Too much is changing too fast, and in the process Kunal Ghate feels that F1 is slowly turning into entertainment business rather than a sport! Soon we will see cheer leaders instead of grid-girls...
1) It had probably become the highest priority item on the FIA commercial rights owner to ensure that all F1 cars are competitive because you know it was getting a bit boring as Ferrari was winning every year.
So they took out stuff like TC and reduced the down force by like a gazillion percent. Next they said you can spend only peanuts to build your car, and that most-expensive-piece-of-your-factory 'the wind-tunnel' has to be shut during the season, may be you can rent it for some extreme sports like 'indoor paragliding' or 'smashing into the wall while walking in the wind tunnel'.
So to some extent the oldies of FIA were successful, but of course there was a downside to it, the most successful teams ever, turned out to be disasters. On top of that, rookie teams started winning championships, and the others felt like shit. How is this good for F1 or TV?
How would you feel, if suddenly out of the blue, Bangladesh wins the Cricket World Cup! I would say, it was a wasted season, as the true Automobile Racing followers started getting bored and I`m not just making this up, for the first time in 2009, spectatorship for F1 was lower than MotoGP on some occasions.
FIA created a monster, and it came back to FIA and bit them on their ass. Hard!
2) FIA banned slick tyres to reduce the grip those things gave the cars, so they introduced grooved tyres (genius). Now since the down force is reduced, the slick tyres are re-introduced, if that’s not funny enough then hear this, from 2010 season the front tyres are going to be narrower! Why did the FIA not just stick to grooved tyres, their surface area in contact to road is almost same as the new tyres!
No wait, narrower front tyres and heavy fuel loads mean we will see more of under-steer and then of course bang bang! May be that’s the whole idea behind making things more interesting! :D
3) New qualifying: Since every year there will more or less the same top ten finishers in every race, bottom ten were feeling left out. So FIA said "okay we will make the top ten drivers use the same tyres in qualifying and start of race, but later on don’t tell me if you still loose".
Oh my God, why on Earth? Why do the faster cars be forced to re-use the qualifying tyres? Will we see a new trend of drivers laughing at the one who claims pole position in a race, here is an example:
Alonso has grabbed pole position as he was running on soft tyres in qualifying, Schumacher is 11th on the grid so that means he is on new tyres, and if the weather changes over the night, Schumi has even bigger advantage.
Alonso: The Ferrari drives like a dream, it was a good day today we took pole thanks to the teams effort and blah blah blah! (Like all the drivers do the PR in front of TV camera :P)
Schumi (on Sunday): Alonso is on pole, so what? He will be running on his Saturday’s soft tyres, and its 5 degrees hotter today here in Bahrain. Either he will loose grip too soon or he will pit sooner than others, either ways I shall overtake him because I`m running on new hard compound tyres.
This rule with the re-fuelling ban surely will not make races more interesting, but definitely funnier than before.
4) KERS: Or 'curse'. It’s a bane? It’s a boon? Oh no one knows! See it’s like this, you are in a battle and you are allowed to use Bazooka only once an hour. Rest of the time you can use only your revolver. What’s the point of have a self-recharging boost if you can use it for only 6 seconds a lap!
And if energy ‘recovery’ is to motive behind it, why restrict it to 80 BHP. Just like the engine has no restriction on the power it produces, the KERS should be allowed to contribute as much power as possible for the team.
Rather add a maximum weight limit for the KERS unit.
5) This is my favourite, Bernie the FOM oldie said, he was in talks with teams to introduce short-cuts or alternate routes in F1 circuits. Well if someone like Bernie considering his position can talk something like this, then I actually have a list of things that I want to see in F1:
a) No usage/power restriction on KERS. That will certainly increase overtaking.
b) Every now and then we hear Steve Slater SHOUT that a F1 car produces enough down-force to actually be driven upside down, it’s about time we see that happen. Up side down sections have to be built on circuits and using them five times in a race is mandatory.
c) I want to see a F1 drag race after every race.
d) I want to see qualifying and super pole on Saturday, a sprint race and a feature race on Sunday. Instead of a single 70 lap race!
e) Lastly, I want to see an endurance race at the end of the season.
To remind you, how F1 used to be, when Turbo-charged engines were allwed, aero down force wasn't a concern, the following video shows just the kind of overtaking moves we are missing in this so called 'modern F1' era. Enjoy!
What do you want to see in F1? Place your thoughts below.
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Kundan Singh
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... I agree Kunal, the drastic steps which were taken to curtail Ferraris impressive run were just absurd. It was the equivalent of saying the Aussies are winning too much in cricket so lets change the rules; opening bowlers will open batting also or something else as nonsensical. Im looking forward to this season ofcourse for the obvious reason - return of the Schumi but also with the no refuel rule; im actually hoping so of the cars run out of fuel and dont make it to the finish line. Now thats gonna be fun Having been a Ferrari fan all my life , now with Schumi returning is going to mean a tough choice, cause ive never really liked alonso much, massa is a good man. Speaking of the legendary overtaking moves how about the Hakkines move on schumi at Spa i think 98-99, on the outside of the back marker. |
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