April 23: Formula 1 and team orders
I like watching F1, although it took a long time for me to come around to it. After all, F1 is definitely different. All racing series have their strange rules or practices, but F1 seems to have the strangest (again in my opinion). I remember years ago, when a team's worse results during the season were thrown out in order to get their final position in the standings. That to me was just not right.
Now to the current day and team orders.We know why the teams use them, but what could be done to stop them? This is the tough part and so hard to police, which is why I believe they are now considered ok by the governing body (Bernie Ecclestone). But how to really stop them?
This pic shows the Red Bull cars. One team, one sponsor - all for one, one for all. Red Bull wins no matter who finishes up front. But what if a team was allowed to have different sponsorship on each car (they currently cannot)? BAR Honda tried this a few years back and it was disallowed, so they split the paint job on their cars like this.........
This might have featured competing brands from the same company, but I'm not sure. Either way, it didn't last very long. But F1 is an obscenely expensive business, with a team like Red Bull, spending well over $200m per year to field their two cars. No wonder teams struggle to get sponsorship. Think about it, if different sponsors were allowed on each car, that means each company would have to spend less. Maybe then the back markers would have more money to spend on each individual car? Make them more competitive?
But back to team orders.........if each team car had a different sponsor, there is no way that they would be pleased, if sponsor X's car was told to pull over and let sponsor Y's car pass. No way at all. Each part of the team would be doing their absolute best to finish ahead of all the other drivers, regardless of the ownership.Take a look at NASCAR......
