Refuelling is likely to return to Formula One after the sport’s strategy group put forward the idea for the 2017 season.
The suggestion awaits ratification by two further layers of rule-making before being reintroduced eight years after it was abandoned.
The idea was about the only concrete finding of note when the strategy group finally put out a mostly hollow press release. Its contents reinforced the idea that the sport’s rulers are fiddling while Rome burns.
As reported by Sportsmail on Friday, there was no agreement whatsoever on the main issue before them - the financial plight of the less successful teams. Nor was there a single idea on how to improve the sport this season.
And for 2016, the only proposed new idea is to allow teams “free choice of the two dry tyre compounds (out of the four) that each team can use during the race weekend.” Whoopee.
Thankfully, for 2017, Formula One’s navel-gazing extended beyond the burning issues of tyres. As well as returning to refuelling, such ideas as getting “faster cars” by “five to six” seconds in lap times through “aerodynamic rules evolution, wider tyres and reduction of car weight” were put forward. How to realise these nebulous aspirations will only take, roughly, a thousand more hours of discussion.
MORE NOISE TOO
Another idea was having “higher revving cars and increased noise” along with “more aggressive looks” - another thousand hours of disagreement awaits on those frilly ambitions, too.
The strategy group - comprising the FIA, six leading teams and Bernie Ecclestone - said they will also look into a “global reflection on race weekend format” (who knows what the word global means in this context) and “measures to make starts only activated by the driver without any outside assistance,” which sounded welcome.
And cutting costs? They will continue to look into the matter. “A comprehensive proposal to ensure the sustainability of the sport has emerged,” said a vague statement.
The meeting, which was held on Friday, also decided to stick with current hybrid engines. It would have been impossible to get Mercedes, for example, to agree otherwise.
The statement concluded: “All parties agreed to work together with an intention to firm up these proposals and submit them for approval as soon as possible.”
Daily Mail