If you’re a fan of F1 you couldn’t help but to have heard about the current fuss in Formula 1. With eight of the biggest teams proposing to split from F1 and setup their own championship, it could be the end of F1 as we know it.
So what’s all this about? Well F1 as a sport is governed by the FIA. They set the rules for the sport, both sporting and technical. Over the last couple of years, the FIA have embarked on a number of initiatives to try and cut the cost of the sport. This started by setting minimum lives for parts like engines to reduce the number the teams need over the course of the season, but recently have evolved into an opt-in cap on the teams budgets.
With F1’s costs so high, and with the world in the midst of a recession a budget cap seems almost sensible surely? As with all things it’s not quite that simple.
For many F1 is not just about the skill of the drivers, but also the innovation and technology behind the cars and teams. And it’s this that attracts the big manufactures for the sport. It’s a fantastic way of showing the world that they’re company – or their brand – is up there with the best of the best. It’s an exclusive club, and even if they’re not near the top of the grid, participation alone implies a level of skill and commitment that others aspire to achieve.
For the teams to succeed they’ve built up hugely capable organisations to design and race two cars each year. If they were to cut their budgets from what can now be as high as £400million to the £40million being proposed, it would tear the heart out of the big teams. It’s hard to see how such a huge organisational change would greatly affect their ability to develop and race competitively in the short term.
In addition to this, as a sweetener to adopt the budget cap, those teams that do will have greatly relaxed technical regulations. These would allow the capped teams to employ movable front and rear wings and engines with no rev limit. Movable aerodynamics alone could be worth more than 2-3 seconds a lap, so cars running on the current fixed regulations would be at a huge disadvantage.
Alternative cost saving measures and regulations that have been proposed by the teams themselves have been rejected out of hand by the FIA. The teams and their backers are quite rightly angry about this, after all they invest huge amounts into F1 and feel their views should count.
Whilst the smaller independent teams like Williams have embraced the cap – after all F1 is their soul business – for the some of the teams the new proposals are a nightmare. To field a competitive car they would need to adopt the new technical regulations, but in the process of doing so would need to compromise some of the core values that make them compete in F1 in the first place, and dismantle large parts of their organisations. If you add to this the financial assistance that’s being offered to new teams that join F1 under the new capped regulations it’s clearly not looking like a level playing field. We would end up with two classes within the single championship.
In response to the FIA’s plans the big manufacture teams, under the banner of the Formula One Teams Association (FOTA), have rejected the changes and are threatening to leave F1 and setup their own championship in competition to F1.
This is something that has been threatened before, and indeed not that long ago they proposed the Grand Prix World Championship (GPWC) as an alternative series, even getting so far as doing all the detailed financial feasibility planning. This was only shelved after Ferrari were offered a deal they couldn’t refuse, and the resolve of the teams dropped off. They now seem to be dusting off those old plans and preparing to set up a series for 2010 – no small challenge!
Could they succeed? Setting up a championship would be no simple task, but there are a few things that could work in their favour. The fans will probably follow the teams and drivers that they know and love. With the FOTA teams promising a series with open governance, stable rules and a focus on the fans with cheaper tickets they will surely keep a big chunk of their current following. And with the fans will follow money from TV and sponsorship.
Clearly the best outcome would be for the FIA and FOTA to resolve their differences and allow F1 to continue in it’s current form. If that can’t happen however, I honestly doubt F1 under the FIA will thrive without the big teams and drivers like Ferrari and McLaren. An alternative series that has the teams and drivers from the current F1 season but under a new title would probably do ok. After all what’s in a name? Certainly it’s a huge challenge, and it wouldn’t surprise me if any 2010 season was a little light on the number of races, but FOTA would have many of the ingredients needed for success.
