Does F1 still need backmarker teams?Formula 1 

  • Thread starter DK
  • 36 comments
  • 4,139 views

Do you think F1 still needs backmarker teams?

  • Yes

    Votes: 79 96.3%
  • No

    Votes: 3 3.7%

  • Total voters
    82

DK

No-one's having an A1 day
Premium
13,867
Ireland
Ireland
driftking18594
CiaranGTR94
As of this morning (GMT), Manor Racing's holding company went into administration after talks with a potential buyer broke down. As we all know, Manor finished 11th and last in the 2016 Constructors' Championship, and are thus ineligible for prize money. Its owners no longer want to pump in the cash necessary to keep the team afloat.

That being said, of the teams which entered F1 since 2010, there was only one case of a current top driver starting out their F1 career with them - that being Daniel Ricciardo with HRT in 2011, before he moved onto Toro Rosso the next year. The rest of the drivers who have driven for them can either be described as seeking refuge from an unfavourable driver market (Glock, Kovalainen and Trulli in 2010), taking a gamble on a new venture (Grosjean moving to Haas - you could throw Glock, Kovalainen and Trulli in there too), pay drivers and one case of a talent cut short before his prime (Bianchi).

After F1 teams became more professional and reliant on sponsorship rather than prize money and (let's be honest) gentlemen drivers in the early-to-mid-70s (feel free to correct me), most of the great drivers of the next four decades started out with backmarker teams. Schumacher and Barrichello started with Jordan, Massa, Raikkonen and Frentzen started with Sauber, Senna started with Toleman, Piquet started with Ensign, Hakkinen started with a dying Team Lotus, and both Webber and Alonso started with the most famous backmarker team of them all, Minardi...and these are just the foremost examples I can think of.

But in the 2000s, things started to change. The influx of manufacturer-backed teams like BMW, Honda and Toyota (as well as Red Bull) preferred to either go for established drivers (like Honda hiring Barrichello and Button) or bringing their own talent up through the ranks (like BMW giving Kubica and Vettel their debuts) before giving them a race seat. McLaren also copied that approach, as they plonked Lewis Hamilton into a race-winning car as soon as he won the GP2 title, as well as bringing in Kevin Magnussen and Stoffel Vandoorne in 2014 and 2016 respectively. Red Bull went as far as buying out that most famous backmarker team Minardi and using them as a B-team. Now there is no longer a need for a driver to hone his craft at the back of the grid, but instead impress enough in karting or F4 to get noticed by an F1 team.

Fast forward to 2017. Each of the big manufacturer-backed/aligned teams - Ferrari, McLaren, Mercedes, Red Bull and Renault - all have driver development programmes, to the extent where one of them has a B-team, Toro Rosso, which has produced some very promising talent for the decade to come. Williams have given a seat to a teenager whose father paid well over US$60m to get him to that point, and are probably going to get some compensation for losing Bottas to Mercedes, Force India seem to have heavy backing from Carlos Slim's telecoms empire and a decent Constructors' Championship bonus, Haas are backed by a billionaire and Sauber are keeping their heads above water thanks to a combination of snatching that 10th place bonus away from Manor and the Longbow group's investment. If Manor make it through the 2017 season, it'll be as the result of heavy dependence on a couple (or even three, if they need to rent out a test seat) of pay drivers who offer no promise in F1 anyway.
 
Voted yes.

I get the point you're making, that the backmarker teams are not much more than seats for pay drivers who we know won't amount to special talents. That said, I don't think at all that the solution is to eliminate the smaller teams.

If there was more parity in the way money gets spent in F1, and the sport wasn't just a massive case of big bank take little bank, those smaller teams would be able to attract better drivers (or be able to sign drivers based more on skill as opposed to funding).

If the smaller teams can go into any given race weekend with at least an outside shot of a decent result, with drivers who are there on merit, then it's us the fans who are the winners.

I don't see how the fans gain anything at all by the current spending paradigm being maintained while eliminating the smaller teams because they can't hack it.

Historically speaking, and compared to other disciplines, 22 cars is already a relatively small grid, and we want to get smaller?
 
It's the natural order of things that in a race, somebody has to come last. Even if everyone had an identical car and an identical budget, someone would still be the last man across the line.
Exactly, get rid of Manor, and Sauber and Renault become the backmarkers. They you get rid of them, so Toro Rosso and Haas are kicked out. In the end, you will end up with 1 car.

As long as they are consistently withing the 107% rule, they deserve to be on the grid.
 
