| |
BGonline.org Forums
auto racing analogy
Posted By: Henrik Bukkjaer In Response To: auto racing analogy (Chuck Bower)
Date: Monday, 27 June 2011, at 3:29 p.m.
>> if I interpret what you say correctly that is nearly $5 billion budgeted per year for those F1 teams. Compare that to NASA ($15 billion or so per year, funded by a hundred million people)! Mind boggling.
One correction though, to your calculations.
I mentioned "top team". They are not all top teams :-) So the total didn't add up to more than $3 billion! (2006 figure, it got higher in 07 to 09, but now this year cost cutting is moving that figure down again).
Ferrari maxed out their budget just before cost cutting at close to $500 million USD.
Toyota was the team that showed $$$ doesn't guarantee success, spending more than $400mUSD, without achieving the expected success. When they finally pulled out, their car was probably at the most competitive level it ever reached. It never got back to the track because of politics and financial problems with the distribution of open slots for new teams - so sad to see the 2010 Toyota developed for a gazillion dollars never race, but instead new entry teams racing new cars that were 5-10% off the pace...
And that's the case/problem: The "low budget" teams are so much off the pace, that they can only win if the race is run in a monsoon rainfall, and at least 14 of the quicker cars run off the track.... Still they need to get lucky!
----
So apart from the techno-nerd aspects of seeing these cars run, and admire the level of detail they work on in order to cut just 1/1000 sec. of a lap - then I really miss something from the more competitive fields and more "basic" racing seen in the US series, where it's more driver and more race-craft than it is technology that win races.
| |
BGonline.org Forums is maintained by Stick with WebBBS 5.12.