There has been a lot of media debate over the proposed changes to Formula One in a drastic effort to level out the playing field and reduce the costs for the smaller teams in an effort to keep a sizeable and competitive F1 grid. This has been particularly encouraged by the dominance of the Ferrari team in both 2002 and the early part of 2004.

However the proposed changes in my mind will significantly damage the sport; all they will serve to do is to slow the cars down. Whilst we might have 2.4 V8s generating significantly less horsepower there is nothing to stop Ferrari spending $50million to develop a engine that will generate 20% more power than Minardi’s $5million.

Teams might be limited to running only two cars – but the reliability of the Ferrari has meant they have never needed to call on it.

At the end of the day whatever the regulations, the top teams are always going to be able to spend significantly more than their opposition to get that tiny percentage of extra performance.

And remember, it is only a tiny percentage needed. Ferrari spend an estimated $400million on their cars compared to an estimated budget of $40million for the Minardi. On a tenth of Ferrari’s budget the cars are only 5% slower on each lap. At the end of the day each of the teams conform to the same regulations, and if a team can afford to spend ten times more than a competitor it will always go faster regardless of what regulations they are following.

But even if it did level the playing field there are other reasons it will damage the sport.

Formula One is meant to be at the pinnacle of motorsport. We are meant to believe that no racecar in the world could go around the circuit quicker than the top Formula 1 team. If we start reducing the performance of the cars in a drastic effort to cut costs this will no longer be the case. We might see the case where other single seated racecars, such as Indy Carts, or even the top GT racers are quicker.

The FIA has also decided that it is necessarily to revert back to the days of a single tyre manufacturer. Again, this will destroy one of the most fundamental aspects of the sport. Whilst people always say they want to increase the competitiveness between the drivers part of Formula 1 has always been, especially in the last 4 decades, not just the competitive nature of the drivers but between the teams and the technology they have developed for them to race in.

If anything, the 2003 season – a season that featured 8 race winners – probably owed a lot of its competitiveness to the battle between Bridgestone and Michelin. The advancements in tyre technology account for the majority of the speed increases with each passing year.

So what should be done to the sport to improve it? Whilst I strongly disagree with the proposed FIA changes I do agree radical changes are needed, we just need changes that will not be detrimental to the sport. The following changes I am about to explain might not be a complete package as intended by the FIA, but I feel they would radically shake up the grid and make it more exciting and competitive than it has been for a long time:

1. 8 teams with 3 drivers in each team.
One of the biggest frustrations in Formula comes from the difference in performance between the top teams and the bottom teams. The FIA has attempted to address this deficit by bringing the top teams down to the bottom team’s level to help with its cost cutting effort. I would much rather see all the teams being brought up to the sharp end of the grid.

Our current grid line up sees 10 teams with 20 cars on circuit. Ferrari’s dominance aside, the next 4 teams are of a similar performance (Williams, BAR, McLaren, Renault) and the next 3 teams (Toyota, Sauber and Jaguar) are not far behind. Only Jordan and Minardi are significantly behind the pace – and they are the teams who most need the cost cutting changes to be made.

By reducing the number of teams to 8 and distributing their resources – both in revenue generated and technical expertise – amongst the teams at the bottom (which would most likely happen given that the top teams already have the top designers and sponsors) this would hopefully do something in improving their performance over.

People may think that operating a third car in the race would significantly increase their expenditure however again this assumption would not necessarily be accurate. The bottom 6 teams are already running 3 cars at the weekend for testing purposes, and as I have already pointed out these teams include the financially less secure teams.

2. Changes to Regulations Governing Driver Contracts
One thing people might be quick to consider about my previous suggestion would be that if Ferrari had 3 drivers they would finish 1st 2nd and 3rd most of the time. However there would be ways in dealing with this and this would concern the rules governing the team’s employment of drivers.

The first part of this concerns the 3rd car run by teams – the third driver in any teams must have no more than two years previous Formula 1 experience. This would promote exciting prospects – it would allow genuine talented newcomers, such as Alonso and Jenson Button to be quickly fast tracked to a top teams and it would also allow us to gauge how fast the experienced drivers really are.

The second part would dictate that teams are not allowed to keep the same two experienced drivers for longer than 2 years. This would stop the situation we have seen arise where a team keeps the same predictable driver pairing for several years in a row. Schumacher and Barrichello have been Ferrari’s drivers for the entire duration of their successful period, and McLaren employed both Coulthard and Hakkinen during their most competitive period at the end of the 1990’s.

The period that a driver spent as the rookie would not count towards the time spent in a team – for example if Schumacher and Alonso spent two years together whilst Alonso was the rookie Ferrari would have an extra two years of the drivers being partners. Of course, at the end of these two years we would have the fascinating prospect of Ferrari having to choose…

One final alteration to the contracts should be that teams and drivers cannot make arrangements lasting longer than 2 years. This means that Ferrari could not book Schumacher (or any top driver) in advance for longer than 2 years, and vice versa he cannot book his time with Ferrari (or any top team) for longer than that period.

This should benefit teams, drivers and spectators. It would mean that if Schumacher starts under performing Ferrari are not obligated to keep one of their spaces filled by an underachieving driver. Conversely, if Ferrari suddenly fall from grace a driver is not restrained by a contract from moving to a more deserving teams.

3. The Most Radical Change of All
My final suggestion is possibly the least feasible and therefore least likely to ever happen. However if anything would stop one team having several years of unparalleled success then this is it.

The FIA have been quick to ban technologies that have eventually led to teams going so fast the race has become a procession following the first corner. Unfortunately this has meant we have reached the point where the cars have just become minor adjustments on the previous year’s model and as a result any advantage a team had from the previous year has given them a head start on the next.

What I suggest is to bring back the banned technologies – such as turbo chargers, slick tyres, active suspension, skirts etc… but not all at the same time.

Each year the FIA will allow a different technology to be used by the teams for that year only meaning that each year we will see a radical difference in each years car design. This will almost certainly result in a different team developing the ultimate design with each passing year. Whilst Ferrari might develop the ultimate turbo charged engine for 2006, when turbochargers are banned for 2007 and skirts are brought back it might be the Williams team who master that technology.

What this would also result in would be an end the constant reliability of the cars – with significant changes in engine, chassis and aerodynamic design each year the cars will be significantly different to what went before and will therefore be more unreliable.

Whilst it is always a tragedy when a driver who has driven an immaculate race retires 2 laps from the end due to a blown engine, the current set up means whoever is leading after the final set of pit stops will nearly always go on to take the win.

One final positive feature of bringing back technology rather than banning it would be it would ensure that Formula 1 stays at the pinnacle of motorsport rather than just becoming a slightly more expensive Formula 3000 series.

In conclusion
This has been a fairly lengthy rant, and unlike just about everything else on this website is a reflection of my true opinion in plain English rather than disguised in the metaphor of satire. Whilst the majority of the stuff I write on my sites is intended as a joke this is not – if you actually think any of it makes sense then please let me know – either by the feedback form at the bottom of the page or by email If you think it’s really stupid then feel free to let me know that too.

Of course, if you do like my suggestions and would like to see the changes implemented then the best thing to do is to contact the FIA and the teams by email and send them a link to this site, or just copy and paste this article into the email directly. The changes can never happen if the FIA is not made aware of them and the level of support they may have. They won’t listen to one person, but they might listen to a thousand.