Declining revenue would not be nearly as big of an issue if the cars were not so expensive. Just sayin'.
This is worth discussing, though.......
"The Pinnacle" is hardly that - I can't really remember the last time F1 was really the most cutting-edge racing technology in the world - Formula E and LMP1 are/have been more innovative with much smaller budgets than those of the top F1 teams.
Porsche was reported to be spending $200 mil on their LMP1 effort, so I would not say that's "much" smaller. It's still a ton of money, and I think most of it has to got to be going into the technology. Contrast to the technology and development restricted LMP2 and you can see which is more affordable simply from the grid size.
Most road cars in general are more technologically advanced than Formula One cars. I mean, you can't even buy a Nissan in the US that doesn't have traction control, antilock brakes and CTV transmission. Some expensive sportscars have speed activated spoilers (moveable aerodynamic devices), and I think you can get any of the Subaru cars with AWD. In short, all the stuff that we have already banned on the grounds of cost can easily be incorporated into a $25000 road car! Then we point to the latest vortex vane on a formula one car's mirror as this week's proof of Formula One's position as the pinnacle of innovation.
So, any attempt to present racing as the proving grounds it used to be is laughable at best. You can bet that the next new advance will get clamped down, restricted and banned in really short order........ or maybe there won't even be any new technologies simply because the rules are so constricting that there is no room for them to even be tried.
If you follow what's going on with technology in F1, every week it is nothing more than the latest widget affixed to the monkey seat, or yet another tacked on vane or wollybobble on the barge boards, or even another element added to the front wing that already has fifty elements. Everything has been reduced to aerodynamic development, and while we can brag about that, it's exactly what's wrecking the quality of the racing.
If F1 teams want costs to come down, they need to have a serious discussion on where to go with power unit regulations. It all starts there, in my opinion. As it is now, they can never come to an agreement on anything and just whine about Liberty afterwards.
Liberty bought a big bag of crap. What's going to happen is the teams will eventually revolt, and maybe even try to run their own breakaway series. They have done it before. The difference this time is Liberty does not have the overbearing authority that the FIA does. In the past the FIA could ban anyone from racing anywhere in the world for any reason they wanted. When the teams broke away in 1982, the FIA issued a bunch of threats that they could back up and the teams quickly fell back into line after running a solitary break away race. Liberty does not have that power, and if the teams want to break away they can do it and Liberty will be left with squat.
In fact, there was talk about a break away Formula One series a few years ago, and the FIA as much as said they would sanction it! If Liberty doesn't give the F1 teams what they want, they could easily tell them to take a hike and just race on their own, sort of like Cart did. Seeing money to be had the FIA would probably go along with the teams. Once Liberty actually has the time to actually look at what they have bought, study the history, and maybe even look into what happened in Indycar with their split, I'm betting F1 goes back on the block for the next sucker.,
