Quote:
Originally Posted by JacobP
Whenever there is a discussion about customer cars, there are a ton of formula 1 fans criticizing customer cars for destroying the chassis manufacturing capability of the midfield teams, and for generally destroying the sacred rule that every team must be able build its own chassis.
However, look at the bright side.
1. The backmarker teams actually have a chance to score a point. This is extremely important. The current formula has already proven that the new teams (HRT, Marussia, and Caterham), basically had no chance of making it into the Q2 session of qualifying or to score any points. After five years of competing, these three new teams made the Q3 session extremely boring, because you knew that almost always they don't make into Q2, and they managed to score points just once in five years between three of them! (thanks to Bianchi's strong performance in the Monaco GP of 2014)
2. We will finally be able to compare more than two teammates against each other in more-or-less equal cars. Just imagine if Force India had a full access to the Mercedes Benz package. Suddenly you get a chance to compare Hulkenberg's performance to someone driving a top car, even though Nico never had a chance to drive a top spec car.
|
You've made some valid points there, but I think there may be different levels of variation between the customer(s) and the constructor(s) cars.
I would imagine that customer cars may well be a step or two behind on developments (which may or may not work anyway), plus, I would imagine that the customers may want to try their own developments (wings etc?) on parts that they can alter themselves. (I'm working on the principle that it will be the main chassis/monocoque that's supplied).
Previously I have been against the idea of customer cars, but I'm changing my opinions now (for all the reasons you've highlighted above) just as long as (somehow) it doesn't eventually turn Formula One into a single make formula because one manufacturer dominates and all the others give up...