F1 Teams to have budget caps in 09

From Autosport.com, apparently there is a wide majority of the teams in favor of the caps.

IMO it's a very good idea.

 

In theory it's a great idea. In reality, it's impossible.

 

How long until it turns into NASCAR, where everything except the engine has t be exactly the same on every car?

 

Agreed. How is the FIA going to police a team's spending?
Too easy to go around especially if a team/manufacturer has different subsidiaries and racing programs.

 

The minnows will be in favor of this of course.
There are other formulas for those who can't afford to play.

 

If they are so worried about the lack of competitiveness of the field, find a way to build up the low teams. Don't strangle the successful teams.

Is it possible that this could just be a scheme by Bernie to keep even more money for himself? The lower teams would need less of a subsidy to stay in the game, while the richer teams couldn't argue for more money either. All he would have to point out is how much he has saved them in budget. Twisted logic I know, but the guy knows how to make (and keep) money. A rich team also cannot say they spent more than the cap through the back channels as theorized in other posts. It would be admitting "cheating".

 

Isn't this what you'd expect now that the large auto companies are running things? F1 is less and less about racing and more about marketing. Companies have difficulty justifying the huge capital outlays (ie; Toyota and Honda) to their shareholders. With Mercedes buying out the rest of McLaren from Ron & friends, the face of F1 is almost entirely that of the corperation.

 

Cannot see the top F1 drivers wearing budget caps, will they match their designer clothes and sunglasses!!!!!!

 

IMO The rot has set in ..

 

I would hardly call Honda or BMW minnows.

 

Losers always want to change the rules in the hopes they will benefit.

Winners always want the rules to stay the same to keep their advantage. Ferrari's resources are higher than other teams. They naturally want to keep that advantage.

Question: How do you police and enforce a spending cap? Surely there are creative ways around this. If yu have 1,000 engineers, how do you know the work on the road cars don't find their way into the F1 cars? How do you monitor what an engineer is thinking about?

Will this rule increase or decrease spying?

 

IMHO its teams like Wiliams that are in the greatest danger here and would be the greatest loss to the sport. Teams like Super Aguri are the closest thing to the independents of the old days. When things play out and the big car companies loose interest and move on who will be left?

 

Man I miss the old day's! Maybe they should set a limit on chassis dimension's and on the alotted fuel per race and 'maybe' engine displacement but leave the rest up to the team, run what you brung!

 

Spec racing, minus the actual racing part. Kinda pitiful, really.

 

If I had my way I would only have limit's on the chassi deminsion's (if I had to set some sort of limit), yah I know I'm in dream land LOL!

 

Age old question. Is racing improved by strictly limiting specs or doing without them entirely? Formula Vee or Can Am?

 

Budget caps in F1 are ignorant on so many levels.

Plus it would be impossible to enforce uniformly.

This is just another nail in the coffin for our beloved F1 series.

 

If that's the way it's going to be then it's a sad day. What happened to this sport being the pinnacle of technology and a showcase? Engine freezes? Budget caps? So some can afford to play and some can't. I don't disagree that there could be more passing and some more 'real' racing, and I do like the idea of no TC or stability systems. But limiting budgets isn't the way to go about getting this done.

 

You answered your own question, which serie's or form of it is still around? The 'unlimited spec's' killed Can Am, a shame as it was the last of an era in motorsport's, and yet 'spec's' have kept motorsport's alive as it has been a 'sponsorship' entity for the last 20+yr's and the 'sponsor's' want an even playing field.


My comment concerning having a chassis dimension limit are only due to too the current state of F1 and the rule maker's that be, I'm no fan of the current FIA board.

 

The amount of favors from material suppliers to teams is gunna dramatically increase if they do this.

 

+1

like ross brawn said recently, lots of things that's controlled by the FIA, i think it was the engine freeze thing, actually makes teams spend more.

 

Everytime the FIA mandate's a new regulation to slow the car's down for 'safety' the team's spend just as much if not more AND the car's keep getting faster! I'm fed up with the FIA and rule's this and that so how about just setting an overall budget and let the designer's comeup with whatever their heart desire's in term's of chassis, engine etc etc.

