There is so much money tied up in each team and its technology that it is nearly impossible for a new team to be competitive without mass raiding of staff
PETER CRAMB
The question of turnover in F1
I read with interest the comments in last week’s magazine (Your Say, p23) about the lack of new drivers and teams in Formula 1.
The lack of turnover in drivers has arisen partly because of the safety work over the last six decades that fortunately has eliminated much of the ‘natural wastage’. It is also due partly to the constructors’ championship and thus prize money being weighted towards consistency which tends to favour experienced drivers.
One option would be a ruling whereby one driver in each team could be required to have less than say 50 F1 races’ experience (two seasons plus one or two stand-in races). This would provide a significant turnover of drivers with only the very best surviving for the long term.
Another alternative would be simply to require the sprint races to take place with new drivers rather than them just helping in testing. The sprint races would then score points towards the constructors’ but not the drivers’ championship. Teams would also be able to compare the performance of the new drivers with the ‘main’ F1 drivers in the same cars on the same tracks, which might encourage more rapid promotion.
Turnover of teams is a different matter altogether. There is so much money tied up in each team and its technology that it is nearly impossible for a new team to be competitive without mass raiding of staff from existing ones, with the accompanying gardening leave.
I’d like to see Andretti in F1 and perhaps Red Bull could somehow be subtly encouraged to sell AlphaTauri (or whatever it is called now) to them so that a rule to prevent multiple team ownership by one owner or group could be applied. The new input from Andretti’s personnel plus that of the existing team might lead to a very competitive car within a couple of seasons.
The other point in the magazine about wins versus consistency in the lower formulas (Club Autosport, p65) has an obvious answer, just tweak the points slightly to give a greater reward for race wins.
Peter Cramb By email
The other carbon
