How to reduce F3 Budget.?

[windup1]

A repeated theme on this site is that F3 is too exphensive, and how to reduce costs.
When I was negotiating F3 budgets in 1992 the going rate was circa £300,000....So 10 years on the budget seems to be circa £350,000.
Teams do not have to buy new cars each year as they did.
I would be interested to hear how this could be possible in a formula where technical and driver developement are the big attractions and it is those that have kept F3 going when other Championships fail.

[FZ61]

I agree! Technical challenge (for the manufacturers, engineers and drivers) and driver development is key to the success of F3. It would be easy to reduce the costs but it could remove the attraction for the different parties involved and kill the formula. A few things that would bring down the budgets would be:

* A Maximum amount of tyres that can be used from the end of the testing ban to the end of the championship.
(and cheaper tyres, Yokohama approx 390/set, Avon approx 500/set last year! Avon say it will be cheaper this year.)

* Slightly more restricted testing.

* A few less races meetings

* Reduce the number of days a team need to spend at a race meeting

More complicated but doable:
Take a serious look at the engine mileage. Today most F3 engines have a maximum mileage between rebuilds of 2.500 km (some also need a "check over" mid-distance). I know this is very tricky but making the engines last at least twice the distance of today with the reliability and power they currently have should not be impossible from a technical point of view. But some people will lose money so it might never happen.

This is a good thread. I am looking forward to read lots of good ideas...

[racingdick]

£350,000?? try 100,000 on top of that...
a lot of the increase is due to technology, new gizmos etc.
as far as reducing the number of days at a race meeting, that wont realy do anything because the prep work is done at the team base anyway, and most race meetings are fri sat sun, if the teams arived any later then it would be more of a rush to setup.

[Lisboa]

F3 is expansive? Bu...hit! It's the cheaper formula after F.Renault 2000. But, if you want to understand it, you need to know motor racing. A British F.3 year in a top team (Carlin) is about 400.000 pounds. For this prize a driver has: 26 races in national championship + 4 intermational event (Pau, Zandvoort, Macau and Corea)and at least 35 days of testing. I suppose a driver will use 150 set of new tyres, e will drive for at least 15.000 km.
SO, IF YOU WANT TO DO THE SAME JOB WITH A F.3000, HOW MUCH DOES IT COST?? My answer is 2.5 milion dollars!
F.3 is a complete different experience. J.Button and A.Davidson did not need 3 years in the same championship. After 12 good mounts, they were ready to try F.1. That's F.3 tradition, and nobody has interest to change it, except F.3000 supporters and team manager.....

[racingdick]

the age old tradition of the better you are the more money you can get..
formula zip 60,000
Formula Ford 100,000
Formula Renault 130,000
Formula 3 Schol 240,000
Formula 3 Champ 400,000
Formula 3000 ????

its a ladder and the better you do the more sponsorship you can attract. or get subsidised for..
there are those rich kids who can jump in wherever they can land but i think especially after the last post thats it about right...
come on Mr jinxx
you must have something to say here.

[John Clucas]

Reducing engine costs is EASY. The restrictor is there to keep engine power down - it does that very well (to good road levels) - and was (presumably) intended to reduce costs - which it doesn't. Revs are low (7000), fundamentally there is no reason why the engines shouldn't do a season between rebuilds. The reason they don't is
a) Compression ratios are unlimited - 16/17 to 1 I'm told and the engines run on the edge of detonation all the time. Limit the compression ratio and that will go away.
b) They are allowed to. Seal the engines and limit the number of rebuilds to one (similar to touring cars where there is a similar problem)
Don't get hung up on technology. The engines are basically (deliberately) low output devices, keep it that way. There is absolutely no chance of F3 moving 4/ technology forward, don't let it try to do silly things to get around the regs designed to make it cheap.

Next limit aerodynamic changes to those made by the chassis manufacturers - and limit that to (say) 1 update per season. Allowing teams to spend money in wind tunnels just increases costs unnecessarily. In any case limit aerodynamics - the short braking distances spoil the racing, just as they do in F1.

Limit tyre costs as has been suggested above.

[Francesca]

Originally posted by Lisboa
J.Button and A.Davidson did not need 3 years in the same championship. After 12 good mounts...

Steady!

[GM Man]

Some very interesting ideas.
Is it just me or is F3000 loosing status rather quickly? It seems people who dont make the F1 cut after F3 go to F3000, not because its "the next step" but because they have to move from F3?

[Lisboa]

Originally posted by Francesca
Steady!

My kitchen is very dirty: do you want to clean it?

[Francesca]

Want 3 guesses on that one?

[Lisboa]

Originally posted by Francesca
Want 3 guesses on that one?

