Feedback: your letters
For two years the championship was run to F2 regulations while a new F1 was worked out – could this pattern repeat itself?
To complicate Formula 1’s dilemma of where to go with the engine regulations, let alone the budget cap and car rules, we now have an enforced hiatus due to COVID-19. Of course GPS will survive and we’ll have a world champion, but in what form?
In 1951 a hard decision had to be made as racing to the F1 regulations had become non-viable due to cost and the number of cars available. So for the next two years (1952-53) the championship was run to Formula 2 regulations while a new F1 was worked out – could this pattern repeat itself?
This pandemic has altered the world and no one has any idea how it’s going to pan out. There is a case for declaring 2020 dead in the water and having no world champion this year. But just maybe there is a low-cost solution: run the 2020 F1 championship over eight races (all conveniently located for ease and cost) using Formula 2 cars. Maybe even rotate them between drivers to avoid screams of ‘unfair, my car’s rubbish!’.
Top up the grid with other cars from outside the ‘anointed teams’… 25-30 car grids with pre-qualifying. Wow! This would put pressure on the drivers and see who can operate under such intense scrutiny. It would produce a championship to remember and a worthy champion, save F1, and a lot of money.
If the pandemic lasts and the world economy is trashed, maybe the F2 rules could run for another year while everyone untangled their knickers and self-interest and worked out a proper set of future F1 regulations.
Guy Dormehl
Garden Route, South Africa
Archive image stirs familial pride
During these very difficult times of lockdown, I have to express my gratitude that a friend for almost 50 years can still come through my front door in order to keep me entertained. I refer of course to your wonderful publication, and I thank you for all that the Autosport team are doing to keep the publication going during these very difficult times.
I also have to express how surprised, amazed and indeed proud I was when reading your 2 April edition to find a photograph of my late father, Terry Hampton, busy at work. I am referring to the From the Archive photograph on pages 70-71, which shows Graham Hill at Goodwood in 1964 looking down and watching my father checking the nearside rear tyre.
My father was the technical development manager for Dunlop racing tyres during this period, and used to tell me stories of both the drivers and team owners. I have several pictures in my office of my father ‘at work’, and in fact one that I have, showing him deep in discussion with Graham
Hill at the British GP in 1961, has even been shared with Damon Hill when I had the good fortune of meeting him at one of his ‘evening with…’ functions a few years ago.
Paul Hampton
Dewsbury, West Yorkshire
Can Channel 4 help lift the gloom?
Why can’t Channel 4, in the slots already allocated in the coming weeks and months, show F1 races from recent years to save us from the starvation levels that we are experiencing in this current gloom?
Charles Mclaren
By email