Backmarker team is a relative term. As the one above me says, if you get rid of one team, it will then be another and another. Teams like Manor, Sauber etc are really preventing the actual bigger teams from coming last and preventing them from leaving as well because who wants to watch a team coming last? In years like 2003, you had smaller teams being able to fight for points and it made the sport more exciting because the field was closer despite the statistics showing that overtaking has increased recently.

The teams that came in 2010 beat many other entries and did this because of an apparent cost prevention idea that never came. That's the exact problem. The sport needs smaller teams and without it, you'd have even fewer cars than other series. I'd rather we had 22 cars on the grid than 20 no matter how exciting the racing is because more cars allows for more racing.

The real problem is the financial side of it. The unequal rewards structure only works for 10 teams for some unknown reason and that's what needs to change. Not the removal of backmarkers.
 
Yes. We have seen through history, many a good driver, start from a "low budget" team. It's always like a victory and epic tear jerker, when those teams finish up the pointy end that one time.
 
Since 2014 the only time I've stood up and cheered during an F1 race is when Jules Bianchi took Manor's first points at Monaco. There's nothing quite like the underdog overcoming the odds and having a great race, and it would be a shame to lose that.

That being said, of the teams which entered F1 since 2010, there was only one case of a current top driver starting out their F1 career with them - that being Daniel Ricciardo with HRT in 2011, before he moved onto Toro Rosso the next year. The rest of the drivers who have driven for them can either be described as seeking refuge from an unfavourable driver market (Glock, Kovalainen and Trulli in 2010), taking a gamble on a new venture (Grosjean moving to Haas - you could throw Glock, Kovalainen and Trulli in there too), pay drivers and one case of a talent cut short before his prime (Bianchi).
What about Manor's drivers from this season then? Two highly rated juniors placed there by Mercedes? It's not always a bunch of talentless hacks.
 
Exactly, get rid of Manor, and Sauber and Renault become the backmarkers. They you get rid of them, so Toro Rosso and Haas are kicked out. In the end, you will end up with 1 car.
GP2 tried to address this by being a spec series with a single supplier who provided everything, even repairs. I remember Durango got in trouble a few years ago for trying to fix something themselves. But even then, some teams will have more money than others and can hire better people to run the team. Formula 2 tried to take it a step further, with MSV essentially running one enormous team, hiring everyone and rotating mechanics between cars from race to race.
 
I'm voting yes, Formula 1 needs as many teams as they can get (to a reasonable amount). In my eyes, a backmarker isn't someone who comes last, they are people/teams that lag way behind the rest of the pack. You'll never get rid of those teams that are there just to make up numbers. And for a category like F1, it's a good thing they have those teams otherwise we'd only have 5 or so teams on the grid.

One thing I've always pondered on is a relegation system for F1. Whoever comes last in the Constructer's title gets relegated to GP2, and whoever wins GP2 gets promoted, sort of thing. Obviously there would need to be tweaks in order for it to work and be financially viable for the GP2 team that gets promoted but I always thought it'd be an interesting and fresh dynamic in F1. Maybe trial it out in GP3/GP2 first or another Junior Formula. Just a thought.
 
F1 needs the smaller teams to provide an entry point not just for drivers, but for background staff and sponsors.
Without perennial backmarkers propping up the grid, the grid will continually get smaller (after all why would anyone continue to fund more expensive midfield teams like Sauber if they were finishing last?)

Eventually you'll end up with an LMP1 scenario, with a few high quality factory teams, but without using GP2 to fill the grid it'll look like the USA GP in 2005.
 
Oh snap have they ever thought of making Formula 1 a multi-class race by having GP2 race at the same time? It'd be like LMP1 and LMP2. More cars on track is always good right?
 
Oh snap have they ever thought of making Formula 1 a multi-class race by having GP2 race at the same time? It'd be like LMP1 and LMP2. More cars on track is always good right?
With the top GP2 team lapping the back marker? Not a good look.
 
DK
That being said, of the teams which entered F1 since 2010, there was only one case of a current top driver starting out their F1 career with them - that being Daniel Ricciardo with HRT in 2011, before he moved onto Toro Rosso the next year. The rest of the drivers who have driven for them can either be described as seeking refuge from an unfavourable driver market (Glock, Kovalainen and Trulli in 2010), taking a gamble on a new venture (Grosjean moving to Haas - you could throw Glock, Kovalainen and Trulli in there too), pay drivers and one case of a talent cut short before his prime (Bianchi).