That's a good guess!
Thanks Francisca

[littleman]

Playing Devil's Advocate here a bit - but can I ask why F3 costs should come down? If a championship class drive reduced to £250,000 does that make it suddenly more affordable?

[John Clucas]

Originally posted by littleman
Playing Devil's Advocate here a bit - but can I ask why F3 costs should come down? If a championship class drive reduced to £250,000 does that make it suddenly more affordable?

At any level in motorsport (from F1 to karting) the greater the cost, the fewer the people that can afford to do it - and the LESS competitive it is. (There are ultra competitive drivers who could sensibly do F3/FR/FF/FA karting - but don't, purely for cost reasons) Some costs are more-or-less intrinsic to a particular level of performance/technology. Some costs are not, and merely serve some commercial interest. At every level we should therefore eliminate avoidable costs.
There are plenty of avoidable costs in every prestige class of motorsport - we should try to eliminate them. F3 is just a bit worse than FF and FR in the avoidable costs stakes - but not in the F1 league.

[littleman]

Your points are valid and accepted,but without a major revamp of the rules and regs,would have minimal impact on total budgets. Even if,as I've suggested, F3 budgets were to reduce by £100k(25%?),I have a hunch that no more drivers would graduate tomorrow than do today.The well funded drivers would still move up but just pay less. I believe the purpose of this thread is to suggest ways for more drivers to graduate to F3,and reducing costs will only effect the integrity of the product for precious little benefit.The real issue is: how do drivers raise £350/£400k? F3,as a quality product,will never be available for £150k - so how do we raise the money?

[John Clucas]

I'd agree that 100k wouldn't produce an earth shattering change. However there are talented drivers for whom 100k would make the difference between them being in F3 in an uncompetitive team, F3 scholarship or FR, - or F3 with a top team.

[Mr Jinxx]

I can't argue with you racingdick! Agree with your figures too.

F3 is a difficult game. Obviously it's far too expensive, and it wouldn't be at these esoteric levels if it wasn't on racingdick's ladder to F1. But with the variables involved (and the fact that the top teams throw tyres at the car - understandably... qualifying is everything) you can't always tell who's the top drivers. You think James Courtney is better than Robert Dahlgren?

It's a mini F1. Wild wild discrepancies in the machinery and the teams, and if you can use 3 sets of new tyres a day, unlimited testing, to hone your qualifying performances, you are going to stand a much better chance than the less well-funded drivers on lower budgets.

But motorsport has always been elitist, since its early days. Man and machine in perfect harmony, and the best machines cost top dollar.

[18000rpm]

F3 is to expensive but reducing no of races is a bad idea ( the drivers need as much seat time as possible on their way to f1).

Current f3 is boring but the cars are visually not much different from those of 98/99 that regulary got side by side. This could be because of the better aerodynamics of subsequent cars. Reducing this somehow could make overtaking better and reduce costs at the same time. Prehaps allowing bigger tunnels and restricting the wings is the soultion, it works for champ cars.

[bella]

i agree about the in car time, especially since the trend is towards fewer and fewer years in racing. more races, cheaper entry fees and longer lasting engines and tyres would be far more beneficial for the same cost.

[Morcilman]

I think that the big cost is only in the engines, what is the bill for engines in a seasson? is crazy. I would not take races away, or testing, or car evolution, but I would make engines last longer and cheapper. The restrictor is a problem for that, so give it more HP and make the bill cheapper. That is the reasso

[Morcilman]

I think that the big cost is only in the engines, what is the bill for engines in a seasson? is crazy. I would not take races away, or testing, or car evolution, but I would make engines last longer and cheapper. The restrictor is a problem for that, so give it more HP and make the bill cheapper. That is the reasson for the Sapnish F3 to be so cheap, the engines are controlled and the engine cost is reduced a lot. That is the biggest cost of all.

[Mr Squiggle]

The cost of leasing engines isn't that bad at about 50K pounds per season for two motors and a spare. There is three things to be done to bring costs down and improve the sport
1. Limit testing to 1 day per round of the championship. Dragging the team out during the week and hiring track time quickly mounts up the dollars. The insane amount of testing some teams do is where a lot of the money goes (F1 should think about this too).
2. Change the engine restrictions from inlet air restrictors to RPM and compression ratio limits. The air restrictors were a good idea at the time but they have resulted in engines which are paradoxically both highly stressed and not very powerful. By limiting RPM and comp. ratio you are putting a ceiling on the BMEP available and shifting the focus onto efficiency. With an 7500rpm limit and 10:1 comp, power should be at about 250hp which would make life interesting.
3. Only one set of tyres for both qualifying and the race.

The biggest cost factor in all of this is the testing miles. All of these points are used in other series around the world as cost cutting measures with great success.