FIA president Max Mosley has dismissed the notion that replacing Formula 1’s points system with medals for the top three finishers would encourage overtaking and lead to better racing.

The medals scheme is being pushed by the sport’s commercial boss Bernie Ecclestone, who believes the current points structure offers insufficient reward for winning and therefore too little incentive to overtake.

The FIA recently published a study showing how a medal system would have affected the outcome of past world championships, but its analysis was criticised for failing to take account of Ecclestone’s point that drivers adjust their tactics depending on the reward structure.

However, Mosley counters that it is the design of the cars, not the points system, that makes overtaking an infrequent occurrence.

“If the idea is to make people keen to overtake then we need to do a better job on the cars’ bodywork than we have done,” he told journalists at a lunch on Wednesday.

“Fiddling around with the points system won’t fix the problem.”

Following proposals by F1’s Overtaking Working Group, the technical regulations have been overhauled for this season in a bid to make the cars less sensitive to the aerodynamic wake and more able to race closely.

But Mosley fears that even these significant changes – including the reintroduction of slick tyres and a big reduction in downforce – may prove not to have been bold enough.

“I’m told it’s the biggest change since 1983 but I’m not sure it will solve the problem,” he said.

The FIA’s technical consultant Tony Purnell raised similar concerns last year, telling Racecar Engineering magazine: “I’m absolutely sure the cars will be better, but some would say we’re talking about a remedial basket case as far as good racing goes, because the car is so badly affected when following.

“While the cars will be better, have the changes gone far enough? We just don’t know.”

Mosley again floated the idea of movable aerodynamic devices as the more radical solution that may be required.

These would change the level of downforce and drag a car is generating depending on its positioning on the track, so it would gain, rather than lose, downforce when running close behind a rival – thereby avoiding the loss of front-end grip that is the main impediment to cars circulating in close company.

The intention would be to recreate the kind of wheel-to-wheel slipstreaming battles that took place on fast circuits like Monza in the 1960s.

Movable aerodynamic devices have been banned in F1 since the late 1960s after the high pole-mounted wings of that era broke off and caused several serious accidents.

The 2009 rules have already taken a small step towards reintroducing them by allowing a cockpit-adjustable flap on the front wing, but Mosley envisages an automatic system.

source[www.itv-f1.com]

 

It would definitely be cool to see movable aerodynamics and more cars on a race-winning pace this season or the next.