**The World of Formula One and its Financial Distribution**

I clearly like to credit Autosport for these numbers but I just find them fascinating. Farms 2017 turnover is estimated at one point eight three billion dollars with underlying revenues of about one point three eight billion dollars and this is distributed across the ten teams through nine monthly payments.

**Understanding the Distribution**

Let's very briefly look at some of the key elements to this table so you can see the teams down the left hand side column one are payments based on the team's classifications over the past three years with column two being based solely on the teams 2016 classification. However, there is also a long-standing team agreement for Ferrari, which they receive sixty eight million dollars a year just for being a long-standing team, which if you look down is actually more than the bottom four teams get individually.

**The Unfair Distribution of Wealth**

I just find absolutely stunning that Ferrari will receive one hundred and eighty million dollars and that's basically one fifth of the total pot. It is less than last year, admittedly, but it's still unbelievable and that's a hundred and eight million dollars more than Force India receives. And yet, Force India only finished one place adrift in the Constructors championship, which cannot be fair that cannot be sustainable.

**A More Equitable Distribution**

If the pot was shared out equally, each team would get ninety four million dollars, which would leave Ferrari's payment down by eighty six million dollars. But Sauber, the final team to qualify for column one and two payments, would receive an extra forty five million dollars for just one year. This is a clear example of how the distribution of wealth is unfair, and I believe that if distributed more evenly, it would encourage new teams to come in.

**Anything Goes**

Finally, my seventh suggestion is anything goes. I quite like this idea, but sadly, motorsport history is probably against us on this one. The idea is each team gets very strict budgets and basically then anything goes - there may well be some rules around maybe the kind of size of the car, yeah, sort of basic dimensions, but but anything you could have, know, petrol, air engines, you get out, hybrid, you could use hydrogen fuel cells, you could do anything like the biggest engine you like, the most powerful engine you like, the most radical.

**A Return to Historic Formula One**

I really love about the old historic Formula One racing is there were really different types of cars. Look at what kind of Lotus did with some of their car, some cars with fans that suck the air out from underneath the car to make it stick to the road more, or cars with two chassis, one around the monocoque and one around the bodywork, or cars with six wheels instead of four. I just think it added a bit of spice, and I think that one will be good.

**A Warning About the Past**

My worry with this suggestion is though, if you're into your rallying and you look back in the 1980s around Group B in rallying, that was essentially what Group B was - it was kind of all holds barred, go for it, boys, and make the fastest car you'd like. And it lasted a couple of years, unfortunately, until things just got too quick and too dangerous, and Group B was banned. So I'm not too sure that this last suggestion will ever fly, but it would be wicked, wouldn't it?

