Chase Carey Interested in Introduction of Standard F1 Parts

[Paul Jeffrey]

Liberty Media CEO Chase Carey has dropped hints once again that Formula One may look to introduce a level of parts standardisation in a bid to reduce the cost of F1 competition.

With a significant disparity of budgets between the haves and have nots in Formula One circles continuing to affect the competitive action out on circuit, one of the key areas of the sport Liberty Media have been looking to address since taking over from Bernie Ecclestone is how the money is both distributed and spent amongst the ten current Grand Prix teams.

Arguments led by new Formula One technical officer Ross Brawn suggest mandating the use of non performance influencing parts could be a direction for the sport to head, and it appears as if Carey isn't averse to taking that idea into further consideration for future seasons:

“There are many paths to get there, whether it’s cost caps, or other ways to address key components of the car,” said Carey.

“We’re not looking to standardise the car – we think it is very important to continue to have a sport that is competition married to state of the art technologies.

“We’re not looking to dumb the cars down, but I think we can standardise components of it.

“We are certainly looking for ways to address what some of the teams in particular spend that would improve the overall economics of the business and enable everybody in it to benefit, as well as improving the competition.”
​

Formula One has always been an exercise in engineering, with teams in recent years producing their own chassis in house rather than the traditional method of engaging sub contracting firms to build cars off site as has been the case in years past, and with the move to standardise parts this shouldn't change in the future.

It is thought that many elements of a current Grand Prix car could be standardised without affecting the on track product. Things such as suspension arms, wishbones and may other low impact areas of the cars that will not affect performance could be made as standard without any noticeable difference on track.

The question is, in a sport where spending money is seen as the smartest way to success, will the teams accept the inevitable and help push for a brighter future for all competitors?


For more Formula One news and debate, head on over to the Formula One sub forum and join the discussion.

Do you think the introduction of standard parts in Formula One is a good idea? Let us know in the comments section below!

 

[Leonardo Chaves]

I have to wait to see what they intend to make standard before passing judgement.

 

[ears]

Personally I watch (and persevere with) F1 for the racing. The overtakes, the rivalries. Not the technical achievements.

I started watching F1 in the late 80s when the relative competitiveness, relatively low cost and ubiquity of the Ford V8 engine gave most teams an entry point into F1.

The result was a grid so packed that they had to hold pre-qualifying on a Friday morning just to trim the entry list down to 30.

There'll always be a McLaren, a Williams, that will dominate but if there's a set of accessible standard parts that will immediately put a car into a packed midfield. then there's potential there to make F1 an aspirational competition again for the sporting teams who wouldn't consider entering without massive backing from a works manufacturer nowadays.

Interesting question on this front - would the drivers be opposed to it?

OK a driver will always take a dominant car and run with it, but the prospect of parity, of having the opportunity to have their own talent be seen to be making a difference then would they really care how standard the parts underneath them were?

Alonso, for example, would probably rather have had the relatively mass-produced GP2 car underneath him and the rest of the field for the last 10 years instead of the much more expensive, custom prepared, precision manufactured, rulebook limited machines he raced and raced against.

 

[Coffer]

This would likely be terrible, especially judging from him citing the suspension as an example. I do think F1 needs to focus more on being a sport and run as far away as possible from the latest technology, but this is not the answer. At most, I would want the engines to be standardized so that the manufacturers, F1's second biggest problem right now, would be kicked out of the sport, but if I thought that would make things that much better I would just be watching F2 instead right now.

Driving-wise, on a personal level, I know I'd get bored if the cars started becoming more similar to one another. Part of the fun in F1 is the fact that all the cars are so massively different, all the way down to how they handle. That's partly why the CM F1 series is still more fun to me than games like AMS to me and why I have no interest in leagues where everyone uses the same car.

would the drivers be opposed to it?

Most of them would just be told by the team what to say, so yes.

 

[Andrew Harper]

This idea has been rumbling along since the days of Max Mosley, he was also trying to bring in standardised gearbox casings, engine blocks and so on but the teams just couldn't agree, they saw F1 as the pinnacle so as soon as you start to standardise parts they saw it as turning into GP2 or Indycar.

It's a good idea and would certainly help new teams join the sport as they could buy "off the shelf" rather than spend resources on design and manufacture.

Purists would argue it goes against the idea of F1, however we live in different times and with some of the major manufacturers leaving high profile sports to go elsewhere, budgets have to be thought of.

The more the big teams spend the more the little teams suffer, so trying to narrow that gap is in my view a good idea.

I'm wondering if they should copy the ACO idea and tell the teams you are only allowed two or three aero pack changes a year, thereby cutting back on the millions spent making countless changes to the aero on the cars. Just a thought.

 

[Ryno917]

Personally I watch (and persevere with) F1 for the racing. The overtakes, the rivalries.

