Has Haas opened the customer car door?

In quieter political waters, the significance of Haas's remarkable sixth place on its Formula 1 debut in the Australian Grand Prix - and the questions it posed - might have emerged as a bigger talking point in recent days.

Even amid the furore over qualifying and governance, some concerns were raised. Williams technical director Pat Symonds suggested the American team's success risks further eroding the value of constructors. And he has a good point.

The lines separating customer cars, B-teams, technical partnerships and simple supply deals in F1 are indistinct. It's perhaps best to think of it as a spectrum, ranging from a car entirely developed and built by another team to one entirely produced in house, which encompasses just about every point in between.

Make no mistake, the Haas is completely legal - and Symonds himself was quick to underline that. Call it what you will, those running the operation have done a remarkable job to get a new team on the grid that is immediately credible. While luck played its part in that result, you could have put a 2010 Lotus (later Caterham), Virgin or HRT up into sixth place in the same circumstances and it would have plummeted like a stone.

So Gene Haas, Gunther Steiner and all those involved with the team deserve enormous credit. They've done things the right way, more importantly the pragmatic way, and probably already guaranteed a place in the top 10 in the world championship come the end of the season. Romain Grosjean's car had the performance to hold sixth once it had track position.

Setting this specific case aside, let's ask the bigger question: what exactly should, ideally, be allowed in F1?

The reason the status of a constructor is so important is that, since the first Concorde Agreement was signed in January 1981, it has been indelibly linked to the money the teams receive. If you aren't a constructor, you can't take your share of the revenues. As Symonds pointed out, the amount of 'listed parts' a team must own the IP to in order to qualify as a constructor has been cut down in recent years, making the Haas car concept possible.

The listed parts regulation sits in the sporting regulations appendix six. The quick version is that a team must produce the monocoque, survival cell, front impact structures, rollover structures, most bodywork, wings, floor and diffuser. The regulation also specifies that, while the IP must be owned, that doesn't prevent the outsourcing of the design and manufacturer of such parts.

What it does prohibit is any kind of sharing of information on the listed parts themselves with another competitor. In other words, Haas can't simply take Ferrari designs for listed parts and claim them as its own.

So the Haas is not a pukka customer car and it is not a B-team either. There are some recent cases of such arrangements, notably Scuderia Toro Rosso, which won the 2008 Italian Grand Prix with what was effectively a Ferrari-engined Red Bull RB4, with some minor modifications.

Understandably, that didn't make the teams below it in the constructors' championship very happy. Well, at least those that weren't the main Red Bull team or the defunct Super Aguri squad, which had itself run Honda machinery (and orginally a modified 2002 Arrows chassis!) before it dropped off the grid early that year.

So while the idea of customer cars, with a lean team acquiring either a hand-me-down chassis from a rival or even a latest-spec car, is appealing to the fan there are genuine downsides. Because even if you don't have formal B-teams, you will create very clear alliances and voting blocks.

What's more, you will create a two-division world championship even if these alliances never reach the level of B-teams.

As it stands, there are only 11 entitles capable of producing a grand prix car, and that's being generous to the 11th because of the way Haas has gone about it. So perhaps we should say there are 10-and-a-half.

Let's say the listed parts regulation were to be dropped altogether and teams could run either hand-me-down year-old chassis or off-the-peg versions of the current year's car. Over time, it would lead to some of the smaller teams ceasing to become constructors. After all, the appeal of a lean team running a Mercedes or Ferrari rather than having to design and build everything itself is obvious.

Give it time and you could easily end up with the number of teams capable of making grand prix cars being slashed dramatically. Then you end up with a situation where there are four or five genuine constructors. If you have a free market, everyone will gravitate to the best chassis manufacturer and you could end up with one-make F1 by stealth.

And that is the other reason why people are rightly wary of customer cars, especially if the regulations were to allow constructors and customers equal status in the way they earn FOM money.

It might be different if F1 had a competitor crisis. While there are serious concerns over the financial futures of some of the smaller teams, the number of cars on the grid isn't a major problem.

While it would certainly be preferable to get back up to the maximum allowed of 26 and there's no reason why most tracks couldn't even accommodate more, the excitement level in the race isn't dramatically increased by having another quartet of cars at the back.

And there was a certain appeal to the less professional days of F1, when early Friday morning prequalifying sessions would result in a blend of no-hopers, newcomers and fallen giants to scrap for a few places on the grid. Things peaked in 1989 with as many as 39 cars entered and when that happened, nine drivers were out of the weekend before even having lunch on the first day of the event.

That's all good fun, but it's not sustainable even when costs are low. So the motivation for customer cars should not be to boost grids, even though that does not mean that attempts to make the cost of participation lower should be abandoned.

Returning to the spectrum spanning constructor to full-blown customer, Haas is somewhere in the middle - and you would argue more towards the latter end. If you agree with Symonds, who makes a good case, you would probably want to move the dial closer to where it was a few years ago, make the listed parts more comprehensive and avoid acting as a disincentive to teams to make grand prix cars.

But, there is a valid counter-argument. Had Haas not been able to do this, it probably would not be on the grid at all. Its initial plan was based on being able to run a customer car, and when it became clear that wasn't possible, it hit on this pragmatic approach based on a partnership with Ferrari and engaging Dallara to do design work. And it is, by the rules, therefore a constructor.

The team is probably already guaranteed a spot in the top 10 in the constructors' championship thanks to the eight points it banked in Melbourne, and if it does that for a second season it will also qualify for a share of the 'Column A' money (potentially at the expense of Manor).

That's good news for Haas, but less encouraging for Manor. As it happens, Haas is not planning to work on this basis indefinitely, which means there's an argument for taking a slightly different approach to the regulations to make it possible for new teams to enter.

It's unrealistic to expect a start-up team to emerge as a fully-formed constructor. Every F1 team has years of design data, off the shelf parts and can build on its past. If you have to produce everything from scratch, it's a monstrous undertaking and not realistic.

In the past, a new team might acquire a customer car, but what if F1 considers creating a new team regulation, in tandem with the rules for what qualifies as a constructor being tightened.

Already, to get an entry, teams have to prove their suitability both financially and technically. If a credible aspirant like Haas wants to join the grid on the current basis, it should be allowed to do so.

But in order to get the entry, it would have to prove its long-term plans to become a full-blown constructor, satisfying a more comprehensive listed parts regulation.

The new team status could last two or three seasons, allowing an operation to gain a foothold and spread the development of its facilities and design strength over a longer period. Then, by year three, it needs to meet the higher standard in order to receive its money.

The detail of such a rule would need to be carefully thought through: would teams get full money based on championship position for the first year, would they qualify for Column A money if they hit the top 10 in both of the first two years? But these are details. The basic idea is sound. After all, Haas itself doesn't plan to work on this basis forever.

That way, you maintain the integrity and value of constructor status and allow credible new teams to join the grid.

And that can only be positive for the future of F1.