"WEBVTTKind: captionsLanguage: enhey guys and welcome to petrol ped and welcome to a slightly different type of video a couple of weeks ago in one of my midweek 180s I asked you guys what would you do to improve formula one it was if you like the following week after the Formula One season finished and I had loads of great suggestions so many that I thought it might be worth just having a bit of a chat around what you and I think might improve Formula one and that's what this blogs all of that so I've broken the video down into a number of sections each section looking at a possible thing that we could do to improve Formula one so let's start with the first possibility suggestion number one stay the same okay so the suggestion is we stay the same we don't do anything there was a big regulation change coming into 2017 the cars changed hugely they became more aggressive the tires allowed the drivers that push on more they were bigger so they had more grip have more Aero the cars have been all year significantly faster around the circuits and all the drivers they all seem to say in there they're the same sort of thing they all enjoy driving them and their Racing's been pretty spectacular I think my problem I have with staying the same is yes the cars are faster yes they're more spectacular yes they look like they're more of a handful they still have one fundamental problem and that is there's so much arrow on the cars that you just can't follow the car in front particularly well certainly for a long period of time and that makes overtaking quite difficult and I know we've got things like DRS and the ability to harvest power at different times but all in all that kind a close quarters combat racing that's the bit that's missing and there have been some phenomenal overtakes this year and that kind of I guess the real exponents of that for me will be Daniel Ricciardo Matt's force Tappin and Lewis Hamilton they've done some amazing overtaking this year but it's still not good enough I don't think so I'm not convinced doing nothing is an option and actually that leads me into the next possibility number two the proposed engine changes for 2021 so the next possibility then is all about two things for me really noise and money and that is the proposed regulation changes around the engine so at the moment we've got a v6 turbocharged hybrid engine and it has to two different parts of the hybrid there's what's called the m gu h and the m gu k the MTU h is the really expensive complex difficult to develop it's the thing that harvests the engine from the turbocharged of the car and the regulation changes that are proposed to come in in 2021 it's highly likely that that will be removed and that should do two things it should reduce the cost associated with that part of the engine and reduce the cost of developing engines and that hopefully will bring new infants in and like Aston Martin for example but it would be great to get some other engine manufacturers in but then the other thing it does is that very process of harvesting energy is part of the problem around reducing the noise so by removing the m guh and it's hoped that the engines will sound much much better and if you think back we have turbocharged cars in the 80s and they sounded awesome so hopefully that should sort the noise problem out but they will still be hybrid engines they'll still have the mg UK which is the bit that harvest the kinetic energy near the regenerative braking those types of things so they will still be hybrid type engines that should encourage more manufacturers in but we've still got that kind of hybrid hybrid element to it so in mind midweek 180 when I ask you guys how could we improve formula one the overwhelming response came back was my next suggestion number three bring back the V tens so the next suggestion massively supported by petrol pet subscribers is bring back v10 engines and now you know if you've ever heard a v10 Formula One car on full it is a noise to behold and to be honest the v8s weren't that bad either they just sound awesome and much as a Formula one fan as I am I would love that to come back I mean they were so noisy so loud it almost hurt your ears and I just don't think that we will see that I think the Formula One whilst it has a job to be the pinnacle of motorsport I also think it needs to reflect the kind of for the manufacturers to be involved reflect the way things are going with road cars and you know we see this in road cars more use of turbo charging more use of hybrid technology and we we need to reflect that in Formula One and actually if you look at the popularity of Formula e and where we're starting to see manufacturers migrate their kind of performance car motorsport budgets into Formula e like Porsche for example I just can't see that Formula One much as we would all love v10 or v8 engines and I just don't think we're going to see that another suggestion this suggestion was from from Humphrey Bradley was why don't we just have it with no engine regulations whatsoever pretty much anything goes and that would get some real diversity into the sport and I think that would have to be mapped with a some kind of budget to recap otherwise the more money you've got the more that you would be able to spend and the obviously the more performance you get a much as again I'd like that system I just don't think that's going to happen so I think the suggestions that we've got going into 2021 and are good but I actually don't think that's the problem I'd like more noise but I think the problem for the for the sport is much more fundamental than that and that leads me to my next suggestion number four simplify the Aero so the Francois G and a number of other people suggested that the big problem is actually Aero it's all about aerodynamics and you know the the amazing advances in Formula One aerodynamics over the last I don't know 20 years I've clearly led to cars that are able to you know the amount of that can generate is just phenomenal and the problem with the modern aerodynamic cars and I'm by no means an aerodynamicist I would just like to put that out there and but I I do kind of watch a lot of videos do a lot of reading isn't a lot of what the experts are saying and the Mande aerodynamics are so focused around the car and removing you know things like the the sort of aerodynamic environment