 

If you consider that in some cases the manufacturers supply the engines free to the teams its not much of a savings is it?

 

Honestly, if the teams would be allowed to spend a limited budget on whatever they wanted, I would be all for it. As it is now, limit the budget AND limit the development is the death of F1. If the teams were limited to $100million but allowed to develop as they pleased, F1 would be back to what we all miss.

Mark

 

FEATURES
Editorial | Off On F1 | Letters | Race Features
F1 Budget Cap Here We Come
Saturday 19th January 2008

FIA President Max Mosley looks certain to retire in 2009. You heard it here first.

Why can we make such a rash prediction? Well, the FIA presidency is up for election in 2009 and this week we saw the most radical of all the radical new proposals that the FIA has in mind for the sport. And everything to be in place by 2009.

Following in the wake of the swingeing aero proposals comes the idea of a budget cap. This was discussed by the team principals and Max at a meeting in Paris last week. Mosley had skilfully steered them in the direction of a budget cap by a previous proposal to limit the use of their wind tunnels and (CFD) super-computer clusters used to help in aero design.

With the teams already having made massive investments in these areas, the last thing they wanted to see was a huge valuable asset used at 30% of its capacity.

BMW's Mario Theissen took the bait and said he would much prefer a budget cap to the FIA telling them exactly what they could do with their wind tunnel. "I think for various reasons it would not be the ideal approach," he said. "Firstly it would not be fair because all the different teams come from different (aero)baselines. Secondly it's almost impossible to police and thirdly I think the challenge is to spend our resource where you get the most performance.

"If some team decides to spend a lot of money on drivers, it should be possible that another team spends a lot of money on a computer. And then on top of that, if you really want to limit the use of expensive tools you should start with tools (such as a wind tunnel) that are not common in F1, not with a tool that is already there with every team."

Having tested the water at the team principals' meeting, Max Mosley has now written them a letter setting out his idea on a budget cap.

"Starting in 2009, there will be a cap on expenditure for all Formula One costs other than engines (as to which, see above), drivers and expenditure exclusively for promotion and marketing. Because of the variety of arrangements, particularly shareholdings, team principals' remuneration will not be included in the cap."

A meeting between FIA technical advisor (former boss of the Jaguar team) Tony Purnell and financial representatives of the teams will be held in Paris on January 31, after which the FIA hopes to set the budget cap figure for 2009, and possibly 2010 and 2011 as well. But Mosley warned:


"If the Financial Working Group are unable to devise a satisfactory method of checking expenditure or if a majority of the competing teams do not agree the proposals by 30 June 2008, the cost reduction measures voted by the World Motor Sport Council on 7 December 2007 will be adopted for 2009 in their entirety."

Which basically means that if the teams can't agree a budget cap, then the more radical cost-cutting measures Mosley proposed, such as wind tunnel limitation, will be introduced instead. It's not exactly "the carrot and stick approach", more like, "the stick and stick approach".

The FIA have been criticised in the past by F1 diehards such as Frank Williams for interfering with the commercial affairs of F1, something that is not within their terms of operation. But by threatening a proposal that is within their charter, they can effect a change.

And with Williams unlikely to be affected by any budget cap then Frank will be happy, especially because this new move looks like the death knell for customer cars. By restricting the budgets of F1 teams and creating a new Concorde agreement that will give the teams a substantial part of what is likely to be around $120m.

Mosley is supervising the biggest shift in F1 rules there has ever been. With an engine freeze in place, new rules to extend the life of gearboxes in 2008, a raft of bodywork changes for 2009, and the arrival of new energy recovery technologies in the same season, there's a lot happening. The Kinetic Energy Recovery System (KERS) is a radical enough step in itself.

Having agreed a five-year engine freeze on the 2.4-lire V8s from 2008 to 2012, the FIA, along with the manufacturers, hope to agree on objectives for new environmentally friendly engines by January 1, 2009.

So, when the time comes to elect the next President of the FIA in 2009, the future of F1 will be set. A perfect time for Max to step aside.

Andrew Davies