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> Whether you can make a car that is good or not is a factor of budget you can spend on engineering teams This has been true since the 1970s.

by znkynz 6y ago

snuxoll 6y ago
Not to the degree seen in F1 since the start of the turbo hybrid era. Scrappy underdog teams could score wins with creative, out of the box thinking that was possible with a small budget. Today the only time you see a team with a budget less than Mercedes, Ferrari or Red Bull winning is because of some act of god during the race.
- Andrew_nenakhov 6y ago
  That's because of the emphasis on reliability, made worse by limits on components and a scoring system that makes it much harder to catch up after DNF. In the past a quick but unreliable car could get to some high place thanks to luck.
- pbronez 6y ago
  Seems to me that should be ok to have a class where teams can throw money at it without real limits. Sure, that shouldn’t be everything, but if they want F1 to be the fastest, fanciest stuff possible, restricting investment to improve competitiveness doesn’t seem like a great move.
  - snuxoll 6y ago
    That’s kind of the running joke in the world of F1 fans, you have Mercedes, Red Bull, and I guess now Renault (because Ferrari is doing really bad this season) in F1, everyone else is F1.5. The problem is there’s only so many manufacturers that have the desire to spend that much money. Especially on what is obviously dead-end technology wise, so it’s nothing more than a marketing spend that requires them to actually have a chance at winning to be worth it. Honestly I’d buy the rumors that Mercedes was debating pulling out of F1 if the new cost caps didn’t mean the team will run at a profit instead of a ~$30m expense after sponsorships and prize money are taken into account. Hell, they just won the Formula E championship the first year they were a manufacturer branded team, and they know electric vehicles are the way forward.
- rodgerd 6y ago
  Quite. Most innovation over the history of F1 has come from the lower-funded teams (Brabham, Lotus, Williams), and is quickly banned if Ferrari or Maclaren can't make it work. Ferrari and the other well-funded teams have the money to eke out ever-diminishing returns; Lotus and Williams have to rely on "making turbos work", "ground effects", or "introducing aero", or "dynamic suspension", not to mention strangled-in-the-crib tech such as CVT or fan-assisted aero.

> Whether you can make a car that is good or not is a factor of budget you can spend on engineering teams This has been true since the 1970s.

by znkynz 6y ago

> Whether you can make a car that is good or not is a factor of budget you can spend on engineering teams This has been true since the 1970s.

snuxoll 6y ago

Not to the degree seen in F1 since the start of the turbo hybrid era. Scrappy underdog teams could score wins with creative, out of the box thinking that was possible with a small budget. Today the only time you see a team with a budget less than Mercedes, Ferrari or Red Bull winning is because of some act of god during the race.

Andrew_nenakhov 6y ago
That's because of the emphasis on reliability, made worse by limits on components and a scoring system that makes it much harder to catch up after DNF. In the past a quick but unreliable car could get to some high place thanks to luck.
pbronez 6y ago
Seems to me that should be ok to have a class where teams can throw money at it without real limits. Sure, that shouldn’t be everything, but if they want F1 to be the fastest, fanciest stuff possible, restricting investment to improve competitiveness doesn’t seem like a great move.
- snuxoll 6y ago
  That’s kind of the running joke in the world of F1 fans, you have Mercedes, Red Bull, and I guess now Renault (because Ferrari is doing really bad this season) in F1, everyone else is F1.5. The problem is there’s only so many manufacturers that have the desire to spend that much money. Especially on what is obviously dead-end technology wise, so it’s nothing more than a marketing spend that requires them to actually have a chance at winning to be worth it. Honestly I’d buy the rumors that Mercedes was debating pulling out of F1 if the new cost caps didn’t mean the team will run at a profit instead of a ~$30m expense after sponsorships and prize money are taken into account. Hell, they just won the Formula E championship the first year they were a manufacturer branded team, and they know electric vehicles are the way forward.
rodgerd 6y ago
Quite. Most innovation over the history of F1 has come from the lower-funded teams (Brabham, Lotus, Williams), and is quickly banned if Ferrari or Maclaren can't make it work. Ferrari and the other well-funded teams have the money to eke out ever-diminishing returns; Lotus and Williams have to rely on "making turbos work", "ground effects", or "introducing aero", or "dynamic suspension", not to mention strangled-in-the-crib tech such as CVT or fan-assisted aero.