around the wheels and making sure that they take all of the kind of dirty air around the wheels and it basically ends up coming around the car and out the back of the car and that disturbed air behind the car means that any car following just doesn't get the aerodynamic performance from things especially the front wing so and one of the suggestions would be to simplify the aerodynamics and and again if you look at something like the endurance cars lmp1 type cars and the racing that you get there because of the difference if there the aerodynamics they are able to follow each other far far more closely and therefore the racing is really really exciting I saw a really interesting tweet a couple of weeks ago where someone said you know the Formula One's biggest threat would be if their world endurance car or lmp1 series decided to just do two hour races in which case it would effectively be like a Grand Prix with Grand Prix kind of speed cars and brilliant racing and I think that's quite true I mean clearly the whole thing about endurance car racing is the races are six hours long or 12 hours long long 24 hours long but I think sorting out that aerodynamics so that so that may be the priority rather than the car generating the grit the priority is to kind of enable cars to follow and I think that would help the racing a great deal because for me and lots of people I know who kind of especially the people who've moved away from Formula One the reason they move away is because the Racing's not as exciting anymore because cars can't follow each other and if they do follow each other after a elapsed time you know the tires are all overheated they have to drop back and let things cool down so sort out the Aero simplify it so that cars can follow each other that will increase the racing we don't men need artificial aides like DRS and so on we can just get good wheel we will raise them like you get in endurance cars like you get in touring cars and I think that would make Formula one a real shell game next suggestion number five bring back mid race refueling okay Anthony Swan and Christopher Bailey amongst others suggested bring back refueling and I have to say I really agree with this one when we had in race refueling for me it just added an extra dimension to the strategy you know in qualifying you get some people that put very little fuel in so they get a great qualifying they then had to come in and refuel within the first few laps or you'd get people few long have a slower qualifying but then go deeper into the race before they could you know needed to refuel and do a pit stop and it meant that and those different strategies could play out you could you could do a splash and dash at the end you could undercut people I just found that the the racing strategically was far far more interesting and I understand and appreciate the reasons why refueling was banned I know there's a you feel like a safety element but but I don't think that's the major element as far as I'm aware the major reason why fuelling was rebound was the cost of shipping all of the ferries refueling rigs around the world was was huge and it cost her a fortune shipping all the kit round for the teams anyway but but that just added extra cost so to the the audio is to remove refueling from the equation you don't have all of that all of that equipment cert to ship around the world but I actually think bringing back refueling with just spice things up a bit would just make it a little bit more you know because at the moment the problem we've got someone qualifies really really well they've got a good race setup for the car they get into the first position going into the first corner and then it's almost impossible to overtake them so it just becomes a procession whereas if you've got that that extra strategic and input I think that would be a really great way to spice up racing so let's have a look at and mainly for me the most interesting one and perhaps the most controversial one number six show me the money so for me I've saved the best and maybe most controversial thing or suggestion till last and that is how the money is distributed amongst the teams at the end of the season based on performance and now I don't know how much you know about this I kind of assumed that it was a reasonably unfair distribution of money and I know that towards the end of the season when the teams are jostling for position the commentators are always saying or you know one place in the rankings tables can make millions of pounds worth of difference but I never realized just how much difference so I found a really really interesting article on Autosports so I'm going to just quickly jump onto that and we'll have a quick look through this because I think you will find this fascinating I clearly like to credit Autosport for these numbers but I just find them fascinating so Farms 2017 turnover is estimated at one point eight three billion dollars with underlying revenues of about one point three eight billion dollars and this is distributed across the ten teams through nine monthly payments and this table explains how that distribution takes place so let's just very briefly look at some of the the key elements to this table so you can see the teams down the left hand side column one are payments based on the team's classifications over the past three years with column two being based solely on the teams 2016 classification but the LST column is a long-standing team agreement for Ferrari so they get sixty eight million dollars a year just for being a long-standing team which if you look down is actually more than the bottom four teams get individually which I just find absolutely stunning so if you look at the total number the really scary thing is that Ferrari will receive one hundred and eighty million dollars and that's basically one fifth of the total pot it is less than last year admittedly but it's still unbelievable and that's a hundred and eight million dollars more than Force India receives and then yet Force India only finished one place adrift in the Constructors that cannot be fair that cannot be sustainable and just to give you an idea if the pot was shared out equally each team would get ninety four million dollars that would leave Ferraris payment down by eighty six million dollars but Sauber the final team to qualify for column one