Just Say No - To Bernie Ecclestone

While we've never really been big fans of Bernie Ecclestone's leadership of Formula 1 - just when we think that he's already hit the limit of ridiculousness we get news that he's found a way to go even further off the deep end.

You would think that with the anger qualifying in Melbourne generated in the fans, the press, the drivers and even the teams that Bernie would have realized that continuing to mess with qualifying isn't a popular idea.  But then again, Bernie has been talking out of both sides of his mouth on the issue - it's been widely reported that he described Melbourne's qualifying as "pretty crap,"  and then in the days afterward pushing for the new knockout format to remain even in a potentially modified format.

But Bernie continues to show that he's learned absolutely nothing from opening weekend.  According to Motorsport, he isn't interested in returning to the qualification system that worked successfully for years, the system that teams, fans and drivers understood; a system that most importantly produced a lot of edge of your seat moments...

Instead, Bernie is now pushing two options, one we've heard of - Time Ballast or Qualifying Penalties which are added automatically to the qualifying time of the race or podium winners of the previous race.  The idea is that by forcing these drivers down the grid they would need to fight their way through the grid on race day and provide us all with better racing - see also reverse grids, or last week's podcast where we talked about The Big Book of Top Gear 2009...  The reality though is that in Melbourne we also saw first hand how such a strategy would work - because the current aero rules prevent close racing for long stretches and many tracks are extremely difficult to pass, successful drivers find themselves pinned behind slower cars, not because they don't have the skill or speed to pass, but because designing a successful modern F1 car doesn't allow for managing the turbulence generated by other cars on the track.  

But what's really more likely to happen is that teams will look at a driver's standings and decide to pull their cars back.  Opting for consistent second and third place finishes in order to minimize the time penalty on their qualifying for their next race quite possibly may be more attractive than being forced to take two steps back for every race win.  Fans already complain when drivers are told to conserve tires or fuel - imagine the furor when drivers start pulling back so that they avoid a qualifying penalty at their next race...

Arguably the whole purpose for monkeying with qualifying is to produce not just better action on raceday, but also better action on Saturdays as well, which makes Bernie's other proposal so mindblowing - basing grid positions on a vote.  Admittedly we don't have any detail on how this proposal would work - but one of the key reasons why Melbourne's qualifying was such a failure is because cars weren't on the track.  At first glance - determining grid position based on a vote would appear to eliminate the need for cars on the track on Saturday completely, and using this vote to impact drivers final position on the grid after running on Saturday doesn't sound like a great idea either.

But that gets us back to the headline.  Over the last two years its becoming more and more clear that just because something appears to be a monumentally stupid idea isn't a deterrent to Bernie.  In fact, the more gimmicky an idea appears to be (assuming it has nothing to do with the internet) the more likely it is now becoming that Bernie will latch on to it.

One of the arguments that has come forward in the last two weeks has been over the management and rule making structure of Formula 1.  Control has been taken away from Bernie's FOM and the FIA and instead the team's have the ability to influence the direction of the sport.  Many have called for a "benevolent dictator" to step up and take control, because the teams are looking only for an advantage for themselves and aren't thinking about the sport as a whole.  This is a role that Bernie held in the past, and arguably he brought the sport great success during that time.  But his recent initiatives - the high degradation tires, double points, qualifying revisions, exorbitant event fees, among others show that he's not the right person to pull the sport out of the tailspin it's currently in.  If anything, the blame for putting the sport into that tailspin rests largely with Bernie.

It's time for somebody to take control of F1 - but not Bernie Ecclestone.

Fixing What Didn't Need to Be Fixed

In case you haven't seen it yet - the F1 Strategy Group and the F1 Commission has voted on and approved a new "knockout" qualifying format to go into effect this season.  This isn't a fully done deal - the FIA's World Motorsport Council still needs to approve it during their meetings next week prior to implementation, however it seems that the expectation is for them to rubber stamp it.

You can find the details on how this new qualifying is supposed to work, Motorsport and just about every other website that covers F1 has the details. Every time I re-read how this new format is supposed to work it starts to make a little more sense - but it still seems to be overly complicated.

The intention behind this new format is pretty clear - it's an attempt to make qualifying and thereby race day more unpredictable and therefor more exciting.  Except for one problem - the fastest car and driver combination will typically end up on pole.  That shouldn't change, its one of the rewards of getting it right, if you drive fast and your car works, you end up at the front.  Sometimes - an expected favorite won't perform as well and end up deeper in the grid, it's happened under what's about to become the legacy system and only time will tell if it's going to happen more often under the new system.

But the real question is - why this change? Of all the things that are wrong with F1, why did this get approved? Is this something that the teams actually wanted, or did it come from the same Land O' Great Ideas that gave us double points? There's already been rumors that this suggestion was driven by the promoters (aka FOM) to "improve the show."  But as with many of the changes implemented for the purpose of "the show" it misses what fans are asking to be fixed - the racing.  

