Going backwards to go forwards?

Formula One always seems to be in crisis, whether its ridiculously high costs or disappointingly low levels of engine noise, the sport is always trying to fix itself.

The latest issue to be debated among the teams? The look of the cars. They’re not spectacular enough, they’re not fast enough, they don’t excite fans like cars of the past did. Apparently.

It’s an understandable point to discuss. Overall television figures are dropping and have been for a number of years, but that’s hardly surprising when the world is consuming its TV in different ways (and you move away from the mass numbers to pay-per-view broadcasters in some regions). But is it really a crisis? And does it need urgently addressing?

Ferrari released its view of a future car this week to coincide with the F1 Commission meeting, with team principal Maurizio Arrivabene - who has previously called for revolution - admitting it was designed to instigate change to try and excite fans.

“That car was a provocation, but a provocation that is not so far from the reality,” Arrivabene says. “We could achieve it in the future. I’m expecting other teams to propose their own view because without talking about ‘my car is better than your car’ I was doing this design before [talks of change] thinking this is stupid, this is crazy.

“I’m going to ask every team to try to propose a concept car. This way we are going to move something instead of stabilising the situation as it is. That was a provocation.

“At the beginning of the year when we presented our car I said ‘It looks sexy’. And everybody was talking about this word ‘sexy’; it came out of my mouth like this. It would have been easier for me to say ‘Bella’ or ‘it’s cool’ but this sentence came out of my mouth and my heart.”

The cost of racing is definitely an issue that needs to be addressed, and one thing that costs money is change. But if the teams are incapable of agreeing on significant cost-cutting measures, then Arrivabene was trying to provoke the right kind of change.

Looking back at the past naturally results in a romanticised view of matters. The highlights are all that are shown, not the tedious periods of races. The future is what excites; F1 teams pushing the boundaries and introducing something new.

Arrivabene believes removing restrictions on designers is the answer, saying comments from legendary F1 designer Gordon Murray have stuck with him about wanting more freedom.

“So our message was ‘OK, try to liberate the creativity and create a beautiful car’,” Arrivabene adds. “If other teams have other ideas I’m not going to say ‘Ah, we were the first or the second, my car is better than yours’. They’re more than welcome to create a kind of wave and try to move the status quo.”

But F1 designers are not the people the sport needs to worry about. If interest in the sport is waning it’s because Formula One doesn’t keep the fans happy, not because the designers are disgruntled.

The sport saw revolution on the engine side just 12 months ago, yet Ferrari was proposing a switch to a 1.9-litre V8 turbo engine at the latest Strategy Group meeting. Revolution doesn’t automatically lead to a successful solution, last season it resulted in one dominant team which could have impacted on racing but for Mercedes’ willingness to let their drivers fight it out on track. It’s a warning, though, that revolution needs to be researched, considered and tested.

However, making drastic changes to make the cars more like the designs of the past is, in my view, not the way to go. What was relevant then is not relevant now. What was exciting then is not necessarily exciting now. Those cars were futuristic at that time, so today’s cars need to ensure they are futuristic now.

The F1 Commission couldn’t agree on a clear direction for future regulation changes, but having discussed topics such as wider cars based on past designs, that should be a relief. Arrivabene will struggle to find a common consensus on what a futuristic car should be, but it definitely should be futuristic, not a rose-tinted attempt to recreate cars we’ve seen before.

There’s an old adage in F1 that if you stand still you go backwards. So why would the sport choose to go backwards?

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