How many of you thought that yesterday’s Formula 1 season opener was boring? I did. Although Bahrain was a much anticipated event, and it’s always fascinating to see new teams, new faces and old faces in new colours, there wasn’t much real racing action to speak of. The FIA comes up with new rules every year which are supposed to make F1 more exciting, but the opposite effect always happens. For instance, the 2010 ban on refuelling took some action out of pit stops and created a track full of heavy cars.
Talking to BBC, McLaren team principal Martin Whitmarsh said that Formula 1 needs to consider immediate rules tweaks to make it more spectacle than processional. “Today was not the best show, we know that and we have all got to work together to improve it.
“I personally believe that more challenging tyres will help the spectacle of the show. I also personally believe that we should have two stops mandated because we want to stop this. Today, if we had had a safety car on lap five, we’d have all piled in (to the pits) and we’d have all gone on the prime tyre and run to lap 49 without a stop. That was a real danger.
“I think that the tyres are allowing you to do that, I’m not trying to pass the blame (on to Bridgestone). We are all in this together. We do need to look at mandatings stops, we do need to look at the tyres and make them more fragile, and we do need to work on making the cars capable of racing close together and easier to overtake,” he said.
The lack of overtaking is an issue, and the Brit has this to say: “Unfortunately the double diffuser, and we have all got them, has really worked against that in the last two years, we have got rid of it for next year but that is arguably a year too late. What can we do this year? It’s go to be work with Bridgestone and potentially mandating more stops in the race.”
What do you think of Formula 1 in its current form?
