planetf1.com

“Liberty Media is working on it, to make it a more even playing field, I was told. Can you imagine if we were to have five or six teams that were able to win races? Wouldn’t that be awesome?" Gunther Steiner

On the face of it I do think this would be great, but I wonder if everyone feels that way? With 6 teams capable of winning races that would mean there would potentially be 12 GP winners... and I'm pretty sure that there aren't 12 worthy WDC winners on the grid.

So would you rather there was just a couple of drivers going head to head or would you be happier if there were more teams capable of winning?

On the one hand a head to head makes a good story, but if there was greater parity then we wouldn't have drivers like Alonso languishing in a useless McLaren and unable to show us what he can still do.

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Shoot999: "And anyone who puts a Y on the end of his name as a nickname should be punched in the face repeatedly."

I think the point is 'capable' of winning. I take that as able to win if you are good enough, not if you are not. There would be some potluck winners (Panis?) but it should make the drive away into the distance race a rarity.

To be honest, I can see the point of it being the best prepared team being able to drive off into the distance, but the new owners want to spread the tv coverage over the cars. Not that we do not have good scraps now, so I dont know why they are not covered.

I would love to see parity. Almost every major sports franchise, from EPL to Indycar to NASCAR to the NFL, they strive for this.

First off, it would make the racing a heck of a lot more exciting, and something to look forward to. For example, in the coming race at Singapore, there are just one of two drivers who are going to be the winner. In the coming championship-determining Indycar race at Sonoma, it could be one of twenty drivers.

Secondly, it gives hope. If a team does a good job, they should be in the running. If Haas get their car absolutely perfect, get the setup also perfect, and Grosjean has the drive of his life, he will never be the winner at Singapore. Hope would also exist for the team, they can actually accumulate worthy points if they do a good job. That leads to a decent payout at the end of the season.

From my experience watching a lot of NASCAR and Indycar where anyone can win on any Sunday, have no fear. While individual races can be chaotic and anyone can win, in the long run, at the end of the season, the cream rises to the top and almost always, the best car/driver is the one who captures the championship.

Personally I believe lack of parity is one of the major problems in Formula One.

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Only dogs, mothers, and quality undergarments give unconditional support.

I don't think that will ever get resolved, though. Not without changing the fundamental nature of F1. I can't see any way to do that beyond making it a spec series, which would be a complete break from the past. Not sure I'd be keen on that. I'm already fed up with the FIA trying to crush every bit of ingenuity the teams come up with!

Liberty Media will have to do a lot of convincing to Mercedes, Ferrari & Red Bull.

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Feel The Fourth

TBF for a time we had a grid with Ferrari, Renault, Mclaren, Honda/BAR, BMW, Toyota and Red Bull all with the aim of winning races. The competitiveness was good. The racing wasn't always.

Yeah people forget that just a few years ago, we had a season where the top 6-7 teams were all within 1 second of each other...

But do we want a glass ceiling where a team like Mercedes or previously Red Bull, Ferrari, Mclaren, Williams etc can not be better than the others without being hit down?

If it is just plain spending power I am all for curbing it, but what if someone comes up with the equivalent of ground effect, or active ride?

If the playing field is even generally the best performing team/player will win.

If they're expecting 5-6 teams fighting for wins it sounds like what their actually talking about is making the playing field uneven, but in such a way that it makes things more competitive. That is a dangerous game (see: double points).

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Oops sorry about the double post

right here's one go at it

Each time you finish outside the top 6, you get a half a days testing time. (Includes finishers only) There should be a nominated track where the tests are run and only non competing drivers can drive.

Where does the funding for this come from? Engine component penalties.

One option, but I could not think how to present it would be testing at a track before the event. The lower down the field, the more time you get before the big boys arrive on friday.

It's a sticky situation. The best way to bring parity is to have a spec series but even then the cream still rises to the top. Teams with more money to spend on quality engineers to get the setups right and having plenty of spare parts move to the top of the heap and are able to attract the best drivers.

Unfortunately that takes away the development aspect of the series which is one of my favorite parts of F1 so it would be a net loss for people like me. I have my set of drivers that I prefer to see do well but I don't want to see chassis and engine development sacrificed just so my guys have a better chance of winning.

