[QUOTE]

40 million budget cap and 13 teams for 2010
FIA Flag as the grid girls practice their routine. Formula One World Championship, Rd2, Malaysian Grand Prix, Sepang, Malaysia, 22 March 2003

Formula One racing

 

Ayup, very stupid all around. I don't so much mind the refueling ban...I'm ambivalent about that. Cars have to be designed around it, of course, and it adds a slightly different strategy element. Ban on tire warmers? WTF? All the teams have them already!!! Stupid.

But the very worst is the introduction of a two tier Formula. Absolutely stupid.

 

Seem too easy to bypass any cost cap. Mercedes could own majority share in a parts supplier who delivers something expensive to the team at a discounted price. Or to be even MORE sneaky they could just contract OTHER business at an independent supplier to allow that unfair reduction and no obvious financial steering.

 

No way the big teams will agree to the cost restrictions. They like their huge budgets too much even if they don't produce results like this year.

 

Another good point - there are just too many loop holes in this thing...

 

What if they all setup shadow companies that Sponsor the teams by supplying parts, R&D and testing. I.E. Redbull, STR and Redbull Technologies.


Just another thought. Technically right now couldn't Redbull Technologies be testing their chassis 24/7 since they themselves are not affiliated with F1? Only their "customers" are in the Formula 1 Championship.

 

There is no need to set-up shadow companies....you can pretty much test a fully designed car in a simulator and get very good information there. Not like you would live on a track...but ballpark figures nonetheless.

 

Some outfits would still setup shadow companies on top of doing fully virtual simulator just because they can afford to and they can "get away" with it and they would believe to gain from "the more the better".

But my post is not intended to discuss about that point coz to me it costs me nothing extra to watch the races on TV that I have been doing one way or another

I want to loop back on the point of "test a fully designed car in a simulator and get very good information there" and just to bring up that I saw the Speed program on the Acura ALMS P1 program. It's amazing to see them design and test drive the car completely on the computers. I would love to set up my racing games at home to be able to give me the G-force simulations to go with the games!!!

 

Well they can set up shadow companies all they want....you cannot hide an F1 car on a F1 track. People will know about it.

 

The whole budget cap thing sounds like a nightmare to police.

No tire warmers = lame
No refueling = Meh. I like the refueling aspect, it adds more to the tactics of the race.
No rev limit = YES.
Active aero = HELL YES.