This week, the members of the side bar discuss their thoughts on the HAAS way of doing F1.
Is it good for F1? Obviously the rules have now been changed preventing this from occurring again but should that be reversed? Vote now and tell us why.
Further reading on TJ13 for customer teams can be found here.
First things first to eliminate the possibility of any misunderstanding “obviously the rules have now been changed preventing this from occurring again” As I understand it, what is meant is, the rules have been “changed” to “prevent a Haas like set-up occurring again”, if that is the case, can the writer explain the rule changes “to prevent this from occurring again?”.
My personal opinion on this matter “Haas like set-up”, Those that make use of/are supplied with parts manufactured by others and those that supply such parts that came out complaining about the Haas like set-up are Examples of F1 purest of hypocrite with a pedigree certificate, and so are those writes that are pushing their agenda.
I feel that customer teams should be a thing but not complete customer teams. Kind of like what Haas did in its entirety. They bought all the listed parts they could, and I feel that the listed parts number could increase a bit more, but they then did all the development themselves. That is what it should be. Reduce the cost by allowing teams to buy the simple parts that don’t generally change from car to car, and then let them develop the rest of the car.
The issue that everyone whines about is Haas and Ferrari benefiting from the wind tunnel stuff. Haas didn’t really benefit from it, only Ferrari. Haas benefited in that they likely got a bit of a deal in terms of cost savings from bending the rules with Ferrari, but that issue is solved now with rules supposedly. But can a team still buy listed parts? That is the area I believe should be encouraged for the smaller teams and continue to happen. Maybe even if a team makes a really good listed part and is part of the lower teams, they could benefit and make a bit of money off of it.
I voted yes because there doesn’t seem to be any other way a new team can come along and become competitive soon enough to be viable long-term. There is also the fact it’s in F1s heritage.
How’s a HAAS aproach any different from say Force India’s who are buying their rear end from Mercedes for years? There were many examples like this one before (Caterham, STR to name a few) and will be in the future.
HAAS bought what they could, and designed the rest themselves (I hope the latter statement is true).
In the end Dallara manufactured those parts as per HAAS spec, so what? Anyone with know how can lay down carbon fiber and do it for you, as long as the design and specs are yours.
The only wrongdoing on a HAAS/Ferrari part is if Ferrari passed them some information they weren’t allowed to. And if for exchange of such information HAAS passed Ferrari their wind tunnel time.
What rules were changed?
When?
Used to be you could buy a DFV and go racing. What’s next, the team have to forge their own wheels instead of buying them (as bespoke parts of course)? I’m all for Off-The-Shelf parts. If Ferrari has an oil pump you can integrate or a power steering pump, or a DRS activator, etc. Any number of parts can and should be in common between teams. This is the business of racing, of going fast. Not of building transmissions.