F1 2024 - News/Regulation change/Developments

Personally, I am glad the budget cap is failing.
In fact, competitivity would certainly be improved if it was lifted.
The sooner it goes, the better, IMO.

 

It can stay if fully amended to allow major infrastructure upgrades for the bottom 5 teams. The grid will never be competitive if that stands. Williams will never be competitive. The chassis issue alone for them is a major indicator of how bad this system is now.

 

I am wondering if any other sport uses a budget cap, as a mean to boost competition.
Usually, teams, clubs, participants are allowed to spend as much as they want.
Other expensive sports such as sailing, powerboat racing, air racing, or polo have no restriction.

 

Sure, almost all of the major sports have salary caps for players with some pretty hefty penalties for abusing the cap. It has resulted in a lot of good players being traded away, though, to clear cap space for newer (lesser paid) ones and the megastar salaries. For F1, they might consider letting teams exceed the cap with a sliding scale of penalties where a team can go over as they may wish to improve competitiveness without the penalty being so high they just cheat their way around it. For player sports, they also draft new folks in the reverse order of finishing the previous year. It would be interesting to see a soccer/football process of relegation, the top team in F2 could go to F1 with increased financial support, and the bottom team in F1 would be relegated each year...

 

Your post show that I am ignorant of what you call player sports (I call them "ball sports").
Interesting suggestion to mention a system or promotion and relegation for teams in F2 and F1, but totally unrealistic in my opinion: F1 is a big more complex that football.
One would have to wait the last few GPs each year to know which team could be relegated, and the same for those promoted for the next season. Designing a car takes a long time. F2 teams run specs series cars, and do not have the facilities, staff, technical team, nor the engine and gearbox supply, etc ...
There is a difference between designing a F1, and buying a "turn-key" F2, don't you think ?
A F2 team runs with 150 staff, a F1 team is an engineering enterprise with 600 to 800 employees.
At the moment, each and every F1 team fullfils its contract, which is to align 2 cars to all the 24 GPs each season.
In a competition, there is obviously those who win, and those who lose.
With the system of promotion/relegation, you would lose some teams, with no certainty to gain new ones.
Who would risk investing hundreds of $Millions with the possibility to be spat out after a few years?
Have you considered these basic facts ?

 

What I would like to know is how many teams do not even reach the cap. Did Williams not have a spare chassis because they were at the cap limit or because they didn't have the money to spend. I would like to see the cap eliminated but there would still be the issue of underfunded teams. Do Haas spend to the limit?

 

Maybe others are more qualified than I am to answer that.
Williams. With its limited facilities, the team decided to concentrate on producing new composite components for upgrades during the season, rather than freezing everything in case more chassis were needed. It was a gamble.
Haas. The year after the budget limit started, Steiner claimed that he wasn't affected, having only $90M to spend the previous season. Haas may never have met the budget cap.

 

Not a serious “we should do this now” but to illustrate that there are ways to balance a field to create greater competitiveness. Just as you can’t relegate an NFL team and move a college team up, I understand the differences. Maybe relegate the lowest drivers instead (just kidding). In design, crazy ideas make the merely lunatic ones sound doable, so blue sky approaches often work to break the status quo. BTW, I’ll politely disagree on the relative complexity, value and metrics of American football vs Formula 1, especially now that the NFL is going global.

F1’s ten teams are worth an average of $1.88 billion. OTOH, the Dallas Cowboys have a net worth of $9 billion, with player expenses of $261 million (maybe Max’s salary with Toto in 2025?) and an annual revue of more than $1 billion not counting merch, which adds significantly to that total. COTA cost about $400 mil to build, although comparing track construction and operating costs is tough since many of them have such unique conditions and layouts. SoFi Stadium in Los Angeles cost $5 billion in initial construction costs, high compared to others, but new ones (like in Chicago) are proposed to cost more than $4 billion (of course, Las Vegas blew more than $2 billion to build their street track, but have a permanent facility to degrade costs in subsequent years). F1 made about $3 billion in profits last year, while the Super Bowl in Phoenix made more than a billion by itself, and the league total for 2023 was $11.9 bill.

Apples and Oranges all day, and that’s before we toss in baseball, where F1 had about 2.7 million in-person attendees, and the LA Dodgers alone will top 4 million butts in seats this year…trust me, no gauntlet intended to be thrown, but I’m pretty good with basic facts. I also love F1 for its grandeur & history, even during the boring races when Ferrari isn’t winning.

 

You completely lost me with your explanations and your figures regarding US football and baseball which I know nothing about. I don't think we can make any comparison with F1, so it's totally irrelevant.

Going back to the F1 subject, each team researchs, designs, builts and develops its own cars.
That requires installations, facilities, tooling, equipment like any mechanical enterprise.
Also, each team has its technical and operational team, commercial sector, etc... Hundreds of staff in short.
All they do is dedicated to run 2 cars in the championship.
Bringing relegation in that sphere, like you proposed, would be catastrophic for the F1 industry, as each year one team would have to drop out, stop their activities and go bankrupt, with most of their staff losing their job.
The promotion at short notice of F2 teams to close the gap would also be hazardous. You don't build a F1 team overnight, not in terms of budget, structure, or human resources. You fail to understand that.
F1 works because there is stability, and the teams operate without the fear of foreclosing.
In any competition there are participants who finish last; they often aren't less deserving.
Instituting an organised culling in F1 would no bring anything positive, IMO.

