Quote:
Originally Posted by bjohnsonsmith
The current agreement between F1 and the FIA allows for up to to 12 teams and 24 cars. However, it's set to remain at 10. Back in 2014 F1 had a 22 car field, so my comment was more of an observation than a comparison.
Mario Andretti's complaint was about F1's direction and heavy reliance on aero and how it is adversely affecting racing, particularly overtaking; something F1 fans and there are plenty here at Ten Tenths, are constantly complaining about. IndyCar may be a spec series at the moment but tried out Chevy's and Honda's aero-kits and found they were going to face the same issues F1 is, if they continued with heavy downforce aero-kits and decided to go for a ground effect car instead. The rules are so rigid regarding F1 car design, they might as well be spec cars. The big difference is, F1 happens to have three of the world's biggest road car manufacturers involved, who have vastly bigger budgets than any IndyCar could dream of and yet the racing is poor in comparison.
Indeed, IndyCar has had trouble attracting a 33 car field for "The Greatest Spectacle in Racing". It was only 10 years ago the series unified with Champ Car, after the near disastrous split back in '96 and it has taken a very long time to rebuild. Plus there isn't all that Philip Morris tobacco money sloshing around anymore and the majority of the big multinational sponsors, decided to go to NASCAR. Anyway, they have a 33+ field this year so fair play too them.
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It theoretically agrees more cars than the current 20, but a new team can't just walk in, they have to go through long and tedious entry submit process and ratification that not only takes forever but which the FIA can outright deny if they wish. Also added in to what I already said that unless you have a situation where chassis is flat out destroyed or something in force majeure situation, you have to enter each race with mandated strict 2 cars, and you can't cherry pick events or start the season from wherever (like the (admittedly joke of a project) USF1 requested and was rejected)). I wish it wasn't like that, and there was flexibility like in the prequalifying era, but what can you do
For the second paragraph, I refer to what Nick Daman said on the subject on Midweek Motorsport episode 12.
I think having trouble attracting 33 cars would have been less of an embarrasment if there really was more of an open formula and acquiring cars wasn't easy peacy as it is with Dallara's endless supply. However as you said, kudos to them for having some bumping this year at least...