Budget cap rows would be “worst case scenario” – Vasseur

F1 Fanatic Round-up

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In the round-up: Sauber team principal Frederic Vasseur warns that a budget cap could be negative for Formula One if people suspect teams are over-spending.

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Sven has another take on the problem with F1’s grid penalties:

The grid penalties are only a symptom of the underlying problem, which is the lack of respect for individual races.

The ever growing dependencies between race weekends within the championship, the ever growing importance of the championship over the races, that all just takes away from the fun, the suspense and the enjoyment of watching a race. It takes away meaning from the individual result, which is even more painful when considering surprise results. They just don’t resonate as much anymore as they used to.

And apart from that, engines and gearboxes having to last several races also means they are coming to the end of their lifespan only every six to seven weekends, resulting in utterly boring reliability and adding to the predictability of races.
Sven (@Crammond)

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Keith Collantine
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25 comments on “Budget cap rows would be “worst case scenario” – Vasseur”

  1. COTD, interesting POV with some merit, of course as an old codger I’ll slip on the rose tinted specs and mention that in the old days of less regulation the leading drivers couldn’t always relax because very often a local hero would get a ride and set out to show he could be just as quick as the internationals and maybe deny them crucial points.

    1. COTD has an interesting point,
      and I agree except for the last paragraph.

      engines and gearboxes having to last several races also means they are coming to the end of their lifespan only every six to seven weekends, resulting in utterly boring reliability

      I sincerely hope that fans don’t rate races higher due to unreliability; errors and accidents yes, but not cars breaking down by themselves!

      1. I think he means it detracts from the unpredictable part of racing. As reliability is reaching endurance levels and the engines aren’t being pushed to their Max at every event. Reliability has always played it’s part,if u remove it, the race becomes more predictable and boring and boring races get low ratings by the fans.

    2. Unpredictability generally came from two sources:

      1. DNF’s because cars used to get stuck in gravel traps instead of being able to drive way off the track at nearly every venue.
      2. DNF’s due to mechanical failure.

      The thing about less regulation is that it allowed more innovation, and occasionally some of the lower teams came up with something that got them a few wins until th big boys copied it, whether it be an engine/gearbox tweak of a wing that was wildly different or (gosh) ground effects.

      In addition, engines were being wrung out to the max and we had far more failures, even among the front runners because they’d take the risk of a failure to try to win.

      These days with everything so heavily regulated in terms aero, and the need to conserve engines and gearboxes there’s virtually no chance of unpredictability.

  2. the ever growing importance of the championship over the races that all just takes away from the fun, the suspense and the enjoyment of watching a race.

    Is that not how it’s always been through, Certainly in the 29 years i’ve been following F1 the championship has always been & come across as been far more important than individual races.

    And for me that been the case has always added to the fun & my enjoyment of each race because each one is telling a part of a story like chapters in a book. Each one builds towards the final act, Each one is important & some play a bigger role than others but there all just a part of a larger picture (The championship).

    1. You are right that the importance and the focus have always been on the championship. And I guess that fans and teams gave much more attention to individual races when there were 10 instead of 21. A bad result would have much bigger impact on your chance for the championship… And from a fan perspective, if you missed a race, you would miss 10% of the year in one go and probably a race which could affect the outcome of the championship as every one race could affect the championship at that time.

      I guess that the increased number of races has diminished their value. It seems that fans are also more inclined to miss one (or several) race per year.

      1. I guess that the increased number of races has diminished their value. It seems that fans are also more inclined to miss one (or several) race per year.

        I have to agree with this. There are far too many races on the calendar, so each one isn’t as special anymore. There is another angle to this: speaking as a fan who got hooked on the sport in the early 90’s when my age was in single digits, I now have a family and responsibilities that mean I’m just not able to watch all the races. My wife and I have a deal where I watch “only the races I consider to be essential”. This season that means I’ll be watching 13 of the 21…and even a couple of those are expendable if I’m honest.