I would argue that Pascal Wehrlein's performances this season were better than what Bianchi did at the same team and Force India rate Ocon as even better than Wehrlein so talented drivers are being given their chances in these smaller teams and are doing an impressive job there. It's inevitable that a lot of pay drivers pop up at these teams because of FOM and Bernie's insistence on only supporting a 20 car grid.
 
Since 2014 the only time I've stood up and cheered during an F1 race is when Jules Bianchi took Manor's first points at Monaco. There's nothing quite like the underdog overcoming the odds and having a great race, and it would be a shame to lose that.


What about Manor's drivers from this season then? Two highly rated juniors placed there by Mercedes? It's not always a bunch of talentless hacks.

The same was for me Alboreto's 6th place at monaco with his 4 wheells bathtub in 1994.

Man i was jumping on my chair!
 
What about Manor's drivers from this season then? Two highly rated juniors placed there by Mercedes? It's not always a bunch of talentless hacks.
That's the point I was making - the biggest teams now have massive driver development programmes, to the point where backmarker (and even middling, like Williams and Force India) teams are being used as the final stage of those.

Don't get me wrong, I'd love to see F1 return to a point where 26-car grids are sustainable, and where the vast majority of those 26 cars have a chance of a points finish...but I just don't see it happening due to the vested interests at the front of the grid or in FOM's/Liberty Media's boardrooms.
 
Oh snap have they ever thought of making Formula 1 a multi-class race by having GP2 race at the same time? It'd be like LMP1 and LMP2. More cars on track is always good right?
Maybe if they still raced on the Nordschleife. But anything less than about 12 km laps equals cars being much too bunched on top of each other. That's fine in lower categories because there's more time to react. But in F1, .001 of a second can be the difference between making a gap and slamming into the back of someone. The absolute last thing F1 needs is someone pulling out from behind another at 300kmh only to find a GP2 car going 50kmh slower directly in front of them. Gilles Villeneuve is testament to that.
 
Oh snap have they ever thought of making Formula 1 a multi-class race by having GP2 race at the same time? It'd be like LMP1 and LMP2. More cars on track is always good right?

No because then you get far more Webber-Kovalianen wrecks due to a great disparity in performance between the two. Also more cars isn't always good, not sure why this thought is so popular, there should be a happy medium at best.
 
Oh snap have they ever thought of making Formula 1 a multi-class race by having GP2 race at the same time? It'd be like LMP1 and LMP2. More cars on track is always good right?
Sure. It would be like having NASCAR Cup Series drivers and cars on the same track as ARCA drivers and cars. And as we all know, there are never any crashes in ARCA. Oh, wait...
 
I say keep the back markers. The sport is already small as it is. Unless (this is financially not likely) the bigger teams go to three cars...we simply need cars on the track. Ideally I'd like to see all major teams run three cars with a dedicated PRO/AM category (i.e. two seasoned drivers - say with 2-3 years minimum in F1 and an AM driver who is just starting). No difference in cars, but a way to entice big teams to bring up junior drivers etc.

So however you skin the cat, I'd like to see 24+ cars on the grid.
 
Sometimes backmarker teams go bankrupt and sold to a new owner that has (sometimes) enough money/better management to get them to the middle of the pack and beyond that. I think we all remember the Jordan team, when they were left without an engine it went downhill quickly. It was sold to Midland, then to Spyker. Both only survived for a year and were then sold to Force India in 2007. Obviously a lot of money has been spent and the change of wind tunnel testing really payed off, 2016 was their best year yet finishing 4th overall.

Or maybe an even better example, the Tyrrell team. Still remembered by their famous cars, survived for almost half a century, were sold to BAR. They had a lot of retirements but still had one peak year in 2004, only to survive one more year. Honda bought the team which wasn't such a weird move since they were powered by Honda engines. It went bad fast, Honda pulled the plug after three years although development for the next season was in finishing stages. It became Brawn GP with Mercedes engine winning the championship and then sold to Mercedes. Don't have to say anything about them I guess :P

Stewart GP team existed for three years, never had a good year, sold to Jaguar Racing. Same story, sold to Red Bull Racing; multiple championships. Just shows you never know what will happen with a backmarker team, just give it time and allow it to exist.

It'll be interesting to see if Manor ever had the money to develop a 2017 car.. And because there is no time to develop a car, the team could go for sale cheap opening a window for someone to try it in 2018.
 
