Dreaded BOP in F1?

[RWill2073]

I'm not an insider, and don't know the intracacies of the financials of f1, but I was thinking about something during the Monza qualifying delay. Gene Haas was interviewed and seemed to slightly allude to not continuing in the sport with no hope to win, and the commentators afterward mentioned the unequal payments to the top teams from the series as one of the sticking points. They stated pretty obviously that you can't expect a team on a 50 million budget to compete with a team on 500 million budget.

With that in mind, and without wanting to see bop become a part of f1, is there some way to monetize and put metrics to how much each additional 10 million in budget can be expected to produce? For example, if an average budget of 200 million outperforms a team with an average budget of 50 million by an average of 3/4 a second, (just to overly simplify this), could you find a way to define it as an additional 50 million in budget for the smaller team could be expected to be able to get them within 1/2 a second, another 50 million within 1/4 second, and then another 50 million makes them equal?

At that point, since the bigger teams don't want to give up their money, could some aero parameters be expanded slightly dependent on budget to allow the lower budget team to close the gap? And I dont mean equalize them, but allow parameters that could be expected to cut the gaps in half. Something like, if it can be defined as each additional 10 million in budget = 1/10 of a second, allow expanded parameters to regulations that could he expected to close the gap to 5/100's of a second, or close half the gap?

Then assign certain numbers to each aspect of development and have each team produce a yearly schedule of what they plan to do for testing or development flrnthe year. In this day and age, every secret test is eventually known, and could be added to the assigned yearly budget of the teams. So each team would have to report the amount they plan to spend, which in turn sets how much to open the parameters for the smaller teams to experiment or get creative to come up with different solutions. Could produce more variety and the occasional interesting result without taking anyone's money or giving up the total advantage the big budget teams have.

Don't beat me up too hard, just thinking out loud here.

[S griffin]

Leave it out, there is no way BOP should be introduced in F1. Those that worked hard for the wins shouldn't have it taken away just because they've done a better job within the regulations. For sure we would love to see more competition at the front, but it should be done with sensible stable rules

[RWill2073]

Originally Posted by S griffin

Leave it out, there is no way BOP should be introduced in F1. Those that worked hard for the wins shouldn't have it taken away just because they've done a better job within the regulations. For sure we would love to see more competition at the front, but it should be done with sensible stable rules

Well, being awarded a parger portion of the series money because you're a name brand or legacy team isn't "working hard", necessarily. That was what made me think about it to begin with. The top teams aren't going to want to give up money, so some allowances for the others seem fair.

[grantp]

As an American owned team in an American owned formula I would expect that they would feel more comfortable running a single chassis and 2 or 3 engine suppliers in the series.

[TzeiTzei]

A rich guy enters the sport and then gets bored with the expense and no results. The same old story.

[midgetman]

Originally Posted by TzeiTzei

A rich guy enters the sport and then gets bored with the expense and no results. The same old story.

Hard to disagree with those sentiments. Very few people get instant results in any motor sport formula. Even with the greatest minds it takes time for a team to gel.

Regarding the BoP - no, no, no, no, no! This is top flight racing it should be pure, excellence should prevail. If you want close racing watch touring cars or their GT equivalent. F1 should be about the best cars on the planet and the best personnel both behind the wheel and I'm The design shop. The top teams are so lucky with their money, but funnily enough the harder they work the luckier they get!

Sent from my EVA-L09 using Tapatalk

[RWill2073]

To be clear, I used "bop" in the title, but what I'm suggesting is just a more open rule book for designers to work with depending on budgets. I think it could allow for more ingenuity in building a better mousetrap by those that aren't gifted millions of dollars extra for no good reason.

I get no one wants any kind of interference in the highest realm of motorsport, but then what do you call the series handing advantages to certain teams monetarily? How would force india look if it was given an equal share as Ferrari? How would they look if they were allpwed to get slightly mkre creative in design to bridge a portion of the financial gap?

[Sodemo]

They should just curb the aero. Opening it up again this year was only ever going to increase the gap from the "haves" and the "have nots".

[chillibowl]

i have to say, with all the ongoing issues around budgets and engine parity i dont think i am averse to see (or at the least exploring) a different formula with which to distribute Constructors points.

leave the drivers the ability to win based on skill/car combination (no time penalties) and arguably as far as the general public is concerned the drivers title is what matters so leave that side of things alone...why not re look at the way constructor points and prize money is distributed?

if a performance vis a vis budget size handicap formula is what is needed to equalize prize money then i would support such avenues of thought.

[BSchneiderFan]

Money talks. This is true in all sports that I can think of. Rich teams can hire the best personnel or buy the best equipment and facilities.

[RWill2073]

Originally Posted by BSchneiderFan

Money talks. This is true in all sports that I can think of. Rich teams can hire the best personnel or buy the best equipment and facilities.

But why should the rich teams be gifted additional money to assist them in performance while the others aren't?

I have no problem with unequal budgets, but there is something screwed up about the series handing extra money to the richest teams.

[BSchneiderFan]

Originally Posted by RWill2073

But why should the rich teams be gifted additional money to assist them in performance while the others aren't?

I have no problem with unequal budgets, but there is something screwed up about the series handing extra money to the richest teams.