        1. @geemac I am of exactly the same point of view – also partly because half the races aren’t live anymore, so i don’t feel compelled to watch them at any particular time, just as long as I don’t find out the result. I’ve thought for a long time that 16 races was the absolute maximum, the optimum balance between length of season, gaps between the races, and keeping each one important in its own right.

          It’s been suggested before that there should be rotation on the calendar for some races. There are a few that should be held every year (contentious but I’ll suggest Australia, Spain, Monaco, Canada, France, Germany, Silverstone, Spa, Monza, Suzuka, USA, Interlagos) and the remainder made up of the multiple options around the globe up to 16 for the season. These remainder races should change each year – so you could have Bahrain, China, Hungary, Singapore one year, and then Imola, Turkey, Austria, Abu Dhabi the next. That way you get a good spread of races round the globe, a compact calendar, and the meaningful races are kept meaningful.

        2. @geemac ”There are far too many races on the calendar” – I don’t find the current number of races to be too much.

          1. We’ll have to agree to disagree on that one. But from what is said by team members every time the calendar is mentioned, I think we are pretty much at saturation point.

  3. @tom-l
    The answer to your quiz question is Italy 2005.
    He’s 37 now, so you’re probably right. ;-)

    1. You’ve got it! But unless I’m very much mistaken (see what I did there?) it seems that you don’t have an account and can’t post the next question, so I’ll leave it open for someone else…

  4. That Jimmy Johnson tweet is deliciously ambiguous, given the recent reaction by US drivers to the implication by some they are not good enough for F1.

  5. ”My grandmother is faster than Luca with a Ferrari.” – I’m sorry I couldn’t resist, LOL. BTW, his birthday is actually tomorrow.

  6. I forgot how good that Sauber actually looked last year. Didn’t get to see enough of it on the telly, sadly.

    1. Before all the silly appendages, too…! I couldn’t agree more. Very smart. Shame they didn’t have a standard nose.

  7. I’m curious about this:
    Do Kubica’s sponsors still need to dish out any sum of money to Williams while Robert is the 3rd driver and not racing?

    1. @damon I don’t think so. he is actually a paid employee of williams now, according to mark hughes.

      1. He probably has a few extra names on his helmet/overalls funding his ‘pay’.

    2. @damon He probably needs his sponsors to pay still yes. If he actually drives a car at least. Outings during Friday practice tend to be paid for by sponsors.

  8. I don’t think F1 need budget cap. How could the regulatory authority check budget cap? How could the regulatory authority identify prices precisely (for example suspension, aero elements, pare parts)?
    If F1 decision makers want to decrease differences between teams they should change money allocation system (from revenue side) and decrease costs (from expenditure side).

    1. @patent, Chaging the money allocation accomplishes nothing. At best the smaller teams would receive 30 million extra and the team most pumped by bonus payments like Ferrari 70 million less.

      So Sauber would end up with something like 130 million and Ferrari still 400 million. Assuming Ferrari doesn’t fix the drop with extra sponsor money and Sauber doesn’t slack off attracting sponsors thinking 100 million was enough anyway.

      It’s been difficult check the technical regulations. There have been plenty of cases where technical “innovations” were disputed. Or even that teams flat out cheated. Does that mean we should just drop the technical regulations, because it’s hard to police? Of course not, you simply improve the regulations and or the checks.

      1. It’s been difficult check the technical regulations. There have been plenty of cases where technical “innovations” were disputed. Or even that teams flat out cheated. Does that mean we should just drop the technical regulations, because it’s hard to police? Of course not, you simply improve the regulations and or the checks.

        Comparing policing technical regulations with policing budget caps shows a naivety on your part about the problems actually involved in policing a budget cap. Its not a hard problem it is basically an impossible problem.

  9. Agree with Vasseur mostly. Especially on the unwanted focus a strict budget cap would bring to F1. Imagine the scenario of budget policing, forensic accounting and a penalty system that could potentially nullify on track results or put teams out of future championships overshadowing the actual racing. There must be better ways of bringing costs down than making F1 a forensic accounting hide and seek paper nightmare. The emphasis should be on making racing better on the track for all teams.

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