Ryan
1st Jan 2008, 04:23 AM
Honda F1 CEO Nick Fry and new team boss Ross Brawn have proposed the FIA limit the amount that a team can spend throughout the year.
"We support a lot of the proposals on the aero restrictions, but the fear is that that money will merely be diverted elsewhere. It will go to driver salaries or engineer salaries, or some other part of the car, but will not necessarily reduce the total bill that a team has to pay.
"So rather than chasing our tails, we think we should be considering an overall budget cap. Although it will be difficult to monitor, we think it can be achieved."
Brawn agrees with Fry that keeping tabs on how much each team spends so that one doesn't gain an advantage over another is going to be tricky, he is intrigued by the challenge.
"How fast can you make this car go for 100 million a year? How efficient can you be? And it's up to the teams to decide whether they spend 50 million on the driver and 50 million on the car; or one million on the driver and 99 million on the car. It would be fascinating to have that challenge."
I've been saying that F1 should adopt something like this for years. Bring back all the development on the cars, engines, tires, as much testing as the team is willing to pay for, and so on, just that each team can only spend up to a certain amount.
Most professional North American sports have one, NBA, NFL, CFL, and NHL. Baseball being the one major exception. It seems to do a good job at giving each team a chance, but ultimately the teams that manage themselves best (ie drafting, trading, coaching) succeed.
"We support a lot of the proposals on the aero restrictions, but the fear is that that money will merely be diverted elsewhere. It will go to driver salaries or engineer salaries, or some other part of the car, but will not necessarily reduce the total bill that a team has to pay.
"So rather than chasing our tails, we think we should be considering an overall budget cap. Although it will be difficult to monitor, we think it can be achieved."
Brawn agrees with Fry that keeping tabs on how much each team spends so that one doesn't gain an advantage over another is going to be tricky, he is intrigued by the challenge.
"How fast can you make this car go for 100 million a year? How efficient can you be? And it's up to the teams to decide whether they spend 50 million on the driver and 50 million on the car; or one million on the driver and 99 million on the car. It would be fascinating to have that challenge."
I've been saying that F1 should adopt something like this for years. Bring back all the development on the cars, engines, tires, as much testing as the team is willing to pay for, and so on, just that each team can only spend up to a certain amount.
Most professional North American sports have one, NBA, NFL, CFL, and NHL. Baseball being the one major exception. It seems to do a good job at giving each team a chance, but ultimately the teams that manage themselves best (ie drafting, trading, coaching) succeed.