Looking Ahead: Thoughts on the Future of Formula One

Another year, another season of Formula One, and, it seems, more of the controversy that seems to dog the world’s most prestigious motorsport at every turn.

Six races in, and we have already seen debates over loopholes in the technical regulations, the “Liargate” scandal involving the McLaren and Toyota teams, and the proposal of a budget cap for the 2010 season that has brought nine of the ten teams to the brink of withdrawal from the sport as a whole, even as new teams are lining up their entries.

Though the Formula One Teams Association (FOTA) has now confirmed its constituents’ entries for 2010, many questions still linger about the future and governance of Formula One.

Naturally, teams, drivers, pundits, and fans alike all have their own ideas on how to improve F1...

Here are five ideas that I believe will help F1 survive and prosper in the coming years.

1.  Consistent & Clear Technical Regulations

Understanding the technical regulations to which each car on the F1 grid must conform to is a black art in and of itself, but in recent years, even the teams have run into confusion over the regulations.

Nowhere was this more apparent than at the 2009 season-opening Australian Grand Prix, where several protests were lodged against the “double-decker” rear diffusers of the Williams, Toyota, and Brawn GP teams, which exploited a grey area in the regulations to gain significantly more downforce than their competitors.

Though designers from these teams had supposedly pointed out the ambiguity in the regulations to the other teams, little notice was taken until the three diffuser teams had shown much greater speed than their rivals, particularly the Brawn team.

Though protests were lodged at both the Australian and Malaysian GPs, it took the FIA until April to rule the double diffusers legal.

Had this ambiguity in the regulations been cleared up prior to the season start, it would have saved huge amounts of money for the other seven teams who have been forced to redesign parts of their cars in order to incorporate the double diffuser and gain back lost time.

Hand-in-hand with regulatory clarity comes year-to-year consistency in the technical regulations.

2009 marked the single biggest set of technical changes in the history of F1, but even before the season started, there was discussion of a new set of regulations for 2010 as incentive for an optional budget cap.

Regulatory consistency is necessary for two reasons: first, to allow for closer competition. With only minor changes to the cars for the past five to six years, teams have come closer together in terms of performance—a result of settling in and adapting to consistent regulations.

2009 has seen none of this, with the Brawn GP team winning five out of six races, including three 1-2 finishes, and all but eliminating real competition at the front; the only way that anyone will catch them in the coming years is for other teams to be allowed to adapt to the regulations.

Second, the supposed goal of cost-cutting championed by FIA president Max Mosley may as well be thrown out the window if regulations are to continually change.

We have already seen the teams spending millions of dollars on designing completely new cars, incorporating the double-decker diffuser into those designs midseason, and designing, building, and developing the new-for-2009 Kinetic Energy Recovery System (KERS).

It is hard to imagine that the cost to the teams will be anywhere near the $60 million Mosley intends to cap the teams at in 2010 if they are forced to deal with continual regulatory upheaval.

2.  An appointed board of race stewards, including at least one former driver

Nothing caused more debate and controversy in 2008 than the calls of the race stewards at many grands prix. Though there were several controversial and inconsistent calls over the course of the season, the one that sticks out the most is the 25-second penalty given to McLaren’s Lewis Hamilton at the Belgian Grand Prix.

One must also consider the fact that after cutting a chicane to overtake Ferrari’s Kimi Raikkonen for the lead, he relinquished the position, but re-passed Raikkonen one corner later.

Though the penalty itself was controversial at the time, it was made much more so by the fact that in both previous and subsequent races, drivers regularly committed the same offense and were either given mere warnings or were overlooked altogether.

Similar issues arose with unsafe pit releases—some drivers were given drive-through penalties and others got off with relatively minor monetary fines.

Inconsistent stewarding did more to hurt Formula One in 2008 than any other single factor.  Not only did it cast doubt on both the regulations and the FIA’s ability to adequately administer them, but it also gave the distinct impression that the championship results were being meddled with by outside parties.

More often than not, Ferrari’s Felipe Massa was the beneficiary of other drivers’ penalties and had Hamilton not been demoted in Belgium, he would have clinched the 2008 title in China rather than at the season-ending Brazilian GP.

Though Max Mosley’s rationale of involving local FIA affiliates with the Grands Prix through stewarding appointments is sound, it brings in far too much inconsistency in the stewarding practices, and without at least one steward who actually understands the rigors of driving and has driven in F1 races, the stewards can never get a complete picture of what is happening on track.

3.  Bring F1 back to its home circuits

The Formula One calendar changes every year, but many, myself included, believe that some recent changes to the schedule have hurt the sport.

Most notably, the omission of the Canadian Grand Prix for 2009 means that North America no longer has a Grand Prix, the United States GP having been dropped for 2008.

The French GP, another staple of the Formula One calendar in the country where Grand Prix racing began, has also been dropped for 2009, and the future of the British Grand Prix is also in doubt.

As the “traditional” European races have fallen off the calendar, they have been replaced with races in Asia and the Middle East, with Malaysia, China, Bahrain, Turkey, Singapore, and Abu Dhabi gaining races since 2003, and plans reportedly afoot for races in India and South Korea in 2011 and 2012 respectively.

While this global expansion is undoubtedly good for Formula One as a business alone, one must remember the fans and the lack thereof at many of these new races.

