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21 Oct 2013, 23:00 (Ref:3321367) | #26 | ||
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A start-up team doesn't earn much money either. They have to run with the capital that they have from sponsors or a patron. But if you could get a customer chassis then when you are out prospecting for sponsorship you could go out and say: 'we're building infrastructure over a two year span, we're competing in races, we're building a prototype of our own, we're learning like mad and in 2 years time we'll have a competitive car through which we'll earn X million when we join and are compiling points in the constructors championship'..etc.
There might nothing that would stop a team from entering all year round, compete in a customer car for most of the year but then roll out a prototype for a couple of races to test in competition conditions and maybe finish the season with the customer car. That might be a scenario a new team that chose this option could experience. |
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If I had asked my customer what they wanted, they would've said a faster horse. -Henry Ford |
21 Oct 2013, 23:09 (Ref:3321375) | #27 | ||
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I have no objection to customer cars, other than the fact that they will result in only two or three constructors, and that would be a complete disaster! to lose say Lotus, Force India, Williams and Sauber would be terrible! |
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22 Oct 2013, 00:48 (Ref:3321406) | #28 | |||
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You make it so that if you not a Constructor, it isn't profitable for the medium to long term. Being a customer team might be for new teams to progressively build infrastructure and gather momentum or old teams that can't cobble together a car for love nor money so they might request a sabbatical from the constructors championship so they can have a respite, compete, not lose their place on the grid and get their act together behind the scenes with a view to reentering the Constructors race with something descent. If it was done right you could salvage the majority of the constructors, have two or three teams working away with a customer car and even those using hand-me-downs would be developing their own car in the background. |
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If I had asked my customer what they wanted, they would've said a faster horse. -Henry Ford |
22 Oct 2013, 07:52 (Ref:3321493) | #29 | ||
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As long as F1 insists you have to be a Constructor to score points it remains extremely vunerable. At least 50% of the current grid are financially border line hence the growth in pay drivers.
I find it difficult to envisage any new Constructors joining in - the cost is just too prohibitive and scoring points almost impossible -just look at how far Caterham,Marussia and HRT are/were off the pace. Alot more new teams would arrive if customer cars were available and eventually some would go on to build their own chassis. However, from day one they must be allowed to earn prize money. If they get in the points they deserve it - customer car or not. |
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22 Oct 2013, 08:30 (Ref:3321500) | #30 | ||
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Dont get too hung up on the issue of the constructors championship - it can be renamed the team championship, which is what it actually is.
Saying that teams should construct their own chasis, but its ok to use a customer engine is contradictory. If you want a manufacturers/constructors championship, then the teams should build their own engine and chasis. F1 entrants should be allowed to use any rules compliant car they can get their hands on, full stop. There is a long history in F1 of teams using purchased off the shelf chasis, engines etc. etc. It's only in recent years that restrictions have come into force - and to the detriment of the sport in my opinion. |
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22 Oct 2013, 12:32 (Ref:3321612) | #31 | ||
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Actually the constructors championship that we have today is the same as it was when there were customer cars. The teams that bought customer cars didn't score points in the constructors championship but the constructors did.
Look at WRC for example. There are lots of teams and their drivers score points but there is also a constructors championship for Ford, Citroen, etc. A lot of the teams that we know and love today started out with customer cars. Ron Dennis started with Rondel Racing and Brabham chassis before buying McLaren. Williams Grand Prix first ran a March customer car. It allowed them to cut their teeth before building their own chassis. If we do have customer cars then it needs to be a proper market. Teams should be able to buy cars at a decent price and not hobbled cars. We might see Lola or Dallara or whoever come in with a chassis that is up to speed and cheaper than what the current teams can produce and put a few snakes amongst the chickens. I don't see a problem with customer cars. Just like I've never seen a problem with opening up the grid to more teams being able to enter. One of the things I loathe about to the professionalism of current racing is that no one can come up from the bottom and work their way through the formulas as a team. |
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22 Oct 2013, 13:51 (Ref:3321643) | #32 | ||
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I think the world has moved on. Yes, it was glorious when Alexander Hesketh could buy a DFV and a Hewland 'box, then hire Postlethwaite to clothe them, but F1 cars are so much more complicated and sophisticated these days. Car manufacturers would still, for honour's sake, have to build their own car, but teams like Sauber and Williams would be looking at forking out for the latest Red Bull or Ferrari.
