F1 Supremo, Bernie Ecclestone, believes that the series he has worked so hard to build needs a full overhaul of the rules and regulations in order to spice things up.
According to the 78 year old, the hybrid engines, that were introduced three years ago, should be one of the first things to go, along with a rethink of the race format over the three day weekend and making the rules a lot easier to understand, and not just for the fans…
"The rules have to be changed - all of them," Ecclestone was quoted as saying on Autosport. "They are too complicated. We are in the entertaining business, but how are we supposed to entertain people when the audience doesn't understand a thing anymore?”
“Even the drivers don't know any more what they can and cannot do on track. Sometimes I think the rulebook just says: 'don't race!' Let them touch from time to time, so what? Let the drivers handle it themselves."
As for the format, which currently consists of three practice sessions, one qualifying hour and a two hour race, Ecclestone believes that it should resemble the GP2 and GP3 format of two separate races.
"Two times 40-minute racing is more attractive to a TV audience than a boring Grand Prix," he said. "We have to introduce new engine rules as soon as possible. The important thing is to rule out the hybrid engines. Todt thinks they are the spirit of our times, and this may be true for normal road cars, but in F1 people want to see something special.”
“They want to have noisy, powerful engines that can be managed only by the best drivers in the world. You don't put orthopedic shoes onto pro football players, only because these kinds of shoes are trending in everyday life."
