GAME OF CLONES

These are the words of Sir Frank Williams – in 2007. Thirteen years ago Formula 1 was in the grip of an identity crisis thanks to the audacity of a carbonated drinks company fielding four broadly identical cars, and Williams was prepared to go to court to preserve the status quo.

Since then an argument has been simmering – sometimes gently, often threatening to boil over – about a philosophical question that cuts to the very essence of what it means to be a competitor in Formula 1. It’s not a debate about speed or performance, what fuels should be used, how big the engines should be, though all these matters and more have been thrown in to muddy the waters. It’s simpler and yet, at the same time, far more complex: it’s a question of identity, of authorship.

Simply put – what does it mean to be a ‘constructor’? Should F1 continue to honour its heritage as the pinnacle of technology in motorsport, of individual craftsmanship and design, a world where the ‘brand’ is not simply the iconography by the factory gate but a fundamental statement, a set of values, an integral part of a championship now completing its 70th year? Or should it, for the sake of financial expediency and administrative convenience, gradually become an identikit category where teams are little more than franchisees, buying