feni_remmen wrote:I don't have any aversion customer cars, but the best safety to ensure things don't get out of hand is this...
Chassis cannot be connected to the same engine or gearbox as the suppliers chassis. This stops 1 team from having total political control over another.
Force India can race a McLaren chassis, so long as they don't have a Mercedes engine. Simple.
It means each team will have a unique identity and not beholden to a single political force, which will happen if teams are clones of other teams.
I've got no idea what you mean by that. How on earth would a customer team be stuck in the situation of being merely a puppet for the supplying team? If you're thinking of a similar situation to Torro Rosso, well, that's exactly the point of Torro Rosso (and Super Aguri, kind of). And why would you bring up the McLaren Mercedes ForceIndia example? All 3 teams use the Mercedes engine, yet you're insinuating that FI, by virtue of using a McLaren chassis, would somehow diminish the identity of Force India? What about the equally famous Formula 1 constructor and identity, Caterham?
Right now the cars are always going to be worlds apart. Having both Vettel and Kartekayan on the track on the same day is of course going to make it seem pretty bad, but even without the best and worst teams there's a massive difference in performance, something counter-productive to good racing.
The trick with customer cars is to bump up the number of cars to something resembling a full grid (something F1 needs anyway). That way, you can offer NEW teams the equipment from EXISTING teams, which will therefore still be there, still building their own stuff. Limit it to supplying 2 cars, for a total of 4 of the same constructor's car on the grid (up from 2 now).
There's room for 10 customer car on the grid, at least (let's round it to a grid of 30). Say we've got another:
2 McLarens (they're run more than 2 cars before)
2 Lotus (seems like a decent bet for a new team seeking cars)
2 Mercedes (customer Silver Arrows,
(see gentlemen drivers) makes sense)
2 Sauber and 2 Williams (probably on the cheaper end of the scale, but decent enough to have a good crack on a good weekend).
Red Bull either wouldn't do it, or if they did, they'd give their 2 customer cars to STR. STR could do it (offer customer cars), which could actually be more likely. Ferrari, likewise, probably wouldn't do it, but it would still be possible.
And BAM! right there, I've eliminated the useless constructors (HRT, Marussia, Caterham, and possibly Force India, maybe), and instantly quadrupled the amount of good racing you're going to see in the midfield.
