While you may be happy to know that there is a F1 team summit called by the FIA for January 22, the notion of the group calling off their decision for “double-points” for the last race may not be reversed. Instead, the FIA will be focusing on the cost cap consideration and challenges it placed before the series to have sorted by 2015.
There are so many dynamics and nuances to this issue it is nearly impossible to include them all but suffice to say, a team spending twice what other teams are spending in Formula 1 is likely, but not guaranteed, to perform at a higher level or win titles. However, the FIA has initiated several tactics to neuter that advantage through high degradation tires, DRS and other regulations with mixed results and this is a bit akin to moving the furniture around the elephant in the room and still hoping to achieve feng shui.
Now the FIA and teams have come to the conclusion that addressing the elephant, or in this case the cost of competing and the resources deployed by teams, is really at the heart of the matter and must be addressed. Lotus Boss Eric Boullier said:
“In principle, we have to understand that you have maybe three or four teams who can afford to spend twice the average budget of the rest of the grid.
“For me the problem is not what they spend because the more they spend, the better it is for F1 in some ways.
“But we need to have a competitiveness that allows most of the teams to fight for podiums.”
To be perfectly honest, I’m not even sure how that is achievable or desirable for the series. Not that they shouldn’t meet and try to sort it out but in the end, if you were McLaren, Mercedes, Ferrari or Red Bull, why would you even participate in the series and spend the resources you do if there was a mechanism that neutered your investment and meant that spending twice what Lotus F1 does wouldn’t gain you any competitive advantage?
The amount a team spends is not directly tied to world championships. Toyota would be a recent example of that in Formula 1 but it typically means you won’t be running at the back of the grid. Let’s hope the cost cap scheme can find some common ground without marginalizing the big teams spend or they’ll simply choose to find a series where their resources carry a bigger ROI.
