The European Grand Prix will be remembered not just for the weather-plagued qualifying periods and race, but also for the rules changes announced for the 1996 Grand Prix season. For the record, on-track qualifying highlights this week included three top drivers (Coulthard, Schumacher, and Berger) that improved upon a year-long domination of their teammates. Two other top drivers (Irvine and Hakkinen) regained control by out-qualifying their teammates. Frentzen continued his total domination of the Sauber team, Brundle continued to be tough in the qualifying sessions, Salo had an easy time while Katayama was on the mend, and Papis firmly whipped Inoue. The 107 percent rule would have ruined the weekend for Tarquini, Montermini, Inoue, Diniz, Moreno, and Deletraz.
But the big qualifying news from the European Grand Prix came in the form of rules changes for next year's races. Friday and Saturday morning will soon become practice sessions, and the grid will be determined entirely during a one hour session on Saturday afternoon. In addition, the 107 percent rule will be in effect--stay within 107 percent of the pole time or take a hike.
My knee-jerk reaction to these changes is not positive initially. I remember attending races in the past with 30 or more cars arriving at the site, all teams ready to race. Friday morning was a time of pre-qualifying to get rid of the bottom-feeders of the series. The sun was hardly above the horizon on Friday morning, and the Grand Prix weekend for some teams was over, despite the great expense to travel to the site. Qualifying sessions not only established the grid, but the qualifying sessions also eliminated more cars from the race activities. I enjoyed those days, but I must accept that they are gone.
There are two realities that we all must face. First, there are far fewer teams today than what we had in Formula One only five years ago, and there are few reasons to drag out the qualifying sessions to slightly re-shuffle the near-stagnant, all to familiar grid positions. Second, it is far too easy to moan about the coming changes and live in the past. Let us begin to look at the positive aspects of the rules changes.
(1) Since most of us arrive at the races on Thursday, we now can stay out later that night and not be at the track by sunrise on Friday morning. Unless you enjoy practice sessions, you can trim costs from your Grand Prix weekend by skipping Friday altogether.
(2) Given the sure lack of attendance on Friday, Formula One brass may give us general admission seating on that day, providing all race fans a chance to watch practice from assorted locations around the track.
(3) The Saturday run for the pole and determination of the grid will be exciting, and live television is apparently planned even for the United States. For many of us, this means more Formula One coverage than ever before.
(4) The 107 percent rule will cut down on those back-of-the-pack first turn accidents that produce too many red flag delays. In the United States, any big delay may well mean that the end of the race is not covered live due to the wildly popular two hour NFL Game Day program. The rule will further cut down on moving chicanes that have, from time to time, overly influenced the race for leading positions.
In the end, I applaud Formula One officials for their recent decisions. In the States, we have seen all professional sports move in the opposite direction. For the first time ever, baseball has wild card selections that expand the number of playoff teams to eight (throughout most of this century, the number was two). Professional football now has ten playoff teams (with four wild cards), hockey plays an entire season to eliminate a handful of teams from the playoffs, and the situation in basketball is not much better. These teams do not survive to make the playoffs, but they survive because of the playoffs. The tendency has been to reward the mediocre by making it progressively easier for them to claim post-season turf.
Three cheers for Formula One. Their recent rule changes, particularly the 107 percent rule, will make it more difficult for the mediocre teams to make the race, and virtually impossible for the weaker teams to survive into Sunday's activities. From my viewpoint, this will eliminate the weaker teams entirely. Sponsors may be very reluctant to get behind teams that are not likely to make the races, and those teams will struggle to their deaths.
How this all of this plays-out in the years to come is unknown, but one golden rule will never be broken in life or in Formula One--the rich will get richer.