and two payments would receive an extra forty five million dollars for one year now surely that's going to shake things up a little see told you that for me is sort out and I know the problem you're gonna have is that the big teams will never ever agree to that Ferrari certainly wouldn't agree to that but how can you encourage new teams to come in when when the distribution of wealth is so unfair and I just find that really really challenging so no for me if you distributed the the money even to the smaller teams they would be able to develop their cars more they would be able to have more competitive cars and the racing would be better it's not rocket science surely anyway that is my ultimate suggestion I think that should probably been suggesting them more and then finally and perhaps the most unlikely suggestion I've left till last and finally number seven anything goes now I quite like this suggestion but sadly motorsport history is probably against us on this one so the idea is each team gets very strict budgets and basically then anything goes there there may well be some rules around maybe the the kind of size of the car yeah sort of basic dimensions but but anything you could have you know petrol air engines you get out hybrid you could use hydrogen fuel cells you could do anything you like the biggest engine you like the most powerful engine you like the most radical arrow and therefore you've got this real Drive of technology which Jeff was always wanting and some different types of cars you look what I really love about the old historic Formula One racing is there were really different types of cars you looked at what kind of Lotus did with some of their car some cars with fans that suck the air out from underneath the car to make it stick to the road more ore cars with two chassis zwi you know what one one around the monocoque and one around the bodywork or cars with with six wheels instead of four and I just think it added a bit of spice so I think that one will be good my worry with that as a suggestion though is and if you if you're into your rallying and you look back in the 1980s around Group B in rallying that was essentially what Group B was it was kind of you know all holds barred you go for it boys and make the fastest car you'd like and it lasted a couple of years unfortunately until things just got too quick and too dangerous and and Group B was banned so I'm not too sure that that last suggestion will ever fly but it would be wicked wouldn't it be fantastic to have different types of cars anyway that brings me to the end of this kind of chat vlog style video and I hope you've enjoyed it and this is my office by the way where I work and kind of do my editing and things I've never actually filmed in here before normally because it's too messy but I hope you've enjoyed the video if you have done so give me a thumbs up I would love to hear your comments below about any of the ideas that I've put out there just to see you know what you think but yeah put your comments below and if you haven't done so already please subscribe to petrol head for plenty more content to come and I will see you on the next film guys anyway you take care drive safehey guys and welcome to petrol ped and welcome to a slightly different type of video a couple of weeks ago in one of my midweek 180s I asked you guys what would you do to improve formula one it was if you like the following week after the Formula One season finished and I had loads of great suggestions so many that I thought it might be worth just having a bit of a chat around what you and I think might improve Formula one and that's what this blogs all of that so I've broken the video down into a number of sections each section looking at a possible thing that we could do to improve Formula one so let's start with the first possibility suggestion number one stay the same okay so the suggestion is we stay the same we don't do anything there was a big regulation change coming into 2017 the cars changed hugely they became more aggressive the tires allowed the drivers that push on more they were bigger so they had more grip have more Aero the cars have been all year significantly faster around the circuits and all the drivers they all seem to say in there they're the same sort of thing they all enjoy driving them and their Racing's been pretty spectacular I think my problem I have with staying the same is yes the cars are faster yes they're more spectacular yes they look like they're more of a handful they still have one fundamental problem and that is there's so much arrow on the cars that you just can't follow the car in front particularly well certainly for a long period of time and that makes overtaking quite difficult and I know we've got things like DRS and the ability to harvest power at different times but all in all that kind a close quarters combat racing that's the bit that's missing and there have been some phenomenal overtakes this year and that kind of I guess the real exponents of that for me will be Daniel Ricciardo Matt's force Tappin and Lewis Hamilton they've done some amazing overtaking this year but it's still not good enough I don't think so I'm not convinced doing nothing is an option and actually that leads me into the next possibility number two the proposed engine changes for 2021 so the next possibility then is all about two things for me really noise and money and that is the proposed regulation changes around the engine so at the moment we've got a v6 turbocharged hybrid engine and it has to two different parts of the hybrid there's what's called the m gu h and the m gu k the MTU h is the really expensive complex difficult to develop it's the thing that harvests the engine from the turbocharged of the car and the regulation changes that are proposed to come in in 2021 it's highly likely that that will be removed and that should do two things it should reduce the cost associated with that part of the engine and reduce the cost of developing engines and that hopefully will bring new infants in and like Aston Martin for example but it would be great to get some other engine manufacturers in but then the other thing it does is that very process of harvesting energy is part of the problem around reducing the noise so by removing the m guh and it's hoped that the engines will sound much much better and if you