Well done drivers, but what’s next?
Hats off to the drivers for publicly coming out against the ludicrous way Formula 1 is run. Pretty much all of us can see the problems and it is nice to see the drivers – the people most of us want to watch – coming out alongside the fans.
My only concern is the lack of a coherent alternative. It is always easier to criticise a system than it is to come up with a better one. And even if you could come up with one, it would be difficult to make it happen…because of the way F1 is run. It’s a bit of a Catch-22 situation.
A lot of this stems from the catastrophic deal – dating back to Max Mosley’s time at the FIA – to sell F1’s long-term commercial rights for a relative pittance. And not just sell to anyone, but investment firm CVC, an organisation with no interest in F1 other than making money from it.
The best that can probably be hoped for is that an organisation with an element of motorsport knowledge and enthusiasm buys the rights from CVC. Unless there is a way of turning over the original deal?
In the meantime, F1 decisions will probably not achieve what we want. Even the new 2017 rules, the details of which are unconfirmed, are a worry.
Part of the drive for change is based on the fallacy that the cars aren’t quick enough, and some of the aims seem to be contradictory, or at least very difficult to achieve: faster cars and better racing, for example.
Let’s just hope the on-track action is, as in Melbourne, enough to at least distract us all from the problems for a couple of hours on Sundays.