This is something I'm continually told by my F1 fan friends, and it's something I genuinely don't understand. F1 has very few real passes on track, and even fewer genuinely worth talking about. Even the most mundane pass is elevated to god-like status by the fans because there's nothing else. I know the cars are most of the problem here since passing is made very difficult by their aero sensitivity, but I don't care what the reason is. There isn't enough real action on track, and it's been that way since the early 90s.

Rivalries? Almost all the rivalries I hear of an inter-team rivalries, and usually stem from some kind of (perceived or actual) impression of disparity of attention from their team. Whether it be from ignoring team orders or whining about getting a worse car or whatever. That's not a rivalry, that's a temper tantrum.

Those two things are what is ruining the sport, but they're the things I continually see casual fans laud. I just don't get it. Those are the two things where F1 falls way behind all other top tier racing series. I want to like contemporary F1 because I love the history of it. I love where it came from. But I hate where it is, and I just find it hard to give a damn about anything that happens in that circle.

 

[Will Mazeo]

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Stupid idea, they'll just redirect the money that is not being spent in the spec part somewhere else

 

[Deleted member 130869]

They need to introduce a spending cap before bringing new rules and specs. I'd like to see a cap large enough to enable salaries for drivers, so maybe a two-cap system so the car development part can be trimmed. Sadly there will be a lot of unemployed skilled workers.

 

[Coffer]

F1 has very few real passes on track

Not so much in the last few years, and while there have been far fewer this year, they all took a tremendous amount of skill, moreso than in most forms of motorsport. It sounds more like you're just bored of the sport and looking too fondly at the 80s and earlier, where the quality of the drivers outside of the few at the top was much lower than it is today.

Rivalries? Almost all the rivalries I hear of an inter-team rivalries

You may want to pay more attention then.

Those two things are what is ruining the sport

Maybe, just maybe, what you think is ruining the sport really is making it better and the sport is not for you. Given your first argument, you sound like you're stuck in the past and struggling to comprehend anything about the sport as it is right now, which, in modern terms, makes you the casual.

Those are the two things where F1 falls way behind all other top tier racing series.

Which ones? The only other sport with any sort of focus on the characters to the point where rivalries can actually occur is MotoGP, and that's still down to Marquez being a **** more than anything else. As for the racing, if neither the abundance of passes in previous years nor the increased quality of such passes this year are any good for you, then I can't imagine what would actually suit you. Closest I can think of is something like a pub lobby in AC where literally anyone can overtake anyone at any time, which is utterly devoid of skill to me and something F1 should never strive to be more like. Or perhaps the WEC, which pretty much is the real life version of AC pub lobbies at this point.

 

[ears]

This is something I'm continually told by my F1 fan friends, and it's something I genuinely don't understand. F1 has very few real passes on track, and even fewer genuinely worth talking about.

Just because something does not happen very often, it doesn't mean it's less entertaining or valuable. In fact the opposite could be said to be true. It's not just the overtake, it's the build-up, the pressure, the potential consequences and ramifications.

Sometimes in a 2 car battle you're rooting for the car in front, other times the car behind. Each presents a different type of tension.

If all football matches finished 10-9, if it was not possible to have a 0-0 result, the value of each goal would diminish significantly.

 

[Toonces]

That's what happens when you put a know-nothing biggie in charge of a seriously complicated sport. Direct TV evil; the Bernie (God help me) good.

 

[James Cook]

I'm all for it. Any measure that reduces costs, increases competition and can potentially attract new teams to F1 should be pursued.

Purists will argue standardised parts are against the engineering spirit of F1 and they may have a point, but it's hard to deny that Formula One has become so technically complex and expensive that smaller teams simply cannot afford to compete at all. If we ever want to get back to the days of 26 car grids the sport has to change.

 

[Coffer]

I'm all for it. Any measure that reduces costs, increases competition and can potentially attract new teams to F1 should be pursued.

Purists will argue standardised parts are against the engineering spirit of F1 and they may have a point, but it's hard to deny that Formula One has become so technically complex and expensive that smaller teams simply cannot afford to compete at all. If we ever want to get back to the days of 26 car grids the sport has to change.

It goes both ways. Through doing that, you'd be lowering the quality of the series, and F1 is nothing without its image as the absolute bleeding edge in motorsport in every regard (and not just the technology, which, I still agree, is the one that needs to be sacrificed). You'd likely have worse drivers and worse teams and you'd definitely have less impressive cars as a result, which would undeniably hurt its appeal very badly in a time when it's already struggling with things like the stewards' constant incompetence or the FIA pushing its agenda to the point where it thinks it can slow down the rate at which fire can burn (by making the required time to get out of the car go up from 5 to 8 seconds just so they can add the useless halo).

Some sort of balance needs to be reached, and I'm not sure this is the right way to go about doing that.

 

[James Cook]

Standardised parts wouldn't necessarily lower the quality or affect the cutting edge nature of F1. Besides, purists appreciate the technical aspect of F1 but the (much larger) mainstream/casual audience watch for the quality of the racing. F1 has been a turn-off in this regard for a few years now.

