V8 budget caps - should there be one?

[Holden2003]

Should the V8 Series have a budget cap? This can be an issue that has its merits and problems. The merit and purpose is that it sets an even playing ground between all teams. The problem is enforceability.

This is a rough way of how I would do a budget cap to V8's. Its a bit long winded yes, but its also a complex issue. This is like the AFL salary cap but relates to all costs related to:
Performance of the car.
Anything that does not relate to performance of car, such as transport costs, would not be included.

Here are the categories I would assign
1) R & D - this is to technical development of the car. There is a lot of this that goes in the V8's that the average fan doesn't know

2) Manufacturing - cost of building & purchasing a typical level of spares such as engines, bodywork, tools etc. See below for how cars manufacturing would fit in this system

3) Testing costs - typical amount of money spent at the 6 test days

4) Racing costs - As above but relating to racing. Not to transportation.

5) Team Salaries - An acceptable level of what should be spent on team members.

6) Driver Salaries - Contentious one this.

Now all V8 teams have different ways of going about a season. Some would build cars, some would purchase of other teams, some would retain their old ones. This would be factored into levels of budgets.

Level 1 - Cost of building a cars for a season
Level 2 - Cost of Purchasing a car from a team
Level 3 - Cost of retaining a car - basically no extra money in this section.

Teams would have a choice of a combination of these levels. Only allowed 2 pics (2 cars per team) and must stick with them. Once they select their levels of budget, they would all run the 6 categories at the same allowance.

Teams would be monitored by Auditing firms like the Big 4 accounting firms who will check records for budgets being met.

Now this leaves the question: what happens if a Car gets totalled. Well in this case a panel would be formed to assess cases for extra spending of teams. The panel would be like, for instance 3 TEGA members, a vote from the auditing firm and 1 vote that is made up of the majority votes of teams not involved in the case. So in the case of PWR in 2004, where they totalled a car at bathurst, then surfers and then sustained damage in Symonnds Plains, this panel would allow for the team to go over budget so that they can compete. They would have to be monitored carefully so they just repair the cars without enhancing them.

Congratulations on reading this, if you did. Discuss merits in flaws of this plan and see if there is any validity

[inter]

Should the V8 Series have a budget cap? This can be an issue that has its merits and problems. The merit and purpose is that it sets an even playing ground between all teams. The problem is enforceability.

This is a rough way of how I would do a budget cap to V8's. Its a bit long winded yes, but its also a complex issue. This is like the AFL salary cap but relates to all costs related to:
Performance of the car.
Anything that does not relate to performance of car, such as transport costs, would not be included.

Here are the categories I would assign
1) R & D - this is to technical development of the car. There is a lot of this that goes in the V8's that the average fan doesn't know

2) Manufacturing - cost of building & purchasing a typical level of spares such as engines, bodywork, tools etc. See below for how cars manufacturing would fit in this system

3) Testing costs - typical amount of money spent at the 6 test days

4) Racing costs - As above but relating to racing. Not to transportation.

5) Team Salaries - An acceptable level of what should be spent on team members.

6) Driver Salaries - Contentious one this.

Now all V8 teams have different ways of going about a season. Some would build cars, some would purchase of other teams, some would retain their old ones. This would be factored into levels of budgets.

Level 1 - Cost of building a cars for a season
Level 2 - Cost of Purchasing a car from a team
Level 3 - Cost of retaining a car - basically no extra money in this section.

Teams would have a choice of a combination of these levels. Only allowed 2 pics (2 cars per team) and must stick with them. Once they select their levels of budget, they would all run the 6 categories at the same allowance.

Teams would be monitored by Auditing firms like the Big 4 accounting firms who will check records for budgets being met.