Before looking for ways to bury the fastest cars deeper into the grid, how about looking at the root cause of why there's rarely close racing in F1.  Modern F1 cars are designed in a manner that makes them harder to control when they are following other cars closely. In a close racing situation the wash off the leading car causes the following car to have less grip and more tire wear, as a result the longer a driver is fighting close behind another driver the less likely they are to pass the leading driver, and the greater the likelyhood that they're going to have to drop back, sometimes significantly.  Instead of forcing the faster cars back down the grid - how about allowing teams to design their cars so that they're not so aero dependent and can follow and pass?  That would seem to make better sense than monkeying with qualifying...

Pastor is Gone - But Why?

We've been talking about it for the last few weeks on the show, and if you've been watching our Facebook page then you saw it as soon as we heard the news - former GP2 Champion and crash barrier tester Pastor Maldonado has been told by Renault that his services will not be required by the team in 2017.

But the question is - why has Renault decided to send away one of, if not the least popular drivers on the grid? Admittedly, at first glance it would seem to be a pretty stupid question to ask given that we have started following Sniff Petrol's lead and calling Pastor a bewilderfaced talent vacuum, but in thinking about it there's a whole lot of questions here.

Did Renault realize that Pastor costs more in repairs and overtime than he earns the team in sponsorship money? Maybe it was because they realized that for all the complements that his former Lotus bosses give him about the feedback he provides, the limited running Pastor sees isn't good for their efforts to develop their car?

Or was it more related to his sponsorship? It's no secret that Pastor's seat was paid for by the Venezuelan state run oil company PDVSA, and that in return for putting Pastor in a car and featuring PDVSA's logos on the car and team attire PDVSA is paying reportedly in the area of $40 million. Even in the world if F1, that's a lot of money, however with the dramatic fall in oil prices over the last few years, PDVSA isn't bringing in the money it used to.  So, did PDVSA's check for Pastor bounce? Did PDVSA try and re-negotiate the terms of the sponsorship deal for Pastor's seat?  Or was it due to a potential conflict between PDVSA and Renault's normal fuel and oils partner Total?

And why replace Pastor with Kevin Magnussen? Don't get us wrong.  We like Kevin and weren't thrilled that McLaren let him go. But as far as we know right now, Renault's lineup of Kevin Magnussen and Joylen Palmer has all of 1 year of F1 experience between them - all of it on Kevin's side of the garage.  For a Works team that desperately needs to figure out where they've gone wrong with their engine design having two inexperienced drivers doesn't seem to make a whole lot of sense.  Romain Grojean may have slipped through Renault's fingers, but why not look at Adrian Sutil or even Jean Erick Vergne over to bring some experience into the garage? We're not sure what kind of backing Kevin Magnussen has - but given the wads of cash PDVSA had been throwing at Williams and then Lotus in order for him to get a drive, it seems unlikely that Magnussen brings more sponsorship money to the team than Pastor did.

It seems pretty obvious at first glance why Renault made Pastor redundant - but if you think about it, why did they do it?

Red Bull Leaving F1 - Don't Bet On It

One of the things that has gotten many F1 pundits and lots of fans in a tizzy this past week are the comments by both Red Bull's Bearded Leader Christian Horner and Helmut Marco expressing disgust over the team's change in fortunes, going so far as to say that the team could leave F1 if team owner Dietrich Mateschitz "looses his passion for F1."  Words that were meant to capture attention, and they definitely did.

But how likely is Red Bull to leave F1?  Well, if you look a bit deeper than last week's performance in Australia you quickly discover that there are a few tethers the team have to Formula 1...  For example, just last year Formula 1 returned to Austria...  Specifically Formula 1 returned to the newly renovated Red Bull Ring.  The Red Bull Ring that Dietrich Mateschitz spent an estimated 70M Euros to renovate and attract Formula 1 and other race series back to the track.  It seems highly unlikely that after spending that much money to bring the track up to F1 standards and working to bring the series back to Austria that Mr Mateschitz would be quite so willing to walk away from the series.

But look even closer.  Red Bull is also a member of Formula 1's Strategy Group, they are entitled to participate in the Strategy Group for the same reason that Red Bull also received a greater share of the prize fund than several smaller teams - because they've committed to remain in the sport until 2020.  Red Bull's not going anywhere anytime soon, no matter what the Bearded Leader is saying.

And let's not forget, as a member of the F1 Strategy Group, Red Bull was involved in the drafting and adoption of the rules.  V6 Turbo Engines, fuel restrictions, 4 engines for the season, distribution of prize money, all of those things are determined by the Strategy Group.  Red Bull signed off on every one of these changes.  The Bearded Leader has admitted that he could have spoken up and blocked these rules - and decided not to.

It seems that this season Red Bull plans on playing the victim, and they're hoping that we'll all forget their role in putting Formula 1 into the state that it's in now.  They're also hoping that we'll all forget how tone deaf they were during their four years at the top and other teams were pushing for the changes that Red Bull is pushing for now.

Red Bull can toss their toys out of the crib, they can threaten to hold their breath until they pass out, they can even threaten to take their ball and go home...  But they played a big role in getting into this mess - and if they're not willing to put the effort into fixing the problem, they're going to be hard pressed to pack up and walk away.

A Beginner's Guide to the New Season

New to F1?  Trying to figure out how qualifying works?  The good folks at BBC Sport have put together your guide to the new season.  Check it out here.