The glorious past of Formula 1

Ashish thinks the golden days of F1 are behind it, but he has a few ideas on how to revive the show… “Once upon a time…” You may recall listening to quite a lot of stories starting that way in your prepubescent age – and the flashback of being speechless and open-mouthed is bound to bring a smile to your face even now I’m sure. As a kid, you’ll have watched many compelling stunts in the movies, and you’ll have imagined yourself enacting them as the protagonist of the movie – complete with vocal histrionics and expressions. That’s true for each one of us. If you’re mumbling at this point that you didn’t have such innocent, self-indulgent and silly fantasies, you’re either plain lying, or suffer from dementia. Do yourself a favour and go ask your granny about your childhood. My fantasies grew beyond just movies. I’d run around the house making car noises – even making the throttle blipping sounds and all that. I was obsessed with motor racing and Formula 1 (because that was the most famous form of motorsport this side of the Nurburgring). Ever since the Internet came about, I’ve invested many hours consuming high levels of data watching F1 races from the proper racing years – 60s through the 90s. In my mind, F1 has been bordering on the edge of boring for quite a few years now. There are many who’d dig a grave for me for saying that, but what’s that they say – each to his own, and suchlike? Just a couple of days ago, Vinayak, Dhruv and I were chatting about F1 and the chances of Audi entering the game, the possibility of refuelling making a comeback, the strategy group, and whatnot. I went home and thought about F1 a bit more. Now, if you’ve recently become a dedicated reader of this magazine, I should tell you that we’d done an absolutely mega anniversary issue to celebrate the completion of 6 years back in 2012. There were many brilliant cars that we drove – Aventador, Godzilla, GT86, Camaro, and a few other classic names from the automotive world. There was also a purpose-built single-seat racer that only I drove. Ah, such a satisfying feeling! While all these were great fun in their own way, the absolutely best fun we had was with a bunch of underpowered go-karts. The entire team – save for Jared because he was either a bit too heavy, or hung-over, I can’t remember – lined up. We went out for a few practice laps and then qualifying. The featherweight-category guy that he is, Dhruv qualified first, while I led the ‘weighty chaps’ brigade behind him. But the two of us were so far ahead of our (how can I not feel smug at this, and refrain from insulting them?) slow colleagues, that the track manager decided to reverse the qualifying grid for the race. Bugger! Then came another announcement – that we’ll exchange our karts as well. It was an eventful race, but what made it extremely exciting was the start. Kapil had no idea of the cruel intentions that Dhruv and I were carrying, and started off in a very well behaved, unsuspecting manner. It was a great battle all the way from the start to the finish. Recalling this episode got me thinking. What if Formula 1 followed the same practice – reversing the qualifying grid? That’ll make a great race. Yes, you will now shout at me in order to point out that every team will try and lap as slowly as possible, and you’d be right. But this is just a crude idea, and a lot of thought needs to be invested into making it fool proof – or close to it. Penalties could be enforced on top teams lapping slower than a set percentage value (much like the 107% rule), or points could be awarded for qualifying results as well – that’ll ensure a good pace perhaps. I don’t know – this is a just random thought, and I haven’t even chatted about this with anyone to come to a good schematic. There’s a need to bring life back into F1, to bring in much-needed flavour. This may be a very oblique thought perhaps, but there could be many such ideas floating around in the minds of many of you – go on, blurt it out. At least I’m listening…