motorsportmania

Talk of having a two tier system for F1 is reviving an old idea, but not a really successful one.

Back in1987 when the turbo engines had been sorted and were dominating there was a separate championship for the old DFV powered brigade; the Jim Clark trophy for normally aspirated engined cars was introduced.

Tyrrell were the only two car team competing and Jonathan Palmer too the trophy for them comfortably while Mansell and Piquet battled the real championship out in their Williams-Hondas with the latter taking the title despite only winning half as many races as his team mate.

With that battle grabbing all of the headlines there was little interest in what JP was up to in the bottom half of the top ten and with changes to the engine regulations for the next season the two tier championship was dropped.

Only a few of us real enthusiasts of the time are likely to remember the second division so what would be the point of repeating the exercise? After all it is F1 we’re talking about and it supposed to be the pinnacle.

There is always going to be a gap between the top and bottom teams and in the 2014 grid that has been a lot less than it was back when I and my misty eyed contemporaries so often enthuse about. These days the gap between first and last on the grid is less than it often was between the first five cars in, say, the sixties.

The important thing for me is to have enough teams on the grid. I don’t care if they have one, two or more cars (remember the 5 car Marlboro-BRM assault?) and I don’t care if they are not at every race over the season. I don’t care if they let a local hot-shoe have the spare car here and there nor if the cars have different sponsors and colour schemes. I just want racing.

Filed under: F1, Teams | Tagged: autoracing, F1, formula one |