Frank Williams on Third Car Entries

[EERO]

In the pre-race show on the Speed Channel, during an interview by Peter Winsor, Sir Frank offered the opinion, (and I paraphrase),"Formula One is or business, its our only business and I would do whatever it takes to maintain the viability of F1 including running a third car.

With the demise of Prost and the increasingly unlikely ressurrection of Arrows, things are not looking good ofr the state of the grid. I also think that Jordan's deal with Ford presages the entual termination of the Jaguar effort, perhaps the teams might even be folded into one another much as Willaims was born out of Fittipaldi, Wolf and the original Frank Williams racing.

Whatever happens, I think we can anticipate third cars from Willaims, Ferrari and Mclaren at least.

[TimD]

He's done it before. I still remember Jonathan Palmer's first start in a third Williams carrying a race number 42.

[freud]

I love the idea... as far as the three drivers 'race' each other!I am sure Williams and Mclaren can handle 3 drivers, however Ferrari's farce management....ahh!!

[Lee Janotta]

It's not the idea of a 3rd car I dislike, per say... It's that in this era, you could well have two teams taking _all_ the points race after race!

More worrying is the issue of team orders, ESPECIALLY at Ferrari, who might just have their third driver take Montoya or Raikonnen clean off course!

It's also the idea that a third car would become compulsory... It should simply be an option open to teams. And if this option is open, grids _must_ be expanded to 30 cars!

[Damon]

If this happens then there would need to be a major overhaul of the points system or else it will push the lower further and further down.

[Jay]

Seriously, it's been done before, so why couldn't they do it again... Anything if it would help the current state of F1.

[Lee Janotta]

Last time it was done, there were usually a dozen cars all capable of winning the race... Plus very high attrition rates... And the third car would only be used for a handful of races, often by a local driver with intimate knowledge of the track.

[Valve Bounce]

I think if the third car was piloted by a driver who has
i) never been on the podium,
or better still ii) never scored any points in F1,
this would give up and coming drivers more chance to get a drive in a top team rather than just testing duties.

Valve

[Russfeld]

Adding a third car adds more cars capable of winning.

[Mania]

The only problem with that scenario would be the nightmare scenario of seeing 3 Ferraris finish 1,2,3 on the podium race after race! Followed by 3 Williams and 3 Mclarens.

Personally, I like the 2 car system - if we lose teams then obviously we dont have much of a choice - but in that case, as someone already pointed out, we would need a major points overhaul..perhaps points all the way down to 10th position.

[Valve Bounce]

If a team already has two cars capable of winning, pour the hell quoi do we need that team to employ a third driver capable of winning? The last thing we need now is Ferrari with a third driver capable of winning ,I'd give up watching F1 completely.

Valve

Costs would be another thing to consider. If teams built or used another chassis for racing, what about spare cars? Obviously it would mean more cost to the team in certain areas, how would this affect the smaller teams?

[BootsOntheSide]

I would suggest doing this only under these conditions:

1 A change to a CART style points system awarding points to the top 10 or 12

2 One Of the three drivers must have less than some numebr of points or starts before the season

3 Some sort of change to the qualifying, maybe force one of the team's cars to start at the back in each race, alternating it so that Schumacher and co must fight through sometimes. The third cars can start, ebhind the Minardis, in the order of their own times.

Fairly radical ideas, but otehrwise I'd insist on satying with 2 cars even if it means small grids.

[f1manoz]

I think this will eventually happen, particularly if the smaller teams keep disappearing. However, I will agree that if this happens, they'll either have to do the rally system of only two cars counting to the WCC OR will have to make the points system to include the top 10 cars.

[Morris 1100]

If Ferrari were to run three cars where would Ross Brawn stick the button for the extra two way radio?

[EERO]

Originally posted by Morris 1100
If Ferrari were to run three cars where would Ross Brawn stick the button for the extra two way radio?

I agree with all the comments about the overhaul of the Points awards. Otherwise the risk is that one team might have an even more lopsided domination of the WCC than we have seen this year.

[steve_r]

Originally posted by Valve Bounce
I think if the third car was piloted by a driver who has
i) never been on the podium,
or better still ii) never scored any points in F1,
this would give up and coming drivers more chance to get a drive in a top team rather than just testing duties.

Valve

I think this is a good idea. Some kind of average points system could be set up similiar to the averages system that operates in british speedway (7 riders per team, each rider has an average points per meeting calculated, and the total most not go over a set amount at the beginning of a season).

[paulzinho]

Or why not let some privateers run 1 car teams, with the bigger teams running 3 cars, scrap the 24 car maximum rule and lets have some prequalifying going again. If theres enough cars we can do away with the 107% rule, the competition just to get on the grid would create enough excitement.

There, not too ridiculously sounding is it?

[BootsOntheSide]

Still the same problem Paulzinho, the top teams dominating the top 6 points with the private teams struggling to survive.

[Mr V]

Originally posted by Valve Bounce
I think if the third car was piloted by a driver who has
i) never been on the podium,
or better still ii) never scored any points in F1,
this would give up and coming drivers more chance to get a drive in a top team rather than just testing duties.

I'd like to see this, but what would happen as soon as driver 3 from one team starts outperforming driver 3 from the other teams, an experienced driver is going to be brought in pretty quickly to replace the under performing "number 3's", the idea would start off as a good one, but soon be forgotton imo.

[Sodemo]

Yeah, but small grids are OK as long as there is good racing, lets just say there are 18 cars taking the start, a first corner crash takes out 2 or 3 cars, and a few early mechanical problems we are left with 12 or so cars, not a good show.

F1 should, and MUST have 20 cars +.

[SL]

Would this also work the other way ?

Some teams may wish to enter 3 cars in some events but only 2 in other GP's. Also some of the smaller teams like Minardi and Arrows (?) might only wish to run a single car for the flyaway GP's to reduce costs.

Forcing teams to run 3 cars would be far to much for some and make the top teams spend even more £££$$$. Where will it all end ?

Although Minardi could always enter a couple of two seaters (they have 8) and bring a whole new meaning to pay drives

Simon

[kmchow]

Aussiefan wrote:

>Costs would be another thing to consider. If teams built >or used another chassis for racing, what about spare cars? >Obviously it would mean more cost to the team in certain >areas, how would this affect the smaller teams?
>
I am under the impression that probably only the bigger teams would be asked to run a third car. The smaller teams would be exempt. Of course, I'm assuming that there are even small teams left. In theory, it shouldn't cost that much more to run a third car,especially if the backup car becomes the 3rd car? I have to admit it would be interesting to see 3 cars/team on the grid? Has that ever happened in the past?

[Mr V]

Originally posted by kmchow
I am under the impression that probably only the bigger teams would be asked to run a third car. The smaller teams would be exempt. Of course, I'm assuming that there are even small teams left. In theory, it shouldn't cost that much more to run a third car,especially if the backup car becomes the 3rd car?

The smaller teams wouldn't be able to afford it, period! The idea of 3 car teams is to boost the grids not make it smaller by forcing teams out of F1 coz they can't afford to keep up.

With regards to your theory about the cost of a third car, it's the fourth car (or the new test car) that would cost the money.

[SL]

There has been loads of 3 car entries in the 50's 60's and even the 70's. Normally left to try out a new driver or let a local lad have a go.

Ferrari would probably try for a 4th car at Monza if the could, same as McLaren and Williams in Germany.

Simon