I think it would be good to see if Mclaren or maybe another big team had another, smaller team, like Red Bull having Toro Rosso. However it might come as an expence to another team/teams in the field so it isnt very likely to happen. Although it would certainly help bring through some great talent and hopefully none will get wasted i.e Nico Hulkenberg. Thoughts ?
Mclaren have Force India and next year Marussia who are customers of some of thier parts. Also they dont have a que of young driving talent ready and of what they did had was really funded and pushed by Mercedes. I think Jr teams are a bad idea for F1 personally as it will reduce the competion. Maybe the answer is to up the GP2 competition?
Back in the early 2000s McLaren and several other teams (even Prost and Arrows) had junior F3000 teams but with increasing costs and little reward etc. these rapidly disappeared. When you look at what Red Bull's junior team has produced it's clear that it's very much hit-and-miss. Yes, there's been the exceptional champ Vettel. But Scott Speed and Sebastien Bourdais didn't really cut the mustard. Given the costs, it's probably too much of a risk for the bigger teams.
I think with the bigger teams willing to supply gearboxes, KERS amd other know-how to teh smaller teams, the need for feeder teams is no longer there as the sport is a bit more affordable to the smaller teams as they do nto need to spend time and resources to developing things they can now effectively buy off the shelf should they choose too. A few years ago before the 3 new teams came along they were seriously looking in to it boost grid numbers without too much extra cost to anyone. Even so, the bigger teams can put some influence into the smaller teams. Would Force India have the technical partnership they do with McLaren & Mercedes if they didn't let di Resta into the team? For now F1 is fine, but if the grids dwindle again, then the idea of feeder teams shoudl eb looked at again.
I don't really see the need for the big teams to have a feeder team. Red Bull's has paid dividends with Vettel, they won't need another world class driver for another ten years now. But I believe they set Toro Rosso a £40m budget, which means keeping them running alone will have cost half a billion by the time they look to replace Vettel as number one, not to mention the cost of putting drivers through F3, GP3 and GP2 which runs into many millions per season. McLaren produced Hamilton without a feeder team, they now have a decade to find and nurture another talent. At the end of the day they only have two race seats to fill, and only one of them needs to be a world class driver, running feeder teams and driver programs in lower formula is ridiculously expensive, and it's not like football where the excess talent from an effective youth academy can be sold off to other teams. I'd like to see the teams doing more to help aspiring racing drivers, to prevent motorsport being exclusive to those born with a silver spoon, but it doesn't make viable business sense. Red Bull have all these drivers coming through and not enough seats to put them in.
I don't like the idea tbh, a few times already I think Torro rosso have played 'team-orders' with RBR. Webber took a position at abu dhabi last year far to easily for my liking, it had the stench of team orders about it, and a couple of times this season it's looked a bit fishy.
Kind of like Hamilton complaining he was being blocked by Buemi i think it was while chassing Vettel at the Spanish GP ?
yeah, I think that's the one, gave Vettel loads of room and practically closed the door on Hamilton, maybe McLaren should buy another team and call it McLarenski or something.
No need at present Schneiderlin. With a limited amount of grid space (26 is absolute maximum for today's circuits), feeder or 'junior' teams would effectively reduce the competition. For instance; McLaren 2nd team (for want of a better name) would be very likely to do all they could to help the '1st team' whilst scuppering Red Bull and Ferrari whenever possible. This would not be good for F1, which at the moment, has a decent spread of competition, making it pretty healthy. '2nd teams' are likely to make it less competitive, and even Toro Rosso are becoming less dependent upon Red Bull (although ultimately financed through the same source).
Possibly a 3rd car for the bigger teams might be a better bet then, like Steffano Domenancali or however you spell it kept saying before this season.
