It is easy to criticize the efforts of the Max & Bernie show to secure the future of F1 through their changes to the regulations and financial deals - I ought to know, since I have sniped at them continually over the last few years. Suggesting alternatives is much more difficult, however, and there is a case for demanding that the critics put forward their ideas for the way forward since they are so dissatisfied with present directions. If we are so sure that there are better ways to prepare for the future, we ought to submit them for criticism too, thus demonstrating that there are more ways than one to skin a cat.
I am neither an engineer nor a financial wizard so any suggestions I make must be tentative and open to discussion. They are based upon common sense and an experience of the history of F1, however, and so might have some value. What drives me to put some ideas forward is Mark Gallagher's recent article on Pitpass - a vision of the future so bleak that I have to suggest a better way to preserve the essence of F1.
What sets F1 apart from all other forms of open wheel racing is that it is a competition between designers as well as between drivers. An important facet of our enjoyment of the sport is in studying the latest innovations of the engineers to gain an advantage within the rules and so boost the team's chances of winning. We pore endlessly over the new cars for each season, looking for the latest tweaks and bright ideas from the designers.
Standardize everything and you get a driver's competition only. Do we inspect GP2 cars expecting to find genius and innovation? No, we know that all the cars are the same and any difference between teams must come from better organization and preparation only. To remain F1, the sport must allow the designers to compete.
We are now faced with the necessity for F1 to cut back on its costs drastically before it prices itself out of existence. Mosley's answer is to standardize everything in sight but, as we have seen, this leads to something that is no longer F1. Surely we can find a way to retain engineering competition and yet reduce costs to manageable proportions - to believe otherwise is to despair of any future for the sport.
Stock Blocks
The first thing I would suggest is that the regulations restrict engines to stock blocks only. That would immediately cut the cost of creating new engines and yet preserve the diversity that F1 requires. Let the teams find existing engines that can then be developed to give as much power as possible - and may the best engineer win.
Although this has never been tried in F1, there was a time when it became the existing fact in the sport through sheer chance. In 1966, the FIA caught out many of the teams by doubling the permissible engine size to 3 liters. Ferrari had a readily-available V12 but the rest had to go looking for something to power their cars; the result was a raft of solutions ranging from engines designed in-house to old lumps discovered in unexpected places and developed hastily to give decent performance.
Cooper went to the "other" great Italian racing marque, Maserati, and tried one of their V12s, BRM designed a horrendously complex H-16 that sounded great until it went bang, Lotus stuck with Coventry-Climax and a 2 liter version of the previous 1.5 V8, Dan Gurney's Eagle team commissioned a new V12 from the Weslake company. And Jack Brabham found an old Repco V8 engine in his backyard that, with tweaking, proved sufficient to win his team two championships on the trot.
It was a time of innovation and experiment. Many of the engines proved unsuitable for one reason or another, either too heavy or too unreliable. the Repco-Brabham, far from the most powerful, succeeded because it survived through more races. That was brought to a close by Cosworth's introduction of their new V8 in 1967. Designed specifically for F1, it was more powerful, lighter and more reliable than the rest - it would dominate the next decade.
The point is that during that brief period when F1 teams had to look at existing engines for a power plant, the diversity of solutions attempted produced an explosion of innovation. There is no reason why that should not happen again, if the rules were designed to encourage it.
There are arguments against the idea, of course, the most powerful from my point of view being that we would lose that ear-splitting scream of the high-revving modern 2.4 V8. Yet think of the variety of sound possible when there are V8s, V12s and flat engines and it might just be worth the sacrifice. Power outputs would be down, although this could be offset by a return to the 3.5 liter limit, and the muscle would return as engineers found new ways to squeeze out a bit more power each year.
This would not be a manufacturer-friendly formula, I admit. Those that run their own teams might not have a suitable engine lurking in the cupboard and they would certainly object to running another company's product. My answer is that we should let them go. As we have seen, their presence is never guaranteed anyway and they could be replaced by a horde of small teams induced to enter the sport through this and other cost-cutting measures.
Mosley's standardization of F1 is bound to drive out the manufacturers as well - my proposal does the same but preserves the diversity and engineering competition so essential to the sport. It is drastic but that is clearly what is needed if we are to see F1 survive much longer. Consider how it has been warped already by the direction taken by the FIA over the last few years. We are told that F1 must be relevant to road cars - but why? It has never been so before and yet has supplied a steady stream of new ideas and technology useful in the real world. Designing it as a test bed for the manufacturers is to set the cart before the horse.
The participation of so many manufacturers has also given them far too much influence over the direction of the sport. Not only has their wealth driven up the costs and so caused the present crisis, they are the ones most interested in using the sport as a test bed for technologies to bolt on to their production cars. They may be squealing now, but they were the ones who were so enamored of Mosley's introduction of KERS in the first place. F1 engineering should be aimed at creating cars that go ever faster around a circuit and any benefit applicable to road cars should be entirely incidental, not the aim of the show.
It might be thought that the idea of stock blocks runs counter to my previously-expressed calls for a formula based on alternative fuels, and so it does. I make the suggestion as an interim measure for the immediate future only. It will be a while before the governing body dares such a radical change as new fuels and we have to think about ways to make the gasoline engine more affordable therefore. The stock block is one suggestion that could work.
The cost of engine development is an area that the FIA is looking at already and my proposal is made as an alternative to the standard engine that Mosley wants to introduce. There is much more that can be done in other areas, however, some of which have not even been considered by the FIA. In the next part of this article I will look at the cost of chassis design and development and suggest a way to bring it within the financial range of the small independent team.