Raikkonen&Redbull=PartyTime
Rookie
This thread is not meant to be taken seriously, but I think it would be interesting to hear your views regarding how the sport could be made better (or worse), and also your thoughts concerning regulations recently passed that have influenced the sport positively or otherwise. To get the ball rolling, here are a few of my more rational proposals. I'll follow this with some less feasible ideas.
1) The resource restriction agreement needs to be reconsidered.
Before I am drawn and quartered, let me explain my statement. I am of the opinion that some form of cost control needs to be maintained in Formula 1. However, I do not believe the best way of achieving this aim, for the betterment of the sport, is achieved by attempting to control the fiscal resources of the participating teams directly.
For one thing, fiscal limitations are not attractive to marquee members of the sport, those members that drive the sports viewer-ship, so good luck obtaining unilateral consensus from participating members in this regard. For another, creative accounting could obscure real expenditure. Even listed companies are able to exist, sometimes for years, in the full view of dedicated analysts without being found out (Enron et al). There are a number of other limitations but to summarise, the fiscal cap is largely unappealing, and difficult to enforce.
My proposal would be to consider a human resources restriction instead. I.e. a Formula 1 team can consist of no more than 'x' members, all inclusive. Quite what that number would be I am uncertain, much as I am unable to provide a suitable fiscal limit value, but in my opinion this would represent a parameter of business that is far easier to police than pure cash expenditure. By way of example, a team would declare a list of 200 employees for the season, and all communication associated with development would need to remain confined within the bounds of the list of declared personages. It's a simplistic example, but I use it for the purpose of illustration only.
Why do I like this approach? While the number of employees itself is arbitrary, I would view it as being less arbitrary than limiting money spent. If companies want to spend great truck loads of cash on hiring the best staff, they can. If they want to hire 50 aerodynamicists at 1 million per head, they can. But they might not have enough spare people to lift the jack on the car in the pit-lane, so resource allocation would be critical.
And that is the entire point for me actually. I am not so obsessed with the amount of money that is or is not spent in Formula 1. Granted, the amounts of money that some choose to spend are obscene. Ultimately F1 is a form of entertainment, and in a world with massive disparity it is massively ironic, and some would argue sick, to see F1 cars whizzing through the dirty atmosphere of New Delhi. But the way the money is spent, that I definitely take issue with. F1 can say what it likes to market itself, but it really isn't an efficient environment to produce new technology, not at this point anyway.
So I would far rather curb the number of people a Formula 1 team has at its disposal than the money they elect to spend. This would ensure Formula 1 operates in a manner designed to achieve operational efficiency, optimal resource allocation, and would allow for a new level of strategy with teams moderating their tactical resource allocation in a way that they deem best fit to the regulations. This could also allow for reputable employees to command higher salaries, and perhaps yield a better spread across the grid of the available resource pool.
2) Three car teams.
I love underdogs, don't get me wrong, but what is the point of having 3 teams on the grid that are essentially useless, and a fourth that serves as a test bed for future Red Bull talent? In my opinion, there is no point. Within the confines of the current regulations, there is not enough money, or enough available technical resources (including legitimate, non-paying racing drivers) to adequately stock 12, make that 11, teams. And this is not a new phenomena either; its been this way since for ever. Long ago it was easier to have aspirations of 'making it' in F1, but that sort of attitude is a pipe dream in this day and age. I'd have more chance of trying to list myself on the London Stock Exchange than some of these 'venture capitalists' have had in running a successful F1 team.
F1 has shown itself to be a sport that requires capital to really be able to compete, and there is a limited amount of capital willing to be spent on pipe dreams. Rationalise that money away, either by streamlining the sport, or by redirecting it to fewer existing teams. From my estimation, F1 in its current guise has walked a very uneasy balance between manufacturers and professional racing teams, and no surprises that the professional racing teams, the ones that have acquired the domain knowledge through hard work, are the bedrock of the sport (read Ferrari, McLaren, Williams). They are the dinosaurs that have survived the extinction events, and will probably long outlive the Marussias and Caterhams, and possibly the Mercedes too. Corporate money would far rather back these teams as well as they have brand awareness, a corporate profile, solidity.
Technical resources would be better allocated amongst fewer teams. How many aerodynamicists are there in F1 capable of developing race winning cars? More to the point if Marussia were to have produced an amazing designer in 2012, where would he be working this year? I think the answer would be "not Marussia". Small teams are conduits for everyone to ascend to a higher level. Drivers, designers, engineers; as soon as any degree of success is achieved they migrate away and the small teams momentary competitive advantage is immediately eroded.
3 car teams would mean a more competitive grid. For all of the above reasons the average field spread should be narrower with fewer teams on the grid. This should result in closer racing and while I'm being crazy and irrational, no need for the blue flag rule. Each team could designate two constructor's points finishers on any given weekend. Each team could have two fully fledged drivers and one rookie; rookies to be given a two year grace period after which they have to secure a drive in a 'main' team role or lose their seat entirely. The possibilities are numerous, and in my opinion, the viewing would be more compelling. We would also get a far better gauge of who is faster than whom, as more drivers would be directly comparable as there would be a relatively greater number of team mates than before.
