|
Going back to your roots....
Those disco divas amongst us may remember a track by Odyssey called 'Going back to my roots', a sentiment that the F1 establishment would do well to remember....
Anyway, the latest mutterings on Max Mosley proposals - the ones that met with such agreement you may recall - have come from Adrian Newey.
Adrian, it seems, is against the idea of customer cars - speaking at Monaco he said "“Personally, I think that allowing teams to sell their designs or even parts to other teams is a very dangerous route because what will happen is that the midfield teams will end up being either forced out of existence or into buying other people's cars or designs. Very quickly you'll get into a position where you've got three or four teams able to design their own cars, with the rest buying.
This is where the remembering your roots comes in, Adrian's former employer, Williams - was only able to enter F1 by running a customer chassis. Back in 1977 having parted from Wolf Racing (who incidentally ran a customer Hesketh chassis), Frank Williams established the Williams team, running an old March chassis for Patrick Neve. In 1978, they built their first ever car designed by Patrick Head - the FW07. Look what Williams have achieved since - BUT the catalyst for this was initially running a customer car.
Sometimes you have to look back to go forward.....
|