F1 Teams to get technical freedom in exchange for $30m cost cap

[henk4]

I agree. On one hand I like the idea as I strongly suspect with and honest $30m and a loose rule book it would be quite possible to turn faster laps than the current cars with no loss in safety.

The problem is what is covered under that $30m? How do we make sure say Ferrari doesn't start spending big bucks on "other" race R&D. The NFL did a great job with team salary caps. The caps did a great job of leveling the playing field and making "budget" a factor when building a team. It would be very interesting to see the same thing applied in F1. Now you would have to trade off say a bit of weight in a part to make it cost $5k less.

Of course, it's easy to see how much an NFL team pays it's players. It's much harder to figure out how much a team really spent on a race season. If, and this is a big if, they can figure out how to make this work I think it will be great.

Yesterday the US$ lost 4 percent of its value against the Euro. So will the cap be increased or can the teams (having to pay most of their bills in Euros) spend less?

[culver]

Yesterday the US$ lost 4 percent of its value against the Euro. So will the cap be increased or can the teams (having to pay most of their bills in Euros) spend less?

As we are talking F1 I would assume any caps would be in Euros. I assume the $30m figure was a conversion from the Euro value. Of course that does raise a good point. A good bit of F1 money is actually spent in Pounds vs Euros so the question is still valid.

[LeonOfTheDead]

As we are talking F1 I would assume any caps would be in Euros. I assume the $30m figure was a conversion from the Euro value. Of course that does raise a good point. A good bit of F1 money is spent in Pounds so the question is still valid.

and the bill that McLaren payed for the spy-gate was in dollars.

[f6fhellcat13]

From F1.com:

On Tuesday, the FIA’s World Motor Sport Council agreed a radical addendum to the current Formula One technical regulations to come into force for 2010. The aim is to make it easier for new teams to enter and also allow existing teams to participate on much reduced budgets should they so choose.

Q: What is the budget figure?

Max Mosley: Provisionally it will be £30 million per two-car team per season (currently €33m, or $42m).

Q: How can you possibly run a Formula One team for that sort of money?

MM: It has been carefully costed. The cars will be much less refined in detail, because the teams will not be able to spend huge sums on minute advantages (for example, $1,200 on a wheel nut which is only used once), but from the grandstand or on television they won't look or sound any less 'Formula One' than the current, ultra-expensive cars. They will also be more interesting to the technically-minded because of the special features which will allow them to compete against teams with much bigger budgets. And don't forget that £30 million is still a huge amount of money in the real world.

[fpv_gtho]

The obvious result of this will be more pay drivers, at least for the time being. That figure includes driver wages, which for Ferrari would already blow the budget before you have to design and build the car, not to mention the wages of all the other team personel

[LeonOfTheDead]

And don't forget that £30 million is still a huge amount of money in the real world

so give us yours, or Bernie's. I'm pretty sure you both have well in excess of £30 million.