FORUMula1.com - F1 Forum

[darwin dali]

ESPNF1:

[...]
In a worse-case scenario of losing Red Bull and Lotus, will F1 have three car teams?
TW: Even if we don't lose them, I'm still keen and optimistic that three cars would increase the grid to 26 or 28 cars, giving young drivers an opportunity to race in Formula One. You are not seeing any of the GP2 kids making it to Formula One and that's because there is a limited amount of spaces. Therefore, I think that a third car is a good possibility that would energise the driver market as well.

Can you understand the reservations midfield teams have about three car teams occupying so much of the top ten?
TW: I think there should be two different classifications. I think if there are three Mercedes and three Ferraris then there should be the main championship and a junior championship. If Force India, for example, finishes seventh behind three Mercedes and three Ferraris, they would still be classified fifth in terms of the points. On track it doesn't make a lot of difference, because if you are running fifth or seventh it doesn't make a lot of difference. The perception is being made by your kind of result and your result is being corrected by the junior factor.
[...]

Uh, no Toto: with a third car as a buffer for the leading big name duo, a midfield team will be robbed of the opportunity to attack the big team unless those junior drivers in the third car get to see blue flags as frequently as the back markers.

[Jabberwocky]

I think there should be restictions on who the 3rd driver can be. Eg must have done less than 20gp's etc

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[rob91]

For 2016 there are 11 teams on the grid which means 22 cars, four cars short of the maximum allowed according to the sporting regulations. There is also a situation with the prize money/revenues structure whereby 4 teams (Mercedes, Ferrari, Red Bull and McLaren I believe are the 4 teams) receive considerably more money than the other 7 teams regardless of their performances in the championship which is causing angst in the smaller teams. So why don't the FIA and FOM say to these 4 big teams that if you receive this massive extra payment you should enter a third car for the whole season, exclusively for a young rookie driver, that is allowed to score points ONLY for the drivers' championship and NOT the constructors' championship.

By doing this the grid gets expanded up to the maximum 26 cars for the first time in over 20 years whilst at the same time the "big 4" can bring young drivers into F1, allowing them to gain real experience without most of the pressure of expectation that goes with racing for a top team. For example, Mercedes can put in Pascal Wehrlein, McLaren can put in Stoffel Vandoorne and Ferrari and Red Bull can put in someone from their driver academies. And if one of these teams refuses to enter a third car then they should forfeit the extra payment which can then get offered to another team, for example to Williams for them to enter a third car for Alex Lynn.

[darwin dali]

I don't like the idea of a third car since they may interfere with the championship, e.g., by blocking cars of other teams while letting their own team's cars through very easily. It would open the door to too many possibilities for mischief.

[myownalias]

I'm very much against 3 car teams in general, but if we must have three car teams, prize money structure needs to change and all teams need to run 3 cars. Like DD has said, with the top 4 teams having a third car can lead to all sorts of bad things for the sport in general. The other thing I don't like about the big four having 3 cars is that it effectively freezes out the smaller teams from scoring points, assuming that Mercedes, Ferrari, Red Bull and McLaren all finish the race, there will be zero points on offer for the other 14 drivers.