Senior Formula 1 figures have warned against radical change in 2017, believing it will only benefit the larger teams capable of spending their way to front.
F1’s rule-makers have called for radical change to improve ‘the show’. Among those changes are wider tyres, more powerful engines and less aerodynamic restrictions.
Speaking on Friday, Williams performance chief Rob Smedley called for the rules to remain stable for the forseeable future, as not only is the racing “very good”, but things will only get better as the grid closes up over time.
“We need to leave it alone in the main,” he said. “We should perhaps think about stopping tampering with it rather than thinking we are going to create a new set of rules that is going to fix everything.
“Every time you create new rules, you’ll usually find the people with bigger resources, the cleverest thinking or those who stop working on the current generation of Formula 1 cars come out with a big gap.
“The racing is very good,” he added. “We have Ferrari and Mercedes and that’s making for some good races. Behind them, there is some good racing.”
Lotus technical director Nick Chester agrees, adding that change will only widen the gap between teams.
“People forget the racing is quite good,” said Chester. “The cars are improving, we’re seeing two seconds improvement from last year, so do we really need a huge change of regulation?
“It is going to open up the grid again, there will be bigger differences between teams and it will also add a lot of cost.
“We should not forget that the show is actually not bad at the moment.”
