Impact of a cost cap

[Robem64]

Lots to consider - not least the impact on people.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/formula1/44277582

[Calman]

Whatever the case, something has to change!!

The word "processional" has been used far more frequently in the last while and for at least two races in 2018 so far, the word "boring" has been clearly labelled against Sunday afternoons.

Nothing will be fixed overnight, but I sincerely hope the brains in Formula 1 are working tirelessly to "improve the show" between 2019-2021.  If nothing else, efforts to follow the car in front without the airflow issues, revised budgets and other changes to help improve wheel to wheel racing.

What the heck, just turn up in 2019 with 20 RBR/Danny Rics on the grid and all our dreams will come true!! 

All the best,
Cal

[Scott]

The only reason FOM ever wanted cost caps was to justify giving the teams less (or at least not more) money.  Stop trying to save the teams money and start trying to improve the sport to bring more fans/sponsors in.  Dive into aero and limit it to 2 elements in front and two in back.  No flicks, no 50 element front wings.  Make the cars run efficiently at 2m from each other.  Dive into the engine regs and tear them all up.  Let them run what they brung and have at it!  Keep safety in line or improve it as long as it doesn't add an aero element. 

[Jericoke]

The only reason FOM ever wanted cost caps was to justify giving the teams less (or at least not more) money.  Stop trying to save the teams money and start trying to improve the sport to bring more fans/sponsors in.  Dive into aero and limit it to 2 elements in front and two in back.  No flicks, no 50 element front wings.  Make the cars run efficiently at 2m from each other.  Dive into the engine regs and tear them all up.  Let them run what they brung and have at it!  Keep safety in line or improve it as long as it doesn't add an aero element.

Over the weekend they had the Rosbergs out on track in their respective winning cars.  I was surprised to see that Keke's didn't have a front wing.  I didn't watch F1 in that era, but I know that there had been cars with front wings before that.  Did no cars run front wings in 1983?  Were there rules about total downforce and Williams put all their eggs on the rear wing?

As for the cap, part of the original idea was to entice enough low budget teams to keep the grid large enough to actually put on a race (FOM is required to bring 20 race cars to each race).  Runaway costs were keeping investors away (to make a small fortune in racing first you start with with a large fortune...) so something had to be done.

To the crux of the 'impact of the cap', it looks like they're planning to make the cap by attrition.  It wouldn't be mass firings, but simply eliminating positions as people retire or move on.  I know that F1 employs a lot of people, and if they want to run it as a UK jobs programme, then let the UK kick in for it.

[Alianora La Canta]

Due to the 2010 palaver, they'd probably have to prove that the cap could actually be held for at least 3 years before any new team signed up. Due to the ease with which manufacturers could break the cap without being caught (and so far I have seen no reason to believe that even a moderately skilful manufacturer trying this would be caught, even with the world's best forensic accountants on the case), the cap is unlikely to hold at all and therefore there would be nobody to replace the low-budget teams that would lose out due to the sudden increased disparity.

The displacement theory only works to a limited extent as road cars, for example, uses a quite different ratio of skills to racing cars.

(By the way, the quoted budget is so small that the second-lowest-budgeted team - Force India - would have to make some cutbacks. Only Sauber would be able to continue as it is. The "perhaps five out of ten" in the article is the number of teams that are so far north of the limit that any method of cutting back would inevitably lead to mass redundancies - it is possible the other four affected teams might be able to cut back without making redundancies, depending on their exact structures).

Finally, if Renault's budget gets touched, it could easily argue a breach of contract because its contract with Liberty and the FIA is until 2024 and this could be regarded as a radical enforced change to the contract.

[lkjohnson1950]

Jeri- Keke's car is a ground effects car. There are large venturis running the length of the sidepod and into the rear "diffuser" these generated huge amounts of down force; so much the wings became little more than trim tabs to tune the aero. Many, but not all the teams ran without front wings, feeling the disturbance in the airflow was more than the down force was worth. The idea was to cram as much air as possible into the opening at the front of the sidepod.

[Scott]

The cost cutting measures were to keep the little guys on the grid so they didn't have new owners every two years (F1 hasn't dropped below 9 teams in modern history), but that could have also been done by increasing the FOM payout to the teams to a realistic level.

[Jericoke]

Jeri- Keke's car is a ground effects car. There are large venturis running the length of the sidepod and into the rear "diffuser" these generated huge amounts of down force; so much the wings became little more than trim tabs to tune the aero. Many, but not all the teams ran without front wings, feeling the disturbance in the airflow was more than the down force was worth. The idea was to cram as much air as possible into the opening at the front of the sidepod.

I know that ground effects were eliminated because it was unsafe if a car received damage underneath, but we've seen rear and front wings fail catastrophically too.  Most tracks have run off areas and catch fences, and the cars themselves provide an immense amount of protection to the drivers.

Perhaps the risks associated with ground effects aren't what they were and F1 can look into them again?

[lkjohnson1950]

Couple years back, the FIA was going to bring G/E back but changed their minds and stuck with the current rules. If you remember the old Hockenheim, the track had a long "straight" out into the forest to a large but tightening radius hairpin, then a long straight back to the stadium. G/E cars could take the hairpin flat. Then I believe it was Giacomelli in an Alfa who had a sliding skirt stick in the up position, drastically reducing the down force and sending him off track at 200 mph. Skirts were promptly banned. G/E still provided a good amount of aero even without skirts. Of course the closer the edges of the sidepod were to the ground, the better G/E worked, so the teams ran the cars extremely low. Organisers complained about damage to the tracks and the FIA was not getting the decrease in aero they wanted, so they instituted a strict ride height rule that was checked as the cars left the pits and again as they returned. Teams developed a hydraulic system that lowered the cars after the exit check and raised them on return (holy lowriders, Batman!!). Somewhere during this battle of wits and wills the FIA introduced The Plank. A simple piece of plywood attached to the bottom of the car that had to retain a certain thickness over the duration of the race. I think at least one driver was DQ'ed because of too much wear. Finally the FIA decided corner speeds were too high and mandated flat bottomed cars. Engineers took about 3-4 years to find ways to restore aero to pre-ban levels. G/E could work today but no one seems interested in trying it.