Time to split the World Championship in two?

[Super Tourer]

Strikes me that under any new proposals under discussion by the FIA, one good move would be to split the World Championship's into two one for 'factory' teams and another for 'privateer teams'.

The gap between the so called have's and have-not's in F1 is ever increasing. Even the 'have's' at McLaren and William's are left scratching their heads over how they can chip away at the 1 sec per lap advantage that Ferrari have.

Although on the same grid - the Jordan's, BAR's, Arrow's and Minardi's, etc of the world are not effectively competing in the same race, as by definition, they are not competitive with the standard set by the leaders.

What we see on a Sunday afternoon you could liken to varying degrees of first division teams, playing the top 3 premier league sides with the commensurate results.

I would suggest dividing the travel and TV money by ratio and awarding it by merit to the finishers in 'each' championship. Therefore, if Sauber 'won' the privateers WCC they would receive FIA benefits equal to the winner of the 'works' series, and so on.

This would divide the spoils up more fairly, benefit the small teams, and only effect the factory teams in a small way as FIA benefits are a smaller proportion of their budget.

This would be better in many ways than cost cutting measure's, as these will IMO only ensure some teams survival as opposed to making them more competitive with the front runners, which IMO is alreasy a lost cause.

It works in other series, why not F1?

You views please!

[Adam43]

How would you define a "works" team?

[J.McClane]

What they should do is limit the amout of money teams are allowed, you know like when you play these fantasy F1 things.
Each team has a set amount of money and they can spend that money however they like(with in reason)this way the cars can still be as good as money can buy, but we will see the drivers skill a lot more.

[Spudgun]

I agree that F1 needs to cut costs, but they have to watch what they're doing. F1 is seen as the pinnacle of motorsport. If too much is done to limit costs it might take the shine off the spectacle of the sport.

I'm not saying it wouldn't work, I'm just looking at it from another perspective.

[J.McClane]

"it might take the shine off the spectacle of the sport."

No, it's ok, Ferrari are doin' that all by themself.



If you go out and watch a lesser of a motor sport, you will find that it is much moer exitein' and interestin' to watch than F1, and i'm talkin' about gettin' down yer local dirt track to watch some banger racin'!!!!!

[Spudgun]

Originally posted by J.Mclane
If you go out and watch a lesser of a motor sport, you will find that it is much moer exitein' and interestin' to watch than F1, and i'm talkin' about gettin' down yer local dirt track to watch some banger racin'!!!!!

I agree totally!

My previous comment was aimed at the casual F1 watchers who just watch the race as something to watch on a Sunday afternoon. You've got to say that a fair number of the ratings have to be down to people like this.

If it doesn't look as good anymore, people will just switch off. After Sunday's shambles it's probably already started.

If they cut back too much the casual watcher will say 'This isn't as good as it used to be, I'm off down the pub.'

Please note: The above rule does not apply if the pub in question has a big screen showing the Grand Prix. In this case I'd be down the pub too!

[J.McClane]

Yup i see what you are sayin' spudgun, but it also works the other way around. See i've been watchin' F1 for almost 20 years(more sort of an on and off thing now though)and i think it has gone downhill in a big way.
So if this were to happen and the casual F1 fans turn off, maybe more people that feel the same way as i do will start to watch more.

[Spudgun]

I must admit I see where you're coming from.

Casual watchers don't buy merchandise or pay to go to races. So I guess the sport wouldn't miss them if they could replace them with real race fans who are more likely to do this and make more cash for the sport while spending less money at the same.

Interesting. This what forums are all about.

The only thing they have to make sure is they don't go OTT or they may as well just buy a couple of F3000 cars..

[f1manoz]

The two championships link in with the reasoning to extending the points scoring down to tenth place.

[J.McClane]

Also if this did happen, the teams would not have to make as much money to run in this "sport" so the cost of merchandise would come down, so too could the cost of a ticket.....makin' way for the more casual F1 fan.......D'oh!!!
Back were we started.

[Maxmil]

Originally posted by AdamAshmore
How would you define a "works" team?

Super Tourer has made a very interesting suggestion and AdamAshmore has posed the critical question. For starters, how do you Brits decide which of your football teams are in the first division? For that matter how do we Yank's do it in our college football, where there are several Divisions? I flat don't know the answer, but if our NCAA can do it, why can't the FIA? It would make the "Best of the Rest" title a whole lot more meaningful for starters. As for the "Factory Team" label that one isn't so hard.

1. Any level of ownship by an OEM makes a team a "Factory" team. (OEM = Original Equipment Manufacturer, or, more briefly, an automobile builder.)

2. Provision, directly or indirectly, of engines and/or related technical services to a team by an OEM at less than their full cost of manufacture or other method of provision, marketing and distribution makes that team a "Factory" team. (i.e. they can sell their engines at a fair price to a "Privateer")

3. Provision of funds directly or indirectly to a team by an OEM as an acknowledged or unacknowledged sponsor makes that team a "Factory" team.

4. If a "Privateer" beats a "Factory" team in the WCC, the two teams swap position for the next year's series.

If you want to really pep things up, assign the "Privateer" drivers points in both divisions. In other words if an Arrows driver finishes sixth overall behind 5 "Factory" drivers, he earns 11 points in the WDC. Calculate the WCC points the same way.

The more I think about this the better I like it.

[StuiE]

Im liking this idea, but will it ever happen?

[AndyF]

I like the idea, but I think it would work better if there were more cars on the grid (well I can always hope!)