https://joesaward.wordpress.com/2017/10 ... -from-dxbaQuote:
There is still much talk of cost-cutting, but increasingly it seems that reducing the spend and balancing revenues for all the teams may require some creative solutions rather han simply declaring that only x amount of money can be spent. One way that this can be done is for there to be changes to the structure of the F1 driver market, for example. At the moment this is all left unstructured. The big teams hire the big drivers and pay what they need to pay them. But what if they couldn’t do that? What if the rules gave the first choice of drivers each year to the least successful teams? Thus Sauber would get the first choice of drivers and could pick Lewis Hamilton. He would not want to stay, but Sauber could then put him on the market and would then reap the benefits of the money required to release him. This would raise money for the little teams and things would get interesting in the midfield. This could be fairly similar to the National Football League “Draft” in the United States, an event at the best college players are signed up by the teams in the professional leagues. Today The Draft is a three-day televised event in which the players are selected and traded. This year it attracted an astonishing 250,000 spectators at the venue, with millions more watching on TV, with the show producing solid advertising revenues – and the whole event acting as free promotion for the sport. The big teams would still be allowed to spend money but it would serve a purpose!
It's been discussed before, but with US-Centric owners now who might be looking to get a bit outside of the box when it comes to money, I think it's worth visiting again. From where i'm sitting, I dont think much would change, other than the big boys having to fork over extra money to the little teams in order to secure the drivers they want, and in addition maybe the little teams wont have to go down the pay driver route quite so much, if they are selling their pick/trading their driver for cash.
I'm actually warming to the idea.
On the con side, I guess if you get a tiny team with a sudden cash injection, who no longer need the extra cash from selling their pick, they can tie up a good driver in potentially a backmarker car. It's a niche con, but i'm sure there are more.