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Interviewer: "Will the McLaren F1 be your answer to the Ferrari F40?" Gordon Murray: "Hmm... I don't think we have anyone at McLaren who can weld that badly..." |
22 Oct 2013, 14:21 (Ref:3321653) | #33 | ||
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i would be curious to know what rights to a bought chassis a customer team would have. would they own it or would it be a rental?
there is an underlying premise here that there are teams who cannot afford to compete in F1 as it is so if they were able to get their hands on a customer chassis for a fraction of the cost the sport would then be affordable for them. however i believe it is a stretch to think that along with the chassis a team, Ferrari for example, would also sell the intellectual property right to said chassis. so for a small or new entrant to run a customer car team along side a development program aimed at building their own chassis one day they would have to have enough money to presumably run two parallel f1 development programs, so two independent teams, if they ever hoped to become a constructor in their own right. (of course that begs the question if they have that kind on money why even bother with a customer car program?) would a team like Ferrari, just using them as an example again, ever allow a one of their customer teams to become a constructor in their own right and if they did how much would Ferrari make it cost them? not only would Ferrari lose a contract if that happened they would be throwing away an insanely huge amount of R&D out the window with it. since teams are so clever what would stop RB from buying Ferrari's customer team and just appropriating Ferrari's designs? at this time (obviously we are far from this happening) but i just dont see how a customer team would be anything other than a glorified surrogate of a bigger team. but classic F1, all the small fish have been eaten so they are going to start a fish farm to grow some more. |
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22 Oct 2013, 14:38 (Ref:3321657) | #34 | ||
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Since the constructors championship is for chassis builders, the spirit of the rules is not against the existence of customer cars. Remember the 1950s, 1960s, 1970s and even early 1980s, where in F1 many teams used customer cars.
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22 Oct 2013, 14:47 (Ref:3321659) | #35 | |||
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comparing the eras in this regards is at best just as subjective as comparing drivers from different eras imo. |
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Home, is where I want to be but I guess I'm already there I come home, she lifted up her wings guess that this must be the place |
22 Oct 2013, 16:03 (Ref:3321696) | #36 | |||
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Quote:
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Interviewer: "Will the McLaren F1 be your answer to the Ferrari F40?" Gordon Murray: "Hmm... I don't think we have anyone at McLaren who can weld that badly..." |
22 Oct 2013, 16:15 (Ref:3321707) | #37 | |
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Customer chassis would be very unfair to teams like Sauber and Force India, who spend millions to build their own. If customer chassis is allowed it will be the death if F1 as we know it. 3-4 years down the road we will be left with 3-4 teams that still have the ability to build a chassis. Moreover, this won't help anything. In Indycar they race a spec chassis and only three teams still dominate it. In V8SC they had only two cars until 2013, and only two teams dominated it. It has always been like that. You will not end with a ten-way championship tie with either budget caps or customer cars. The have always been struggling, broke teams in F1. What we have now is nothing new. Let the losers perish. Someone else will replace them.
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22 Oct 2013, 16:44 (Ref:3321723) | #38 | ||
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The death of formula racing was decreted in mid-1990s with the induction of one-make almost all lower formula series that weren't F1, or de facto dominance of Dallara in F3. We have lost a lot of chassis makers in the process, like Reynard, Ralt, March, and even Lola among others.
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22 Oct 2013, 22:33 (Ref:3321917) | #39 | |
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The problem is that the large teams want to ensure they continue their domination of the sport, all the cost legislation is just ensuring their dominance.
Why are the engine management systems spec, yet the aero, particularly the wings cannot be spec? Because that is where the expertise of the teams lies, and it is not subject to outside supply from anyone outside the F1 club! |
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22 Oct 2013, 23:06 (Ref:3321933) | #40 | |
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If you were a smaller team, how happy would you be with this situation?