think back we have turbocharged cars in the 80s and they sounded awesome so hopefully that should sort the noise problem out but they will still be hybrid engines they'll still have the mg UK which is the bit that harvest the kinetic energy near the regenerative braking those types of things so they will still be hybrid type engines that should encourage more manufacturers in but we've still got that kind of hybrid hybrid element to it so in mind midweek 180 when I ask you guys how could we improve formula one the overwhelming response came back was my next suggestion number three bring back the V tens so the next suggestion massively supported by petrol pet subscribers is bring back v10 engines and now you know if you've ever heard a v10 Formula One car on full it is a noise to behold and to be honest the v8s weren't that bad either they just sound awesome and much as a Formula one fan as I am I would love that to come back I mean they were so noisy so loud it almost hurt your ears and I just don't think that we will see that I think the Formula One whilst it has a job to be the pinnacle of motorsport I also think it needs to reflect the kind of for the manufacturers to be involved reflect the way things are going with road cars and you know we see this in road cars more use of turbo charging more use of hybrid technology and we we need to reflect that in Formula One and actually if you look at the popularity of Formula e and where we're starting to see manufacturers migrate their kind of performance car motorsport budgets into Formula e like Porsche for example I just can't see that Formula One much as we would all love v10 or v8 engines and I just don't think we're going to see that another suggestion this suggestion was from from Humphrey Bradley was why don't we just have it with no engine regulations whatsoever pretty much anything goes and that would get some real diversity into the sport and I think that would have to be mapped with a some kind of budget to recap otherwise the more money you've got the more that you would be able to spend and the obviously the more performance you get a much as again I'd like that system I just don't think that's going to happen so I think the suggestions that we've got going into 2021 and are good but I actually don't think that's the problem I'd like more noise but I think the problem for the for the sport is much more fundamental than that and that leads me to my next suggestion number four simplify the Aero so the Francois G and a number of other people suggested that the big problem is actually Aero it's all about aerodynamics and you know the the amazing advances in Formula One aerodynamics over the last I don't know 20 years I've clearly led to cars that are able to you know the amount of that can generate is just phenomenal and the problem with the modern aerodynamic cars and I'm by no means an aerodynamicist I would just like to put that out there and but I I do kind of watch a lot of videos do a lot of reading isn't a lot of what the experts are saying and the Mande aerodynamics are so focused around the car and removing you know things like the the sort of aerodynamic environment around the wheels and making sure that they take all of the kind of dirty air around the wheels and it basically ends up coming around the car and out the back of the car and that disturbed air behind the car means that any car following just doesn't get the aerodynamic performance from things especially the front wing so and one of the suggestions would be to simplify the aerodynamics and and again if you look at something like the endurance cars lmp1 type cars and the racing that you get there because of the difference if there the aerodynamics they are able to follow each other far far more closely and therefore the racing is really really exciting I saw a really interesting tweet a couple of weeks ago where someone said you know the Formula One's biggest threat would be if their world endurance car or lmp1 series decided to just do two hour races in which case it would effectively be like a Grand Prix with Grand Prix kind of speed cars and brilliant racing and I think that's quite true I mean clearly the whole thing about endurance car racing is the races are six hours long or 12 hours long long 24 hours long but I think sorting out that aerodynamics so that so that may be the priority rather than the car generating the grit the priority is to kind of enable cars to follow and I think that would help the racing a great deal because for me and lots of people I know who kind of especially the people who've moved away from Formula One the reason they move away is because the Racing's not as exciting anymore because cars can't follow each other and if they do follow each other after a elapsed time you know the tires are all overheated they have to drop back and let things cool down so sort out the Aero simplify it so that cars can follow each other that will increase the racing we don't men need artificial aides like DRS and so on we can just get good wheel we will raise them like you get in endurance cars like you get in touring cars and I think that would make Formula one a real shell game next suggestion number five bring back mid race refueling okay Anthony Swan and Christopher Bailey amongst others suggested bring back refueling and I have to say I really agree with this one when we had in race refueling for me it just added an extra dimension to the strategy you know in qualifying you get some people that put very little fuel in so they get a great qualifying they then had to come in and refuel within the first few laps or you'd get people few long have a slower qualifying but then go deeper into the race before they could you know needed to refuel and do a pit stop and it meant that and those different strategies could play out you could you could do a splash and dash at the end you could undercut people I just found that the the racing strategically was far far more interesting and I understand and appreciate the reasons why refueling was banned I know there's a you feel like a safety element but but I don't think that's the major element as far as I'm aware the major reason why fuelling was rebound was the cost of shipping all of the ferries refueling rigs around the world was was huge and it cost her a fortune shipping all the kit round for the teams