OCTOBER 2, 2003

A big decision day for F1

The Formula 1 team bosses are meeting today at London's Heathrow Airport to come up with answers as to how they are going to improve the show for next year. There have already been two lengthy meetings in Indianapolis to discuss the different ideas but to date there are no firm answers as people have been politicking and so getting a hard and fast agreement on anything has been very difficult. The FIA has ruled that there will be one engine per race weekend next year and although some (notably Renault) are arguing for engines to be used over two weekends, to stop some teams simply not going out in order to preserve their engines for the race. This has been used as a bartering tool in recent days but if the other teams stand firm the rule will not be passed and time will run out for a timetable for races to be established, forcing everyone to either accept the situation as it is or cave in to Renault. As most people are quite happy with the current timetable, apart from Bernie Ecclestone (who wants to change the qualifying format again), it is possible that there will be no change at all unless Ecclestone convince Renault to back down.

Whatever else is agreed it seeks that there will be a big change on Fridays with more time given to testing but trying to guess what will happen is fairly pointless as the ideas seem to be constantly moving on. There is a meeting of the F1 Commission tomorrow after which the proposals made will be put to the FIA World Council.