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Super budgets killed F1. It's TOO exclusive. We all know this. But those in the club don't want to let others play, and the death of the sport will be all their own stupid fault. They use tax dodges and cheats to get an edge and it all hurts them in the end. I 100% believe that if F1 was audited from head to toe, from engineer's families benefits through to god knows what, and there was a budget cap on a team's technical side then it would be an absolutely brilliant category. I'm not saying standardize the chassis and motor but give teams equal dev budgets for a car. Once that's down the rest is natural. It'll start coming back to the passionate ones, and people making a differance. Not sponsors and budgets buying people that make a differance.
Here's my first series of ideas that might work:
We know testing's expensive. Limit everyone to a set amount on any track, private or otherwise in between periods. Say, 8 hours each period break. NONE can be done during the four periods (Starting Tour, Europe A [then a testing period] Europe B, America-Japan). Then, for every X hours they'll trade, they pick up 2X in time usable at tracks. Also, to help drop costs down, ALL staff travel on prearranged 'bulk buy' transport, all vehichles shipped on the same ships and everyone has the same container volume limit heading to each race. This may jarr with some, but they can take their 1st class personal transports or whatever, but they still have to pitch in for the bulk by deals. But not on car and spares transport.
Finally, get some talented technicians to design a black-box ECU for the motor, ban Traction Control, another expensive item. Reintroducing slicks in combination with this and limiting aerodynamic aids (Rules can EASILY be made to help with this.) will also go a long way to increasing the effectiveness of good chassis and suspension design and setup, which is cheaper than wind tunnel testing and constant tyre development.
All are methods aimed at levelling out maximum possible expenditures.
Here's another idea: An F2 category. F2 has a more restricted, slightly slower setup, runs in the same races but ultimately is harder to win with. Ideally a 600kg limit with a 2.4 litre 8 cylinder motor, no winglets, limited trailing edges, control tyre (which isn't developed but the same compounds used by the winning team last season in F1). Privateers and what not use F2. Those who are big boys run F1. F2 category though can still get decent airtime for their sponsors in order to compete, but aimed at much lower budgets by also costing less to compete in.
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