SPORT	MARCH 9, 1998 NO. 10 75TH ANNIVERSARY ISSUE
	Changing The Formula Aiming to make the sport safer, Formula One's new rules will make Grand Prix cars slower--but less predictable By TIM BLAIR ormula One motor racing is Darwinian theory on four wheels. Just as some species of dinosaur evolved into birds, so successive generations of F1 cars have sprouted wings, become sleeker, lighter and swifter. The teams competing at motor sport's highest level spend hundreds of millions of dollars every year pushing the evolutionary process, searching for ways to shave hundredths of a second from lap times. Every year, the cars get quicker and quicker. Make that almost every year. The 1998 F1 world championship, which opens with the Australian Grand Prix in Melbourne on March 8, will be fought using cars significantly slower than 1997 models. The Federation Internationale de l'Automobile, the sport's governing body, has enforced the slowdown by introducing new design rules. Says FIA president Max Mosley: "Our objective is to make the racing as safe as possible." Before 1994 there had been no fatalities in F1 for eight seasons, but outcry over the death of triple world champion Ayrton Senna in May that year sparked a campaign to reduce cornering speeds. The latest changes come as F1 tries to recover from last year's damaging final round, when the FIA was accused of being soft on dangerous driving, and teams were accused of fixing the result. The last thing the sport wants now is more controversy. Which is precisely what the 1998 rules have delivered. According to many drivers, the changes make F1 like playing World Cup soccer on ice. Cars are now 20 cm narrower, which reduces lateral grip and compels drivers to attack corners at lower speeds. Traction has also been decreased by outlawing smooth, ultra-sticky "slick" tires. In 1998, tires must bear 10-mm-wide, 2.5-mm-deep grooves--three on the front tires and four on the rear--resembling tires last used in F1 nearly 30 years ago. Said current world champion Jacques Villeneuve after his first drive of a 1998 Williams: "To run on these tires is just ridiculous. It takes all the precision out of the driving." Says Ireland's Eddie Jordan, owner of the Jordan F1 team: "None of the drivers like them." The skinny look of the new cars is no hit with F1 followers. Says Finnish fan Mikko Viemero: "F1 cars should look like the fastest cars in the world, not like pumped-up karts." The drivers' main gripe is that the cars are now more unpredictable and prone to slide in corners. At a press conference during pre-season testing at Barcelona last month, French-Canadian Villeneuve explained: "You just can't control the direction so much...the tires hide a lot of what is happening on the car. You are always on edge." His German team mate, Heinz-Harald Frentzen, called the new cars "more nervous"; Dutchman Jos Verstappen described his Tyrrell's handling as "weird"; and Benetton's Austrian driver Alexander Wurz said the cars are now "different, and more difficult to drive." And slower: at Melbourne, teams expect to be five seconds a lap down on last year's times. Others believe that the new rules will actually make racing more dangerous. Says British ex-F1 driver Martin Donnelly, who was almost killed eight years ago in a 240 km/h accident which ended his career: "The cars will have less physical grip, so the driver has to work harder. Surely that makes it more difficult for drivers to keep control." But American Dan Gurney, who drove for several F1 teams between 1959 and '71, says making drivers work harder will improve the sport: "We old fogies used to run on grooved tires. I think they'll get used to it. It would be good to get it to where the human element is a little more noticeable, which is difficult with these high-tech cars." Some of the human element may have left F1, but so has much of the danger. Of the 17 men Gurney defeated in the Belgian Grand Prix in 1967, eight were killed in racing accidents within five years. "If you take the F1 cars of the '60s, one in every 10 accidents resulted in serious injury or death," says the FIA's Mosley. "Now it's better than one in every 300." Between 1986 and 1994 there were no deaths in F1; the sport became used to the concept of the survivable crash. Then, on the weekend of the San Marino Grand Prix in 1994, two drivers were killed. Roland Ratzenberger died following a crash during practice, when a stabilizing wing on the Austrian's Simtek broke at maximum speed. The next day Brazilian Ayrton Senna, considered by many to be at least the equal greatest driver in F1 history, left the road in his Williams at nearly 300 km/h, struck a concrete wall and was killed when pieces of his car smashed his helmet. Shocked by the deaths, the FIA brought in new rules to slow cars and make them safer. In 1995, engine sizes were cut; in 1996, stronger cockpit surrounds were introduced; last year black-box data recorders were installed in all cars. Villeneuve--whose father, Gilles, was killed in an F1 practice crash in 1982--says the FIA is now overly concerned with safety. Mosley points out that driver Jos Verstappen would have died of head injuries in a crash in Belgium in 1996 but for increased cockpit padding introduced that year. Team owner Jordan agrees with the FIA's stance no matter how much his drivers struggle with the new rules: "There is a need to slow cars down in the corners. They were getting ridiculously fast. It would have become dangerous. Something had to be done." The trouble for the FIA is that whenever they put the brakes on F1, the F1 teams' technical prowess and financial might--even a middle-ranking team will spend $50 million in a season--enable them to pull away again. In the early '80s, undercar aerodynamics that sucked cars to the road were banned; in the late '80s, power outputs were halved by outlawing turbocharging. Teams simply turned to other areas to make up the cut in performance, and within months were as quick as before. "The rate of progress is incredible," says Mosley. "It's a problem, because on the one hand you want stable rules to keep costs down and the racing close. On the other hand, the improvement is so quick you have to rein them back." Says Eddie Jordan: "If you were able to build an F1 car which incorporated all the technology that has been banned over the last two decades, you'd have a 720 km/h car. The problem would be keeping it on the ground." During testing before the first race, some teams claimed to have overcome the more extreme characteristics of their new cars, although they remained much slower in corners than before. Says former driver Donnelly: "These rules are a profound change. It'll take them a good couple of seasons to completely catch up." There is more than just championship glory at stake for the combatants. Once an F1 team--even one with a substantial history of success--falls off the pace, it risks being abandoned by sponsors; without the tens of millions of sponsorship dollars needed to develop a faster car, the team may fall even further behind. At least 10 teams have been forced out of F1 bankrupt in the last decade. The incentive to master the new rules is simple: in Formula One, it's the survival of the fastest.
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