The age old problem of Formula One. We all like to critique the sport but its always had its eras of domination. I started watching it around 1992/1993, which was when Schumacher was starting to come to the fore – I remember many a Sunday afternoon watching Williams, then McLaren, then Ferrari all take it in turns to create snooze-fest races. I don’t think that will ever change. That said I’d do the following:
1. Stop trying to turn F1 into endurance racing. Build cars that last 200 miles. A gearbox that lasts 6 races and an engine that last 7 races does nothing for me. We need reliability to be on the edge – some of the greatest races of the 90s were when the top teams had reliability issues allowing for a midfield team through to score a podium.
2. Change the format of the weekend. Turn Friday into a media day for fans. Saturday starts with a 60 minute practice session before we go straight into qualifying. Scrap parc ferme rules. Sunday morning we bring back warm-up and practice sessions designed to hone your car for the race. Not having loads of practice to get your setup right ready for quali could result in an unsettled grid yet not upsetting the look and feel of the race weekend.
3. All teams should run 3-cars. As Toto Wolff suggested the 3rd car can only have a driver in it with less than 2 years F1 experience. This could allow for teams to offer sponsored drives as well. We all loved seeing Alonso drive at Indy 500 – this could allow for one-off races for drivers anywhere to drive at Monaco.
-tg.
