Anti-competition?

[angst]

Just a thought I had. What if (by some strange set of circumstances) a F3000 or Indycar team came to Bernie and said' We've got the budget, we've got an engine supplier and we'd like to enter F1, but we must do it in 2002 or the chance is gone' and Bernie turns round and says 'Sorry fellas, but we have all 12 teams we can't have any more' - wouldn't this come under anti-competition laws?
I agree with the weeding out of the crappy teams that used to appear in F1 and embarrass everybody involved, but I don't see any reason for guaranteeing all entrants a starting place. Surely F1 is about competition.

[Damon]

I for one would like to see pre-qualifying back in F1.

[Tristan]

Yeah, what was the deal with pre-qualifying? Never really understood that...... What happened?

[MichaelC]

Pre-Qualifying was when there were 15+ teams, in the early 90's. To get the grid down to 26 cars, they ran pre-qualifying.

Only the worst teams had to do this - teams with zero points after 'x' races, and they joined the leading teams in qualifying

The teams which falied to prequalify (Brabham, Andrea Modena etc) were usually seen running from the circuit Thursday night to avoid a helluva lot of explaining to their sponsors!!

[MichaelC]

Then of course, having pre-qualified, you could still fail to qualify for the race, and be faced with the proverbial early bath...

[Tristan]

Andrea Moda. the 2nd greatest team ever. After Euro-Brun, obviously.