- 33,155
- Hammerhead Garage
While browsing the usual run of news sites, I noticed that Luca di Montezemolo is doing what he does best by being a part of the problem and pretending he's a part of the solution. This little gem stuck firm in my mind:
So rather than just complain about Luca being Luca, I started thinking: what could possibly be done to save the sport. And I think I have the solution: going back in time. Figuratively.
I'll be up-front about this - my proposal involves customer cars. But rather than having one team sell their chassis to another, I think I have found a way to make the situation fair. In my vision, manufacturers are the only ones to build and develop a chassis (and engines). They sell these as a product to the teams at a fixed price, and the teams compete on their behalf. There would also be a limit on the maximum number of chassis a manufacturer could supply. All cars using a particular chassis would be eligible to score points in a new championship title, the World Manufacturers’ Championship (and to avoid confusion, the constructors’ championship would be renamed as the World Teams’ Championship).
By fixing the price of all chassis, the FIA can directly control costs, because it would be in the interests of the manufacturers to make a profit. There would also be a rule setting the minimum number of teams a manufacturer must supply, preventing one or two manufacturers from supplying everyone and thus dominating the grid to make bigger profits. Every team that joins a manufacturer would get exactly the same chassis and engine as the others that joined. All of it would be regulated by the FIA to ensure parity. The price for a package would be fixed, so Ferrari teams would pay exactly the same amount as Mercedes teams, Renault teams, and Honda teams. Manufacturers would only get an income from selling the chassis, and with the FIA controlling the price of the chassis, they would only have a limited budget for developing the car. There would have to be some kind of external control to limit what money the manufacturers could spend on development, but I think it would work.
The whole thing would be expensive, coming in at around $50 million for a full package. But if there are four manufacturers, and twenty-four grid spaces, that means each manufacturer could have three teams, which gives the manufacturers a budget of $150 million per season, or about what midfield teams are spending. Additional income could come from a team paying more to be the de facto works team, and getting upgrades a race or two in advance. Assuming there are four manufacturers, overall expenditure would come in at around $600 million per season, rather than the $600 million that the top three (or possibly four) teams are spending.
Now, if that was coming from anyone else, it would probably be a valid point to raise. But given that Ferrari has one of the biggest - if not the biggest - budgets on the grid, his words struck me as hollow. Teams are being forced to take paying drivers so that they can make up their budget. And their budgets are so high because the front-running teams spend so much, which drives costs up. You cannot spend hundreds of millions of dollars each year, and then complain that the sport is in an unhealthy state because teams are forced to take pay drivers.
So rather than just complain about Luca being Luca, I started thinking: what could possibly be done to save the sport. And I think I have the solution: going back in time. Figuratively.
I'll be up-front about this - my proposal involves customer cars. But rather than having one team sell their chassis to another, I think I have found a way to make the situation fair. In my vision, manufacturers are the only ones to build and develop a chassis (and engines). They sell these as a product to the teams at a fixed price, and the teams compete on their behalf. There would also be a limit on the maximum number of chassis a manufacturer could supply. All cars using a particular chassis would be eligible to score points in a new championship title, the World Manufacturers’ Championship (and to avoid confusion, the constructors’ championship would be renamed as the World Teams’ Championship).
By fixing the price of all chassis, the FIA can directly control costs, because it would be in the interests of the manufacturers to make a profit. There would also be a rule setting the minimum number of teams a manufacturer must supply, preventing one or two manufacturers from supplying everyone and thus dominating the grid to make bigger profits. Every team that joins a manufacturer would get exactly the same chassis and engine as the others that joined. All of it would be regulated by the FIA to ensure parity. The price for a package would be fixed, so Ferrari teams would pay exactly the same amount as Mercedes teams, Renault teams, and Honda teams. Manufacturers would only get an income from selling the chassis, and with the FIA controlling the price of the chassis, they would only have a limited budget for developing the car. There would have to be some kind of external control to limit what money the manufacturers could spend on development, but I think it would work.
The whole thing would be expensive, coming in at around $50 million for a full package. But if there are four manufacturers, and twenty-four grid spaces, that means each manufacturer could have three teams, which gives the manufacturers a budget of $150 million per season, or about what midfield teams are spending. Additional income could come from a team paying more to be the de facto works team, and getting upgrades a race or two in advance. Assuming there are four manufacturers, overall expenditure would come in at around $600 million per season, rather than the $600 million that the top three (or possibly four) teams are spending.
