Quote:
Originally Posted by Moneyseeker
Is it not staggering that an independent team like Williams has 650 staff to put two cars on the grid for a season, yet buys in an engine and associated ancillaries, yet needs more to compete?
Is it sustainable?
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Of course not. But F1 teams will spend however much they can get in a valiant attempt to be as competitive (or in Mercedes' case, as dominant) possible. Go figure!
Quote:
Originally Posted by bella
the majority of those people won't work with the car,
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I'm pretty sure,
these people ALL work on the car (hospitality, media, IT & transport dpartments aside), F1 teams & F1 engine manufacturers are not stupid, they are racers' racers. Those hundreds of engineers & technicians are all tinkering away on CAD models and laboratories on how to make improved parts for the cars (whether or not those parts go into production).
F1 teams are fairly barebones operations of hundreds of engineers slogging away on parts for the car (or research on how to make it faster) in a huge open plan space:
Here is a Toro Rosso factory tour for example Of course Toro Rosso are one of the smaller teams. Renault, Red Bull and all the rest are similar -- and, in fact, even bigger.
Although Mugen are no longer in F1, the scale of their engine test laboratory gives you an idea of the facilties F1 engine manufacturer's have:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6He25rgnryA Here is Honda's Sakura facility, once again barebones and focused on researching engine parts to go on the car:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IAaJYNHG5-Y [Or for the V10 fans, the life of a Honda V10 engine
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C-2YdVn4n90 
]
Back in 1993, Patrick Head explains that the engineers and technicians can do whatever they want,
as long as it's in the direction of making the car faster:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LQIPaa7KDTs
I think F1 teams are VERY focused on efficiently working on how to make the car faster in fact, so I strongly disagree with your assertion.
The problem is that most teams design and machine every single nut and bolt themselves, even the gearbox.
Red Bull life's of a bolt. When they could buy these in more economically from suppliers, but of course that wouldn't perform as well, so that won't do...