Thursday, February 1, 2007

Formula One and Customer Chassis

Recently, there has been a push from some Formula One teams for customer chassis. A customer chassis is a chassis made by one team and used by that team and another team. Customer chassis will dilute Formula One. If customer chassis are allowed, soon Formula One will become like other racing formulas that allow customer chassis. These formulas (Champ Car World Series comes to mind) use only a few chassis among all the teams. Formula One teams like Ferrari, McLaren, and Renault that have the recourses and money will become the sole chassis manufactures. Soon we might have four car teams. This could lead to fewer teams, since there is a car limit, and it could lead to three cars supporting one car in an attempt to win the championship. Also, there is the issue of limited testing. With two teams using the same chassis, that chassis gets twice as many miles of testing and hence, the chassis will develop faster. People already do not like it when Ferrari has a "Red Wash" season. Imagine what it would be like if Ferrari Team 1 took first and second place and Ferrari Team 2 took third and fourth place. When a fan is watching a race he knows that a Ferrari uses a Ferrari chassis. He also knows that a Williams uses a Williams chassis. If customer chassis are allowed, the fan will no longer be able to easily know what chassis the team is actually running. Is that Williams running a Ferrari chassis or a Honda chassis? Or possibly even their own "Williams" chassis? Customer chassis would also bring Formula One even closer to a spec series because eventually every team might be running one of two chassis. And then before you know it, every team would have the same chassis. Formula One should stick to each team having to design and make their own car. Perhaps at a later time I will explore what Formula One can do to make the racing exciting again, but allowing customer chassis is not it.

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