Why customer cars remain an unsolvable problem for F1

Sebastian Vettel's first Formula 1 victory was certainly a memorable one. The up-and-coming driver did what many highly-rated youngsters cannot - win a grand prix in a firmly midfield car.

Sure, there were extenuating circumstances - the prevailing wet weather that Italian Grand Prix weekend at Monza in 2008, the championship contenders qualifying down the field - but he still had to do the job. Which of course he did, from pole, to give the ex-Minardi Toro Rosso squad (now known as AlphaTauri) its first, and so far only, F1 win.

But Vettel's maiden triumph is notable for another reason - it's the last example of a customer car winning a grand prix, which actually gave Toro Rosso a first F1 victory before the Red Bull squad from which it took the STR3 chassis design. And even this is stretching the idea of Toro Rosso being a 'customer', as the team was simply using the Red Bull design as the junior division.

But the customer car concept has bandied about F1 for years - it didn't go away after the rules were changed to ensure all the participating teams were designing their own cars from 2010 - and now it's back in the news again. This time it's Red Bull that's brought it back.

"Now is the time to be bold," Red Bull team boss Christian Horner told Autosport as part of our #thinkingforward series. "Now is the time to influence change. We can tick off things, but I think you've got to grab the bull by the horns, excuse the pun.

"If I was running a smaller team, the fastest way to competitiveness at a cost-effective route would be rather than trying to reverse engineer and copy your supplier team, which is happening in many cases, why not just sell them the whole car that we finish with in Abu Dhabi? Let them have it.

"Then they can operate as a race team, they don't need all the research and development facilities. It's the fastest route to competitiveness, and the cheapest route as well. They could operate as a race team with a decent product. Plus, if they get the race team together, they could win races. We proved that with Toro Rosso and Sebastian Vettel when we were supplying them effectively a customer car back in 2008.

"But there's this paranoia about being a constructor and what you're giving up if you're not a constructor. It works in other forms of motorsport, in MotoGP. So, if you could buy a Mercedes, buy a Ferrari or a Red Bull after Abu Dhabi, why wouldn't you?"

Horner is right. By losing the R&D costs of developing a new car every year, teams could save cash and cut the gap between what we've unofficially come to recognise as the Class A/Class B F1 divide. But, as McLaren Racing CEO Zak Brown has since pointed out in his own #thinkingforward episode, it would be even cheaper if the prototypes rendered obsolete by the Class A squads at the end of each year were instead donated to smaller squads.

A move to customer squads would strengthen the position of the leading teams

The customer car concept is by its very nature flawed. It would certainly have short-term benefits in terms of closing the gap, but it inherently leaves the customer squads at an ever-lasting disadvantage (examples such as the 2008 Toro Rosso/Red Bull and the 2007 Super Aguri/Honda aside) as the latest cars will generally be a step forward compared to their predecessors. And it leaves open questions regarding major technical regulation changes and in such cases what a customer squad would field - or handicaps/performance breaks they would need.

In effect, a move to customer squads would strengthen the position of the leading teams - something that has significantly harmed F1 in recent years given no outfit other than Mercedes, Red Bull or Ferrari has won a race since 2014, and only a handful of other squads have picked up podiums in that same period.

Horner cites MotoGP as an example, but the premier class of motorbike racing actually uses far more nuanced rules - the concession allowances for new manufacturers and those who haven't had consistent podium results since joining (in this case Aprilia and KTM) for more private testing and in-season engine updates - than simpler customer bike programmes.

Back to the F1 customer concept and there's further questions about this new suggested variety of the model. If we take it as Mercedes, Red Bull and Ferrari selling or giving away their season-ending models, as well as the disregard for the posterity factor, that would leave four teams still having to produce their own machines. This would likely leave those squads at the double disadvantage of being behind the customer squads and having to pay more to develop their own designs.

But even if we take it as the top squads selling their season-ending designs for customers to then pick up, manufacturer and build themselves, that still runs into the rule requiring the teams to design the prescribed listed parts.

The F1 DNA argument

Being a constructor has long been central to F1's DNA. On the one hand, this is a somewhat tiresome argument, because what does it really matter who designed or built a car when it comes to the overall spectacle if there is a full grid fighting for the win at each race? But then that quickly devolves into a spec-category, which F1 absolutely is not.

To even go down the customer car route and circumvent the listed parts design rule, F1's governance structure would need a major overhaul. Because the other problem - in addition to the wild cost levels of the bigger teams - is that the teams have too much power when it comes to setting the rules. They have repeatedly, somewhat understandably when considering they are only picking what they think will lead to their victory path, voted selfishly.

This shouldn't take away recent concessions from Mercedes and Ferrari when it comes to outlawing DAS and keeping the 2020 cars going into 2021 to help with costs during the pandemic. It simply serves to illustrate that even if the teams were in favour of adopting a customer car model - and as Brown has made known, they all are not - it wouldn't be straightforward to make it happen.

Returning to MotoGP for a moment - the single-spec electronics the series implemented to replace the Open Class model from 2016 is actually a good example of what can happen if teams can be forced into operating 'for the greater good'. MotoGP promoter Dorna Sports was able to convince Yamaha and Honda it would lead to a healthier championship in the long-term, and since 2016 MotoGP has developed to the point where it has a grid made up of six manufacturers, with all but three bikes on the grid either full-factory specification, or factory-supported current-spec machinery for customer teams.

Ultimately, the customer car argument benefits the Class A F1 squads, which is why lowering finances overall through the cost cap makes more sense - even if this will be as hard to negotiate and will take longer to have an impact.

This much-discussed idea comes down to a debate about F1's essential nature

One of the arguments the bigger teams make when it comes to not wanting to reduce costs down much beyond the $145million mark that has already been agreed is that, in order to hit lower levels they will have to endure the painful process of cutting staff, who were hired when the rules allowed such spending.

This is completely understandable, and the customer car option might indeed work if those employees could quickly find work at new squads buying up existing designs. But the problem of the impact that has on remaining independents is still an issue and again crystallises the two classes.

This much-discussed idea comes down to a debate about F1's essential nature. And, until a single entity (possibly a united FOM/FIA body?) has the power to make that call and enforce it for the benefit of everybody, nothing of genuine worth will change.

So instead of arguing over an unsolvable customer car problem, the focus should instead be on nailing the cost cap and ensuring F1 has a healthy financial future, which in theory should lead to greatly-increased competition.