Friday, November 16, 2012

Formula One is great, but could it be better?

If you know me even a little bit you know I love a good motorsports race.  The sounds of the engines roaring past as people cheer on there favorite driver; its pure awesomeness.  There has been a lot of excitement in the past couple races and it struck an idea.


Photo Courtesy of Formula 1 Google+ page

On Friday night races at the local track I noticed qualifying first meant you started last.  An interesting concept that I think Formula 1 should adopt.  Think about it, give the driver some points for qualifying in the top 5, 5 for pole, 4 for second, etc...  Then on race day line them up in reverse order.  This way it would make qualifying another great way for teams to score points, and would spice up Sunday outings.  I had this idea as I was watching Mr. Vettel run from 24th up to 3rd.  I have had multiple people say how awesome that was to watch.  Why not make every race that exciting?  What about people that just drive slowly during qualifying so they get pole on race day you may ask?  Well, they have the 107% rule, if they fall behind it then they would have to start in the back regardless for "safety" reasons.

Another thought I had was heat races.  The best part of F1 races are the first 5 laps, then there may be a couple more close moments or good battles if you will.  Most races end with massive gaps between the cars.  What if each Sunday was 2 race events (kind of like GP2) where they were 1/2 the time with still the required 1 pit stop requirement (per event)?  What it would do is create more tense moments for the race fans.  Right about the time a normal race would be time to take a snooze, the first race would be over and they would line up again (after refueling and tire changes of course).

The way things are right now are great, but they could be better.  What are your thoughts?  Keep them the same (Bernie would like that) or change to something new?  Does anyone else have any other ideas about this?


On another note I'm totally geeked for Formula E, are you?

Finally, congrats to Tesla for getting the car of the year award, well deserved.  I would totally get one if I could afford it.