I think the best solution is a hard budget cap. The problems are 1: enforcing it and 2: not stifling ingenuity

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{Insert clever sig line here}

Point 2 there is the biggest problem with F1 over the last 25 years.

Far too much of it is dictated before the designers and engineers even open their laptops.

It would be a lot better than what we have now.

They would also need to reduce the cost of F1 teams and alter the rules for cars so that you cannot gain a big advantage by spending money.

Then the money can be directed toward getting non-pay drivers into F1, and if the driver can have a bigger influence on the result than the car, then they will hire the best drivers they can get and the level of driver in F1 will rise.

Fans are more likely to be fans of drivers than cars, so more people will become fans of F1.

I agree that we will never see complete parity. But hopefully the gaps will be narrowed down. Of course I also do not want Formula One to become a spec series. But does not negate having spec parts, especially for the expensive stuff. For example wings and underbody could be spec, and the teams have the freedom to do whatever they wish with the top half of the car. That would definitely reduce costs for everyone, and narrow the field.

And yes, the regulations are too restrictive. In most cases it was to restrict costs, but innovation has been replaced by refinement, and many bright engineers are no longer attracted to working in Formula One.

But Ross Brawn is a bright man, and if anyone is capable of solving many of these issues, he is the one. So I have hope for the future.

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Only dogs, mothers, and quality undergarments give unconditional support.

We had a season not so long ago where 8 of the 24 drivers, representing 6 of the 12 teams on the grid, won a race. An additional 4 drivers stood on the podium at least once.

That was an awesome season.

sounds like gp2

Is that a good thing though? People say Button wasn't deserving of his WDC because his car had a particular 'innovation' that made it the class of the field.

Would we be okay with say, Palmer (humour me!) becoming WDC because Renault thought of something clever?

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Shoot999: "And anyone who puts a Y on the end of his name as a nickname should be punched in the face repeatedly."

But the team get the benefit for innovation. As long as its within the rules it is part of F1. I would prefer to see an occasional semi-cheat than a full curtailment of talent.

I remember hearing him give that quote on NBCSN, and the context was that in a crazy or lucky situation, he feels a team like Haas should be able to win. Not that he thinks every team should be capable of winning every weekend, but that the gap shouldn't be so large that it is well and truly impossible for a midfield team to win, even if circumstances go heavily their way. And I agree with that much.

I personally feel that the big team / little team dynamic is something that's part of F1's DNA, like it or not - but there should be enough freedom to innovate that a little team can come up with something and temporarily flummox the giants. Right now they can't do that, and that represents something that's missing from F1, for me at least.


In NASCAR I think you're right, anyone can win on a Sunday. I don't consider that to be a good thing.

As for Indycar, however, there's only 5 or 6 guys with a real chance to win on any given weekend, and they're all concentrated at the top teams. You have a situation like Steiner is talking about, actually; the big teams win when things stay normal, but it's close enough that the midfield has a chance if something unusual happens.

Artificial parity, however, I feel is bad for sports. I think it's built off of the mistaken belief that fans need the possibility for their team to win every time to stay interested, which the large following of teams like Minardi proves is not the case. Part of what makes a team like Ferrari special is that they're such a powerhouse in the sport; if they were just one of 10 teams, all with an identical chance of winning, they would be much less special.

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PICK 10 COMPETITION (4 wins, 14 podiums): 3rd in 2016
TOP THREE CHAMPIONSHIP (No Limit Excedrin Racing): Champions in 2015 & 2018 | 2nd in 2017
AUTOSPORT GP PREDICTOR: 2017 USA & P-F1 Champion | #2 in the world in 2017

It wouldn't be Palmer, because it would be Hulk. But ignoring that - let's assume we're talking about Sauber instead, where I rate neither driver - yes, I would be. Because I view F1 as a team championship, and Sauber would have fully deserved to win based on their superior innovation.

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PICK 10 COMPETITION (4 wins, 14 podiums): 3rd in 2016
TOP THREE CHAMPIONSHIP (No Limit Excedrin Racing): Champions in 2015 & 2018 | 2nd in 2017
AUTOSPORT GP PREDICTOR: 2017 USA & P-F1 Champion | #2 in the world in 2017

In 2012 we had 8 teams arguably capable of winning a race and it was one of the best of recent years IMO. I much preferred it the one team domination we've had since then.

