Formula One's rule makers are fighting a losing war against developing technology. The methods they've chosen have reduced the risks, but have also taken most of the romance out of the sport, and made passing nearly extinct. It doesn't have to be this way. For over 20 years, drivers and engineers have advocated — and sanctioning bodies have ignored — a more rational approach.

Motor racing has its closest parallel in war, and despite some obvious exceptions - people spend money to attend races, but will spend far more to escape a war - the balance seems to tip in favor of the similarities.

Among other things, war and racing share an almost religious dedication to the development of technology. And the things on which our sport prides itself have by and large been adapted from the materials, the manufacturing processes and the increasing electronic sophistication developed for military aviation.

From the beginning of the sport until 1979, this worked to racing's advantage, increasing both performance and the safety of drivers and spectators. We've progressed from steel–tube space frames (the WWI biplane) to aluminium monocoques (the WWII monoplane) to composite chassis (the Cold War and its off–shoot, the Space Race). We've gone from cloth caps which merely kept a driver's hair out of his eyes to helmets made from aerospace resins and composites. The battering ram cars we turned out for 60 years often survived high–speed crashes their drivers did not, but they've been replaced by energy absorbing structures, and the common sight of drivers walking away from 200 plus mph impacts even before the rescue crews can reach them.

Today's cars generate more than three times the force of gravity in cornering and braking, can theoretically be driven on the ceiling, and have engines in which intake and exhaust valves reach supersonic speeds.

Yet for all its fascinating appeal, since the introduction of ground effects and the widespread use of wind tunnels, it seems that increasing technical sophistication has been a cul–de–sac for racing, and the drivers might more accurately be called computer operators. It has removed most - some would say all - of the romance from both combat and what remains, if in smaller degree now, a blood sport.

We'll leave to more qualified observers the debate over whether killing by remote control - with 'smart bombs' launched in the dark from unseen stealth aircraft, and 'stand–off' weapons fired by men who cannot see their enemy - has made it easier for nations to engage in activities like the Gulf War. More relevant to this discussion is the fact that many of us can still remember the names of fighter aces from World War II and Korea, and the test pilots immortalized by Tom Wolfe's "The Right Stuff", but no one is likely to be able to name an ace from the 40 years and many wars and 'conflicts' which have followed.

Look also at the "Star Wars" films. Set in the far–distant future, the films draw not so much on an extension of current, high–tech weaponry and the tools of mass destruction, but on mano–a–mano duels with 'light sabers.' The films are far more about individuals than technology, about pilot/heroes who would seem far more at home in the movie "Grand Prix" than in a real one. And the appeal of the Luke Skywalker and Han Solo characters, romantic figures to the core, has proven universal.

The parallel in racing seems all too obvious. Racing's equivalent of Chuck Yeager and Luke Skywalker - the men who race open–wheel, open– cockpit cars - have become wealthy, and isolated from their public in equal measure, and the risks they run have been reduced, both in fact and in appearance, as they run, in line astern, as though on railroad tracks.

Racing at the sharp end of the sport's spectrum has become antiseptic, safe, socially acceptable and, in the process, far less emotionally involving, for both the fans and the drivers. Jacques Villeneuve once said that "We get used to these speeds, and it doesn't feel special. Formula One is the top of racing, but it's just not fast enough to make you feel like you are doing something special."

There are still places where a fan can stand and begin to appreciate what the cars can do. Eau Rouge at Spa comes to mind, but increasingly, the corners are slower by design - the most common corner in F1 is a third–gear affair - and the spectators are moved farther and farther from the action.

For the majority of fans, who see almost all of their races on television, the camera angles and the politically correct commentary are sufficient to convince one that there's nothing particularly risky, or even difficult - and certainly nothing emotionally involving - about the activity. A day at the races is more and more an event, more akin to attending a music concert than watching, with breath held, someone walking the high wire without a net. The Long Beach CART race is billed as "The World's Fastest Beach Party," and after direct exposure, one is easily persuaded that the emphasis is on the party, dude.

That is at least honest, because there's pitifully little racing left in motor racing. From NASCAR's restrictor plate races at Daytona and Talladega to any Grand Prix you care to name, steadily increasing technology and, with respect to Formula One and CART, poorly conceived 'safety' rules have all but put an end hand–to-hand combat in racing.

