Ciro Pabón wrote:Well, F1 has hit the capitalist wall.
In capitalism, once you deregulate a sector invariably tends to have only three players while the other smaller potatoes are adorn figures:
* ABC-NBC-CBS
* Android-iOS-Blackberry
* ATT-Verizon-CenturyLink
* BP-Chevron-ExxonMobil
* Volkswagen-Daimler-BMW
* GM-Ford-Chrysler
* Toyota-Nissan-Honda
* IBM-Apple-Compaq
* Shem, Ham and Japhet
and now
Renault-Ferrari-Mercedes
https://sites.google.com/site/ciropabon ... enault.png
What was deregulated recently Ciro?
When F1 banned turbocharged engines at the end of '88 and switched to the 3.5L engine formula, you had the following engine manufacturers for the '89 season.
Honda
Ferrari
Cosworth
Renault
Yamaha
Judd
Ferrari
Fast forward to 1991 when you had 9...
Honda
Ferrari
Renault
Cosworth
Porsche
Yamaha
Ilmor
Judd
Lamborghini
This is all not even factoring in the different types of engines some manufacturers were offering.
The greatest variety of participation of engine suppliers in F1 came during the 3.5L formula. We have not seen that since. Once you get past all the marketing garbage about "road relevancy" --which is just fodder for the fans to feel like they are supporting something even bigger than racing-- what really drives participation is less restrictive competitive environments. Any manufacturer can spin it in whatever way they want to the boards of their companies about R&D, but it's an easier sell when you have less restrictions as you can make up whatever happy sounding stuff is necessary.
Pair more technical freedom with more inexpensive engines, and you'll get plenty of manufacturers.
You don't get them by tight restrictions and highly expensive programs.