The Future of F3

[barnettracing]

Originally Posted by bella

but there's other things too. how much would you then spend on developing the car yourselves to make it as competitive as the ones at the front, for example? if you used the same number of staff, and took out the factory overheads that are de rigeur now how much would it cost absolute bare minimum to run a f3 car today?

then you have to think ok, well you're buying the chassis from a small engineering company. how much has lack of competition pushed the rates up? cost of materials? anyone who makes anything knows the raw material costs for metals have gone up hugely in the past 5 years alone, completely out of line with inflation. how many people does it take to build and engineer a basic chassis now versus then (genuine question, i have no idea)? what are the percentages for labour, materials and machining compared? so many things have changed.

don't get me wrong, things clearly have changed for the worse for everyone except the very well off, simply from a prize money perspective! but i'm not sure it's as simple as just saying it cost this to buy then, now it costs this much. maybe it is, but i can't quite imagine it's that simple!

No, I'm sure, as you say, it is a lot more complex than I make it sound (as I said, my workings were only rough, down-the-pub type, calculations). I still think, despite increased material costs though that the motorsport industry hasn't done itself too many favours in the long run.

One thing that has vastly increased beyond inflation is entry fees. When my dad first race in the late 1970s/early 1980s, entry fees made up between 5-10% of your yearly budget. Now they make up between 35-45%; and that's usually to do less races now than then. But, as we've seen, don't get me started on circuit management...