How would you cut costs in F1?

Hot potato and even those on the cost-cutting side of the fence struggle to agree both on principles and on practicality but everyone agreeing is no fun anyway!

The only idea I can think of is pretty simple really and was inspired from the F1 show tonight. The ridiculous amount of remote analysis of the cars must cost a massive amount of money so get rid of it or make it basically impractical. Have a maximum of 3 on each team's pitwall (each driver's engineer and the team principle or a sub) and have the radios so they and the car radio can only receive messages from each other. How much it would save in the grand scheme of things is another matter but seeing a control room full of people for a joke of a team like Caterham puts the wastage into perspective.

Any other simple ideas that might work? :P

Cookie_Monster

budget cap. can spend it on whatever you like; staff, r&d, better drivers but a total spend limit including all sources of income - sponsorship, championship, TV, merch etc.

Cookie_Monster

Cookie_Monster wrote: »

budget cap. can spend it on whatever you like; staff, r&d, better drivers but a total spend limit including all sources of income - sponsorship, championship, TV, merch etc.

That includes engines? What about endorsements and sweeter deals for say, engine manufacturers and teams? How far can the spending be traced through companies, say a team sets up several subsidiaries to make the losses on their behalf?
Would the budget cap be the same for all teams regardless of their income the year before?

Santan

Yeah but what is doing Ferrari or red bull our the big teams seeing up exterior companies outside of F1 to do all the work that they do now but outside of the formula1 umbrella its just so easy for these guys with unlimited budgets unfortunately

ZiabR

Simple solution, budget cap. Give the big teams the finger. Everyone must follow the same money limits and it would greatly reduce the costs and stabilise the sport.

Renegade Mechanic

How about saving on fuel. I say make them try hybrid! Lets say they cut back on engine power. I reckon a 400hp engine would power one hell of an electric generator for some electric motors! And given that some pretty decent F1 experimentation and resulting technologies have filtered down to mass produced vehicles, some serious improvements could be engineered or discovered for mass produced hybrid vehicles specifically charging and range. Or further still, fully electric. Battery development (try and make a battery last a race!) would supercharged by their huge budgets.

mickdw

Budget caps wont work. Too easy to side step.
Limiting traveling staff could work to a degree as well as mentioned limiting the data transfer from the car and such such the number of tech people needed to run a car.

mickdw

Renegade Mechanic wrote: »

How about saving on fuel. I say make them try hybrid! Lets say they cut back on engine power. I reckon a 400hp engine would power one hell of an electric generator for some electric motors! And given that some pretty decent F1 experimentation and resulting technologies have filtered down to mass produced vehicles, some serious improvements could be engineered or discovered for mass produced hybrid vehicles specifically charging and range. Or further still, fully electric. Battery development (try and make a battery last a race!) would supercharged by their huge budgets.

Big changes in place for next year. Fuel savings, 1.6 turbo engines, Much more energy recovery as compared to current energy recovery under breaking. 4 times the horsepower from recovered energy as compared to the current KERS and also the power available for much longer per lap so well and truly hybrid.
Only problem is the costs have gone through the roof with all the development requirement for these changes.

cherryghost

Wooden cars.

Grim.

cherryghost wrote: »

Wooden cars.

Morgans?

GarIT

Make all the info between the car and team public. Then the teams won't want to know anything about their cars.

wobbles

Cut back on the hospitality side of things. The teams seem to have to spend millions entertaining guests etc. If there was a hospitality budget cap, teams could use that as an excuse to cut back without losing face and looking cheap.

mickdw

wobbles wrote: »

Cut back on the hospitality side of things. The teams seem to have to spend millions entertaining guests etc. If there was a hospitality budget cap, teams could use that as an excuse to cut back without losing face and looking cheap.

They can't really cut that back.
Sponsors, their guests etc have to be taken care of.
Anything spent on hospitality comes back many times.

Myrddin

LIGHTNING wrote: »

You honestly think that the amount of fuel that F1 cars use actually makes a dent on the budget? Considering how much fuel that the F1 paddock uses to get to events (aviation fuel, rental cars,trucks etc) its grinds my gears to hear about the actual race cars fuel usage.

Couldn't agree more. Trying to make the racing more 'green' is, in reality, nothing more than marketing/pr. Shipping a replacement front wing from the UK to Asia/the US/Middle East probably creates more CO2 than every single race on the calender combined. It's ridiculous. Now, I can get on board with driving an efficiency battle with new technologies like KERS/ERS/Hybridization etc, limiting the fuel of cars artificially is just nonsense & will only serve to hurt the spectacle of F1, rather than helping the environment.

HigginsJ

Allows smaller/newer teams to run 1 driver teams. You basically cut running costs in half allowing you to pump more money into R&D. Maybe have a rookie reserve driver you can run in free practise 1 (maybe bring in some revenue)

Zcott

Limit wind tunnel usage.

Limit car upgrades to four per season (could backfire and let one team dominate, though)

Cap driver salaries.

SouperComputer

If people stop watching it the budgets would come down sharpish....

Bugatti

HigginsJ wrote: »

Allows smaller/newer teams to run 1 driver teams. You basically cut running costs in half allowing you to pump more money into R&D. Maybe have a rookie reserve driver you can run in free practise 1 (maybe bring in some revenue)

This is something I've been saying for years and I'd love to see happen. Would make it much easier for new teams to join the sport as well. More guys from the lower leagues might be more willing to take the risk and join the grid.

Not exactly cost cutting but I'd also be in favour of prize money being more evenly distributed. At the moment the difference between the top and mid/bottom teams is too much imo.

Also the sport really needs to look at attracting big sponsors again. Losing the cigarette companies was a huge lose but thats well in the past now. And look at football teams. They are securing bigger sponsorship deals than ever before. The teams need to get these companies in F1. Its the pinnacle of Motorsport and maybe if cars were able to go flat out, didnt have to save fuel, manage tyres, engines, gearboxes, etc we might see more brands wanting to associate themselves with Formula 1.

Schwiiing

Zcott wrote: »

Limit wind tunnel usage.

Limit car upgrades to four per season (could backfire and let one team dominate, though)

Cap driver salaries.

Most if not all teams are based in Europe and I think the above highlighted contravenes EU law.