Andres125sx wrote:Phil wrote:Andres125sx wrote:Factory teams will always be one or two (or five) steps forward. Teams with no capacity for a 3th car neither have the capacity to catch up, so I don´t see any problem there, as always there will be the factory teams, and then the midfielders.
No Andres, the problem is if the more dominant teams supply 3 cars, it pushes back everyone behind further down the grid. If we continue your thought of logic;
"...then you´d get the four works teams (and the four PU manufacturers) with 3 cars....", it renders everyone else redundant. Because Force-India, Sauber, Williams will not be competing for the occasional podium or 4th, 5th, 6th - they'll be pushed further and further down the grid because their chance in competing for (higher) points just decreased significantly as a result of what you are proposing. They will not stick around. With this step, you are basically telling all customer teams to #&%!-off, we're happy to fill the grid with manufacturer teams. And because the sport isn't attractive enough to pull in new manufacturers, we'll just have the 4 we have supply the entire grid.
If you don't agree - tell me what incentive a Sauber, a Force-India, a Williams, a Red-Bull, a Torro-Rosso - any customer-team, any team that will not supply the grid with 3 cars has for taking part in this sport when their chances of competing decreases further and further as a result of what you're proposing.
I'll throw another bone in there while I'm at it;
sponsorship. Who would want to sponsor a team at the "back" with only 2 cars from 20, if they can have their logos plastered on 3 cars out of 20? More cars running your logos = more exposure. This further adds to the unbalance I'm speaking of - making the strong/stronger, the weak/weaker.
Let me answer your question with another one Phil. What´s the incentive for Manor today?
For the same reason, Sauber, Williams, Force-India, and all those before like Caterham etc: Because they at some point built a viable business in order to compete at this level and be competitive.
Competitive doesn't have to mean fighting for wins or championships - they've been competitive in their own right over the years. They either grew with results and sponsorship, or they got smaller over the years.
The point is; They on some level had the ability to compete and contest price money and sponsorship that allowed them to race and partake in Formula 1. This has become increasingly more difficult over the years, because the sport as a whole has become more expensive to compete at the same level as before. If you add 3 car teams to the manufacturer teams, you are not closing the gap [to them], you are opening it up. 3 car teams will have more exposure, thus be more attractive for sponsorship, they will get more data and as a result of the stronger competitors that already enjoy an advantage of being a factory-team with full insight into PU + car and that they will then have 3 cars opposed to 2, they will push the smaller customer teams further down the grid. Then we will have a very clear 2-tier championship - two 'classes' if you want - one where manufacturers compete with their own supplied customers who are at an even higher disadvantage. At that point, it will be next to impossible for a customer team to remain competitive. The reason why they haven't left yet, is because this sport represents their bread and butter. They are not a RedBull with a tree growing money in form of energy drinks they sell - or a Mercedes, Renault or other companies that sell cars in other markets that can afford to dump money into F1 for the fun of prestige and exposure. This is also why these small teams are less vocal against fighting the hand that feeds them and their options are very limited.
It's easy to forget: Not all current big teams in F1 started out big and successful, or have a 3 year road to success story to tell. Some of them started small too and gradually became more competitive over time. They grew with the sport, or a successful year, like the one Williams is enjoying again, made them attractive sponsorship wise, which brings in more money and thus allows them to acquire more talented staff which then should put them in a stronger position to compete with those teams around them, maybe improve a position in the WCC which will result in more price-money that again completes the circle of improving your competitiveness. That's how teams become more successful. The story isn't written before hand, it's in the ability of each team to make its faith. Or at least it should be. The sport is moving away from offering that ability - it's becoming more and more a place with focus on the manufacturers, the big teams that have huge pockets from outside markets. Worse; They have grown through circumstance into a controlling position where they can actively influence who is competitive and who isn't. This makes it harder and harder for exactly those smaller customer teams to be competitive and remain competitive.
