Making it to F1

[Dare]

Looks like the days of a person not born in wealth are
over if your looking for a F1 future

https://www.bbc.com/sport/formula1/articles/cgld6r0e73go

[Andy B]

I saw a recent interview with LH and he said the days of achieving F1 as he did are over and you are probably looking at $10 million to get through so is it or has it already become an elite sport?

[Jericoke]

Damnit, I had a nice long response and my cat jumped on the keyboard.

FIA needs to understand that F1 has gone from a sport that costs the owners money to a sport that makes the owners money.  If you want to own a multi billion F1 team, you've got to operate a no strings development system that anyone can join and earn their way up at minimum cost.  I understand that these costs add up fast, but if the FIA can limit an F1 driver to 3 engines per year, surely they can mandate that for a karting team too.

I would imagine being able to go watch the local McLaren Karts every weekend might be good for the brand.

[Dare]

Damnit, I had a nice long response and my cat jumped on the keyboard.

FIA needs to understand that F1 has gone from a sport that costs the owners money to a sport that makes the owners money.  If you want to own a multi billion F1 team, you've got to operate a no strings development system that anyone can join and earn their way up at minimum cost.  I understand that these costs add up fast, but if the FIA can limit an F1 driver to 3 engines per year, surely they can mandate that for a karting team too.

I would imagine being able to go watch the local McLaren Karts every weekend might be good for the brand.

It was a shock to see the cost of kart racing

[Andy B]

LH's father had three jobs at one time to be able to afford to go karting and even then had to miss some events as they couldn't afford to go.

[Alianora La Canta]

Damnit, I had a nice long response and my cat jumped on the keyboard.

FIA needs to understand that F1 has gone from a sport that costs the owners money to a sport that makes the owners money.  If you want to own a multi billion F1 team, you've got to operate a no strings development system that anyone can join and earn their way up at minimum cost.

The FIA thinks the solution is to promote "arrive and drive" competitions. These are intended to be single make, single chassis and single engine (numbers to be determined by individual series), with as few variables for spending one's way to success as possible. The plan is for this to be a parallel and cheaper route into motorsport for now, but it is only 18 months in, so it is hard to judge results (and will be for several more years).

The "no strings development scheme" isn't viable, because unless teams are going to have hundreds of candidates each, it'll still only scratch the surface of the talent out there and will still advantage the millionaires that have decided motorsport is the hot hobby to have (again - this seems to cycle about every 40 years, as if it skips a generation and the one after that decides it's cool based on grandfathers' tales).