Formula One bosses and team owners are meeting in Monaco on Tuesday to discuss radical proposals that will change the future of the sport. Max Mosley (president of the governing body FIA) has come up with a set of ideas to improve F1's appeal.

Among the changes to be discussed on Tuesday are:

Engines reduced from 3.0-litre V10 to 2.4-litre V8.
Engines to last for two races each.
Manual gearboxes and clutches.
Ban on power steering.
Front tyre width reduced and rear increased to slow down cars.
No spare car allowed during entire competition.
One tyre supplier.
Drastic restriction on private testing, limited by mileage rather than days.
New qualifying system to be discussed.
No tyre changes during races, except for punctures.

It's an interesting list, in a way it reminds me of Tony George's original plans for the IRL. Tony has beaten what was the dominate open wheel series, CART, into submission, but still the competition isn't what it should be and crowd levels still suffer.

The points I disagree with:

1. Changing tyre widths will only be worked around in the wind tunnel, Max Mosley isn't giving the engineers enough credit.

2. Having no spare car for an entire weekend may defeat one of the goals of the new rules, to have a larger field of cars for each event. A damaged car in practice or qualifying may lead to insufficient time to repair it and make the starting field. It also may lead to a car that makes the field on Sunday, but contains undetected flaws that become safety hazards during the race.

3. On the surface not allowing tyre changes during a race would cut costs and is an idea that has been tried in all levels of racing. At your local 1/4 mile bullring its called a "spec tire." At the F1 level it has the possibility of creating a tyre of such a hard compound that it becomes a libility rather than a help.

Overall Max has some good ideas. Lowering costs to all teams and sponsors should bring others into the sport. For the fan the resultant cut in top speeds will hardly be noticed, except on the qualifying time sheet.

With F1's top manufacturers threatening to set up a breakaway world championship, and BMW also expressing thoughts of quiting F1 at the end of 2007 its plain something has to change.

Cross Posted @ Full Throttle