Just read Mansell’s autobiog (which James co-wrote) to remember how exciting the rabbit and hare situation (as john g above mentions) was!

I think a 107% rule makes the championship even more elitist – which is maybe what some people want. But remember some of these teams might turn out to be a Williams – an independent who won’t jump as soon as they’re not selling cars (e.g. Honda, BMW). And how many people are happy that Super Aguri left? If we bury them now they have no chance.

1) Although the TV channels may show the race even if only one team entered (as you rightly say happened at Indy 05) that doesn’t mean that people will watch it. Indy 05 is the perfect example – remember those spectators throwing beer cans onto the track as they left? Well those people had spent money to be there – those at home hadn’t spent anything so you can bet a lot of people just switched off. Fundamentally I agree with your point though that they will turn up where possible because they’d have too much to lose. It wouldn’t exactly do F1′s image much good either – again, remember at Indy the teams were so desperate to race because of the damage to F1 (and therefore car sales) in N. America.

2) It isn’t the last set of tyres they use in qualifying that they have to start the race in – it’s the set they set their fastest time on. This makes they whole argument null and void. In fact it might even increase action in qualifying – say Hamilton is 5-tenths ahead and nobody else is coming close, but he flat-spotted a tyre he set the time on. He won’t want to start the race on that tyre so may try to set a slightly faster time on a new set. If he fails it will in turn increase action in the race as cars behind him will be faster… etc. etc.

After all, in the past we’ve had e.g. best 11 points scores counts, and even more complicated systems (1967 – 1980), and nobody has said up until now, oh we can’t possibly compare Lauda’s points to Clark’s points to Schumacher’s points – you just normalise the situation by counting them all.

In actual fact this will probably force a comprehensive normalisation rather than the rough one we’ve had up until now; e.g. until now in the points tally, a win in 1950 was worth the same as a 2nd place in 2008 – not exactly accurate. This large change will force this to be fixed and to be more accurate.

I don’t agree with the new system – I think what we’ve had since 2003 has been good, but it isn’t true that it makes a mockery of historical results.

what needs to be addressed for this to work is a decent difference between the hard and soft tyre. also, for bridgestone to come up with a compound that doesn’t just disintegrate into marbles.

personally, i think the mandatory pitstops is a disaster. now that refuelling is banned, we have lost the necessity to pit during the race, and it would have been great to see the hare (carefully looking after 1 set of tyres for the whole race) against the rabbit (2 or 3 stops going all out). the main point about banning refuelling was to avoid drivers overtaking in pitstops. as long as there are mandatory pitstops, this will keep happening!! another opportunity wasted.

one final thought. bernie is crazy about medals, why doesn’t he give them out to who gets the fastest lap

anyway, none of the cars at valencia or jerez have had wheel covers on