Banning of customer cars?!?!

[David Smith]

Hey there,

This subject really confuses me to what it actually means. I get it that super aguri would of been banned as they used Honda engine, but does this mean these teams will be banned also?

Redbull (Renault engine)
Force India (Ferrari engine)
Toro Rosso (Ferrari?? engine)
Williams (Toyota engine)

I think im reading it wrong, could anyone clear up what Customer cars actually means and if im correct in thinking these teams would be banned?

Cheers

[Silver Shadow]

A customer car is of a team's that uses another team's chassis. Super Aguri used last year's Honda chassis, while there was protest from the privateer teams that Prodrive would use McLaren's chassis.

It mainly has to do with intellectual rights, but not from the manufacturer, but from the other teams who have a smaller budget and make their own cars from the ground up (Why should team x, which uses a top or middle tier team's chassis with no effort get points and prize money while my team has to work from scratch to make a car?). That is essentially the mentality...

[Soyyo]

Customer car is only related to chassis construction, the engine and gear box are not included, because F1's rules allow to buy engines and gear boxes, but the team must make his own chassis.

There is a controversy related to customer cars, some of the reason from the people against customer car are:

• 1) If a team has to design and build his own chassis, it means they need to employ 100+ people, but When you are a customer car, you buy the chassis, you don't need to employ these people and your expenses are very low compare to the others small non-customer teams.
  2) If customer car are allow in F1, then there only would exist 2-4 teams producing cars for racing.
  3) In the grid instead of having 10 independent teams, you would have groups of related teams helping the group members.
  4) A team with a very big budget could have more than 1 customer car team in the grid, where these teams would be under the orders of the big team and be use to deprive rivals of points.
  5) Those team with more customer cars teams,compare to their rivals, can make bigger progress than one team can posible do in the limited testing times.
  6) The sport would become more dependent on the manufacturers: if one manufacturer leave F1, then instead of loosing 1 team you end up loosing that team and all the customer cars teams related to the manufacturer.

At the end: A customer car team saves money but gets the benefits: the constructors points are related to money because a team's ability to raise money is based on the ability to score points in the Constructors' World Championship, thats why they say that if you are not the constructors car, you could run but not score any points.

[David Smith]

Ah ok, thanks for clearing that up

[Ali]

Yes, very up
Thank you Soyyo

[Sanredrose]

Customer cars have always been a troublesome issue in F1. We keep losing them then and there.