What next for Formula One?

So with the apparent demise of the HRT F1 team Formula One heads into the winter break with only 11 team's. HRT failed to appear on the official 2013 entry list published by the FIA on Saturday and in my opinion if HRT can find a buyer which seems unlikely they shouldn't be granted entry to next year's championship unless they were to be snapped up by a car company but I doubt any car manufacturer would want to dive into F1 head first in the current economic climate.

So the sport has a couple of question's to answer. Should a budget cap be put in place to stop team's from folding? Should stricter criteria be necessary for a team to be eligible to entry Formula One? And due to the shortfall of cars on net year's grid should the like's of Ferrari or RedBull be allowed to run an extra car?

So I can answer my own question, they can't run a third car because that would defeat the purpose of a budget cap. However, I think that the larger team's e:g McLaren and RedBull should be allowed to run customer cars to the smaller team's.

In my opinion, this would perfect sense, take Marussia for example, they have a technical tie in with McLaren, The Marussia driver's have been granted access to the McLaren simulator as part of the agreement, the team will as of 2013, be powered by a KERS unit provided by McLaren partner, McLaren Electronics. As a result of running a customer car with Marussia, McLaren could place one of their reserve driver's into the seat to see how they get on.

Meanwhile with Caterham, they have an agreement with RedBull who provide the team with a KERS unit. However RedBull have their junior team in Toro Rosso so maybe a team like Lotus could reach an agreement with Caterham as they both run Renault engines. It's just an idea that I have come up with but it is probably not commercially viable so it's just really a pipe dream but it could potentially happen.

The story about HRT, just reinforces my position on the whole subject of the new team's. I firmly believe that David Richards Prodrive company should have been given an entry into F1 in 2010 as the company had previous experience running a F1 team when the company ran British American Racing. Prodrive also has a rich racing pedigree and heritage. But we shall see what happens.