23/05/2015
NEWS STORY
Bernie Ecclestone has given insight to his dream for the future of F1... and it's not pretty.
With three, maybe more, teams in financial difficulty, and recent proposals by the Strategy Group likely to drive up costs even further, Ecclestone believes the future of F1 is a split championship, one featuring the main manufacturers and the other featuring teams that have bought off the shelf packages.
"I’ve been pushing, pushing, pushing for single chassis, single engine, and run it exactly the same as now," he told reporters in Monaco, "but they (the teams) can’t muck around with the car.
"You do that with four or five teams and you leave the constructors alone. You let them do what they want to do. You would make all the chassis the same, and then we would do a deal with one of the engine suppliers. It should work."
Note the use of the word "should".
"We'd supply two chassis complete by the first of January for $15 million," he continued. "We'd pay. If it costs more we have to pay more, if it's less that's good for us.
"And they have to race," he added. "The lowest team gets $50 million anyway, so they would have two cars, plus $35 million."
Ecclestone argues that such a move would end the issue of pay drivers.
"Instead of having to run around and find a driver who has money, they could look for a talented driver and put him in the car. You would then get a lot more new drivers with a lot more talent."
Or perhaps a very rich young man (or woman) who could start a team and buy said customer package.
"I want these teams to go racing for $70 million," he insisted. "Most of that money they already get from us.
"We should stop mucking about, asking opinions," he added, at a time much is being made of two fan surveys. "The problem is we're too democratic… we should say 'These are the rules of the championship, if you want to be in it, great, if you don't, we understand."
Some will argue that this is pretty much like the 60s/70s when teams could buy a chassis and Ford DFV and go Grand Prix racing, indeed, it's how some of today's teams started out. But does such a retrograde move take the sport forward?
Fact is, this is not the way forward, and Ecclestone and CVC have to realise that despite the myriad of trademarks, lawyers and whatever, F1 is not their personal Scalextric.