F1 show rooms?
Christian Horner has been quoted by itv-f1 as saying that F1 needs to provide customer designs for it to be a viable investment. He’s arguing that it’s better to have more competative customer teams than uncompetative independants citing the Minardi/Torro Rosso example. I’m not sure that the issue is relevant anymore though, Bernie has limited the number of teams to 12 and with Prodrive coming on board that means no more room. Seeing as we’ve already got 11 teams that seem fairly stable who apart from David Richards is going to be hunting around for a customer car?
As far as I see it providing the option detracts from F1, it’s the pinicle of motorsport and it has the unique appeal of new cars every year along with unparalleled technology. Having more of the same cars running around will surely just make the sport more predicable, something that it has been heavily critised for over the last few years. With 12 different cars on the grid each is sutebly suited to different tracks and gives a shifting performance level where better drivers may be at a disadvantage.
Another problem is the loss of sponsorship, F1 has already lost money through the tobacco ban and if it starts to lose it’s place at the top of the mountain then would that not be a problem for the sport. We’ll see how ProDrive pans out I suppose but I don’t think it’s true to say that we need customer cars.
Good Hunting