Now this leaves the question: what happens if a Car gets totalled. Well in this case a panel would be formed to assess cases for extra spending of teams. The panel would be like, for instance 3 TEGA members, a vote from the auditing firm and 1 vote that is made up of the majority votes of teams not involved in the case. So in the case of PWR in 2004, where they totalled a car at bathurst, then surfers and then sustained damage in Symonnds Plains, this panel would allow for the team to go over budget so that they can compete. They would have to be monitored carefully so they just repair the cars without enhancing them.

Congratulations on reading this, if you did. Discuss merits in flaws of this plan and see if there is any validity


Good question , well done.
My opinion is that they should have a budget cap. but not on testing.
The reason i say testing is that it is too difficult for young drivers to get used to the big v8 and they only get track time in a race.
Maybe they should do an hours log book like pilots do?

no matter how talented lets say ( winterbottom ) is it would take him 10 years of v8 racing to accumulated what the pre 1998 driver knowlege received in3 years.
Remenber that Lowendes was the last real superstar that had the benefit of plenty of testing. It make you wonder how good would ambrose have been if he started 3 years earlier.

Good thread, that is more like it.


inter

[spoonster05]

Interesting thread and I think that cost containment needs to take place or the series may end up like the old DTM series did.

I don't know how the driver salary cap would work as you would have drivers who have a lot of 'personal' sponsors earning more while the team actually fits in with the required salary cap as the extra payments aren't coming from the team itself but 'associated sponsors'.

I guess the testing cost issue probably isn't really a big deal as teams are only issued with new control tyres at race meetings so any team that runs around for a few days on well used or different brand rubber wouldn't really get much of a performance gain IMO

[Holden2003]

Good question , well done.
My opinion is that they should have a budget cap. but not on testing.
The reason i say testing is that it is too difficult for young drivers to get used to the big v8 and they only get track time in a race.
Maybe they should do an hours log book like pilots do?

no matter how talented lets say ( winterbottom ) is it would take him 10 years of v8 racing to accumulated what the pre 1998 driver knowlege received in3 years.
Remenber that Lowendes was the last real superstar that had the benefit of plenty of testing. It make you wonder how good would ambrose have been if he started 3 years earlier.

Good thread, that is more like it.


inter

Good point about the test. that does develop the ability and understanding of the car, but its more about driver development. Maybe the imposed day limit should remain.

Its a bad system the driver testing thing yes, but only in the short term. When these drivers who had the privledge of driving as much as they wanted retire, and the test imposed drivers remain, the series will save a lot of money and the talent will be far more even then it is now.

There are two options. 1) unlimited testing that will send costs spiralling, causing an f1 style competition. 2) enforcing this system, waiting for the pre test restriction era drivers to retire (maybe 10-15 yrs) and having a system of more even talent been put to the public.

The log book is another good idea inter as it resolves even talent but not even costs. A team would rather pick a driver with a completed log book and results rather then a driver with no results who has to do a log book.

Here is an alternative that has sprung to mind as i am writing this: A V8 school where Ford and Holden fund drivers to get to an experiance level that is independant of the teams. Where they are allowed to rack up miles without been restricted by team test days when they start. It saves the teams costs as its a joint venture by all teams and it adds driver experiance.

By the way, that rough plan is just based on some 1st year based Commerce things i have learned. I am just saying this to add a bit of credibility.

[Leigh]

Good idea. We've often discussed this around the water fountain at work (and not necessarily related to just motorsport)...

The conclusion we always arrive at is that it would be impossible to police or enforce!

For example, Joe Bloggs, completely unrelated to team X could get paid by sponsor Y to perform R&D on an item...Once complete, team X would be given the technology...so given Joe Bloggs nor Sponsor Y's books could get audited by VESA/TEGA, how does one value the R&D component... Millions could have been spent, but the team could claim just thousands...or even nothing!

This differs from the AFL/NRL approach where the salaries are capped, because players bank accounts (and their partners) are auditable...

