Simple question:

Is having the best organized and structured team, with the most skilled individuals, more importantly than the actual car or any specific ideas on it?

Of course, having the "right" driver is an important part of this too. But the "team sport" aspect is something that is undervalued on the BB opinions IMO, compared to "get better drivers" or "put some magic aero fix on the car".

We saw, BAR have one good season and Brawn one good season. Supposedly the team did not know why the 2004 BAR car was fast and certainly they were not able to reproduce the speed the following season when the tyre rules were also changed. Meanwhile, the Brawn was the most expensive Honda F1 car ever, if not the most expensive F1 car ever. That was that. Yet Red Bull were fast with refueling, without refeuling, without DDD, with DDD, with Bridgestone and with Pirelli (at least one of them anyhow!). Seemingly only when the right structure of skilled persons is in place can the domination be continued (e.g., Ferrari 2000-2004 or Red Bull 2010-201X?).



Therefore, for example:

Seeing as Ferrari, Red Bull and McLaren have similar resources when considering only the chassis side of the sport, is the only way Ferrari or McLaren will take back domination of the sport to be to get their team performing at better level than Red Bull?

Ferrari have obviously made some big changes in their technical department, and so too Mercedes-Benz. Maybe Mercedes will one day dominate in the way their proud and successful brand so strongly demands?

Is the team more important than the car? I don't know what to answer. They're obviously linked. The question is all the more strange when your own reasoning seems to be that the "best functioning" team is that which consistently produces the fastest cars...

Its symbiotic - therefore you cannot have a good car and an incompetent team.

The best team make the best car,don't they?
Most important is the money.The best people want to be where the money is.

This thread takes a while to decipher, but he OP means at any given current moment in the time would you rather have a winning car or would you be more content if you were say, Mercedes, a bit further back but with newly-developed infrastructure for future domination.

No, I'd rather have a super fast car.

Difficult question. My answer would be that having the fastest car is better in short term, whereas having the best team is better in long term. Personally, I'd prefer to have the best team. It's OK not to have excellent results right away when you can improve each year.

might not come true for alonso, there are no garuntees though mclaren went long enough without winning a championship

You need everything. The team with the least amount of weakest links win.

mediocre car won't win jack

a fast car always has chance even if team managed by morons

I'll take the fast car ahead of the team, or for that matter the driver any day of the week

Mutually exclusive IMO. You usually need one of the top 2 cars and one of the top 4 or 5 drivers minimum to win a title.

Our perception of what is a fast car is always influenced by the drivers. Take this year as one example, if the RB has 2 x Mark Webbers in it, and based on the fact that Webber was close to Vettel last year, nobody would think the Red Bull is as good as Vettel is showing it to be... or is Vettel amazing? Same can be said for 2009. If the Brawn had 2 x Rubens in it, the Red Bull would have been judged to be easily the best car and one of the RB drivers would have won the title.

The title is harder to win than imaginable.

Voted No.
Every element of the complete package that makes a winning team has its own importance. In a sport where thousandths of a second matter I don't think we can define a single element as more important than the rest. It's the harmony among all of them IMO.

The right people must work together in the right way with the right means and must also have some luck to win. The car is part of the output of such a team.

I'd say that Vettel's winning performances in 2011 have been largely due to his team's spot-on efficiency and decision making at more than one race. RBR/Vettel's strategies have often been absolutely perfect this season, their pit stops couldn't have been much better, and their timings in the Qualifying sessions have usually been the best, ending with Vettel last over the line in many cases, or into clear air on his attempts. Coupled with the obvious technical proficiency of RBR with firstly making the car, then keeping it ahead of the competition, RBR have been impossible to beat this season.

Vettel's 2nd WDC has been possible due to the amazing teamwork at RBR keeping his car dominant at almost every race in 2011 even when McLaren were possibly better suited to a few tracks than the RedBull. I believe both a fast car AND great teamwork are absolutely necessary to win a WDC these days - just look at McLaren in 2007.