anyway but but that just added extra cost so to the the audio is to remove refueling from the equation you don't have all of that all of that equipment cert to ship around the world but I actually think bringing back refueling with just spice things up a bit would just make it a little bit more you know because at the moment the problem we've got someone qualifies really really well they've got a good race setup for the car they get into the first position going into the first corner and then it's almost impossible to overtake them so it just becomes a procession whereas if you've got that that extra strategic and input I think that would be a really great way to spice up racing so let's have a look at and mainly for me the most interesting one and perhaps the most controversial one number six show me the money so for me I've saved the best and maybe most controversial thing or suggestion till last and that is how the money is distributed amongst the teams at the end of the season based on performance and now I don't know how much you know about this I kind of assumed that it was a reasonably unfair distribution of money and I know that towards the end of the season when the teams are jostling for position the commentators are always saying or you know one place in the rankings tables can make millions of pounds worth of difference but I never realized just how much difference so I found a really really interesting article on Autosports so I'm going to just quickly jump onto that and we'll have a quick look through this because I think you will find this fascinating I clearly like to credit Autosport for these numbers but I just find them fascinating so Farms 2017 turnover is estimated at one point eight three billion dollars with underlying revenues of about one point three eight billion dollars and this is distributed across the ten teams through nine monthly payments and this table explains how that distribution takes place so let's just very briefly look at some of the the key elements to this table so you can see the teams down the left hand side column one are payments based on the team's classifications over the past three years with column two being based solely on the teams 2016 classification but the LST column is a long-standing team agreement for Ferrari so they get sixty eight million dollars a year just for being a long-standing team which if you look down is actually more than the bottom four teams get individually which I just find absolutely stunning so if you look at the total number the really scary thing is that Ferrari will receive one hundred and eighty million dollars and that's basically one fifth of the total pot it is less than last year admittedly but it's still unbelievable and that's a hundred and eight million dollars more than Force India receives and then yet Force India only finished one place adrift in the Constructors that cannot be fair that cannot be sustainable and just to give you an idea if the pot was shared out equally each team would get ninety four million dollars that would leave Ferraris payment down by eighty six million dollars but Sauber the final team to qualify for column one and two payments would receive an extra forty five million dollars for one year now surely that's going to shake things up a little see told you that for me is sort out and I know the problem you're gonna have is that the big teams will never ever agree to that Ferrari certainly wouldn't agree to that but how can you encourage new teams to come in when when the distribution of wealth is so unfair and I just find that really really challenging so no for me if you distributed the the money even to the smaller teams they would be able to develop their cars more they would be able to have more competitive cars and the racing would be better it's not rocket science surely anyway that is my ultimate suggestion I think that should probably been suggesting them more and then finally and perhaps the most unlikely suggestion I've left till last and finally number seven anything goes now I quite like this suggestion but sadly motorsport history is probably against us on this one so the idea is each team gets very strict budgets and basically then anything goes there there may well be some rules around maybe the the kind of size of the car yeah sort of basic dimensions but but anything you could have you know petrol air engines you get out hybrid you could use hydrogen fuel cells you could do anything you like the biggest engine you like the most powerful engine you like the most radical arrow and therefore you've got this real Drive of technology which Jeff was always wanting and some different types of cars you look what I really love about the old historic Formula One racing is there were really different types of cars you looked at what kind of Lotus did with some of their car some cars with fans that suck the air out from underneath the car to make it stick to the road more ore cars with two chassis zwi you know what one one around the monocoque and one around the bodywork or cars with with six wheels instead of four and I just think it added a bit of spice so I think that one will be good my worry with that as a suggestion though is and if you if you're into your rallying and you look back in the 1980s around Group B in rallying that was essentially what Group B was it was kind of you know all holds barred you go for it boys and make the fastest car you'd like and it lasted a couple of years unfortunately until things just got too quick and too dangerous and and Group B was banned so I'm not too sure that that last suggestion will ever fly but it would be wicked wouldn't it be fantastic to have different types of cars anyway that brings me to the end of this kind of chat vlog style video and I hope you've enjoyed it and this is my office by the way where I work and kind of do my editing and things I've never actually filmed in here before normally because it's too messy but I hope you've enjoyed the video if you have done so give me a thumbs up I would love to hear your comments below about any of the ideas that I've put out there just to see you know what you think but yeah put your comments below and if you haven't done so already please subscribe to petrol head for plenty more content to come and I will see you on the next film guys anyway you take care drive safe\n"