DK
Don't get me wrong, I'd love to see F1 return to a point where 26-car grids are sustainable, and where the vast majority of those 26 cars have a chance of a points finish...but I just don't see it happening due to the vested interests at the front of the grid or in FOM's/Liberty Media's boardrooms.

In which case the problem lies with the frontrunners rather than the backmarkers.

Stewart GP team existed for three years, never had a good year

I think that's a bit unfair. It might have been a fluke 2nd place but you can only race and pass what's in front of you and a podium in your debut season at Monaco is good going although their terrible reliability did hamper their 1997. Arguably 1998 was their only bad year. 1999 was a great year for Stewart with a pole position, regular points, the odd podium and even a win. They were a team on the up like Jordan ready to challenge Benetton's place as one of the "big four" teams ahead of even Sauber and Prost.

A breath of fresh air after the various Lola, Forti, Simtek, DAMS, Pacific and DOME projects tried and failed in the mid-to-late 90s. That Ford took them over and messed things up is a separate argument altogether.
 
I voted yes .
A smaller grid would be a boring race to watch . There is precious little overtaking in F1 these days , partly due to track design but mainly ,I think, because the latest cars just have too much grip thanks to the oversized tyres , but what little overtaking there is seems to happen in the lower half of the field .
 
There is precious little overtaking in F1 these days....mainly ,I think, because the latest cars just have too much grip thanks to the oversized tyres

Far more too much grip from downforce. If you took that away entirely you'd have very slow racing (relatively speaking) and a lot more overtaking. The cars would be able to slipstream without losing the cornering efficiency that they currently lose when their front wings are in the low pressure air behind another car.
 
I think I get your point .
I was thinking that a reduced footprint and less mechanical grip would highlight a drivers skill and bravery under braking and acceleration through lower speed corners , while maintaining the aero element would help to maintain speed and safety at high speed corners like parabolica or 130R .
 
I think I get your point .
I was thinking that a reduced footprint and less mechanical grip would highlight a drivers skill and bravery under braking and acceleration through lower speed corners , while maintaining the aero element would help to maintain speed and safety at high speed corners like parabolica or 130R .

Unfortunately it's pretty-much the other way around. The aero suffers very much from proximity to another car, the mechanical grip also does but to a far far smaller extent.
 
if you reduced aero but not mechanical grip , at corners like COTA turn 11 (other corners are available) where you have a high speed entry into a tight , low speed corner followed by a long high speed straight . The effect of the reduced drag would be negated by the overwhelming grip and exit speed and merely exaggerating the situation we have now where the most powerful power unit (Mercedes) will ultimately come out on top .

If that situation were reversed with high aero and lower grip it would be more difficult for the driver to use all that power thereby evening the field . Plus a narrower tyre would have less drag resulting in higher top speeds

As far as the turbulence issue is concerned I would imagine that many of the teams are actively engineering this situation.
 
if you reduced aero but not mechanical grip , at corners like COTA turn 11 (other corners are available) where you have a high speed entry into a tight , low speed corner followed by a long high speed straight . The effect of the reduced drag would be negated by the overwhelming grip and exit speed and merely exaggerating the situation we have now where the most powerful power unit (Mercedes) will ultimately come out on top .

In a formula such as F1 where body designs are broadly equal the best powerplant will always come out on top, doesn't matter what shape you make the body.

If that situation were reversed with high aero and lower grip it would be more difficult for the driver to use all that power thereby evening the field

High aero would give high rear grip at speed. At low speed there would be little difference to now - the spread of reaction ability and car control would look exactly like it does now. By keeping the aero you're only really affecting what happens with grip below 60mph.

Plus a narrower tyre would have less drag resulting in higher top speeds

The tyre profile is a tiny proportion of the overall frontal area, if you're creating downforce with much of that frontal area (which you are with an F1 car) then you're squarely increasing drag. I think you're fundamentally misunderstanding even the basics of aerodynamics.

As far as the turbulence issue is concerned I would imagine that many of the teams are actively engineering this situation.

You imagine that the teams are finding a way to use the energy of resting air to force a fast-moving ground-vehicle down onto a road and then also somehow negate the low pressure/wake behind the car as if the aero didn't actually do anything? Newton says bollocks ;)
 
Last edited:
I think you may be underestimating the talents of people like Adrian Newey .

As for the rest of your argument , thank you for so abely proving my point . By reducing grip below 100mph you would be making the driver work much harder in the braking and acceleration phases and thereby making overtaking more likely.
Which is what we all want to see .
 
Back