but doesnt that come to money, as ive mentioned before wiliams won 1992 titles for 35m 1997 titles for 50m McLaren won 1998 titles for 60m, before the budget cap only 20yrs later you were talking 300m, because F1 team decisions are the most selfish in sport. they would rather be winning in sport that is dying, than risk being 2nd in a sport than can be healthily.
Williams spent 35 million in 1992 because they had 35 million to spend. Because Dear Old Bernie increased the amount of money swilling around the sport, teams had more money and spent more money.
In 1991/1992 the two biggest teams in F1 (Williams and McLaren) were owned by Frank Williams and Ron Dennis.
In 2021/2022 the two biggest teams in F1 are Mercedes, two thirds owned by Daimler AG and Ineos (total combined revenue over 200 billion pounds) and Red Bull Racing owned by Red Bull GMBH with a total revenue of over 5 billion pounds but one of the largest sports franchise owners in the world.
Money is no object.
I'm all for cost capping but how it's going to be effectively policed is beyond me. We've already seen the effect that running mule cars to test engines. Honda finally got onboard with the idea and all of a sudden they're reliable and fast. What's to stop Mercedes meeting the cost cap but running several interesting project cars around a German airfield at 4 in the morning?
As for designs, the quickest path for most smaller teams is to take a picture of a faster rival and build that.
As
FB has succinctly put it, design innovation is limited to six square inches of carbon fibre stuck on here or there.
I've always wondered, if you gave the F1 rules to a designer who had never seen an F1 car before, what would the resulting design look like?
Years ago I posted a piece about how F1 development has always tended to follow automotive innovation rather than lead it. This still remains the case to this day. Road relevant technology by car manufacturers is an absolute myth. It's more likely that when manufacturers call for rules that are road relevant it means they can incorporate technology that they already have in their car designs into their F1 design rather than the other way around.
If the rules allowed it, what would the next great leap forward be? Aerodynamics haven't changed since 1978 (front wing, rear wing and shaped body under and over), sports cars these days are routinely made from carbon fibre and have all the toys that are banned on F1 cars. The only area left is engine development but that would require a brave rule maker and carefully managed equivalency regulations.