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I remember when this website was all fields.

First half of 2013 was superb as well.

Greater parity would be an enormous step forward for the sport in my opinion. We all have our own views on what makes for better racing (DRS, refuelling, tyre wars or whatever) but the most intriguing seasons have generally been the ones where there has been close competition between multiple teams and the technical regulations within which they were competing were largely irrelevant. A fine example is to contrast the excitement of the 2003 season (8 different winners from 5 different teams in 16 races) to the horrible dullness of the 2004 season (Schumacher wins 12 of the first 13 races); both run under the same regulations.

The sport doesn't need to go down the spec series route to achieve this, we just need greater parity in how the revenue is distributed between the teams. Sadly such ideas will always be quashed by the self-interest of the teams who benefit from the current skewed arrangement and ridiculed by fans of those teams who only want to see their favourites win, even if it's brought about by the odds being perpetually stacked in their favour.

Seasons like 1982 (except for the tragedies) and 2013 were so awesome, you never knew what will the next race bring. If that is to happen, I am for it.

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The end is near

I think while some fans are shouting for 'more speed' there is never going to be a close group. Racing is racing, if its going impossibly fast around a very tight bend as much (or more so) than a drag along a straight at 200 mph. They could get close to the same possible performance out of the cars by mandating a set size of intake restriction and a set maximum fuel flow. This would give what ever was wanted an almost all the track except the very long straights. You would have one team running a 4 cyl and another running a flat 8 and due to weight difference being within touching distance for the whole race.

To get close racing without artificial interference, or standardising everything, there would have to be a complete re-jig of the rules and aims.

If people are really saying that about Button and not mentioning Lewis or Nico because of the current Mercedes PU then they need a good shake. Other teams had the double diffuser from the start in 09 and before the midway point all the big teams did I believe.

Only Mercedes brought lean burn to the Turbo regs and the next Manufacturer to introduce it was Ferrari in Canada 2015. A season and a quarter later. A year later Renault and another year after that Honda. By which point Mercedes have such a head start on R&D their advantage is still there to see in the highest modes 3 years later.

Lean burn systems have been the biggest performance differentiator I've seen since Active Suspension by a country mile but F1 should be about innovation so I'm cool with it of course but it makes the DD look like a child's toy to be fair. So did Mercedes Hydraulic Pitch Control suspension which they also had for half a dozen races last year(As did Red Bull though).

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"Clark came through at the end of the first lap so far ahead that we in the pits were convinced that the rest of the field must have been wiped out in an accident."
-Eddie Dennis, describing the dominance of Jim Clark in the Lotus 49 at Spa 1967

Why not? Many talk about the "DNA" of Formula One, and without any doubt, innovation and making leaps over the competition is part of it's history. From Fangio to Clark to Andretti to Rosberg, those drivers had cars that were superior to the competition. So of a VERY long list of WDC's who won with superior machinery, do we write all of them off as unworthy?

Curtailing pure spending is extremely difficult to police. First off, no major corporation will allow an outside agency like the FIA access to their finances. So a major manufacturer like Mercedes (pick any manufacturer, they can all do it) can spend insane amounts of money at what on paper is a separate engineering exercise, then apply it directly to their car.

I am continually amazed at some fans, they seem to believe that the titles should be decided by drivers. But they are just a window dressing, it's the teams that matter and decide the results. And I wonder why some object to the concept of anything close to a spec series. First off, it almost always produces lowered costs and fantastic racing, both in short supply in Formula One. And the cars do not have to look or act identical, some parts such as wings and underbody are noticed by only the most acute observers obsessed by the technology.

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Only dogs, mothers, and quality undergarments give unconditional support.

I'm a bit baffled by this paragraph. You start out by saying that the titles shouldn't be decided by drivers, and it's all about the team. Fair enough, but then you go right into calling for a spec series, which would make it all about the drivers!

F1, WEC and MotoGP are the pinnacle of motorsport to me because they're the ones where the technological innovation is happening. No spec series can ever enter that category, in my opinion. I'd be happier if there was a lot more innovation going on, but the one thing that might actually make me stop watching F1 would be if it became a spec series.

