When the F1 Strategy Group (a laughable name for a group that seems to have no actual strategy for the sport) brought up the idea of the front-running teams supplying customer cars to the smaller outfits, it was met with derision from many fans, as well as the likes of Sauber, Force India and Lotus.
Crazy Uncle Bernie got in on the act at the Monaco GP by offering to broker the deals between The Big Four (Mercedes, Ferrari, McLaren and Red Bull) and the struggling teams. There have long been technology deals between teams (Red Bull and Toro Rosso; Honda and Super Aguri; McLaren and Force India; Ferrari and Haas F1) but the chassis itself is manufactured by the team – that is why there is the CONSTRUCTORS championship.
What Ecclestone didn’t mention was that under the present Concorde Agreement the placing in the Constructors Championship determines prize money, not the Drivers Championship. So if a team used a customer car they would no longer be a constructor – and therefore would they not qualify for prize money?
Do your think the likes of Frank and Claire Williams, whose team is fast enough to be successful but not included in the Big Four, likes the idea of teams behind them suddenly running a pair of Mercedes or Ferrari cars that are beating them now?
The issue doesn’t lie in the smaller teams ability to build a good chassis, it lies in the unfair distribution of money within the sport. The side deals negotiated by Ecclestone with the likes of Ferrari and Red Bull mean the smaller teams are simply outspent during the course of the season and can never develop their great ideas (Exhibit A: Sauber in Australia vs. everywhere since).
What’s laughable is that Toro Rosso seem to have designed a better performing chassis this year than parent Red Bull, who have been pissing and moaning about Renault all year and threatening to quit the sport entirely. Call that stability? Maybe Red Bull just want to use an STR11 in 2016…
It’s time for the FIA to take the decision making away from the teams, abolish the “Strategy Group” and even out the financial playing field. It’s time for Jean Todt to stop arsing around with the United Nations and to grow a pair.
– MCZF1
