Quote:
Originally Posted by Richard C
So all of that variability with drivers coming and going, teams switching chassis, power units, etc. Was that actually successful or was that just a bunch of enthusiastic and entertaining rabble at the tail end of the field just floundering about? I suspect the answer is that outside of an occasional nearly random success, they were just filling in the field. Why would anyone who was actually trying to win today do any of that? It would be suicide.
Plus as Alan52 calls out, the cost of doing that today would be astronomical. I really would love to see what it would have cost to run one of those 1970's teams in 2024 dollars. My assumption is the budgets would have been much smaller meaning it was probably easy for someone to scrape up enough funds to run a bit and have fun, but really have close to zero chance of winning. Or if the chance to win was higher, it was more down to the level of overall reliability back then being much worse. So that race results would have been more variable than today. A retirement of a car these days is a notable event!
Richard
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In my mind there are a few ways around it
Have a 2 tier F1 franchise system.
Tier 1 "pro" is your traditional 2 car full entry guaranteed start in the race etc as now.
Tier 2 "privateer" Much cheaper entry fee but you have to prequalify and only the top few get to race sunday and you dont have to attend every race, maybe a set minimum. The prequal session is televised like normal P123 sessions. P1 and P2 is for all entrants, then prequalify is t2 only on saturday morning. P3 and main qual is for T1 and the successful pre-qualifiers only. So the T2 cars get 3 televised on track sessions (and drive to survive interest), and if they make the sunday grid they get prime time tv coverage, for a cheaper buy in.
Allow customer cars, in T2, so they can buy a chassis of mclaren or RB etc and engine from honda, ford or whoever is in the game, or maybe even a company like Lola purely building chassis or engines for multiple customers.
Could end up with a Red bull chassis with a Merc engine or the like! (which would be highly embarrassing if they beat the Donor team)
Customer cars, a couple of pay to drive drivers and cheaper license and you have more cars, variety and interest, and more opportunity for new talent to get a look.
You could have restrictions on T2, no team can be in T2 for more than 3 years, they have to step up or step out, or a relegation system like many football comps have.