If it gains enough traction and we lose Lotus, Marussia and Caterham...what will the teams look like in you guys opinion? for me: Mercedes: Rosberg Hamilton Hulkenberg Ferrari: Alonso Raikkonen Bianchi Red Bull: Vettel Ricciardo Kvyat Mclaren: Button Magnussen Stoffel Vandoorne Williams: Bottas Felipe Massa Felipe Nasr (those two are going to be hard! pronunciation of Massa and Nasr is almost identical in English!) Torro Rosso: Verstappen Da Costa Sainz Jr? Sauber: Van der Garde Jolyon Palmer or Perez Maldonado (if he brings 35 million) otherwise Grosjean And then I almost forget to include Force India! Perez Sutil (?) Kobayashi
I think your line-ups fairly accurate but suspect Sauber & Force India might decline to run the extra cars due to money and Red Bull & Torro Rosso might feel they already have enough coverage together pushing Kvyat back to TR ie 20 car grid
I wasn't aware that the 3 cars where only an option when I made my post ...I would think that FI, TR, Sauber and Mclaren will only run 2 cars. RB is hit and miss...they've said it's no problem for them hence I think Kvyat will still get a bump up. He's been very impressive.
Mercedes would hang onto Lewis, Rosberg. I could see them spending big money to get Vettel but a #3 might not be that important to them. Bottas would be a great #3. Ferrari would do their best to keep Alonso, but would not be able to attract any quality like Lewis, Vettel to sign up as Fernando's #2 (let alone his #3). Kimi will probably continue to drive if they continue to give him a paycheck. I could see young experience like Perez or Grosjean (or both) rounding out the lineup. McLaren would be stingy with their #2 and #3 driver because they are cheap, but would spend the money to attract the best #1 that they could. However their performance hasn't been exactly alluring over past seasons so their best #1 might end up being them hanging onto JB or courting new talent like Bottas to drive alongside K Mag. Red Bull could very well lose Vettel, but they will keep Ricciardo and use their cheap upcoming talent from their feeder team and young driver program to fill two more seats. Fielding a third car means 50% more advert space, and for Red Bull it's a drop in the bucket. Williams, Force India will pickup whatever talented peanuts are leftover. Force India will look for cheap talent and might only run two cars, while Williams will look for a driver or two who brings the most money to the table, and use that money to run a third car with a paying rookie. Toro Rosso will pull their own new rookie talent, may only run two cars or vanish completely with Ferrari and Red Bull going to 3 cars. Newcomers like Haas will run rookies and, if they survive, Sauber would run scrubs like Sutil, Maldonado.
Mercedes, Red Bull, McLaren and Ferrari as 3-car teams = 12 cars. Williams, STR, Force India, Lotus as 2-car teams = 8 cars. The field would be 20 cars only. Gone Sauber, Marussia and Caterham. Hass would join in 2016 as a 2-car team.
I would like to think there will never be 3 car teams. It just means F1 truly needs to rethink budgets, point and TV money distributions. F1 has always had the small teams. Losing the small teams would be a black mark on F1.
I only put him because I ran out of names to think of, lol. He's in the not-quite-heidfelt-frentzen-hulkenberg section for me. IIRC he holds the record for most GP's without a podium.
I'd much rather see 2 car teams as well. It'll make getting into the points a MASSIVE challenge for any team that is not in the top 3, and in a few years we'll see the exact same problem a few years down the line: teams with no money. Rethink the F1 moneys distribution system with my plan discussed in the other threads and F1 will be well on it's way again money wise...
Most of the logistic would be similar, I would think. Of course, to operate 3 cars you need more personel, more equipment, but a 3-car team wouldn't cost 50% more than a 2-car team. Customer cars wouldn't mean losing small teams; they would just have access to competitive cars instead of struggling to build their own. Tyrrell, Williams, for example started by racing customer cars.
Yep! Marussia, Sauber, Caterham might actually have decent performance this year if they could buy instead of build. And yeah the costs of running a third car would be minimal compared to the huge costs already borne by the teams.