 

Thanks, not a problem, the idea was loose imagining in any case. The data provided was just to illustrate that complexity isn’t the lone province of F1, and tat other spots have headquarters facilities, performance venues, way more staff than performers, have nightmarish travel logistics, and both cost a lot and make a lot. I lived in. the UK for awhile, and got a pretty good feel for why people love their football/soccer teams so passionately; I grew to enjoy rugby more, but cricket…kind of like your feelings about the American games...

Others on the board have mentioned how much they’d like some teams to either be competitive or go away, or how much better it would be if there was competitiveness throughout the grid. Very few seem happy with the current state, which is a lot like Hamilton’s dominant years in that you kind of know what’s going to happen weeks in advance, which is contrary to the idea of competition in lots of ways.

Perhaps do a spec race or two where they all sit in the same machines independently built by Fi (yes, I know that would be a couple of dollars) to see who might really be “best” instead of having a favorite and finding reasons to support your choice. No need to respond, just another wild idea to peel back the issue of how things are now, and what changes could improve it.

 

F1 boss: Calendar to stay at 24 races despite huge interest

Formula One CEO Stefano Domenicali says the sport's calendar will remain capped at 24 races despite more than 35 new venues showing an interest in hosting an event -- 11 of which he says are serious contenders.

https://www.espn.com/f1/story/_/id/40055845/calendar-stay-24-races-huge-interest-f1-chief

 

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/sport/formulaone/article-13367535/F1-fans-react-Grand-Prix-headliner-eminem-sting.html

Sounds like a bad look for Austin GP organizers lol

 

What next points for cleanest airgun during tire change?


F1’s points system debate now about extending it beyond 12th
Formula 1’s debate about a new points system for next year now revolves around how far down rewards should be given out.

And it has emerged that the main factor now being discussed is whether or not the points should be given out much further back – and potentially all the way to 20th.

 

What a stupid idea !!!
Rewarding everyone; that's another woke concept: nobody must be traumatised for failing !
They start to introduce that at school: no notation for homework.

F1 is about meritocracy, now they want to make it about mediocrity !
The nuts have taken over the asylum !!!

 

Stewards receive criticism again
Speaking to 'A Diario', Verdegay commented: "I don't see that there is discrimination against the Spaniards, what there is is a lack of control and a loss of direction. That worries me and makes me sad. For example, why did they stop racing in the rain? [...] I feel we are ruining the sport. I don't think anyone enjoys racing now.

Asked about Alonso's remarks in Miami, the Spaniard said, "Of course Alonso's complaints are legitimate. The regulations may be difficult to interpret, but he does not want everything that happens to be sanctioned. I would not have given Alonso a penalty in China and I would not have given Hamilton a penalty in Miami," Verdegay believes. "The races are meant more as a party than a sporting spectacle, it gives the impression that the Miami Grand Prix is a 'happening' organised to sell trays of nachos."

An apt description above of current F1! https://www.gpblog.com/en/news/274969/stewards-receive-firm-criticism-from-former-colleague-they-are-ruining-the-sport.html

 

Even if you give points to every driver and car in every race, you cannot escape the fact that someone will be LAST.

 

Funny, but so true !!!

 

It looks to me that many are missing that point.

Calls for sacking non-performing drivers, or closing down unsuccessful teams which I read regularly on this forum forget that in any sort of competition there will always be participants at the bottom of the ranking, whatever you do.

 

Oh but they made such an effort LOL

 

Those 'experience' events Liberty is focused on. Its not at all about racing. Just entertainment.

OH LOOK a DRS pass lol Yo great mate lets get the 400$ burger and take a photo for my Insta

 

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Que The Sex Pistols - God save the queen!!

 

Well said !

 

Another top Executive leaves the idiocy of Ben Sulayem's FIA

Chief exec Robyn leaves FIA after just 18 months

Natalie Robyn started work for the FIA in late 2022

Andrew Benson
F1 Correspondent

• 8 May 2024

Natalie Robyn has left her position as chief executive officer of motorsport’s governing body the FIA after just 18 months in the role.

The FIA said in a statement that Robyn had left “by mutual agreement to pursue opportunities outside of the FIA”.

Robyn, who will leave her role at the end of May, is the fourth senior executive to move on from the FIA since December last year.

Her departure follows the resignations of sporting director Steve Nielsen, single-seater technical director Tim Goss and head of the commission for women Deborah Mayer.

And it comes in the wake of a series of controversies involving FIA president Mohammed Ben Sulayem.

In March, the FIA’s ethics committee cleared Ben Sulayem of accusations from a whistleblower that he had interfered in races in Saudi Arabia and Las Vegas last season, saying it had found “no evidence” to support the claims.

Ben Sulayem and the FIA are also fighting a lawsuit brought by Susie Wolff, the director of the F1 Academy for aspiring female drivers and wife of Mercedes team principal Toto Wolff.

• Ben Sulayem has been embroiled in a series of other controversies since he was elected in December 2021.

Robyn did not respond to requests for comment from BBC Sport.

 

Ferrari trials more aggressive F1 spray guards in Fiorano FIA test
The Ferrari Formula 1 team trialled a new, more aggressive spray-guard system in an FIA test at the Fiorano circuit on Thursday.

Pablo ElizaldeMay 9, 2024, 11:10 AM
Upd: May 9, 2024, 11:27 AM



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