The mindless pursuit of aerodynamic downforce - and the failure of the rules makers to do anything more than pay lip service to its reduction - has created a situation in which the most common pass for position now takes place on pit road. And just as a combat pilot needs 'bomb damage assessment' video tape to find out whether or not he actually killed a building or a company of soldiers, drivers often need to be told by radio that, yes, you did get out of the pits ahead of the other guy, and yes, you're now in the lead. Dramatic increases in technology, and the money which has made them possible, have taken something fundamental, something human, out of the sport, which is increasingly about the machinery, and decreasingly about the drivers.

Money, which has been injected into the sport in quantities that make it easier to weigh than count, is at the core of the counter argument. Racing's annual turnover has grown exponentially over the last 15 years. Teams now have more invested in their transporters than their entire operations were worth a decade and a half ago. But what that overlooks is critical.

The most spectacular growth has been in America, where the level of affluence has created a boom market for entertainment of all types. More importantly, the most spectacular growth in U.S. racing has been in NASCAR, the segment of the sport in which technology has changed the least, and in which they do the most (though not enough) on–track passing. But even in NASCAR, drivers and track owners - not to mention fans - are becoming increasingly vocal about how little actual racing there is in their events.

When this many people are getting this rich from racing, anyone who suggests that the emperor is exposing himself in public risks being labelled a heretic, yet it seems irresponsible not to draw what seems an inescapable conclusion: when racing has become just one of many entertainments for the mass market, it damned well better be entertaining. And in racing, entertainment is dependent on the uncertainty of the winner and the number of on–track passes, elements which increasingly seem headed for the endangered species list.

Not surprisingly, if you know him, Max Mosley disagrees with that assertion. The man with the most influence on F1's rules thinks there's plenty of passing in Formula One, and has been known to complain that there used to be too many passes. More specifically, he has said on several occasions that the slipstreaming battles at Monza in the '70s had so many changes of lead that people became bored, proving once again that it is possible to be both highly intelligent and utterly lacking in common sense.

Mosley actually said once, in an interview with Kevin Easton for The Times, that "It is now very difficult to overtake. But is that a problem? Is not Grand Prix racing more interesting today than it has ever been because it is difficult to overtake? ...from the public's point of view, once upon a time, when car A caught car B, it would just overtake. Now it cannot, so one of the results is that pit stops are of crucial importance, adding a new and exciting dimension. The build–up to that can go on for 30 minutes, so the tension and drama is terrific."

Mosley's memory is either faulty or convenient. Passing was never automatic, and in fact there was far less overtaking in the 'good old days' than many now remember. Also, Mosley is obviously not watching Grands Prix on television, and especially not at 4:30 am in California, where that 30 minutes of "tension and drama" tends to make the bedroom seem like the best place to add a "new and exciting dimension" to the dawn patrol. And we don't believe Mosley has spent much time in the grandstands at GPs lately, either.

If he had a fan's perspective - and the larger television audience's view is by far the most important - we doubt he'd have said, as he has, that basketball is boring, because there is so much scoring, while soccer is exciting precisely because there are so few goals. What Mosley fails to understand is the tension created by the back–and– forth of a close, yet high scoring basketball game. He also doesn't understand auto racing any longer, or he'd realize that Grands Prix are more like chess than soccer, and we have it on good authority that chess matches are not widely attended, nor are they a major draw on television.

Actually, Mosley has had to reach to arrive at his opinions, and having reached them, chooses not to be deterred by opposing views or facts. In 1998, he asked a group of F1 engineers to investigate why recent rules changes had not made the cars slower, nor the racing more competitive.

The recommendation was clear: increase tyre grip by 50 percent, reduce downforce by 10 percent and increase drag by 10 percent. Call it the Villeneuve Solution, for essentially he same thing was advocated by Gilles Villeneuve at the end of the '70s, and by his son 20 years later.

Mosley studiously ignored the recommendation, opting instead for the inherently limited approach of cutting grooves in tyre treads. (Apparently it never occurred to him that the same thing could have been accomplished by narrowing the tyres, which would have made them more stable and predictable than they have become, and reducing the tyre diameter, which would have increased tyre temperatures and forced drivers back to the dead art of saving one's tyres.)

The reason for all of the changes - from the chicane blight which followed the deaths of Ayrton Senna and Roland Ratzenberger in 1994 to the treaded tyres of 1998 - was ostensibly safety, but given the safety record of the years since the elder Villeneuve was killed in 1982, it seems that Mosley's primary concern was public relations, rather than driver safety.

