No 13th team… apparently
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Ok, so I can’t read Italian but I got this via BBC F1’s gossip column, so I trust that they’ve verified it.
Anyway, according to Autosprint, there’s no longer going to be a 13th team on the grid next year as neither Epsilon Euskadi nor Villeneuve Racing have enough cash. I can’t say I’m surprised!
http://www.auto.it/autosprint/formula_1/2010/09/06-6007/Niente+13esimo+team+nel+2011l
the article states that probably no-one of the new teams gave enough financial guarantees, so there won’t be any 13th team. however, i think that we have to wait for an official FIA statement on this topic.
Yeah, I’m not taking anything as true until the FIA comes out and says it. I agree with Hairs about the FIA learning their lessons from last year, though I’m still wary of how long it took them to reach this point – they really should take applications 2 years in advance, anyone who’s committed enough to apply that far in advance should have enough resources to back them up!
This is why we need customer teams.
A team comes in and can buy a chassis, engine, gearbox and drivetrain from the other teams. The only stipulations would be that you can only have one thing from each team (excluding the engine, but that would be Cosworth anyway) and for each new season you’d have to design one of these on your own (except the engine, of course). Then, new teams would just have to prove they have the money to buy the stuff and go racing and by the new season have demonstrated they have facilities for designing their own stuff. If the team can’t show this than a reserve team gets the spot instead.
We all know the need for new teams but if we’re being realistic we don’t even need 10 for F1 to progress – it’s just for competition we need more than 16 cars. Which is worse – easing a customer team into the sport or dumping a new slowpoke in and leaving them to their mercy? Before anyone says anything about F1 being the best of the best, I’ll remind them there’s such a massive jump between the formulae that most new teams basically play a game of bluff, hoping they can survive and do okay enough to get through to next year and start building properly.
Autosprint isn’t the most reliable source. Apparently an announcement is due on Friday. I’m willing to bet that the FIA have two or more choices (ie Epsilon Euskadi and Villeneuve, or Epsilon and no-one) and cannot decide between them, and so they’re going to wait for the WMSC hearing this week and put it to a vote as a second order of business because the opportunity is there.
This is why we need customer teams.
No, we don’t. Customer teams was a bad idea in the first place. All it will do is create a situation whereby one team has power over the newcomers. Customer teams would be so dependent upon the established ones that the established teams will simply abuse that relationship. You know Ferrari will use them in everything they do and won’t care less if the team dries up. Besides, the teams will protest against a new team getting instant success. Even if the nine established teams agree to allowing a customer deal, it will never happen because the three new teams will block it. Formula 1 needs ten teams to meet the minimum majority.
Customer teams would be so dependent upon the established ones that the established teams will simply abuse that relationship.
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The only stipulations would be that you can only have one thing from each team…and for each new season you’d have to design one of these on your own (except the engine, of course)
Oh, now I see what you mean. Like McLaren bled Force India to death after signing a technical partnership last year. Except I can’t remember that happening.
Icthyes, when you say “only one thing from each team” I’m assuming you mean a rear wing from one team, a front wing from another, engine cover from one more, and so on? Correct me if I’m wrong! The problem with that is that the parts simply wouldn’t work together – just like you couldn’t take a “best of” selection of parts from this years cars and create an “uber car”.
The best way I can describe it is to use what Martin Brundle (I think!) said last year – you couldn’t just stick the nose and front wing of the RB5 onto the BGP001 and expect it to go faster, because the RB5 was all about channeling air over the car, whereas the Brawn was all about channeling air under the car to feed the diffuser. Obviously that’s a massive oversimplification, but you get what I mean!
I do think that you can’t ignore the potential of customer cars – I was thinking about why more recent teams set up by ex-drivers (Stewart, Prost, etc.) have tended to fail, compared to the relative success of the entries by drivers in the early years of Formula 1. Of course, the answer is customer cars – for example, Maserati and Cooper supplied quite a few entries between them in the 1960 F1 season.
Now I’m not saying that new entries just buying chassis off current constructors is the solution, but maybe something along those lines. What I was thinking is some sort of cash pool from new teams to fund the building of a car by one manufacturer – Lola or Durango for example. All the new teams can start off with the same basic chassis and over the course of the season buy aero kits (a la IndyCar’s new regulations) to keep the cars competitive. Then a rolling introduction over maybe 2 years of their own contributions until they’re fully fledged teams in their own right. Sound plausible?
No, I said chassis, gearbox, engine, drivetrain – what I assume to be the fundamentals of the cars, I could be wrong in including one or missing out another. So a team would have an RB6 (next year, though) with a Cosworth engine and Renault’s gearbox, etc.
It’ll never happen, but if the FIA hadn’t changed their minds over the 2008 rules then there wouldn’t be a problem to overcome (and no, this isn’t an invitation to open the Prodrive saga again!).
My mistake, that’s what I get for not reading posts properly! We can always hope that something’ll change, and, though I hope none of the new teams do pull out, if one were to maybe it would persuade the FIA to implement a more sustainable method of new team entry!
I was looking forward to a new team but if they were just going to do a USF1 then I’m glad no one was picked.
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