Financial crisis has put many Formula 1 teams off their stride. Starting from 2016, they will be allowed to purchase race cars from each other.
At the moment, the rules forbid customer cars — all of them have to be designed and built independently. This has made the race cars much more expensive. For example, the Red Bull Racing and Ferrari teams spent $400 million to develop and build the powertrains. By way of comparison, the bankrupt Marussia spent $110 million.
As reported by The Guardian, the American Haas F1 Team will become the first customer team. They will use Ferrari power units.
However, not everyone is fond of this idea. Sauber, Lotus and Force India were against all these changes. These three teams are in rather humble circumstances, let alone the bankruptcy of Caterham and Marussia.
“We were given a clear direction there is no money on the table”, said Bob Fernley, Force India’s deputy team principal. “A new shape of F1 must be approved by the strategy group. They will get a clear majority there. Then comes the F1 commission, which would have to be unanimous for 2015, which it would be unlikely to be, but it could be a majority decision in 2016. That would allow them to keep the numbers while the customer cars are brought in. The goal is to move to customer-car teams and the three cars will be the interim.”
Red Bull Racing and Ferrari are likely to field third cars next season.