 

[Coffer]

Standardised parts wouldn't necessarily lower the quality or affect the cutting edge nature of F1.

Strongly disagree with that as you'd objectively be stopping the teams from doing as much work as they could. Chase's words are extremely concerning in that sense as he makes it sound like he really doesn't understand much about the technological side of the sport and has the typical American idea of "hey, let's make this easier to understand so we can get more casuals and thus more money".

the (much larger) mainstream/casual audience

The last thing F1 needs is to directly focus on that by tinkering with the actual racing aspects. Create better broadcasting deals (the Sky one is bound to screw the vast majority of the UK over) or get rid of them altogether by going online, lower the admission fees at tracks, give the circuits better deals and you'll naturally get more of those people flocking in without actually hurting the essence of the sport.

 

[Kakusso]

The entry barrier to F1 is in its complex engine regulations. Liberalize them and you will see more teams joining. The ones that join today are forced to buy the engines of a big team instead of developing their own due to the complexity of the regulations. Would love to see Konnigsegg joining with their gearless engines. Standardized parts sounds like a communist rule.

 

[Leonardo Chaves]

Just pointing out, things like the ECU have been standard for years, nobody even remembers(or cares).

 

[Will Mazeo]

I remember an interview with someone from F1 once saying "We made the airbox area very restricted, one of the teams then spent $30 milion to find 5hp from there"

 

[Matheus Machado]

The less standard parts the better. This year has been the best F1 season in a long time because the cars are stupidly fast.

I already said, if you want racing, go watch karts.

 

[Ryno917]

Not so much in the last few years, and while there have been far fewer this year, they all took a tremendous amount of skill, moreso than in most forms of motorsport. It sounds more like you're just bored of the sport and looking too fondly at the 80s and earlier, where the quality of the drivers outside of the few at the top was much lower than it is today.

Compared to other top-tier series, there is much less passing in F1. That's my point.

Maybe, just maybe, what you think is ruining the sport really is making it better and the sport is not for you. Given your first argument, you sound like you're stuck in the past and struggling to comprehend anything about the sport as it is right now, which, in modern terms, makes you the casual.

How does less passing and more drivers whining make the sport better? I can comprehend the sport just fine - F1 is just not as exciting, from an on-track action point of view, as many other top tier series. And my casual comment wasn't calling all F1 fans casual (sorry if it was taken that way, that wasn't the intention), it was more just every die-hard F1 fan I know (who is a broad racing fan as well) is lamenting the series' current state, while the more casual race fans I know who only follow F1 and don't know much about other forms of racing think its the bees knees because a pass happened. As soon as I introduce them to something else, they fall in love because the racing is more exciting to watch.

As for the racing, if neither the abundance of passes in previous years nor the increased quality of such passes this year are any good for you, then I can't imagine what would actually suit you.

What abundance of passing? The passing is minimal in F1. I like watching dogfights on track. Where two or more drivers are passing again and again lap after lap after lap. That is exciting. That hasn't happened in F1 in decades. Watching a driver follow a hundred meters from the car in front for 10 laps and then have a single quick dive through for the position and then that's the end of the exchange is not exciting to me. There's some interest, there's some pressure but the exchanges in F1 are almost always one-sided affairs like that now. There's very little re-passing.

Closest I can think of is something like a pub lobby in AC where literally anyone can overtake anyone at any time, which is utterly devoid of skill to me and something F1 should never strive to be more like. Or perhaps the WEC, which pretty much is the real life version of AC pub lobbies at this point.

Not sure where that's coming from? I don't want to watch a wreckfest. I want to watch skilled drivers constantly battling for position, I want them swapping places more regularly, and F1 just doesn't have that. It doesn't. Many other series do, though.

WEC? Every WEC race I've watched until the end of the 2016 season contained some incredible battles in LMP1. They obviously get some help in the form of slower cars factoring in and creating opportunities, but still. The action there has been pretty good. Sadly that's ended now with the team withdrawals.

Just because something does not happen very often, it doesn't mean it's less entertaining or valuable. In fact the opposite could be said to be true. It's not just the overtake, it's the build-up, the pressure, the potential consequences and ramifications.

Your first sentence is exactly my point: when you have so few overtakes, even a relatively mundane one is elevated to godlike status. I'm not going to deny the build up, pressure, potential consequences and ramifications - those are all there, of course, but there still isn't enough real on track action in contemporary F1.

If all football matches finished 10-9, if it was not possible to have a 0-0 result, the value of each goal would diminish significantly.

Maybe that's part of the problem here. I don't like soccer, either. By contrast, I also don't like basketball for the opposite reason. Soccer has too little scoring, so everything means too much. Basketball has too much scoring, so everything means too little. Hockey and Lacrosse are in a sweet spot, though, which are fast-paced and have more scoring, but not so much that it diminishes its importance.

For me F1 is soccer. NASCAR is Basketball. WEC is Lacrosse.


[EDIT] Just noticed a typo that significantly altered my point, fixed in bold above.