It’s the same story we see play out in motorsports again and again. The FIA makes regulations based around ‘road relevancy’ to try and pander to OEMs. Because the OEMs have heaps of cash to burn, the development costs skyrocket. But because the OEMs are only in motorsport for marketing their road cars, they’ll pull the plug the instant the bean counters decide the return on investment isn’t high enough. End result is the costs are too high to be sustainable.
This could be solved by telling the OEMs to jog on and instead making regulations that are geared towards smaller garagista outfits. But FOM won’t do it, because OEMs bring in far more money for the top brass.
F1 would be better off if the only engine suppliers were Cosworth, Judd, Ilmor, Gibson, Mechachrome, and AER. 3 litre, 4 stroke, natural aspiration, no hybrid system, mechanical valve springs, no exotic alloys in the engine construction, and a 100kg fuel limit to start the race on. No limits on cylinder count or layout, wjd engines only need to last a single session. Costs would dramatically decrease, noise and excitement would increase, and there’d be far more grid variety in engine design. But nooo, the FIA and FOM won’t ever do anything approaching that because then Mercedes and Renault would leave and take all their money and marketing with them.