http://www.pitpass.com/50227/McLaren...citizens-of-F1 "I completely understand why those that are not at the table will feel that they're in some way disadvantaged," explained Jonathan Neale in the latest Vodafone McLarenMercedes phone-in, "but since I'm not party to that that's just conjecture on my part. "I didn't get the sense that what was happening was necessarily illegal, it was just different from what had been signed up to," he continued." |
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22 Oct 2013, 23:46 (Ref:3321941) | #41 | |||
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Let's see: top teams want to remain top teams. The only way to catch up is to spend lots of money (see Red Bull). The rest of the teams will struggle to get podiums, as they always have, no matter if they build their own cars of if they buy customer cars. The only way to let more teams take wins is to restrict the car rules even more. That's not what F1 should do. It should feature the best cars money can buy, not spec machines. |
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Nitropteron - Fly fast or get crushed! by NaBUrean Prodooktionz naburu38.itch.io |
23 Oct 2013, 01:08 (Ref:3321963) | #42 | ||
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I'd question even the obvious of what constitutes a customer car, are we talking a rolling chassis and power train that a customer then has to produce their own nose, front and rear wings, floors, all the tiny little airflow guide vanes.
Or are we talking complete cars ... A Force India paint scheme on a McLaren, a Sauber Grey Ferrari or a Marussia schemed Red Bull. |
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23 Oct 2013, 23:59 (Ref:3322361) | #43 | ||
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I guess each poster should state what they mean by customer car. It's an interesting discussion but noone in F1 has any intention to introduce such a system so they won't be defining anything.
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If I had asked my customer what they wanted, they would've said a faster horse. -Henry Ford |
24 Oct 2013, 01:06 (Ref:3322377) | #44 | ||
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Engines, for practical reasons, would be current. I'm also assuming that we don't want just every billionaire wading into F1 and buying the whole kit and kaboodle to run a current chassis and Powertrain from an existing team? Obviously some chassis will be more successful than others, as will be the same for powertrains. You might say that the billionaire will always out bid a more deserving GP2 team, for example, but I would also put a cap on the overall cost of a chassis and powertrain. Say, £30m total, for chassis and powertrain. The cost of any chassis or powertrain would be fixed by the FIA, depending on what the overall competitiveness of any chassis or engine was during the previous season. So you can mix-and-match, but not spend any more than £30m on any combination. It might just work, or it might all just be BS. |
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24 Oct 2013, 07:03 (Ref:3322477) | #45 | ||
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I would suggest any car which complies with the regulations, including new builds from the likes of Dallara,Dome,etc,etc.Any aspiring team must enter two cars.
If the entries are over subscribed then use Friday for pre qualifying.This would be more entertaining for the fans and sort out the serious teams from the playboys, dreamers and plain incompetent. Over time, natural selection will ensure a vibrant competitive grid. |
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23 Nov 2013, 12:23 (Ref:3335641) | #46 | |||
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I just found this Racecar Engineering article by Sam Collins about customer cars. He's concerned about the lack of places where young engineers can develop cars, but thinks that allowing customer cars would help F1.
Now, here's the best quote: Quote:
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Nitropteron - Fly fast or get crushed! by NaBUrean Prodooktionz naburu38.itch.io |
23 Nov 2013, 13:27 (Ref:3335661) | #47 | ||
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Well that target market is made up of particularly stupid people. A market of people who don't understand the sentence "Marussia design and build their own F1 car". Quite a small market, and one that rules out selling cars to people who write for Racecar Engineering. Further if you are trying to sell on the back of being a complete engineering company it is important. It is also important if you wish to develop construction and design techniques.
Not against customer cars, but I don't understand that rationale. |
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23 Nov 2013, 20:51 (Ref:3335788) | #48 | |
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Customer cars maybe not happen but we might loose 3 teams shortly and the other eight becoming 3 car teams. Its Bernie's latest attempt to reduce the money he spends on the teams so he and CVC can make more money.
If this happens it would have a major effect on how F1 is organised and could make life difficult for the mid field teams. It would however create more openings for good seats for drivers. http://plus.autosport.com/premium/fe...-on-f1-agenda/ |
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23 Nov 2013, 21:42 (Ref:3335806) | #49 | |
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I thought that 3 car team article was very interesting. It did make me think that drivers like Hulkenberg and di Resta would likely be in a third seat at a top team rather than being on the brink of being out of F1 as they are now. Can only be a good thing.
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23 Nov 2013, 21:55 (Ref:3335807) | #50 | |
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While everthing looks good in theory, the main difficulty I see is for the current mid field teams to score points. If you have three strong teams then places 1 to 9 are already covered if reliability is to continue as we have currently. However it would certainly open up the driver market. The mid field teams could probably afford to have a pay driver in their second or third car to help keep the show on the road.
Another factor would be to make it virtually impossible for a new team to enter F1 without buying a current outfit. |
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