Max Mosley
aced with dwindling interest and spiralling costs, Formula One bosses meet in London on Monday with the most radical changes in the history of the sport on the agenda. A nine-point plan will be discussed by the all-powerful F1 Commission at their Heathrow Airport meeting with the aim of introducing sweeping changes which they hope will breathe new life into a flagging spectacle.
It is also expected that the Belgian Grand Prix will be dropped from the schedule after team bosses voted earlier this week against including it in the calendar as the Belgian Government is to bring in its ban on tobacco advertising before the race next year.
"We've prepared some extremely explosive suggestions," said FIA president Max Mosley.
Those ideas are:
1: Driver swapping - every driver would take the wheel of every other car during a season.
2: Qualifying - two sessions of 30 minutes on Friday and Saturday with a maximum of eight laps per session.
3: Tyres - each manufacturer can prepare a special tyre for each team
4: Weight - ballast of one kilo per point scored.
5: Testing - no private testing on circuits that stage rounds of the world championship and overall testing limited to twelve days from February 28 and November 1.
6: Aerodynamics - no more than two chassis per season
7: Engines - one engine per Grand Prix in 2003, one for four races in 2004 and one for eight in 2005
8: Gear boxes - to last for a number of races
9: Electronics - all teams to have standardised units and brakes
The drastic changes have been muted following another season in which Michael Schumacher and Ferrari coasted to victory and the worldwide economic slowdown led to increasing financial headaches for teams at the wrong end of the grid. Prost went bust while Arrows were declared insolvent.
But it was the domination of Ferrari which has caused most concern after Schumacher won 11 races, and teammate Rubens Barrichello four, leaving McLaren's David Coulthard and Ralf Schumacher in his Williams to hammer a minor dent into the Italians' armoury.
"Because of Ferrari racing has become boring," confessed Mosley. "It's not Ferrari's fault but rather the fault of the other teams who aren't as good. We've also got to reduce F1's annual budget by 500 million dollars. There's no longer as much money available, and not only from sponsors, television also wants to pay less."
However, the proposed changes have not gone down well with Ferrari chief Luca di Montezemolo who has threatened to pull his champions out of the series.
"I find the proposals slightly insane, stuff you would hear in a bar by amateurish fans with little knowledge of the sport," di Montezemolo told Autosport magazine. "But they raise the question that if these proposals go through - and I don't think they will - would it make any sense for us to keep investing in a modified formula? After having won so much we could look for new challenges outside of F1."
Even those drivers who have spent the season watching Schumacher and Barrichello disappear into the distance remain lukewarm on the changes.
"As a knee jerk reaction to try to handicap people who are doing a better job I don't think it is right," said Coulthard. "I think it goes against what Formula One stands for, in which the people with the cleverest minds and the best budgets do the best jobs."
Met deze veranderingen zal het wel een stuk spannender worden.
vindt het wel jammer dat waarschijnlijk Spa volgend jaar niet meer mee doet. 
)
achter