Quote:
Originally Posted by Richard C
Thanks for the thoughtful reply. Its a good post. I also wanted to be clear that my preference is for the commercial side to not be so closed, but if it is to be closed, then this relegation idea could be a solution to stagnant and poor performing teams.
You call out the FIA/FOM split between regulation and commercial. I actually think this relegation process would have to be owned fully or primarily by the commercial side. I think this could address existing EU rulings. And this could not be imposed during an existing Concorde period. It would have to be agreed upon by any team who signs the next agreement (and some might not, but more on that later). All of this might seem like a bridge too far (and probably is), but I can imagine that with the correct incentives it could happen.....
Richard
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I had not bothered with a clause to drop a team at all.
Why?
Because the current regulation allows for 26 entrants.
Any extra starters would have to qualify (less than 31 entrants then no prequalifying) and if someone couldn't make the top 26 then no race.
If only the top 11 teams in any one year are eligible for the prize funs which means two teams have to be fully self-funded if they are going to continue.
The battle to be out of the bottom two (if there are 13) will be as much fun to follow as the battle for the top 6 teams.
And how are they going to fully fund themselves for no results?
Even if they got a basic 12 million a year as a gift for attending and earning a grid spot (500,000 a race x 24) it would be peanuts in the overall cost and fund distribution.
There is nothing immoral or unfair about this. Teams have always had to be able to fund themselves and if the bottom two teams have backers, sponsorship, rich parents, whatever, then that is the chance they take.
What my suggestion does is completely remove the anti-dilution fund from the equation and allow any team that wants to have a go submit an entry to the FIA and once checked out for funding etc. They get permission to have a go.
The 11 teams on the ladder (Ferrar, RBR, or MB/ Mclaren on the top rung probably), and someone on the 11th bottom rung with one or two teams trying to get on the ladder. A third team at the bottom would mean someone drops out in qualifying and if they are all two car teams, maybe two teams only get one car in.
There is no need for FOM/Liberty or anyone else to have an exclusion policy.
If they can't make it to the ladder and subsequently fail or give up so be it.
That is the competitive nature of the sport. Cooper won two championships in 59/60 but ultimately failed after 1968 when it was unable to raise funds but two of the drivers who drove for them in the championship years had by that time both established their own teams and won championships in F1 and Can Am.
If one of my three traditional teams fell over so be it.
They would have had the opportunity to claw back onto the ladder but if they failed to do that and could not sustain themselves then they would collapse.
You want to add MB and RBR to the traditional list but why?
The traditional list is for those who have a long-term place in the sport, because they have some historic value, not necessarily for what they have achieved. All of them, McLaren, Williams, and Ferrari have had long dry spells but were able to resurrect themselves and leap back into contention.
This way of dealing with things allows that to continue without the interference from either the FIA or Liberty or who later owns the commercial rights.
I'm never amazed by the number of people who want to allow individual companies, people politicians, organizations int o having authority over what other people do with their lives.
So, I am always reluctant to trust people with authority to do something, when it can easily be remedied by a simple organizational process that allows natural cycles of growth, evolution, demise or attrition to sort things out.
This system in a natural cycle allows the competitive to rise, allows everyone the opportunity to compete for the right to compete in F1 and allows the best to survive.
Everything on this planet in natural systems moves in cycles. Dominance and ability rise in the same way in F1.
What the sport doesn't need is to have mechanisms that allow the naturally competitive process to be manipulated by human interference.
Look at Mercedes. They came into F1 in the 50's, dominated, left, returned again in the 90's and 2000's then established their own team in again in 2010. That is nothing like what Ferrari, Williams and McLaren have done so my suggestion of 50 years (half a century) of continuous activity to qualify as a historically significant part of the history of f1 seems to me to be valid.
Red Bull will be historic in 2057, Mercedes in 2060, if they continue.
Brawn? Well Ross would need to buy a team, or build one, and start again.
That is not bad.
It doesn't mean Ross is not a significant historic figure in the history of the sport.
It simply means that Brawn, as a team have not established a long-term historic identity.
You could make it 40 years and not 50, but it wouldn't change anything, and it shouldn't because it is not a reward for achievement but a recognition of longevity.