1) The resource restriction agreement needs to be reconsidered.
Before I am drawn and quartered, let me explain my statement. I am of the opinion that some form of cost control needs to be maintained in Formula 1. However, I do not believe the best way of achieving this aim, for the betterment of the sport, is achieved by attempting to control the fiscal resources of the participating teams directly.
For one thing, fiscal limitations are not attractive to marquee members of the sport, those members that drive the sports viewer-ship, so good luck obtaining unilateral consensus from participating members in this regard. For another, creative accounting could obscure real expenditure. Even listed companies are able to exist, sometimes for years, in the full view of dedicated analysts without being found out (Enron et al). There are a number of other limitations but to summarise, the fiscal cap is largely unappealing, and difficult to enforce.
My proposal would be to consider a human resources restriction instead. I.e. a Formula 1 team can consist of no more than 'x' members, all inclusive. Quite what that number would be I am uncertain, much as I am unable to provide a suitable fiscal limit value, but in my opinion this would represent a parameter of business that is far easier to police than pure cash expenditure. By way of example, a team would declare a list of 200 employees for the season, and all communication associated with development would need to remain confined within the bounds of the list of declared personages. It's a simplistic example, but I use it for the purpose of illustration only.
Why do I like this approach? While the number of employees itself is arbitrary, I would view it as being less arbitrary than limiting money spent. If companies want to spend great truck loads of cash on hiring the best staff, they can. If they want to hire 50 aerodynamicists at 1 million per head, they can. But they might not have enough spare people to lift the jack on the car in the pit-lane, so resource allocation would be critical.
And that is the entire point for me actually. I am not so obsessed with the amount of money that is or is not spent in Formula 1. Granted, the amounts of money that some choose to spend are obscene. Ultimately F1 is a form of entertainment, and in a world with massive disparity it is massively ironic, and some would argue sick, to see F1 cars whizzing through the dirty atmosphere of New Delhi. But the way the money is spent, that I definitely take issue with. F1 can say what it likes to market itself, but it really isn't an efficient environment to produce new technology, not at this point anyway.
So I would far rather curb the number of people a Formula 1 team has at its disposal than the money they elect to spend. This would ensure Formula 1 operates in a manner designed to achieve operational efficiency, optimal resource allocation, and would allow for a new level of strategy with teams moderating their tactical resource allocation in a way that they deem best fit to the regulations. This could also allow for reputable employees to command higher salaries, and perhaps yield a better spread across the grid of the available resource pool.
2) Three car teams.
I love underdogs, don't get me wrong, but what is the point of having 3 teams on the grid that are essentially useless, and a fourth that serves as a test bed for future Red Bull talent? In my opinion, there is no point. Within the confines of the current regulations, there is not enough money, or enough available technical resources (including legitimate, non-paying racing drivers) to adequately stock 12, make that 11, teams. And this is not a new phenomena either; its been this way since for ever. Long ago it was easier to have aspirations of 'making it' in F1, but that sort of attitude is a pipe dream in this day and age. I'd have more chance of trying to list myself on the London Stock Exchange than some of these 'venture capitalists' have had in running a successful F1 team.
F1 has shown itself to be a sport that requires capital to really be able to compete, and there is a limited amount of capital willing to be spent on pipe dreams. Rationalise that money away, either by streamlining the sport, or by redirecting it to fewer existing teams. From my estimation, F1 in its current guise has walked a very uneasy balance between manufacturers and professional racing teams, and no surprises that the professional racing teams, the ones that have acquired the domain knowledge through hard work, are the bedrock of the sport (read Ferrari, McLaren, Williams). They are the dinosaurs that have survived the extinction events, and will probably long outlive the Marussias and Caterhams, and possibly the Mercedes too. Corporate money would far rather back these teams as well as they have brand awareness, a corporate profile, solidity.
Technical resources would be better allocated amongst fewer teams. How many aerodynamicists are there in F1 capable of developing race winning cars? More to the point if Marussia were to have produced an amazing designer in 2012, where would he be working this year? I think the answer would be "not Marussia". Small teams are conduits for everyone to ascend to a higher level. Drivers, designers, engineers; as soon as any degree of success is achieved they migrate away and the small teams momentary competitive advantage is immediately eroded.
3 car teams would mean a more competitive grid. For all of the above reasons the average field spread should be narrower with fewer teams on the grid. This should result in closer racing and while I'm being crazy and irrational, no need for the blue flag rule. Each team could designate two constructor's points finishers on any given weekend. Each team could have two fully fledged drivers and one rookie; rookies to be given a two year grace period after which they have to secure a drive in a 'main' team role or lose their seat entirely. The possibilities are numerous, and in my opinion, the viewing would be more compelling. We would also get a far better gauge of who is faster than whom, as more drivers would be directly comparable as there would be a relatively greater number of team mates than before.