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Originally Posted by Racer65
Never said a thing about amazing engines attracting the drivers.
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No, you said -
Would the manufacturers want anything to do with an F1 based on Indy type engines though?
Take them away and what do you have? Who's paying the mega bucks for the superstar drivers? In reality that's who 90% of the audience are there for. Not for F1 itself.
Saying that the manufacturers want the engines, and they pay for the drivers, thus, without these engines, you won't have manufacturers and therefore won't have the good drivers.
I don't agree with that at all. You take away the manufacturers and you still have superstar drivers. These superstars are made because they are F1 drivers. They don't earn their stripes and their following in any other series. There are only minor exceptions to that throughout the history of F1. It's being good in F1 that makes you the superstar.
I agree with you that a lot of fans want the drivers, but I don't agree that not having manufacturers means you won't have superstars. That's not how the drivers become stars and popular in the first place and it's very relevant to the point. The best drivers find their way to the top, regardless of manufacturer involvement, and then become stars. And even if there isn't a manufacturer to offer a ridiculous paycheque to a driver, doesn't mean that driver will then go elsewhere - because these sort of paydays don't exist outside F1 anyway. So if anything, not having manufacturers dictating the engine regulations would not only slash engine costs by around 90%, but also reduce the wage bill by a large margin too.
The motorsport cycle that we see in every series is that a series is popular and doing well, so manufacturers join to make the best of it whilst it's popular. They then spend 5-10 years there and then leave - either because they achieved their goal, or they failed badly, or the parent company has some issues. We've seen it in WEC a few times (Group C, Peugeot, and now modern LMP1). We've seen it in ALMS. We've seen it in BTCC. These series all went through major rebuilds to make sure the privateer and smaller teams could survive or return, thus giving the series stability.
F1 has gone the opposite way. When times got tough, they handed even more power to the manufacturers and allowed them to build a walled garden for themselves. An expensive, marble-walled garden, plated in gold. And now, when Mercedes or Renault decide they're moving house and taking the wall with them, F1 will be stuck because there's nobody capable of building these insane engines that only the manufacturers want.
Picture the Lion King, circle of life. This isn't how the circle is meant to go. The F1 circle has weird pointy angles right now.