Why so little F1?

[Steve-658479]

Hi all. I'm just returning to scalextric after along time away and have noticed there is very little, if any, of todays F1 cars to be seen. I'd be interested to know the reason for this.

[Andy P.]

The answer is pretty much the same as why any car of any kind does or does not get made.

When it comes to the thousands it costs Scalextric to make a car they have to be sure they can get those costs back.

Any open cockpit car is even more difficult because the increased details such as a driver.

Then when it comes to any racing car there are all the approvals and the licensing that comes into it.

There is video where a former Scalextric employee details what they went through for the McLaren P1 car. I don't know all the details but I know that it was a 5-digit sum they had to pay just to get permission and the car had to go through weeks and months of approvals.

If there is a driver's name on the car the approvals and licensing gets worse. Plus you have to get approvals and licensing from every advertiser...etc etc etc....

So it all comes down to economics...

Any before someone posts something about companies should allow it as advertising: It just doesn't work that way I am afraid...

[Steve-658479]

Thanks for the detailed response. You've certailnly cleared that one up. However it is still a shame that with so much money swimming around in F1 that those powers that be couldn't see their way clear to allow slot cars to be made without so much red tape.

[Andy P.]

Pleasure....

I wish things were different but them's the breaks...

[Dav2]

I had similar thoughts. Ended up getting 3 Carrera Evolution slot cars. Merc, Ferrari & RedBull. Really good detail on them. Modded in the retro chip to work on scalextric.

[Andy P.]

The retro chip is of course only necessary if you race them digitally. :-) In analog mode pretty much all slot cars of the same scale work on all systems.