Just read this article quoting Peter Sauber. What the hell is this guy doing running a Formula One team? There are plenty of places he can go if this is the sort of series he wants. What a bunch of jokers holding the cards in GP racing at the moment. Max perverting the rulebook, Bernie milking the cash cow dry and now verbal diarea from this glorified watchmaker :devil:




F1 cars directly off the assembly line?
”Formula One could save drastically without the public noticing it.” [30/01/03 - 05:34]

Although the FIA have introduced some radical changes in an attempt to reduce the ever increasing costs in Formula One, Sauber team boss, Peter Sauber believes that there are even more ways to cut expenses, by all teams buying their vehicles directly off the assembly line!
Not only would Sauber's idea of ‘assembly line' cars help with the spiralling costs, the idea thought to be able to reduce costs by up to two thirds, the Swiss team boss also thinks it would help bring back the role of the driver even more as all cars would be virtually the same.
”Formula One could save drastically without the public noticing it. To the contrary: the fans would profit from it,” he said in an interview with Die Welt. “With cars from the rack, the budget would only be a third or a fourth of what it is now. What speaks against each team buying its cars from a supplier like Lola and then sticking their own sponsor logos on it? The whole development costs would be eliminated, furthermore the driving skills would become more important again, as the level of the cars would be the same.”


Thought I'd move over here and quit talking F1 in the Rally forum :angel:

I am torn between two views here.

First of all, I don't want F1 to become one-make series. Definitely not. But at the same time I see no reason why some teams (note: not all teams, some teams) can't buy some year-old chassis and rn it with some other engine, etc.

Let's think about the history of F1. Brabham. They started as a team running Lotus customer chassis. It doesn't end there though! In turn Williams started off by buying chassis from Brabham. So we would see more teams (i think), more competition, and at the same time I don't see Ferrari, McLaren, Williams (:p), Toyota, and maybe a few others using customer chassis. That will never happen. Minardi, on the other hand, might actually rack up some podiums - always happy to see that!

Alex

I agree smaller teams running older chassis is a good idea. Even happens to some extent at the moment with engines, Sauber running year old Ferraris for instance. However what this silly Sauber person is proposing is something entirely differnet - a single spec series. The kind of thing that works well for entertainment value in CART, or as a learning process in F3000 and similar feeder formulae.

Am I alone in thinkng Formula One should be the pinicle of technology, design, ingenuity, skill, competition and all that is good about motorsport (including a large dose of devious rule bending ;)). The current management don't seem to concur!

You're definitely not alone, and I'm totally, utterly, and vehemently against a one-spec series. As I'm against banning pitstops - I, for one, enjoy watching the tactical games. I also don't mind drivers aids at all. And MS is of the same opinion, actually. But at the same time I'm against losing more teams from the lineup and having to watch just a handful of cars going round boring circuits (Hungaroring :rolleyes: ) So if two - three teams can't afford to make their own chassis and would prefer to use old chassis of some other team, even as a temporar solution - no argument on my part.

Would be fun. sauber buying McLaren chassis and using it with a BMW engine with a Ferrari gerabox :D