GP2 Forum

Interesting idea from Sir Bernard of Ecclestone in today's Autosport magazine:
Bernie suggests allowing customer cars in, but with a couple of provisos. Firstly, the team running the cars is only allowed to run customer chassis for two years. During this time, they must build up the infrastructure to design and build their own car in time for the third year.
Secondly, the team cannot score constructors points while running the customer chassis, so would not be eligible for the "top ten" money. However, their drivers would still score overall points.

Seems like a pretty sensible (and simple) solution to the current Colin Kolles / Frank Williams -instigated row.

I think it is senseless! Just forbidd costumer cars! If you want you can have a "real" F1 feeling with buying an "old" car of e.g. Ferrari and run it on any track

Driving races without getting points sounds unlogical for me

I think a rule where a team is only allowed to use customer cars for a certain numbers of years/seasons would be a good compromise. I don't see the sense of any of the other restrictions because starting next year, any team would have the chance to get a customer car because of the new Concorde Agreement. No one would have an unfair advantage like it could be the case this year, because everyone could buy a new car and race it with modifications...

I'm guessing though that one of the reasons why Spyker is pursuing legal action against Aguri and Toro Rosso now isn't just that they think customer cars are not permitted to be used this year, but they actually have some kind of interest in getting that customer car concept capped or rethought completely, like Ecclestone's thoughts indicate.

HF - customer cars give fledgling teams a means of entering F1 without over-reaching themselves, like Lola did in 1997 for example. They can build up sensibly but still get experience of top-level grand prix racing. For those who don't know the Lola story, they wanted to enter F1 in 1998, and use 1997 for design and testing, but owing to a bizarre sponsorship deal with Mastercard (involving the launch of an F1 credit card and Lola getting money for every one issued) they hurriedly prepared a car for 1997, as that was when the credit card was to be launched. Unfortunately the car never even saw a wind tunnel and was eleven seconds off qualifying in Australia... Launching the car before they were ready put Lola in a precarious financial position and the team never even made it to the next race. Lola's F1 failure brought the whole Lola company to its knees. If they could have run a customer car for a year while developing their own it would have helped a hell of a lot!

I agree with HF in my heart. If you can't build, fuck off. Go buy a go-kart and race there.

But if we have to stick with it...

I think teams who finish in the bottom 3 (9th, 10th, 11th), should be allowed to buy "LAST SEASONS" car. - So say Spyker come 9th this season. They could buy McLaren's 07 spec car and run it for 2008. But they do not get any money if they do so from the FIA whilst they race it.

This would deter teams trying to run "crap" if they've had a bad half season as they would not get any money from the FIA for points positions etc. Yet, they could use it to get them up the grid and more sponsors and time to build a better chassis for 2009.

But in all fairness, if a team is willing "not to go out to do as best as it can", it should be kicked out of motorsport full stop.

MäxX wrote:Driving races without getting points sounds unlogical for me

Non-championship races were all the rage in the old days!

Oh yes, we were spoiled over here in Britain for non-championship races! It made a change to see drivers racing purely for one-off glory rather than keeping a championship in mind. That's why I'll always be a fan of Stirling Moss, Keke Rosberg, Gilles Villeneuve etc... they just wanted to go out and push to the maximum in every race. Bring back the Oulton Park Gold Cup!