AUGUST 17, 2004

Schumacher joins the fight

Michael Schumacher says that the future of the sport is being disrupted by the ongoing fights between the Formula 1 team bosses.

"I think all of us have ideas how we can improve Formula 1," Schumacher said. " All of us believe they are right. But you have to come to a conclusion and that's difficult. If you have 10 people you have 10 ideas and that is why I think it's very important that you have the right groups to analyse and to make the right decisions.''

At the moment the teams are not thought likely to come up with any decisions and so the FIA will get its way on the technical regulations, despite the fact that many of the teams have serious reservations about what the federation is doing. However, they argue that a bad set of rules is better than no rules at all and so most have concluded that they will accept the rule changes. This was exactly what the FIA knew would happen when the rules were first proposed and it will mean that come October the federation will have a solution and will be able to bathe in the glory of that when it celebrates its 100th anniversary and the merger of the FIA and the AIT. However the federation's rules cannot be properly judged until we have seen the cars racing next. Until that happens all conclusions are about image rather than substance.

"As a team we are supporting the proposals that are put forward by the FIA at the moment," said Renault F1's Pat Symonds at the weekend, "but on a personal level I think really I do have to give a word of caution. I think that one of the very important things these days is the spectacle. We are talking about saving money but I am a great believer in generating income rather than saving money and I am very worried that if we do go to the single tyre rule that we will, I won't say destroy, that's an overreaction, we will certainly produce a show that I don't think will be as good as the show we have now and I think that is something we need to be very careful of. People say they want to see overtaking, they want to see a change in the order of the races and it may not happen so much with a single tyre."

Eddie Jordan agreed.

"Above all we do not need rules imposed on us," he said. "It would be far more prudent and sensible for the team principals to agree on this occasion, where a time factor is of the essence. We need clarity. We need certainty, not in October, yesterday. We need it immediately."

"In an ideal system, we would have working groups and a nicely constructed system," said Jaguar Racing boss Tony Purnell. "Unfortunately we don't have any of that. There is no real promoter element in the rules: making it more exciting, making it more entertaining. So I guess that going through the media and appealing to the public is a pragmatic way of trying to improve the entertainment."