New F1 rules make no sense

The rest of the field will be hoping for improved performance so that they can at least keep the Silver Arrows within visual range.

The venue is Silverstone, the event the British Grand Prix.

Bernie Ecclestone is constantly informing the media that unless changes are made the race will have to find a new home.

It was Brands Hatch once and then of course the pie in the sky, non-existent, move to Donington.

After signing a long-term contract and making major changes to the circuit’s infrastructure, it appears that Silverstone once again has problems, this time financial.

Hopefully this will be resolved quickly or we may find that the British Grand Prix slips from the calendar and a new race is scheduled in some as yet unknown mineral-rich country in the middle of nowhere.

It appears that these days if you can pay the fee you’re in and even contracts don’t seem to guarantee any long-term agreement, as Hockenheim recently discovered.

Alternating the German round of the championship with the Nurburgring, Hockenheim has a contract to stage the event in 2016 and 2018. but with the buyout of Nurburgring by the Dusseldorf group Capricorn, the future was uncertain as it appeared that Ecclestone was close to an agreement with Capricorn to host the German Grand Prix annually from 2015 to 2019.

Hockenheim management reacted indignantly, claiming that the agreement they had was bullet-proof with no get-out clause.

After a few days the 83-year-old Englishman said that “We respect the contract with Hockenheim, we will comply with the agreements we have.”

One up to the circuit owners. It is a shame that others who have been ousted from the calendar did not have similar success when faced with contract problems –Turkey and India spring to mind.

So the World Motorsport Council has ratified certain changes for next year’s regulations and all to make the sport more exciting, or so we are led to believe.

Limits on testing and a ban on pre-season testing outside of Europe, changes to the cars noses and a four-engine-per-season limit are just a few.

Another is the use of titanium skid blocks under the cars which will produce sparks as suspensions bottom out, reminiscent of the glorious days of yore. How exciting. But the most ridiculous change has to be the standing re-start decision.

Replacing the current rolling re-start, all cars will follow the safety car and then line up on the grid for a restart, that is unless the safety car was deployed within two laps of the original race start, or subsequent re-start, or if there are only five laps remaining in the race.

And this is supposed to generate more excitement? I think F1 has finally lost all rationality.

In the words of Monty Python’s Eric Idle: “Say no more!”