Cheers

[rehau]

[QUOTE=inter]

no matter how talented lets say ( winterbottom ) is it





Winterbottom is hopeless, he will never amount to anything as a driver. Your suggestion that he is good is absurd.

rehau

[Dingo]

Why don't we take the idea one step further, and give each team identical cars for a season? No engineering allowed on them, you only get to paint the cars according to your sponsors' wishes. That way, nobody gets any kind of advantage, and there's no way money can make you better! Unless, of course, you use an expensive paint that makes your car 10kph faster, invisible to police radar, and cures cancer!!

Give me a break. The teams with money are always going to have access to better resources. To say that it's wrong to allow the rich to win simply because they use their resources better is stupid. If teams are unable to perform at the top level, then either find more resources, or sell your licence to someone who can. That's the way it's worked in motorsport for 100 years. Why should it change because some people find it boring?

[MarkHM]

It seems that in every form of sport, but particularly m'sport, someone is always trying to slow it down/dumb it down/cheapen costs. Look at Group A for example...it was seen at the time as too dear, unaffordable for the average privateer and prohibitive entry. So what happened, "they" created Supercars and now (although some time later I must admit) we are in exactly the same situation.

Cost controls ARE going to be exploited (look at the Warriors for example), the Nash theorom states that someone is going to gain a dominant strategy by doing just that.

F1 has gone down the same tracks in reducing costs, and that's generally increased speeds and dumbed it down for the punter, who it should not be forgotten pays the bills!

What's wrong with a team having a dominant position, good drivers, good car, good budget and success on the track? Let's not hobble fast cars like the GTR (that was a great exercise in stupidity...if we can't beat it, ban it!).

[Dingo]

What's wrong with a team having a dominant position, good drivers, good car, good budget and success on the track?
It doesn't make good TV for the average viewer?

[MarkHM]

So, are you saying they'd prefer medoicrity over "racing"? Why not change the name of the sport from motor racing to "driving around in circles until the music stops"?

[Leigh]

First they said it was the cars, so we got V8 Group A's (renamed sometime later to V8 Supercar)...

Then it was "we don't have an alloy engine", so Ford were granted access to a US race motor...Holden had a cry...so they too got a US race motor...

Move along to "the Holden V8's have an advantage"...so all L1's must run a Chev...

Then it was the tyres...give em control tyres...

Rear downforce on the Falcons anybody?

Then the cylinder heads, wheel offsets, suspension pick-up points, wishbone v strut, downforce etc etc ...well heck we'll make that all the same too!

...and now apparently it is the money!

I just don't buy it!

Through all the change, the front runners have stayed front runners, the mid fielders are still mid fielders and the back markers are STILL back markers!!!

My question is, will it make a difference?

Cheers

[Holden2003]

Why don't we take the idea one step further, and give each team identical cars for a season? No engineering allowed on them, you only get to paint the cars according to your sponsors' wishes. That way, nobody gets any kind of advantage, and there's no way money can make you better! Unless, of course, you use an expensive paint that makes your car 10kph faster, invisible to police radar, and cures cancer!!

Give me a break. The teams with money are always going to have access to better resources. To say that it's wrong to allow the rich to win simply because they use their resources better is stupid. If teams are unable to perform at the top level, then either find more resources, or sell your licence to someone who can. That's the way it's worked in motorsport for 100 years. Why should it change because some people find it boring?

If you look at my plan carefylly I have set up 3 tiers for car development. They can choose to build cars or run other teams cars or their old cars. This is what happens in V8's now. These values for each budget would be so that some teams would not go too far for doing it, making it unviable.

There is some need for cost containment. The main reason is that it will help sponsorship, as sponsors will know how much they would have to commit. It also creates viability and longevity of teams. Also Dingo you make a good point about getting more resources, but today there are more sports competing for sponsorship then ever before, so these extra resources are more scarce then ever.

I do not want to send this sport to a communist state. That would be even cars and teams, but there needs to be sustained spending otherwise this sport will cost too much, hurting the fans, who will go see other sports as their tickets become more expensive.