F1 » Berger: 'Unhealthy' F1 skating on thin ice

Totally agree with Gerhard. F1 should consider the path that Grand Am racing here in America has taken. Car development during the season is extremely limited and new chassis designs are only allowed every five years. Another possibility is to limit the total wing area on each car. Plus, stop meddling with engine rules. Set the rules at 3.0 liter normally-aspirated and leave it there. After a few years, engine costs will go down. In the first year of the Daytona Prototype, only a few were seen and they didnt work well. With a few years they had 30 car fields of DP''s. Finally, dont allow car manufacturers to run teams directly, leave it to privateers.

The only manufacturer that would still be allowed to run a team directly would be, ahem, Ferrari....

jonov. good points but you then go and spoil it with a silly secondary post. or is GM allowed to run a team????

The notion that Ferrari is essential to F-1 is silly. How long has it been since Ferrari was a presence in other motosports series? When was the last factory effort at Le Man? And they used to own it.

My Ferrari comment was said as a bit of a joke. I guess the trick would be to keep some manufacturers but limit development and thereby limit cost. Oh, and ALLOW CUSTOMER CARS!

F1 will always have the manufacturers because they are the only ones that can truely afford it.

Along the lines of Berger's comments I have greater fears that they and the main sponsors will simply not want to take part instead of worrying about affording it. In his quest to make more money for himself, Bernie is moving the races to ever more remote (for the traditional F1 manufacturers locations. While this is great for those locals one has to wonder how long the Euro based sponsors will continue to fund teams that are not performing in their home markets. Same goes for the manufacturers. Turkey, Singapore, Malaysia and the middle east are good events but mean little for sales.

I agree with jonov's first point, personally i think the only contribution that manufacturers should have in f1 is engine supply and not team ownership, it would keep the costs down and the racing healthy and bring it back to the good aul days of the 90's, 80's etc

"F1 should consider the path that Grand Am racing here in America has taken."

Anybody that sends more money to the France family is a moron, IMO. Bill France, before he died and his brother Jim were each worth over one billion dollars. Send 'em some more, suckers.

Gerhard is a very perceptive business man, and is right on with the situation. I agree that all of the team advertising and peripherals make the sport very expensive, including the way they work with epuipment and parts. So what he says about cost cutting is very true. Turning it into an Indy Car or Grand Am situation would detract from what F1 is truely about, because they are Micky Mouse, and should only be shown at Disneyland for the masses (ignorant). We will see how cleaver F1 people are !!!!

"We will see how cleaver F1 people are !!!! "

Cleaver, as in meat cleaver? Freudian slip, maybe? If so, very appropriate.