Sahara Force India and Sauber today took the lead in voicing protests against the concept of bringinig customer cars in F1, saying it was a "ridiculous" idea and a "dangerous" route to go down if cutting costs is the objective.
It is being didcussed if customers cars can be introduced in F1 where big teams will be able to sell their cars to other teams. However, it is feared that it cannot be done unless smaller teams are driven out of business.
While Red Bull supports the idea among the big teams, Mercedes was not "enamoured". Ferrai refused to comment at this stage but mid-field teams such as Force India and Sauber today minced no words in rejecting the concept.
"As far as Sahara Force India is concerned we are completely opposed to the concept of customers cars...Now to try to address lowering of costs through a radical customer car concept is ridiculous in my view. What happens to the smaller teams that have factories, that employ hundreds of people and who are effectively running companies.
"You can't just discard everything and just buy a one-year old car from an established team and go motor racing. I think that affects the total DNA of Formula One from the day it was started," Vijay Mallya, Team Principal, said.
Mallya's Sauber counterpart Monisha Kaltenborn too rejected the idea.
"Sauber's been in motorsport now for more than 40 years and our core business is making race cars in different series, so we are absolutely against this concept of a customer car because we're ruining our own business here.
"...When you introduce these kind of measures you're changing so much. This will not lead to any cost reduction because you might have four teams in there that are capable of putting in that much money, but at some point in time - they are all in their to win - when they don't do that and maybe just end up with a few points they leave the sport as well. So it's a very dangerous route to go down.
