[Dutton]

Totally manual boxes.........ah, man, that is something I would just love to see. Generally speaking, I am entirely happy for F1 to be dominated by "irrelevant" technology and be car dominated: this is just what F1 is, and has always been. A nice old-fashioned H-pattern manual gearbox, though, is right up vying for the top spot of my F1 wish-list. I am a total reactionary in this regard.

I also think having a fuel-restricted formula would be a good and positive thing, with the fuel allowance ever-decreasing (within reasonable limits), but combined with a severe relaxing of configuration regulations. Given drivers generally despise having to race by fuel economy, have it so that electronic gizmos ensure a car will not use too much fuel in a race. The driver can keep his foot the floor the whole race if he wishes, but not taking it easier earlier on means the software will automatically restrict power output (and so on) at an earlier point to get the car to the end. From my armchair perspective, I would quite happily leave it unregulated by software. I find economy racing entirely interesting in its own right, but given many fans/drivers/teams seem to not, this software angle is one way to try and minimise the "pain". The software approach would be quite fitting for F1, too, I think: it provides an arena for the development of complicated, esoteric systems. [It could also be said these fuel-management systems could be applied for different ends in other scenarios - road-relevancy blah, blah.]

As far as road-relevancy goes, and I am not of the mindset that F1 has any particular need to be such at all (indeed, the business of going open-wheel prototype racing is so unrelated to road cars it is kinda pointless to try to link it to road relevancy), I think the engine fuel-economy angle surely has to be one of the most clearly linked?


Well, anyway, that'll do for now.