[ian@huth]

One of the problems with F1 is that races become processions with mechanical failure being one of the main thing that alters the finishing order. With the fastest cars from qualifying being at the front and overtaking being nigh on impossible a lot of races lose the sparkle that once existed. You get the situation where a couple of cars go speeding off into the distance with a slower car in third place which is having a problem holding up a train of cars which could go much faster if only they could get past. This often results in the only racing worth watching being amongst the lower placed cars, the winner being obvious after a couple of laps as long as everythings holds together.

Something should be done to encourage more overtaking and make it easier and to give the slower teams a chance.

Perhaps a speed limiter on the cars together with a "push to pass" system such as Champ cars have. This would prevent potentially faster cars from pulling away on the straights from the slower cars who could use the "push to pass" to give them the extra grunt meaning a Minardi using "push to pass" could pass a Ferrari not using it. Something along the lines of cars being restricted to x mph with "push to pass" allowing them to achieve x+y mph when used with say 30 seconds of "push to pass" being available during the race. The push to pass time could be varied from race to race in a handicap system where the slower cars had more seconds available than the faster ones.

You could have a really big shake up of the points sytem with points being gained in qualifying and for fastest lap as well as the race finishing order. I would love to see a race where 20 points were awarded for fastest qualifying going down to 1 point for slowest with cars starting the race in reverse grid order to qualifying. The fastest qualifier would then get 20 qualifyng points and would have to pass every other car to get the 20 race win points.