We have Mark Skaife and the useless pricks at VESA to thank for that. Skaife's COTF is an expensive lemon. Only a few teams can afford to build and run them and he and VESA are singing their praises because we have had so many different winners. The same people are at the top that were there last year and a number of us said this would happen, so no change really just a few new faces on the podium.
We need someone with the cash to start a complete new category where we ditch all the expensive crap that's required to make these cars run. make them more like Nascars. Keep the chassis and engines for now but do away with all the technology that's not required, the steering wheels alone now over $20000 each.
I've been doing some research.
Nascar Engine $45000, some teams spend much more than this but a competitive customer engine can be brought for this amount.
Rolling Chassis, $70000 for the new 2013 cars, this cost will come down to approximately $50000 per car over time.
The average price last year for a competitive car was $95000, this year around $125000, the top teams spend up to $150000.
Compare this to a V8 supercar, Nissan just spent $5mill on four cars, Todd Kelly stated the build cost alone was over $750000 per car. Erebus spent roughly the same per car. Like Nascar these costs should come down, a little, over time.
I spoke with DJ at the Team Mates night and he said it cost more than double their previous T8 FG to get the new car on the grid, and repair cost, although quicker, are also more than double.
The other area where Skaife and VESA have screwed up is their decision to make teams source their parts from other teams. One item DJR were making in-house earlier is now costing them more than triple the amount to buy. They lost the ability to make it as they couldn't produce enough for other teams to purchase. Of course T8 is the biggest seller of parts and now make a fortune because they have a monopoly.
No conflict of interest there [jk] imagine if VESA were a public listed company, the ACCC would be busy for months.