The issue of customer cars has reappeared on the F1 radar over the last couple of weeks, initially as a result of comments from Bernie, who said they could be used as way of bringing in new teams. Entrants could, he argued, be given two years grace with customer cars before needing to make the step to become full manufacturers. And now Luca di Montezemolo is using the lack of Italians in F1 as an excuse to peddle his desire to see customer cars in F1 again. I suppose you can't blame him for trying.
In broad terms I'm in favour of customer cars. Anything which could help expand the grid a little is a good idea. As far as I'm aware the F1 rule book still allows for a grid of 26 cars, since the grid was expanded in 2010. Personally I think 28 is probably the maximum the grid could hold, so we could realistically have at least two more cars on the grid, possibly four.
The issue I have with schemes like Luca's is that I would want to see incoming teams be able to compete and develop their own style, without being overly bound to the organisation they are buying a car from. Ferrari struggle to give equal treatment to the two cars they are allowed already - imagine how they'd treat a third car, whether it's an in-house entry or a privateer entering a customer car!
The Red Bull / Torro Rosso partnership gives a good indication of how the junior partner in such relationships can be left at a disadvantage when they are beholden to the main team. In 2008 Torro Rosso beat Red Bull in the championship, scoring the Red Bull family's first win on the way. But this was in the organisation's formative years, with Adrian Newey yet to mould the main Red Bull team into the race winning behemoth we see today. In the coming season I'd argue that the relationship is likely to hurt Torro Rosso, as the team acts as an incubator for Red Bull's latest pair of Bright Young Things - in a similar vein to di Montezemolo's thoughts on mandating Italian drivers at a Ferrari customer team. The mid-field battle looks likely to be very close fought this year, and Torro Rosso's two rookies could well cost it dear in the final championship standings - but placing well in the championship standings is not what Torro Rosso is there to do. It's there to act as a test team for Red Bull, and as fans I can't help but feel we lose out from that arrangement.
Though I'm sure those with better knowledge of the sport's history than
myself will be able to give multiple examples of this happening
throughout F1's past, I don't believe it would have to be that way with
customer cars. After all, Lotus' first F1 victory in a World Championship event
didn't come from the main Team Lotus entered cars, but from a Rob
Walker Racing customer Lotus, driven by Stirling Moss. It would be great to see more team's coming in as customers with the independence to use their package to its full potential, without being made to move over for the main team should they find themselves ahead. That would risk doing the sport more harm than good.
The Prodrive organisation was due to enter F1 as a customer team in 2010, but complaints from other teams ended this possibility*, and for now customer cars have been banned in the sporting regulations. If we give Bernie the benefit of the doubt on his comments, and assume it wasn't just another rent-a-quote moment it's quite easy to picture an organisation like Prodrive coming in as a customer team while they ramp up their capacity to construct their own car. Strong performances with a customer car, combined with their proven engineering ability would help entice sponsors and a serious new team could emerge.
The desire to see fully independent customer teams may be unrealistic for a variety of reasons and, despite my criticism above, there is a clear argument that Torro Rosso would not be competing at the level it does now if it was still Minardi. Its debatable if they would be in the sport at all now if they were still Minardi. So maybe I should give more credence to Ferrari's point of view. If being beholden to a 'parent' team was a temporary measure to help get an organisation like Prodrive on the grid, could I see it as a bad thing? In a perfect world maybe not, but we live in the real world, and I think that even with my concerns there is plenty of scope for customer cars to be one of the options the sport re-examines more closely, along with the budget cap idea, to ensure a health grid in the years to come, especially with the current rumours of financial difficulties within some teams.
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