The problem in recent months has been that of customer cars. Some teams see the logic of customer teams, others are fundamentally opposed to the idea because they argue that they will be forced out of business as the big teams expand and push their cars down the finishing order. The second half of the current season has shown that Scuderia Toro Rosso was able to use Red Bull cars to get results that were far better than those that would have been achieved had the team built its own machinery. And the Prodrive F1 project - which is now on hold because of the lack of a decision about the rules - was clearly intended to be strong enough to put cars into the top 10 right from the beginning.
There is some logic in allowing the big teams to expand to four cars - it beefs up the grid and brings improved value for money for those involved - but if it cannot fairly be done without wiping out long-established teams which have invested in the sport for many years, helping to build up the business to its current level of success, then it should not be done at all. These teams are stakeholders in the F1 business and should have a right to a voice.
Grandprix.com
And it is not just McLaren that has been affected by “Spygate”. The proposed Prodrive F1 team, which was granted licence to enter F1 competition for 2008, looks unlikely to join the grid. Prodrive was expected to run customer versions of McLaren’s 2008 car. But a combination of McLaren’s woes, and a change of heart about customer cars from F1 supremo Bernie Ecclestone and FIA chief Max Mosley, has scuppered Prodrive’s plans.
Ecclestone and Mosley both believe that F1 should be a showcase of automotive technology. So that the presence of customer teams who do not develop their own technology, and are contractually obliged to finish behind the teams whose technology they are licensing, is both at odds with the quest for technological excellence and the spirit of competition. James Snodgrass, CNN.com
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