Williams prepared to challenge Toro Rosso, Aguri

Hope they don't prepare to challenge Toro Rosso and Aguri on the race track

 

He's just worried they'll kick his rear ON the track.

 

There was a good article in F1 magazine on exactly this topic, also addressing the myriad changes that poeple are constantly calling for to make it more exciting. The main point on this is that F1 is a constructor championship and this type of thing makes it look like Cart or Indycar with only one or two chassis, at the very least its a move in that direction. Esp since in both cases it looks like the primary team is running 4 cars if this goes ahead. I can see why he'd be pissed.

Its questionable in the first place that Red Bull and Honda should own two teams...

 

Bingo. And they will.

 

Like it or not the B teams are here to stay. F1 will have around 5 top car manufacturers running A teams and each one of those will have a small development B team. Ron Dennis already mentioned plans to get his own B team. It is just a matter of time.

 

Still - at least they should make an effort to hide it.
I don't have truckload of cash - so I don't field an F1 team, why it have to be different for Super Aguri ?

 

Actually this is what I thought this thread was about ... LOL.

In this case I 100% support Frank, although we used to have privateers, but ofcourse their cars were atleast 1 year old.

Bring back more race teams ... manufacturers were fun but now they are destroying the sport. Too much moaning because they are in it for the wrong reasons.

Pete

 

We talked about this a month or two ago: I don't want F1 to be like Indy in 1975 where half the field ran Eagles, and I don't want it to be like Indy in 198X where 3/4 of the field ran a March, and I SURELY don't want it to be like Indy now.
Problem is, since they cannot control costs, pretty soon we won't have the 2nd tier teams, just Ferrari, Renault (until they quit), and McLaren (until Mercedes quits). I can see losing 3 teams real easily, as a sponsor hunter, how on earth do you sell your team to a sponsor when you are 5 seconds off the pace at EVERY track ALL of the time ? You think Super Aguri would even exist if they didn't buy out Arrows ? I doubt it.

Don't say it can't happen, because it did to Brabham, Lotus and Tyrrell to name just three, can any of you honestly go back in time to 1973 and say Tyrrell would go belly up, or go back to 1983-86 and say Lotus and Brabham would die off ?
Maybe it's just the evolution of F1, after all, Cooper is gone, Eagle is gone, BRM, Matra, etc. Yes, some of those evolved into different teams, but today it's a different game altogether...

 

I was pretty upset when RB bought Minardi and turned it into a Red Bull car. And now this Honda crap is going on and McLaren/ProDrive. I'm starting to lose interest. Especially if it comes down to only 6 teams racing. We had 10 teams before Super Aguri, now we'll have 9 instead of 11 since STR is basically RBR and SA is Honda.

 

Come to think of it, unless it was in a crash, or unless Alonzo or Schumacher was lapping one, I hardly ever saw any 'real' footage of a backmarker car on TV all season long.

 

true Al, but, i used to think, whats the points of Minardi ever entering races? they get lapped, 2-3 secs slower the than front runners, and they don't challenge anybody. whats their role here?

yes, i'm against this team A team B thing, but then again, at least they pump in the cash to make the teams more competitive. fans want more competition. most of them don't care who owns who, they just wanna see good racing, and close racing. not gonna happen if teams like Minardi and Jordan were still around i think.

 

^If F1 wants to make the race very competitive, then all the cars would be Ferraris or another brand. Without a spec series, there will basically be a car that will be lapped. It happens in the Nextel Cup as well.

It's probably way too late to implement something like this, but a "salary" cap has worked in the NFL and NBA. It prevents teams with a lot more money from "buying" championships. The MLB doesn't have a salary cap and the Yankees frequently have $200mm in salary and always get to the playoffs (haven't won the WS in about 6 years, though). For the NBA, the New York Knicks, owned by Comcast, have $120mm in salary, about double the salary cap. They get by it by paying a luxury tax (100&#37.

I'm not saying to put in a salary cap of $40mm, which is what it cost Miniardi to run annually from what I heard. But $300mm+ is getting ridiculous for teams like Toyota, McLaren, and Ferrari. Good thing Toyota is sucking, though, making some paraity. Say the cap is $120mm. Teams can still spend $300mm, but they'll have to pay a luxury tax on every dollar over $120mm. It won't prevent them from spending more, just doesn't encourage them to spend more.

 

If teams spend less - than tickets should cost less. If it takes less than a bussfare to get to Indy - that's not really the pinacle of autosport.

 

i think, if we were to go back to the 80s era engine style, and rules maybe, then maybe we can have a square field.

 

Sad to see Frank in this situation;his team needs to make a statement on the track; not the courtroom.....I'm thinking that his team may soon be Toyota's B-team if things don't improve at Williams-although I think he may be right on the STR issue.....