While the night race at Singapore was one of the most spectacular races in recent memory, many of the other circuits, especially China and Bahrain, have been lacking in both spectators and on-track action, although Turkey has produced three years of very good racing on a well-designed track.

This is a somewhat radical proposition, but I believe that the next Concorde Agreement, the contract signed by the teams to guarantee participation in F1, should contain a requirement for F1 to visit 13 countries which have traditionally held well-attended races at first-class circuits.

These 13 countries are: Australia, Spain, Monaco, Britain, Germany, Hungary, Belgium, Italy, Japan, Brazil, France, Canada, and the USA.

Given an 18 to 20 race calendar, this leaves five to seven slots open for the Asian and Middle Eastern circuits.

Though this schedule could preclude F1’s expansion to new venues, I believe that keeping Formula One as a true world sport will do far more to ensure its future than moving half the calendar to countries that have never held a Grand Prix, while further padding Bernie Ecclestone’s already massive bank account would.

4.  Bring Formula One back to the United States

Throughout the recent and ongoing discussion of untapped markets for Formula One to expand into, there remains one glaring omission: the United States.

The USA has had some sort of involvement throughout the history of F1, from the Indy 500 counting for the first several years of the F1 championship, to the long history of F1 at Watkins Glen International Circuit, Mario Andretti’s 1978 championship, and the hugely popular races at Indianapolis Motor Speedway from 1999 to 2007.

However, 2008 saw the U.S. Grand Prix pulled from the calendar, and with the Canadian GP following for 2009, North America is left without a Formula One race. Common sense, and a straw poll of fellow American F1 fans, would indicate that few people, if any, supported this decision.

The fans obviously want an F1 race close to home, and never let it be said that there aren’t any American F1 fans; I was lucky enough to attend the final USGP at Indianapolis in 2007, and short of British soccer fans, I’ve never seen a group of people more excited about their sport.

The teams also want races in North America—the USA is the single biggest market for the car companies (with the exception of Renault) supporting F1 and fielding teams, and they will want all the exposure they can get in the U.S.

There are three things that need to happen, however, before F1 can gain a hold in the American mainstream in the same fashion as Indycar and NASCAR.

First, the entire season’s worth of races needs to be broadcast on one of the major networks, or major cable channels such as ESPN, with a concerted advertising push behind it; new fans won’t watch if they don’t know where to do so.

Second, there needs to be an American team and American drivers in the sport that the U.S. fan base can rally around. With the exit of Scott Speed in 2006, no American drivers were left in the sport, and Speed was the first since Michael Andretti’s ill-fated stint with McLaren in 1993, and no American has had the support necessary to even challenge for wins since Mario Andretti left the sport.

Fortunately, the USF1 team, run by Peter Windsor and Ken Anderson, has submitted an entry for 2010 and has committed to designing and building a competitive car in the U.S. and fielding at least one American driver.

Third, the U.S. needs a Grand Prix.

No matter what people say about NASCAR and Indycar taking up all the racing fans in the U.S., if there is a race...people will come.

The first two or three runnings of the USGP at Indianapolis drew more fans than the Super Bowl, and attendance stayed strong throughout the race’s tenure.

My understanding of the reason why Formula One’s contract with Indianapolis Motor Speedway was not renewed essentially boils down to money and to Tony George’s unwillingness to acquiesce to Bernie Ecclestone’s ever increasing monetary demands (which, though it got the USGP taken off the calendar, I commend him for).

As I see it, there are four venues in the U.S. of the caliber to hold the USGP: Indianapolis, which recently revamped its infield road course; Mazda Raceway Laguna Seca in California, which has always been a world-class circuit; Barber Motorsports Park in Alabama, recently built with modern facilities, and Road America in Wisconsin, though it will need a significantly revamped pit and hospitality facilities to be considered.

It is up to the track’s management to make their case for hosting the USGP, to the FIA and Formula One Management to work in the best interests of the sport, and fans worldwide to bring back the United States and Canadian Grands Prix.

5. Don’t forget the fans

Between the 2007 and 2008 seasons, the Formula One Teams Association (FOTA) surveyed thousands of F1 fans worldwide about the state of the sport—what was working, what wasn’t, and what needed to be improved.

They incorporated the survey findings into a proposal to the FIA, which was submitted before the 2009 season for several changes to the sporting regulations, including a points system that put greater emphasis on winning while keeping competition close throughout the grid, a ban on refueling, and several other changes which would have taken effect in 2009 and 2010.

The FIA rejected FOTA’s proposal in full, choosing instead to attempt a regulatory change which would have seen the driver with the most wins crowned champion.

Besides the fact that it was a clear violation of the sporting regulations, I honestly believe that no one, teams, drivers, or fans, supported this change, and it was fortunately dropped shortly before the season opener.

Nevertheless, the FIA did more than just reject a document when it turned down FOTA’s proposal—it rejected the opinions of fans worldwide.

We have already seen the folly of the winner-take-all system this season, in which Jenson Button would conceivably have already taken the championship, having won five out of six races so far.

The FIA absolutely must take into consideration the findings of the fan survey and the continual feedback of both the fans and the teams which make up the sport.

I, for one, want nothing to do with a sport whose regulatory body continually and blatantly disregards the opinion of its fans and constituent teams. With FOTA united against Max Mosley’s budget cap proposal for 2010, and the discussion it has produced however, I believe we are seeing the beginning of an era of greater cooperation between the FIA and FOTA.

From here, the sport can only move forward.