Quote:
Originally Posted by Peter Mallett
Ok I know I'm banging a drum that nobody wants to hear, but surely the question is "why are the teams so big?".
The answer is simple: Complexity. Make the vehicles less technically challenging and the teams won't need all those people. Simples.
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Quote:
Originally Posted by P38 in workshop
The short answer is that the teams are so big because they feel a need to be that size.
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For brevity I only quotes parts of the posts above. I broadly disagree with Peter and agree with P38. The only thing I might say differently than P38 is that they are as big as funding allows them to be.
For example... Let's say Renault was somehow more profitable than they are now. I am talking orders of magnitude larger. It's likely their budget would increase with no other changes to the technical specification. They would see that they have the cash and cash equals performance. Now that is not a universal truth (i.e. Toyota in F1), but it is true enough for most.
Another example... Let's say the technical specification was simplified (i.e. move to a more restricted ICE only power unit). If funding exists... and there is no reason it wouldn't. it will just be spent elsewhere. Such as toward aero or chassis development.
Now... when you are winning. Such as Mercedes is now. There will always be a struggle to maintain your budget, but the boogie man you toss out to the decision makers is that the competition is nipping at your heals, so you need the current budget (or even more) to maintain the lead. I think part of the reason Mercedes does not support something like the Ferrari/Haas/Alfa or RBR/TR scenarios is that it just may be hard for Mercedes to convince those above them to dig deeper to help fund subordinate teams given... they are already winning handily. So instead they advocate to stop those partnerships enjoyed by their competition instead of joining them.
There are examples of this working in other series. Specifically lower level series. I am vaguely aware of this one example that happened in the US and can't speak to all of the details, but it was SCCA D Sports Racing (DSR) in which Scott Tucker showed up with a truck load of money (that he went to jail for, but that is a different story) and dumped it into the development of super killer DSR car. Including buying the company that made the car he planned to use. DSR was roughly stable series. But he had the budget, so he used it and he wiped out the competition. I think it screwed stuff up so much that the SCCA had to make tweaks to the DSR rules to stop what was going on.
https://www.reddit.com/r/formula1/co..._what_happens/
His budget was based upon...
1. Where do I need to spend to win?
2. How much money can I find?
If #2 is equal to or larger than #1 then you are competitive. If you are organized and competent, then you win. If #2 is substantially less than #1 then you will never win other than by chance.
That is how F1 works. The above exists regardless of the rules and complexity. The upper limit for #2 is based upon things like the perceived prestige of the the series and other things such as how deep pockets are for self funding operations and world economics. So self funding operations like (Mercedes, Ferrari, etc.) have deep pockets and use them. And the prestige helps them bring on secondary sponsors plus convince the budget makers to keep the deep pockets open.
Richard