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PICK 10 COMPETITION (4 wins, 14 podiums): 3rd in 2016
TOP THREE CHAMPIONSHIP (No Limit Excedrin Racing): Champions in 2015 & 2018 | 2nd in 2017
AUTOSPORT GP PREDICTOR: 2017 USA & P-F1 Champion | #2 in the world in 2017

I'm also cool with the innovation, but still seethe at the regulations that handicap teams who don't get it right from the start!

So most are in agreement that its not the leaders need hobbling, its the tail enders need a lift?
But, here is the kicker, it costs. and it costs those who can afford it least. Thats why I am coming around to what I read on another site a bout engine fines being in cash and put into a development pool

I would love it if the gap between teams was smaller. It would be so exciting!

In the first 7 races in 2012, 7 different drivers won from 5 different teams.

The V8 engines provided a level of parity not seen in many many years (maybe ever).

The 4 years of Red Bull dominance, I believe, is not comparable to the 2014-2016 dominance of Mercedes. Whilst Red Bull ultimately came out on top from 2010-2013, there were many teams in the mix and very close championships (in some years).

2012 was a great year for F1. Even Maldonado won a race!

Renault were well known for having a weaker engine than Mercedes and Ferrari, but better efficiency (and lower weight) made it competitive. This can't be done now.

Whilst the rules restricting numbers of engines, gearboxes etc. were aimed at cutting costs, in my opinion this has stifled development and reduced parity as the engine manufacturers focus much more on reliability and reduce the number of possible upgrades.

When the 2021 rules come, the power units need to be simpler. It is possible to have hybrids without them being as expensive and complicated as the current units.

Dominance will happen at times, but 2014-16 can't happen again.

What is keeping the 'HAVES' winning races is the 'mandated reliability' that has been forced on the teams by the current rule set.

'Back in the Day', a second or third tier team could sneak it's way to Victory Lane by just being able to get to the finish line first as all the preimere teams DNF'd for any of a variety of reasons, (wrecks, engine failure, transmission failure, driveline failure, brake failure, tire failure and 1001 other failures).

The HAVES have the best drivers and the best engine/car packages - one has to expect one of them to win every race - if one of the doesn't there is SERIOUS FAILURE among the haves.

The reality of today's F1 racing is the the overall grid is closer in competitive lap times than at any time since 'modern' F1 was started in 1950. Q1 times from fastest to slowest is generally in the 3-4% range. No one, not even McLaren-Honda or Sauber have been in danger of the 107% rule; for that matter last year even Manor wasn't in danger of the 107% rule.

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That's not true.

There was a period around ten years ago when the grid as a whole was much closer. 2009 I believe was the closest season ever.

The top teams need to understand that they are not bigger than the sport. If they don't like it, they can leave. F1 will be fine with or without them.

Nobody would care if Red Bull or Mercedes left. They don't actually have any fans. Red Bull fans are actually either Verstappen fans or Ricciardo fans. Mercedes fans are almost exclusively Hamilton fans.

Ferrari would perhaps be the only loss than would hurt.

Fans may not directly care if Red Bull and Merc left but they would care that they now only had 3 teams on the grid with any aspiration of becoming champions.

Thanks for pointing out that I support one of the drivers and not red bull, can you tell me which one it is as having thought I supported the team I'm confused...

I don't understand why people constantly have a go at Red Bull.

They have had a long association with the sport in terms of sponsorship (pretty sure the late 90s Saubers had Red Bull sponsorship), have run 2 teams for over a decade, given several young drivers, including 3 race winners, their chance in F1 (this is particularly important as Williams and Sauber rely more and more on pay drivers) and they own and have renovated one of the best tracks on the grid.

Red Bull leaving F1 would be a huge blow to the sport.

Many reports have Red Bull quitting soon, 2021 at the latest. It was good that they came in, they probably kept two teams alive that would have fallen out, but I dont know that they would be missed as the teams would continue under another name.

The team currently badged as Red Bull could continue as Porsche and STR could continue as Honda.
We have got used to seeing the name and logo, but they are only in it for their own ends, and when they think the payback does not meet the cost, they will go.

It will look wrong for a while, but we will get used to it. We would still have Horner and Tost on tv etc, just with a different team name.

F1 survived the loss of Brabham, Lotus, Alfa, Cooper, Maz, Tyrrell etc. Mostly they were taken over and re named.