Making a potential breakaway series successful

With Ferrari's and Mercedes' breakaway series threat, here's my take on how they can make it successful. Starting a new series is incredibly hard to do successfully.

• Good looking cars that make close following possible. That is an absolute no brainer of course. Especially in the very beginning, joining teams need to be able to buy a chassis from a big manufacturer. A constructor like Dallara needs to make a chassis too for customer teams
• Engines are very important to get right straight away. Liberty is stuck with the FIA who insists upon appearing green. The breakaway series can use this opportunity to be as exciting as possible. IMO F1's spec V8 worked well, add 2 or 4 extra cylinders, direct injection and what engines can cost. It shouldn't be an engineering championship where one engine is so much more powerful than the rest. Exciting noise that captivates the audience is vital IMO.
• Cost control. It shouldn't be so expensive that teams will struggle to survive. Steel brakes, standardized front and rear wing. Make suspension, chassis free of design (or able to purchase from others).
• Speed. They need to be as fast as current F1 cars on a single lap. IMO shedding some 140kg (which is easy), even with the reduced aero this would be possible.
• Race format. I quite like the idea of mimicking the F2/GP2 race format. Practices Fridays, Qualifying either on Friday or Saturday (I'd prefer Saturday of course but timing world wide may be an issue), and then a feature and sprint race...timing needs to be worked on as a Sprint race on Sunday would be a little stupid, but it doesn't work very well doing a full length feature race right after qualifying either. Sprint race to feature a reverse grid (top 8/10) and no pitstop.
• Prize money. Obviously doing well should be rewarded. I think the NFL model works well, where owners can actually make money fairly. This would be a masterstroke and a great way convincing teams (whether they're current F1 teams or F2/World Series/Le Mans teams looking for a step up) to join
• The right drivers. It would be a total no go if drivers that no one has heard of turn up. Some big names would need to take the (huge) step. Certainly some F1 boys would need to be involved.
• Coverage. Total no brainer to approach a Netflix, Amazon or even Youtube for streaming straight away. NO adverts.

I think that would rattle some cages. IMO Red Bull would follow (may be even compete in both series for the time being). Make it an engineerings championship would be an enormous mistake and barely anyone would care about it. It needs the right mix between engineering, drivers and most of all being spectacular to watch. It needs to thrill.

 

Red Bull could be the company that pulls it off creating the series and having title sponsorship instead of being a race team.

 

No other teams are going to join a new series basically run by Ferrari and Mercedes, they would not stand a chance it would be a procession even more so than F1 is now.

Its the usual sabre rattling at negotiation time, Bernie used to call their bluff every time as none of them wanted to run such a set up really and he knew that, so they all then fell into line time and time again.

Also the tracks and promoters are not going to break away from the FIA just so they can host one race a year that they make no money on anyway.

They do need to sort it out though, I followed F1 since 1976 as an 8 year old, I knew every car and every driver in detail for the next 3 decades. Not watched an F1 race in the last 3 years.

 

Here's my take on a breakaway series: It won't happen.

 

The most important rule: It only costs the city/track $10M to host an event, down from the $25M for the F1 circus as it is today.

But if you want close racing,
a) you have to get rid of 80%-odd of the aero
a.1) single plane front wing, fixed wing angle, used for entire season--same wing for Monaco and Monza
a.2) single plane rear wing, fixed angle, used for entire season--same wing for Monaco and Monza
a.3) convex hull rule for underbody
a.4) no winglettes, no barge boards, shark fins, no diffusers, monkey seats, front tea tray, rear tray
b) Qualified car can start on qualifying tires with pit stops or tires one step harder and go entire race without pit stop
c) Engines:: car gets 6T Joules of energy, any engine configuration the team wants.
c.1) engine has to last 1 race weekend.
c.2) transmission has to last 1 race weekend
c.3) engine or transmission fails:: car does not participate in race
d) Brakes:: with the restricted aero brake regulations don't matter.
e) race distance: 200 miles or 2 hours

 

To be honest, rather than a break away F1-esque series I'd rather Ferrari and Mercedes focus more on their GT programs. They both already do a fairly good job of it (especially Mercedes) but I'd love to see a true factory team from both.

 

Why Ferrari is threatening a breakaway series. It's because they want to keep the status quo. Merc and Ferrari wouldn't simplify the rules; the current regs suit their competitive advantages.

-For 2018 it was Marchionne that blocked staying with 4 engines rather than continuing the step down to 3 engines.

-For 2021 it is Marchionne that is threatening to leave if they simplify the engine regs away from the current hybrid PU's. Red Bull had even proposed going back to the NA engines, the manufacturers shot that down pretty quickly.

