Interesting stuff from the World Motor Sport Council meeting

[darwin dali]

First, only 17 races, no San Marino:

18 March AUS Australia
08 April MAL Malaysia
15 April BRN Bahrain
13 May E Spain
27 May MC Monaco
10 June CDN Canada
17 June USA United States
01 July F France
08 July GB Great Britain
22 July D Germany**
05 August H Hungary
26 August TR Turkey
09 September I Italy
16 September B Belgium
30 September J Japan*
07 October CN China*
21 October BR Brazil

*Pending the ASN’s confirmation.

**The 2007 German Grand Prix will take place at Nürburgring. In 2008, it will switch to Hockenheim. It will continue to alternate between these two circuits thereafter.

(It was noted that no agreement was in place for an 18th race and there will continue to be 17 races in the 2007 calendar).

Then, very important for race strategies: change of rules re. Safety Car. Drivers will have to wait for pitstops until all cars are bunched up behind the Safety Car. Not only that, lapped drivers have to unlap themselves and go past the Safety Car to line up behind the field.

Gearbox change will draw a 5 position grid penalty. As opposed to weight penalty, hm, maybe increasing the weight would be fairer?

Homologated 2006 engines will have to be used throughout 2010. Boring!

Two-race engine rule applies only from second day of practice on. WTF? Are they going to put another engine in for day 1 and then change it back to the race engine overnight? Or is it just to allow for no penalty in case it blows up - but how would that work?

Practice: only 2 cars per race weekend, but third driver still allowed. Hm, I wouldn't want some rookie drive my race car and put it in the kitty litter!

[Irv the Swerve]

I wouldnt like to see the lapped cars speeding around when theres debris scattered around the track.

[Selcouth_Feline]

I read it as teams will be limited to using two cars in any one session on the Friday, but it doesn't have to be your two race cars, so theoretically, one race car could go out and both your race drivers could test it, the your test driver could also take his car on track as well. It could just have been I read some bad reporting though

[bud]

F1's going down the champ car road, 15 years there will only be one chassis make!

[darwin dali]

No, I think and hope that MM's ideas about a more economic and environmentally friendly F1 in the future will open up innovation again in chassis and engine development with far fewer restrictions in detail and a more global restriction based on fuel consumption, etc.