Wednesday, April 30, 2014

Formula 1's 3 year cost-cutting plan

Formula 1's leading figures are adamant that a three-year cost cutting plan discussed in the F1 Strategy Group is the best way to sort out the sport's budget problems.
While the Strategy Group's decision to abandon plans for a cost cap has caused controversy, F1's bigger outfits are unmoved by the unease.

Instead, they think that their schedule of changes being discussed from next season until 2017, detailed below, will do exactly what is needed to bring the sport's finances under control.

Mercedes motorsport boss Toto Wolff said: "I was for a cost cap actually, but we realised that some of the other big teams wouldn't go down that way, or couldn't follow that way.
"Ferrari is a good example because they have everything in one entity and it's difficult for them to have everything screened.

"It doesn't make sense to go against two or three of the big teams just for the sake of the principal of a cost cap, so I think it's worth following up in a way everybody can do.
"This is why going through the sporting or technical regulations is probably the right way to go. We've seen in the past that it worked."
Wolff said the fundamental aim of dramatically reducing F1 costs remained intact.
"We are working to find the best tools, getting together to find the best way forward," he said.

"We are definitely for a cost cap, we are for a ceiling.

"We are not running away in a spending war between the top teams, and we are also for a glide slope downwards so we can reduce the gap between the smaller teams and the larger teams."

The ideas that are up for discussion during Thursday's meeting are:

2015
Tyre blanket ban
Fuel system simplification
Brake duct simplification
Front wing simplification
Gearbox usage flow brought in line with engine life
Increase in curfew
Ban on front and rear interconnected suspension


2016
Standard front impact structure
Standard rear impact structure
Standard final drive system
Standard steering rack


2017
FIA standard active suspension
Move to 18-inch wheel rims