Quote:
Originally Posted by Motorsport Prospects
F3 is a driver development series and as such having a single make chassis allows teams to remove the intangibles such as chassis/engine combination from the driver evaluation equation. In addition, the realities of budget and the cost of running a race team make this a necessary evil for the time being.
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Not just for a driver...
F3 has always been a stepping stone for mechanics and other team personnel and designers too, so limiting the freedom means they also suffer. F3 allowed freedoms for suspension, aerodynamics, engine development, and allowed mechanics and data analysts to learn their craft in a competitive environment.
Its only in comparative recent years that its been an absolute Dallara monopoly, previously there was Reynard and Ralt who all who had stints in the carbon fibre era as the must-have chassis, with honourable mentions to Mygale, Lola and Martini for trying to crack the Dallara stranglehold.
It would be nice to see a true multi-chassis single seater championship, but sadly all the series between national Formula Ford championships and F1 are now single chassis formulae without opportunity to be clever - F2/GP2, F3/GP3, regional F3 series and F4 series.