-On the aero side Merc and Ferrari have army's of aero engineers. Simplify that part of the formula and suddenly another big competitive advantage falls away.

A breakaway series run by the manufacturers would magnify all that's currently wrong with F1.

 

^ This...

People read the headlines about a breakaway series and instantly forget why and jump to other conclusions. Then, when everybody begins to add their two cents, there are wildly differing ideas about how this breakaway series should work...almost none of which are inline with the reasons Ferrari and Mercedes are giving for their threats.

Ross Brawn is desperately needed by the sport, but has a gigantic challenge ahead of him.

 

All I'm saying is the only way a break away would work if they take a sensible approach like I wrote above. Do the opposite and be all about technical superiority and it'll be a massive failure, and F1 will have changed as I write above (with a Turbo V6 + KERS engine instead of V10 due to the green appearances of the FIA). It's quite simple.

 

I get what you’re saying and it makes sense as a stand-alone argument. In the context of Ferrari’s current threat, it is very wide of the mark, though. And, like I mentioned above, the “sensible approach” varies from person to person to the point that a few posters in an Internet thread can’t agree on what it means...let alone millions of fans (and drivers/teams/sanctioning bodies) around the world.

When consensus is so far away, somebody (if not everybody) will be disappointed.

 

A major works team with their sponsors fully onboard would have to go to make it work. One of many problems is none of the teams would see the new rules as a middle ground, they would always say they favor one over the other etc, the politics would be ludicrous. It's like beginning a new political party

 

If engine, aero, and materials rules are not simplified, F1 is a cost competition and the team that can spend the most will be the most competitive. Very few teams can afford to have 400-500 people on the payroll, plus the cost of plant and equipment. The big manufacturers (Merc and Ferrari) can bury even more of the cost within their corporate R&D departments.

Basically, it's just gotten out of hand, and teams have different motivations. Clearly, Mercedes and Ferrari have different overall goals than Red Bull or Haas.

F1 shouldn't become a spec series, but it could be far less technically complicated and produce even more compelling racing.

 

Get rid of those stupid grid penalties. This is racing, things are going to break. You race a Camry balls out, and it will break. You qualify and things break, fix it without fear of starting in pit lane.

 

but with an engine costing between 1.5-2 million a unit that's just not possible. Thanks to the FIA of course.

If the engine cost 100 grand it would be a no brainer. One engine per race is reasonable.

 

FI has become something akin to the Titanic,with Admiral Todt at the wheel,has drifted way off course but continues full steam ahead, they have an inexperienced look out on the deck ,Capt Liberty,who has no clue what he is doing but muddling along in the fog, hoping for the best, they hired an experienced shipwright Brawn but he is hampered by his lack of authority...if they fail to turn around the ship they will surely bump into something rather large,just starting to appear on the sonar...

 

Hmmm, so if Merc could run the AMG GTR motor, and Ferrari ran the 488 motor, it would be possible. Just need to redesign some parts around the chassis. Of course, easier said than done.

 

Yes and no...teams using road car engines I don't see, or would like (lack of revs)

the base of this V6 engine really doesn't cost all that much. it's all the crap around it that is stupid money. The turbo alone costs over 100 grand. If F1 proclaims to be road relevant, they should realize that turbo is the furthest thing from road relevancy. It's not relevant today, in 5 years, or ever. Keep the basic V6 architecture, bolt on 2 garrett/borg warners and go to the pub. Noise will improve. Cost will go down substantially, racing to improve as they can now simply use an engine a weekend (mostly so that the rich teams can't swap in a new engine for each session, really), so crank up the boost and lets go racing...

 

You just described a twenty year old Saab.

The turbo concept being used in F1...harvesting heat and kinetic energy and electrically pre-spooling...will definitely be seen in road vehicles soon. These are the sorts of technologies that will extend the life of the internal combustion engine.

 

I have my views you have yours. I know you're a big fan of the huge tech in F1.

 

Actually, we have a lot to agree to...

I like the power unit... you don't. We can agree to disagree.

However, we are in lockstep with ridiculous nature of the aero package...

Without the ''force field" I think the power unit would be really impressive... that's the overlap of our views.

I keep saying that wholesale change is not productive. IOW, I don't think that the aero AND power unit should change simultaneously. The power units are close... the focus should be on eliminating the force field.

 

I think without the force field I'd probably be a lot less focused on the engine side, I agree. Outside of qualifying the Mercedes currently isn't that far ahead.

 

Surely IndyCar is all the proof you need of what a disastrous idea a breakaway series is?