The answer to F1's BIGGEST PROBLEM is right under their noses

Formula 1

The answer to F1's BIGGEST PROBLEM is right under their noses

This system has worked wonders to make a famous racing series extremely competitive

Joe Ellis

Sunday 25 June 2023 12:57

F1 in 2023 has become annoyingly predictable, with Red Bull Racing winning all of the eight races so far.

The team's championship lead stands at an eye-watering 154 points over Mercedes, and that is only likely to increase further as the season goes on with nobody looking close to derailing the RB19's supremacy.

Max Verstappen, the current champion and leader of the drivers' standings, even admitted that he understands that F1 fans are getting bored of Red Bull's dominance, which has seen him win six of the eight Grand Prix.

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The FIA has had steps in place to try and keep the competition close for years with the scaled wind tunnel time and CFD hours depending on where each team finishes in the previous season.

But it has become worryingly evident that those regulations are not working, because Red Bull have extended their advantage despite having less aero time than anyone else.

GPFans may have the answer to the problem...

MotoGP's concessions system has worked wonders for the world's premier two-wheeled motorsport series

Bravi wants a change

Alunni Bravi, the Managing Director of Sauber, is keen to see the structure of F1 change before the 2026 regulations, which he sees as the perfect time for them.

There was only one podium finish for any driver outside of the top three teams in 2022, courtesy of Lando Norris at the Emilia Romagna Grand Prix.

This year, there are at least four teams in contention for the podium with Esteban Ocon taking a surprise rostrum spot at Monaco for Alpine, making it five out of ten teams to have finished a race in the top three.

But there is nobody challenging Red Bull for wins, and that is where the wild world of MotoGP can come to the rescue.

Concessions

For many years, MotoGP have been running a concession-based system which gives manufacturers without a run of successful results a leg-up to catch the bigger manufacturers.

These concessions allowed the manufacturers lower down to have more new engines to use and more testing time in order to get the bikes up to standard much faster than without them.

The rapid progress of the top manufacturers was slowed significantly when it looked like they could completely take over the top spots in MotoGP, but now customer teams can fight for wins and the championship as well as the full-blown manufacturers.

It uses a points-based system where a win is worth three points, a second is worth two and a third is worth one.

If a manufacturer manages to claim six points over a two-year period, then it will lose its concessions for the following year and as of 2023, all five manufacturers (Ducati, Yamaha, Honda, KTM and Aprilia) do not have concessions thanks to the close nature of the racing.

Aprilia were the latest to lose its concessions, and they have remained in the thick of the action at the front despite not having the extra engines and testing time.

Stefano Domenicali needs to take control of F1 and shake things up for all 10 teams on the grid and any who join in the coming years

How it could work in F1

A similar system could easily work in F1 and especially so if it was added onto the current wind tunnel and CFD scale.

An extra engine component or two would really help the lower teams feel comfortable to push engines further knowing they have more spares should it go bang.

They can't have extra testing without a big rule change, unfortunately, so the FIA would have to come up with a different way of giving them more track time.

Perhaps an extra 20 minutes in FP1 just for the teams with concessions would do the trick.

There is no hiding that F1 needs to sort out this dominance and make it a far more level playing field and this might be the answer to the crisis.