More to the point, though it isn't fashionable to say so, racing is supposed to be dangerous. Through the mid–1980s, that, more than any other factor, is why drivers raced and the rest of us watched. If breaking the sound barrier had not killed so many pilots, Wolfe's book about test pilots and the first rocket jockeys would never have been written, let along turned into a motion picture. And having known drivers from both eras, we can assure you that 'safe' racing has produced a fundamental change in the kind of men who race. It is not a change for the better.

That no doubt sounds harsh, and cavalier, and we hasten to add that we are not advocating a return to the mortality rate which existed in the 1950s. On the other hand, when more competitors die in college stick–and–ball sports than in racing, then racing has lost a significant part of what once set it apart.

A couple of years ago, Stirling Moss and Jack Brabham were promoting a planned race with 1966–69 vintage F1 cars, to be held in Adelaide in early April. The two viewed footage of the 1967 German Grand Prix, held on the old Nurburgring, not the sanitized, stadium track used now. And in the course of what was a press promotion, they offered some telling comments about the changes which Formula One in specific, and racing in general have undergone. "Driving the cars in those days was very hard, it was a challenge," said three–time World Champion Brabham. "Today it seems to be all driven by computers, just pressing a button." Concurring, Moss added that, "Drivers now are not the same sort of animal as they were then. You can't compare a modern driver with a '60s one."

Turning to the subjects of technology and safety, Moss said he thinks, "the technology is remarkable, but I personally feel that a lot of things have been removed that were reasonably testing. To me, safety has not done any favors to motor racing. I don't agree with that, myself. I know I am in a minority, and one has to be very careful as you get misquoted (but) I think motor racing should be a dangerous sport, because that's what makes it different from cricket or tennis."

Brabham agreed. "It was a great era," he said. "The fact that the driver had to really work for his living, and it was quite a dangerous era as well. I think the danger part was part of the satisfaction, really, of driving in those days. Today, they have very much safer cars to drive in, and very much safer circuits to drive on. That would certainly take away some of the excitement, as far as I'm concerned."

Advances in chassis construction and race track barriers seem to have made the sport sufficiently safe, and perhaps a bit too safe. What is of far greater importance, however, is the fact that the largely unrestrained pursuit of technology, and especially aerodynamics, has all but killed legitimate passing. And that is all the more damnable because it has been wholly unnecessary.

Even if one accepts that the racing needs to be made even safer, the evidence all points to the same thing which dead–end technology begs: a crying need to change - no, reverse - the direction in which the rules have long been taking open–wheel racing. Fortunately, the same solution will increase both safety and the incidence of passing, while also increasing the payoff for talent behind the wheel. Drivers don't crash on straights, drag racing excepted; they crash in corners. The few exceptions only prove the rule.

In order to make the racing safer, therefore, the trick is to slow cornering speeds, and thereby reduce impact velocities when it all goes wrong. Even Max Mosley agrees with that much.

How, then, do we do it?

The senior Villeneuve was faced, at the end of his too–brief career, with unrestricted, sliding–skirt ground effects cars. Just the throat of the underbody tunnels had about as much volume as the diffusers at the back of current cars, and the level of downforce and cornering performance was almost unimaginable. High–speed corners went from having braking areas to being taken flat in top gear.

As an inverse measure of the performance, the drag was so great that just lifting off the throttle at 200 mph produced 1–G deceleration, and several drivers admitted privately that hard braking and fast corners were causing them to experience the beginning of 'gray–out,' the artificial gravity created by the cars preventing their hearts from pumping enough blood and oxygen to their brains.

As they have since, the cars tracked, absolutely glued to the track. Watching Villeneuve and the rest drive those cars down the Mistral straight at Paul Ricard, and then take the right–hand Signes flat was to have bravery defined.

But as Villeneuve pointed out repeatedly, the cornering speeds were limited, not by the car, but by the speed the car could reach before getting to it. Accuracy of steering input was critical, but because the car was capable of going through even a corner like Signes even faster, real driving talent wasn't much of a factor.

