Way back in the late 70's and early 80's there was a time when alongside the main world championship there was also the Aurora British F1 championship. The series used year old F1 cars with the exception of the March team who actually built a car especially for this championship. I believe that a series of this type would be a perfect way of expanding F1 and at the same time reducing costs.
Current F1 teams could either run their own entries, allow other teams to run their cars on their behalf or sell their cars to be run as private entries. There are more than enough track in Europe to hold at least a 10 race series and still use tracks that aren't on the current F1 callender. Circuits such as Brands Hatch, Nurburgring, Anderstorp, Zolder, Zandvoort, Dijion and Estoril are already familiar to F1 fans and there are many more European countries that would love to hold an F1 race such as Moscow and the Czech Republic. For those tracks that are tyring to hold an F1 race in the world championship it would be an ideal way to test the track in full F1 conditions before letting them into the main series. If this had happened with Valencia it may have prevented that snoozefest from entering the calender. It would also useful for testing general rule changes such as qually formats.
Another major benefit would be in introducing young drivers into F1 without the troublesome testing ban getting in the way. If a team test driver raced in a competative series during the season they would be available and far more likely to make less mistakes on graduation to the senior team. Also F1 drivers returning from lay off or injury could get back into the sport by racing in a competative series.
It wouldn't matter so much if the TV rights were on a pay channel or normal TV. The comercial side of the series would of course be controlled by the usual suspects since this is the only way a series of this type would ever get off the ground but with a regional series being a low cost entry into F1 the idea would be to keep the costs down for both circuits and fans. By introducing a new revenue stream into CVC then maybe this could offset the costs of the full WDC and reduce ticket prices and race fees in this area as well.
So I think a European F1 championship and who knows maybe even a Asian and American series would make perfect sense. (that's why I doubt it would ever happen
)
Current F1 teams could either run their own entries, allow other teams to run their cars on their behalf or sell their cars to be run as private entries. There are more than enough track in Europe to hold at least a 10 race series and still use tracks that aren't on the current F1 callender. Circuits such as Brands Hatch, Nurburgring, Anderstorp, Zolder, Zandvoort, Dijion and Estoril are already familiar to F1 fans and there are many more European countries that would love to hold an F1 race such as Moscow and the Czech Republic. For those tracks that are tyring to hold an F1 race in the world championship it would be an ideal way to test the track in full F1 conditions before letting them into the main series. If this had happened with Valencia it may have prevented that snoozefest from entering the calender. It would also useful for testing general rule changes such as qually formats.
Another major benefit would be in introducing young drivers into F1 without the troublesome testing ban getting in the way. If a team test driver raced in a competative series during the season they would be available and far more likely to make less mistakes on graduation to the senior team. Also F1 drivers returning from lay off or injury could get back into the sport by racing in a competative series.
It wouldn't matter so much if the TV rights were on a pay channel or normal TV. The comercial side of the series would of course be controlled by the usual suspects since this is the only way a series of this type would ever get off the ground but with a regional series being a low cost entry into F1 the idea would be to keep the costs down for both circuits and fans. By introducing a new revenue stream into CVC then maybe this could offset the costs of the full WDC and reduce ticket prices and race fees in this area as well.
So I think a European F1 championship and who knows maybe even a Asian and American series would make perfect sense. (that's why I doubt it would ever happen
)
