The loss of Manor reduces the 2017 Formula 1 World Championship grid down to just 20 cars.
How many teams should occupy the F1 grid? What about quality of teams?
The subject was debated on Whats App by GP247 editor Paul Velasco who watched the 1971 South Africa Grand Prix from Barbeque Bend and has since then followed the sport religiously and GPP247 contributor Ben Stevens who started following F1 in 2010. Interesting generation gap….
Paul Velasco: I am a big believer in more cars the better but also not too many. I would like to see 26 or 28 car fields. At the same time I want to see solid teams and/or manufacturers make up that number. Racing outfits with pedigree and experience with proven track record. The likes of HRT, Lotus/Caterham and even Marussia/Manor (in my mind) did not deserve a ticket straight into the big leagues. There should be a ladder to the top of Formula 1 as there is for drivers, so it should be for teams.
Like any other sport. Prove yourself in the minor leagues or divisions then you progress. So the emphasis must be on qualify not quantity. Therfore 26 to 28 of the best teams in motor racing should be on the grid should the field be expanded.
Ben Stevens: For me I think the right number is 24. Sure we could get away with more, but realistically that means more backmarkers, and I think we’re already in enough danger of giving Seb Vettel an aneurysm as it is. But I digress, I don’t think quality is something F1 can count on in existing teams, let alone new ones. Sure, maybe a team like DAMS would be more successful, but didn’t manor have a similar pedigree?
And say a company like the Volkswagen group (or as I like to call them, VAG) decides to go racing, are we really going to make them prove it in GP2 first? It’s impossible to tell beforehand how capable a team will be. All F1 can do is vet teams to make sure they’re capable of fronting the costs, and ensure that once they get to the grid, they’re competing on a level financial playing field.
PV: Okay lets agree on a number then you say 24, I like 28 – middle ground 26 ok? Formula 1 should always be the pinnacle of the sport, To get there you should pay your dues. Of course in the current scenario of one make feeder series the concept of proving grounds may sound ridiculous. But Formula 2 once upon a time was a very important series, not only for up and coming drivers but also for constructors.
Renault in the seventies engaged in an intense F2 campaign ahead of their entry into F1 with the first turbo powered car. They got their act together in F2 first. So did the likes of Rin Dennis whose Project 4 operation was the curtain raiser to his McLaren takeover. Many drivers in the sixties and seventies did F1 and F2 in the saem season. At the time F2 had substance, several cinstructors battled it out there as did ebgine manufcaturers and tyre suppliers.
Bernie Ecclestone and his merry men ensured that the series died, as he went to war to cripple every other series he could so that F1 could thrive. It was mission accomplished because these days the feeder championships are one make series with no emphasis on being a constructor and moving up into F1 at some point. Thus (and this is a very ideal world I am looking at) there has to be a whole restructure of the sport as we know it, with the goal of retaining F1 at the very top but creating meaningful and relevant feeder series’ with constructors in mind. Thus the dawning of proper divisions of racing where F1 is the premiership, F2 the second division etc.
Level financial playing field summarises what should never be done to Formula 1. If you don’t have the money don’t come play. F1 has always been about those with the most succeed, and not always look at Toyota and the gazillions they spent to be the least succesful team in the history of F1 if you take money spent per point earned. F1 should be unrestricted in terms of what teams can plough into their projects. You cannot restrict Real Madrid, Barcelona, Chelsea, Manchester United, PSG, Juventus from spending. It is part of sport. Same applies to Ferrari, McLaren, Mercedes et al. If they blow their budget someone will turn off the tap, until then spend as much as you want. This is Formula 1 – no compromise, no restirctions, best of the best.
BS: Man, Bernie killing his sport’s own feeder series is only further proof he really missed his calling in life as the dictator of some banana republic.
And while I like the idea of an ‘f1 lite’ feeder series, to whom is that appealing when F1 itself clearly isn’t appealing enough?
If the goal is to get 26 cars, F1 really can’t afford to dictate who and who isn’t deserving of being there. We’re already seeing with the current grid that there aren’t enough teams capable of their own construction (I’m looking at you, Haas), while Honda has shown engine suppliers have no issue crapping it out in the big leagues when their performance clearly isn’t up to standard, and if someone like VAG wants to go down the same path, do we turn them away from F1 just because they haven’t proven themselves yet?
Also to clarify what I mean by a “level financial playing field” – as I’m certainly not advocating for a cap on spending, but to use your example, UEFA doesn’t pay Real Madrid just to show up to the Champions League, while giving FC Copenhagen nothing. If we’re going to get 26 teams ever again, they’re all going to have to get paid, and that means the elimination of the backroom side-dealing that plagues F1’s current financial landscape. We keep things as they are and we’ll end up with a smaller grid, not a larger one.
PV: Valid points you make and I agree. The F1 team system needs to change so that teams are equally and fairly (!) compensated. Truth is the likes of Force India, Sauber are always teetering and with them gone there would be 16 teams on the grid which suddenly becomes major crisis.
Being an idealist I visualise a landscape totally different to the one we have now, let’s call it the dream scenario where the feeder series (Formula 2 for argument’s sake) is a second tier F1 where teams build their own cars, have their own engine suppliers and becomes the toe-in-the-water formula for anyone wanting to move up to F1. So sure we won’t force VW to start at the bottom of the ladder, but VW themselves realise that a strong F1 programme begins with a solid F2 programme… just like Renault did decades ago before their F1 project became reality. In other words F2 should be the university for F1 teams. With this in place I see stronger teams and thus 26 F1 teams with longevity becomes a reality.
BS: Funny how you’re the idealist and I’m the realist, given our ages I’m pretty sure that’s supposed to be the other way around! In any case, I totally agree that if you able to pull off a proper F2 it would undoubtedly raise the quality of the constructors – remember when manor/virgin tried to build their 2010 car using only cfd? It’s just a tremendously big if. However while I still think big names like VAG would want to jump in at the deep end, you have given me a crazy idea – what if formula E becomes a legitimate, constructor-focused feeder series? It’s already starting to move away from a complete spec series, and as long as it stays true to its name with electric engines, couldn’t they eventually open up the cars’ entire development? I don’t know how much it’ll appeal to engine suppliers, as F1 engines have, you know… petrol in them, but it ticks the box of having standalone appeal, which is necessary for constructors to sign up in the first place, and is something every other non-American open wheel series has failed to create. It would probably take another decade for FE to reach that point, but in the meantime the onus is back on FOM and the FIA to ensure that with a legitimate proving ground for F1, graduate teams don’t flame out immediately. Whaddaya think?
PV: I think that Formula E is one to watch, but I see it as an alternative to Formula 1 as opposed to a feeder series and its appeal totally different.
I am going to stick to my ‘total restructure’ concept. We have some common ground then and as the idelaist 
BS: How generous! Well it’s pretty clear the grid is in desperate need of expansion, but if we are to get to 24 or even 26 (and just as importantly, keep it there) we have some massive hurdles that need to be cleared. Whether it’s more a question of teams being unable to compete financially or performance-wise, the core question is the same: how do we get teams that can compete? Maybe we need a top-down rebuild, or maybe we can work with what we’ve already got, but things can’t stay as they are. We are flirting with disaster – the only option is to effect meaningful change, sooner rather than later.
PV: Amen!
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