Difference between revisions of "Formula Community"

Revision as of 08:42, 1 October 2013

Formula Community is an upcoming team-funded series built from the ground up solely on the team owner's voting power. Initially each of the entering teams were able to invest up to £500,000 to buy in to the series, which bought a share of the voting power. Teams then had to use their remaining cash to purchase vehicles and hire drivers.

List of Teams

Current Teams

Team	Owner	Ownership of Series
DSR Racing	Deyan Rangelov	8.43%
/ Blokkmonsta Motorsport	Andrea Schnass	7.22%
Loyer Racing Technologies	Herbert Loyer & Sons	6.15%
Great British Racing Team	Ryan Cole	6.02%
Outterridge Motorsports	Frederick Outterridge	6.02%
Renntechnologie GmbH	Ralf Schneider	6.02%
Rob Lomas Racing	Rob Lomas	6.02%
Australian Racing Academy	Mark Webber	4.82%
Empire Racing	Thomas Travers	4.82%
Pegasus Racing Group	Dr. Ciaran Gallagher	4.82%
Auricom Industries	Paul Belmondo	4.61%
AeroCraft Racing	Marc Pujolar	3.61%
El Cártel Suramérica	Paulo Pinto & Cristian Carmona	3.61%
Restov Racing	Edward Restov	3.61%
Vasquez Racing Team	Luis Vasquez & Rafael Antezana	3.61%
NKRI Jaya Garuda	Axel Putra	3.37%
TechCraft	Asuka Kuwashima	3.09%
Equipe Gauthier	Guillaume Gauthier	3.01%
JLD Motorsport	Pierre Depault	2.71%
Riverside Racing	Julius Wood	2.41%
Tassie Racing Academy	Matthew Saoea	2.41%
Johnny Cab Racing	Vilos Cohaagen	2.12%
Sanka Sports	Sanka Coffie	1.04%
Aston Martin Racing	Brett Johnson	0.46%

Previous Teams

Team	Owner
Alstom GPE	Jean-Francois Voeckler
Escalona Racing	Inigo Escalona
Ocean Motorsport Technology	Yusaku Higashiyama

Voting Process

A unique draw-card for Formula Community is that almost every aspect of the competition has been decided by voting. As each team's voting power is dependent on the share owned of the competition, it is not necessarily number of votes that decides each ballot. For a decision to be made, a >50% majority must be achieved (unless down to two options), meaning that if no option has a majority second preferences come into play.

Issue 1 - Location of Series

Teams voted on which continent to base the series, although the decision did not preclude races from being held on other continents, if voted on later. The following options were available:

• Europe
• North America
• Asia - including Australia and New Zealand
• South America
• Africa

Asia took an early lead following the first round of voting, but did not achieve the required majority. As North America, South America and Africa did not have the required votes to achieve a majority, they were eliminated from the voting process and the second round began. In a surprising turnaround, it was Europe that took some late preferences to edge out Asia.

Issue 2 - Type of Vehicles

Teams next voted on what vehicles would be raced in the series. Once again there were five options as follows:

• Open Wheel
• Touring Cars
• GT Endurance
• Motorcycles
• Super Karts

Voting opened, not without some controversy as the Australian Racing Academy declared they would withdraw from the series if the motorcycles option was selected. This was then followed by German team Renntechnologie GmbH attempting to auction off their vote to the highest bidder, a move that despite attracting several bids was denounced by many teams and led to Renntechnologie withdrawing their offer to sell their vote. Tassie Racing then attempted to change their vote, a move the Australian Racing Academy protested and sought clarification on the legality, with it later being ruled that vote-changing was not permitted.

Despite the string of controversy, Touring Cars took an early voting lead and never looked back, although it withstood a late charge from Super Karts in the second and third preferences.

Issue 3 - Major Sponsor

This time there were six options for the major sponsor for the series. Each option had its own unique terms, benefits and pitfalls:

• BMW - £4,000,000
  • Teams must run BMW 1 Series Sport Hatch
  • Must be at least two events in Germany
• Nokian Tyres - £1,500,000 + free tyres to all teams for duration of series
  • All teams must run Nokian Tyres
  • There must be at least three ice/snow rounds, with one of these rounds in Finland
• Castrol - £2,200,000
  • At least 50% of teams must run Castrol fuels
  • At least six academy drivers
  • Series must not be a spec or semi-spec series
• MotorsTV - £0 + Free television coverage
• Emirates - £1,000,000 + associated costs with hosting rounds in the Middle East
  • At least three rounds must be held in the Middle East, with one of those in Dubai
• None

After some strong opinions raised between the teams, and an unprecedented four rounds of preference voting, it was Nokian Tyres that were decided on, and thus became the competition's major sponsor.

Issue 4 - Class of Touring Cars

Teams were next given the option on four types of touring cars to be raced:

• S2000
• Multi-Class Sports Cars
• Silhouette Cars
• GTC V8s

This issue produced some fairly close voting, but after GTC V8s and S2000 were knocked out and preferences counted Silhouette (tube-framed) cars was decided on!

Issue 5 - Vehicle Technical Regulations

Teams now were invited to vote on three issues at once, engines, driver aids and specification parts.

Engines

• V8s
• 1.6L Turbo Hybrids
• Electric

Driver Aids

• Open Driver Aids
• Driver Aids Banned
• Standardised Driver Aids

Specification Parts

• Chassis only - all parts except chassis are open to change
• Full Specification Parts - no parts open to change
• Full Specification, minus engine - only engine open to change
• Full Specification, minus aero - only aerodynamics open to change

Voting Results

On each issue the winning option generally won in dominant style, meaning some options were decided before all teams had even voted. By the end of the voting process it was decided that the vehicles would run 1.6L Turbo Hybrid engines, with standardised driver aids and the vehicles would be full specification except for the engine.

Issue 6 - Calendar