By Christopher A. Sawyer
The Virtual Driver

(November 30, 2013) The longer Bernie Ecclestone and company remain in charge of F1, the more “perfect” and less human it becomes. Except for the shower of champagne on the podium and Vettel’s smoky donuts at the end of the last few races (for which he and the Red Bull team were fined), there’s a regulation for nearly everything in the series. Nothing is out of place.

You get the feeling that the members are not only assigned a precise time in which they can eat and drink during the race weekend, but a precise schedule for evacuating the waste once the body is through with it. It’s very likely that farting outside the confines of selected, sound-proof, HEPA-filtered rooms is a hanging offense, especially if done in public.

Bernie Ecclestone systematically honed and revised and codified its rules, procedures, and image until he created a monolith that could force national governments to play by his rules. However, in doing so, he strangled the humanity, the sport, the ingenuity and, yes, the imperfection that made Formula 1 a sport worth watching.

It is now a financial instrument that seeks to serve those who have invested in it and wish to draw profit from it. Unfortunately, for Bernie’s business plan, F1 is built on image and advertising. He needs the fans, and must comb the world for fertile new fields. The base of fans is diminishing in Europe. Canada and the United States each have a grand prix, but the U.S. — the most important market for the majority of manufacturers and sponsors involved — has neither a long and abiding love for the sport, nor a driver, engine maker or team to support. Asia is growing, but the population isn’t enthralled with F1, even if the governments of the various countries see running a race as important for their national image on the world stage.

Formula 1 may have created and honed an image as the pinnacle of motor sport, but the lack of support by a growing base of fans shows there is little substance behind it.

In response, the Formula One Commission reportedly has shelved the idea of the top teams providing satellite operations with customer cars, and instead is looking at reducing the entry list to eight teams, each with three cars. This would increase the grid to 24 from today’s 22, and — unlike the customer car concept — keep a majority of teams fully occupied with the design, development and engineering of new cars each year.

There would not be an overnight collapse in employment and investment. Under this latest plan, three teams would have to be eliminated or merged into the larger teams; a much smaller contraction than would have happened with customer cars. And all done in the name of making more money for CVC Capital Partners (which effectively owns F1) and its shareholders. If nothing else, costs are spread over a larger base, there is a third car for rookies, and more of the money produced by the series is available to be paid out to shareholders.

But what is lost in this head-long rush for more is the very essence and soul of Formula 1. Unless there is a revolution, we will be told that having eight strong teams and 24 cars is far superior to the current situation, and the racing may even be closer. However, what will be lost forever is the idea that a superior mind — like that of Colin Chapman, Derek Gardner, Gordon Murray, John Barnard, Rory Byrne and Ross Brawn, or Adrian Newey — can reset the sport and fan expectations in one fell swoop, and move the sport forward in ways unimagined. It is better, it appears, for progress to be orderly — and profitable — rather than random and potentially disruptive.

All the better to ensure only the “right” teams succeed.

The Virtual Driver