Completing the parallel to today's cars, following another car upset the aerodynamics, and braking distances were so short that there was little opportunity to outbrake another driver. Villeneuve's solution was simplicity itself: get rid of the wings and ground effects, double the power, and put big, fat slicks on the back, and much smaller slicks on the front. That, he said, would make the cars hard to drive, rewarding talent, while reducing cornering speeds for safety. Without the aerodynamic appendages, you could follow another driver closely, exploiting his draft. With less downforce and drag, speed would increase on straights, braking distances would grow, and passing would return.

Villeneuve was right then, and while the cars and aerodynamics have changed much since, his son is equally right when he mirrors the sentiment in this day and age. Even Mosley's own special commission concluded a couple of years ago essentially the same thing.

Technology is an important part of Formula One and to give the engineers greater scope for pioneering, about half the rule book needs to be thrown out. Create a three–dimensional 'box' into which the sidepod must fit, and a second box for the nose. Each should have minimum and maximum widths, the minimums designed to provide driver safety, and a flat floor extending to the trailing edge of the car. Let engine covers and airboxes be free. And what goes on inside those boxes, unless its patently unsafe, should be the exclusive concern of the guys who design the cars. Vehicle minimum weights should be reduced by the weight of existing wings, plus another 100 pounds to eliminate ballast and focus engineers on putting the weight in the right place by design, rather than by Band–Aid.

Reintroduce slick–tread tyres, of course, but with very narrow sidewalls, just like the Porsche in the driveway. That would stop people using the tyres as springs, and hopefully bring the return of meaningful suspension travel - dare one hope for body roll? - and place renewed emphasis on suspension design. Rear tyres should triple in width, and increase slightly in overall diameter, while equally low–profile fronts should be perhaps 10 percent narrower than current tyres. Track dimensions should return to 1997 levels.

Engine displacement should be increased to 4.0 liters or more, to assure at least 1,000 hp. Internally, engine design should be free. Any number of cylinders, oval pistons, ceramic materials... whatever the engine manufacturers are willing to fund, except turbochargers and superchargers.

Fuel should be free, as long as it doesn't cause cancer, and to hell with the EC's new requirements that combustion of pump gasoline produce less sulfur emissions. This is racing, not a Sierra Club meeting. Worry about the cars in the spectator enclosures, not the race cars.

Transmissions should be shifted by drivers, not computers and hydraulic cylinders. Clutches should be operated by pedal only, and changing gears should be done by moving a stick, not 'flicking a paddle.' Drivers should be able to miss gears, which probably also implies the end of sequential gearboxes. So be it.

Electronics should be restricted to rev–limiting, and to running the engine's fuel delivery and spark timing, and do so without knowing what gear is being used, or what part of the track the car is on. No electro–hydraulic differentials, nor any other form of real or ersatz traction control. That's what the little hairs on your rear end and your right foot are for.

No refuelling should be allowed, and you should be able to use as many tyres as you can profitably put on the car, in practice, qualifying and the races. Pitlane speed limits should be abolished. Where necessary, widen pit roads, and/or limit the number of people who can work on a car during a pit stop. Above all, let the racers race. This isn't a full–contact sport, but in racing, incidents are inevitable. Repeat offenders should be looked at, by fellow drivers and officials, but the term 'avoidable accident' is an oxymoron.

What we are convinced those changes will produce is cars that are dramatically faster on the straights, and just as dramatically slower in the corners. Without wings or ground effects, cars would be able to follow each other closely, possibly leading to the return of slipstream passing.

Suddenly, cars would be able to follow each other through corners just inches apart, which opens the possibility of getting a run on someone coming off a corner, and with the power–to–weight ratio and lack of downforce, the ability to do that would be dependent on a driver's skill.

At the other end of the straights, higher terminal speeds and slower cornering speeds would dictate substantially longer braking areas, and make demon outbraking maneuvers possible beyond the first– gear corners to which they now seem relegated. It's highly subjective, but we think the cars would be far more attractive, and look far more purposeful. Meaner, if you will.

At a stroke, the cars would become more predictable than they are on the junk tyres now required by the FIA, and also harder to drive. And we suspect even the likes of Jacques Villeneuve would find them challenging and exciting to drive. Passing would still be anything but an automatic assumption, but would be a far more frequent occurrence. Differences between cars would still exist, but the differences among the drivers would be of far greater significance. And while some seem to have forgotten, the Constructors' Championship is the afterthought. From the beginning, the point of the exercise has been to establish the best driver, not the best design engineer.