I was always a fan of Marc Surer. He is a much underrated driver but he is wrong on this.

The FIA could hire anyone from John Barnard who designed McLarens and Ferraris to Gary Anderson who designed Jordans and Stewarts to several other people. Any one of these people could design a better set of regs and Gary Anderson via his Autosport column did.

The teams have all the technology but anyone who works for them has to respect their boss’s views. For example if the best thing to improve overtaking was to ban wings and that was Gilles Villeneuve’s view then no-one who worked for a team would suggest that because sponsors like wings and so do teams because a wing is a clearly defined area that can be sold as a package.

For those who think I made a mistake mentioning Gilles Vileneuve I did not. We have had the problem that long. For those who may not know Gilles was the father of Jacques Villeneuve and he died in 1982. There is a quote attributed to him where he said that the problem with modern(circa 1980/81) cars is that if you run behind another car through a corner you lose downforce on the front wing. You then have to drop back from the car in front and if you can’t follow closely through a corner you cannot overtake on the following straight. What Gilles proposed was as he said to rip the wings off and throw them away, not reduce them, not to modify them but bin them. He then suggested that his ideal race car would have a big normally aspirated engine and 21 inch rear slicks so that you could slide the car.

No-one who worked for a team could suggest that batch of mods because the management would not be happy. The tech regs have to come from the FIA and if they are not competent – which they are not – they should hire someone who is and give him a free hand.

I am of the opinion that Marc Surer hit the nail right on it`s head.
The F.I.A are not in a postion to design Race Cars.
We Have 3 or maybe 4 of the top Teams that have all
Know how in his field, why must the FIA get involved,
surley McLaren, Ferrari, B.M.W. and Toyota, ought to know better. I .M O.

Best regards,
Chris .Borg.

For anyone like Arthur who is new to F1 politics here is a 30 second history lesson which will explain why I think Bernie is operating Max by remote control and the fight between them is just a mechanism to allow Bernie to criticise Max for his personal behaviour aand to allow Bernie to keep all the sponsors, dignitaries etc happy.

Until the 1970s each team negoiated its own deal with each circuit. If Lotus didn’t like the deal offered by Interlagos they would not go to that race. Bernie got the teams togethe and formed FOCA (Formula Once Constructors Association) which negotiated collective deals and in return all the teams agreed to go to all the races. Bernie ran the Brabaham team and appointed a member of the board of March (a largely unsuccesful F1 constructor)as his deputy and lawyer. His name was Max.

At that time the FIA’s sporting arm FISA ran all motor sport. Bernie instigated a few arguments with Jean-Marie Balestre who was its president and he started a few of his own. The end resultwas Bernie created a situation where Balestre was FIA president and Max became FISA president.

Max used the FISA preidency to build a campaign for the FIA presidency and Bernie acted as a double agent. He assured Balestre that he was going to win while at the same time campaigning for Max. Max became FIA president and disbanded FISA so no-one could use that route against him.

Without Bernie Max would be long forgotten in F1 circles and would only ever be discussed at all when the subject of his father’s politics or his mother’s interesting interpretation of history or his aunt’s relationship was mentioned on TV.

Without Bernie Max would now be a failed physicist, failed lawyer and failed F1 team owner.

It was Mosley’s “cost-cutting” and contradictory thinking, combined with the greed of Bernie and the manufacturers, that got F1 into this mess. It would be silly of Max to believe that more of the same from him, in the absence of the manufacturers and/or Bernie becoming less greedy, would solve the problem of economic mutually assured destruction.

The traditional [races] were the six that were in the championship in 1950 and have been there ever since: Britain, France, Germany, Italy, Monaco and Belgium. But so far, there has never been an ASN coming to us saying we have got a problem, so if they do then we will have to look at it.

Germany didn’t have a GP in 1950. And there were 7 races, not 6.

Britain
Monaco
United States (Indianapolis 500, but it still counted for the WC)
Switzerland
Belgium
France
Italy

Ok the Swiss can’t hold any GPs, but he has added in Germany and removed the US from his recollection of the 1950 WC.

I’m not saying that Germany shouldn’t be thought of as a traditional GP the same as Britain and France etc, indeed it should, but I think the US GP should be as well, its been a part of the WC throughout its history and should probably be thought of the same way as some of the Euro GPs.

The writing has been on the wall for a very long
time. Surley this must be all about GREED!!!!!!!

For The Love Of Formula 1 Get rid of The ScumBags.

Best regards,

Chris.Borg.

Malta.

But….’power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely’…..they’ve been running things for too long for their own good and much more importantly, the good of the sport.

Bernie and Max….it’s time to go.