Well, it's tricky, isn't it? Clearly there should be a financial reward for success. My problem is with unearned bonuses.

[RWill2073]

Originally Posted by BSchneiderFan

Well, it's tricky, isn't it? Clearly there should be a financial reward for success. My problem is with unearned bonuses.

Yeah, it's those unearned bonuses that got me thinking about this in the first place. Those teams won't want to give away those bonuses, so why not give more engineering/design leeway to lower budgeted teams so maybe they can bring more radical designs to the track and close (not eliminate) the gap amd create the random odd result potentially?

[chillibowl]

Originally Posted by RWill2073

...so why not give more engineering/design leeway to lower budgeted teams so maybe they can bring more radical designs to the track and close (not eliminate) the gap amd create the random odd result potentially?

some what similar to Max Mosely's voluntary budget cap suggestion from a few years back...teams that were willing to stay below the voluntary cap would be rewarded with greater technical freedom. of course the top teams were obviously against this.

iirc, i liked the idea at the time but given the past few years with increasing control going to the engine manus and the ability to buy more and more components from said engine supplier i do wonder how many of the smaller teams would be willing to venture out and take chances with new ideas.

Force India, for example, has to work under a lower budget but it still might end up being cheaper and more effective if they continued as is and bought their engines and additional bits from Merc...thus yielding a car similar/same design solutions (all be it not as advanced) as that of the merc factory team.

personal opinion, i am not adverse to a two tiered F1...actually i think we already have that so why not organize it in a more interesting way then the straight customer car/low cost solution path the sport is currently on.

[Richard C]

Originally Posted by RWill2073

Yeah, it's those unearned bonuses that got me thinking about this in the first place. Those teams won't want to give away those bonuses, so why not give more engineering/design leeway to lower budgeted teams so maybe they can bring more radical designs to the track and close (not eliminate) the gap amd create the random odd result potentially?

My concern with that approach is that it just says... The system is screwed up, so let's screw it up in an even larger way in an attempt to generate a different outcome.

Originally Posted by chillibowl

some what similar to Max Mosely's voluntary budget cap suggestion from a few years back...teams that were willing to stay below the voluntary cap would be rewarded with greater technical freedom. of course the top teams were obviously against this.

To be honest I never felt the scenario you describe above was ever a serious idea other than to try to scare the top teams who enjoy large advantages that are negotiated into the their Concorde agreement into concessions. Basically... You can keep the money, but we will adjust the rules so the smaller teams can beat you.

As you point out, they don't like this and use their real and/or perceived clout to effectively veto such ideas.

Originally Posted by chillibowl

personal opinion, i am not adverse to a two tiered F1...actually i think we already have that so why not organize it in a more interesting way then the straight customer car/low cost solution path the sport is currently on.

I am generally not a fan of a two tier system because it (IMHO) avoids trying to implement fundamental fixes to the system (granted, so far those fixes have been impossible to implement). But if a two tier system was used, it should be as fair as possible vs. the likely outcome which will be...

1. Top teams who will continue to win
2. Everyone else who might not have such a large gap to the front as before, but... still a measurable gap.

Nothing is likely to change until the grip the larger teams have is broken. I don't see anything significant happening until the current Concorde agreements expire. And then... it becomes a question of who will blink first... The big teams or the new series owners.

Richard

[wnut]

It is my belief that we currently have BOP run by Mercedes.
Mercedes spent millions (billions) of dollars developing hybrid systems for road car usage and managed to introduce the current PU system into F1 with an accompanying raft of rules to make sure that they were competing in an engine dominated formula and nobody else would be able to develop anything to catch up.
The added competitive advantage is that the hybrid systems are not really relevant or efficient in road cars, so nobody is prepared to sink enough money into the systems to compete with Mercedes.
(Another advantage to Mercedes is that nobody actually knows what Mercedes are doing with the hybrid power plant and what percentage of their performance is due to their engines and what is contributed by the KERS system.
Having established total dominance in F1, how to keep it?
Ferrari must to be kept reasonably happy to shore up the votes in the F1 Working Group and make sure that the current engines are continued in F1.
There were rumours in the F1 press that Mercedes were assisting Ferrari to develop the pretty ordinary PU they had developed. I believe this true.
How do you keep everyone happy in a formula where you have obtained the “unfair advantage”?
Easy, you assist Ferrari developing their PU, done, then you limit your own performance so that you don’t dominate by too much; qualifying mode settings to ensure front row grid position; allow Ferrari to win occasionally, and limit the performance of your customer teams; engine parity is not a requirement; to make sure that they don’t beat Ferrari.
The only threats on the horizon are, Honda and Renault neither of whom seen to be breaking themselves to spend the huge quantities of cash needed to close the performance deficit.
Hence we have a tiered system, works Mercedes, Ferrari, Mercedes engine customers, Renault engines with RBR performing beyond the engine with their aero package, Ferrari customers and Honda.
Welcome to Mercedes BOP rules.

[TzeiTzei]

Originally Posted by Richard Casto

Nothing is likely to change until the grip the larger teams have is broken. I don't see anything significant happening until the current Concorde agreements expire. And then... it becomes a question of who will blink first... The big teams or the new series owners.

Richard

That's gonna be interesting. Divide and conquer was Bernie's method. We'll see what Liberty's approach is once they start to talk about money.