lotus, no cost, but his sponsor pays him $15mill. There are too many smart people in F1 for the budget to work I am afraid!
Any ideas out there??
As @Garns said, it’s doubtful Marussia could attend that many testing days, or even have the same rate of development from those days as a team like Red Bull or Mercedes would get from 3 days. If you’d be talking simulator/windtunnel time, I think the main teams (and thus, the F1 strategy group) would probably block the idea to any degree it would allow to close the gap.
The main thing that could be done about cost cutting I think would be
socialismredistribution of income. They really would need to enable smaller teams to gain more from the FOM funding (perhaps for a limited amount of time, or tied to how bad, but not too bad, you’re performing) or enable them to buy technology. Perhaps a tier-system could work, where tier 1 teams would be obligated to offer certain parts to tier 2 teams, but even more parts to tier 3 teams. Although that’d be intensely complex and would still need a lot of redesigning.What I’ve never really understood, though, is why not enable teams to sell innovations, instead of banning them? If you take the blown diffuser concept, allow Red Bull to use it for a limited amount of races, but hand over designs/intellectual property to the FIA, who can distribute it amongst other teams. Sure, you could argue this would lead to less innovation, but looking at how long it took other teams to come up with a Brawn-esque double deck diffuser or a Red Bull style blown diffuser, I’d say being able to gain a competitive advantage for a short time and end up with some money doesn’t seem too bad.
As Nick says.. basically F1 needs to get a bit more Premier League, a little less Tax Haven vs. PAYE.
With F1 being owned by CVC and run by Ecclestone, there’s NO WAY they would willingly give up more money to a peasant team such as Marussia, Sauber or Caterham. Hell… Last place currently doesn’t even get ANY prize money..
Frankly, F1 needs a little Desert Storm or Desert Fox. NASCAR can run itself just fine and has managed to evolve from ‘going round in circles’ to the US’ prime motorsport category. F1 has too many directors right now.
The reason I’ve been in favor of the FOTA split in 2009 was the possibility of the sport regaining control about everything; commercial rights, rules, prize money.. But that’s a pipe dream as long as the big teams get pampered and with the current addition of the Strategy Group, we’re even further away from a breakaway from FOM/FIA/’team bosses un-united’ running amok and in eachothers’ way.
If Ferrari didn’t skim 5% off the top of the F1 revenues, namely 2.5% from the prize fund and 2.5% from the FOM revenues, as a ‘special payment’, before prize monies are dished out – we’d have a more equal grid, even under the current structure. I would say pass that 2.5 or whole 5% into equalling up the prize money, from the back of the grid up. That would instantly lead to more jobs at Caterham, Marussia, Haas, Forza Rossa etc. and all of them battling with Sauber at every race.
PS. Don’t feel sorry for Ferrari, they are sitting on over a £1bn cash pile, so they could still plow money into the F1 team if they want to retain their $85m advantage over the other teams!
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