How to fix poor driving standards

As a passionate motorsport fan, I have to admit that last weekend was a pretty depressing one.

I was at Monza on my usual beat in the Formula 3 European Championship, where a chain reaction of potentially catastrophic crashes pretty much ruined the event amid recriminations from the officials, who abandoned the final race halfway through due to continuing poor driving standards.

Once my work was done at Monza, I drove to Malpensa airport, got on a flight to Gatwick, returned home and switched on in time for the second half of the IndyCar race at Detroit. And that was even worse than what we'd seen in Italy.

The FIA Drivers' Commission met in Paris on Tuesday, including president Emerson Fittipaldi, Tom Kristensen, Emanuele Pirro, Nigel Mansell and Karun Chandhok - among their number are some of the most intelligent and shrewdest observers of the sport. FIA president Jean Todt, furious about Monza, also turned up for an hour.

Driving standards have to improve in F3, there's no doubt about that, but my point in mentioning IndyCar is that F3 isn't an isolated case.

For instance, I can think of one GP3 rookie who in his previous category was notorious for dangerous driving, but was rarely punished; indeed, one friend in that paddock suggested the best solution would probably be to stealthily bundle him into a team truck and beat him up...

Then there's the Formula Renault 3.5 newcomer who over the years has become notorious for dramatically swerving away from the startline to block any challenges, seemingly with no regard for whether anyone is alongside him.

But this column has F3 as its context, so I will use that to address some of the issues that I think played their part in what happened at Monza, and what the solutions could be:

1) Asphalt runoffs

It's in their nature for drivers to exploit every possible advantage, and if they think they can get away with running wide at corners - or shortcutting chicanes - then they will do it. At Monza, that means running over the Rettifilo and Roggia chicanes if you outbrake yourself in the heat of battle, and running wide at Parabolica.

Asphalt runoffs are a brilliant safety feature for motorcycles, but they don't work for cars and they encourage disrespect for your surroundings and competitors.

Solution: The FIA Circuit Commission has to think of a way of undoing its bad work. We don't want a return to gravel traps, because that's dangerous for bikes, and also precipitates too many disrupted car races when machinery gets stuck by the circuit edge. Maybe what's needed is bigger kerbs at the exit of corners, so that drivers would automatically lose time rejoining.

In the meantime, maybe F3 needs a group of stewards - and these would have to be permanent stewards, for the purposes of identifying cars without error - with the power to automatically penalise any competitor who runs all four wheels off the circuit.

Whether they are gaining an advantage, defending a position or merely avoiding an accident should make no difference. We should consider the track edges as having 'virtual' crash barriers, and anyone crossing this imaginary line should be given a drive-through penalty.

2) Too many safety cars

European F3 officials are very safety conscious. After four events this year and 12 races, all 12 have featured the safety car at some point.

Sometimes it has been necessary to put the race under caution; other times it hasn't been - on one occasion at Pau, all the cars involved in the incident that precipitated a safety car had disentangled themselves and continued within seconds of the safety-car call being made.

As the Americans love to say, 'cautions breed cautions', and if you're going to bunch up the field and let them loose on Monza's main straight, all funnelling down to the chicane, of course there are going to be more incidents.

Solution: Perhaps a little less haste in calling the safety car, and maybe a consideration in adopting the virtual safety car rules that have arrived in F1 and GP2.

These rely on timing loops every few hundred metres such as those that exist on F1 circuits, as well as GPS systems on the cars. There are four non-F1 tracks on the 11-round F3 schedule, so perhaps the VSC couldn't be adopted for every event, but it could make a big difference elsewhere.

The GPS systems, which activate yellow lights on the dashboard to warn of the VSC, may cost a few grand, but how quickly would this be offset in the reduction in crash damage?

OK, some competitors may be slightly disadvantaged if they have to activate the pitlane speed limiter under VSC conditions on a long straight, while others do so in a tight chicane, but to much less a degree than losing all their hard-won advantage under a conventional safety car. Anyone found guilty of going too fast under the VSC could be given a drive-through penalty, or excluded from the race.

3) Not addressing bad driving

Time and again we see dangerous blocking - justified under the flawed 'one-move' rule - as well as flouting of track limits, chicane jumping, rejoining the circuit without checking if it's clear, and plain bad judgement.

Sometimes this doesn't even disadvantage another competitor, but hints at a driver's lack of respect for their surroundings, equipment and rivals - with this exacerbated where there are asphalt runoffs.

Solution: An official - preferably an ex-driver - with the power to implement harsh penalties, because this is potentially the most dangerous hazard in modern motor racing. You could even do this under a new sporting offence labelled 'driving like a moron'.

4) Timewasting investigations

So many incidents these days are investigated in motorsport by officials, when it's clear straight away that there's no real blame to be apportioned and they are just the inevitable consequence of racing.

After the emergency meeting at Monza on Saturday evening, the drivers all had to stay at the circuit until around half past nine, then a sheet was handed out with the names of those who had to stay longer. Some were at the circuit until after midnight to wait for the inevitable judgement of 'racing incident'.

With the drivers having to be back at the track the following morning to prepare for their late-morning race, that meant a serious cut in their sleep - and anyone who's the parent of a teenager will know how traumatic that can be!

Solution: Common sense really. You can usually make a call on first view of an incident whether it needs to be looked into. If it's a racing incident, just forget about it, unless someone protests a rival's driving.

5) Too many cars

It's trendy to blame Max Verstappen for things, so now I'm going to.

The Dutch supertalent's abnormally rapid graduation to F1 has played its part in a swamping of F3 as far as entries are concerned. I've always found 35 cars too many in sprint racing, as you're likely to have too many accidents. Even if you put the 35 best drivers in the world in almost-identical F3 cars, there would still be shunts galore.

With 20 to 25 cars, races have a much better chance of settling into a rhythm while still remaining exciting and competitive.

Solution: You can't turn competitors away, because one day your support will drop, and you'll be needing those you rejected to fill your grids.

Sorry, I don't have a solution to this one that doesn't involve having non-qualifiers. All suggestions welcome!

6) Moving up too fast

Let's be clear: Verstappen is a phenomenon, and has been prepared for his motorsport career since he was a few years old, with the benefit of both parents having been ace drivers.

Some drivers have gone F3 this year because they think they can do a Verstappen - there are two who have made the leap from karting , while others have jumped from Formula 4 (or equivalent) level.

It's noticeable that the majority of frontrunners in F3 - and those who make an instantly good impression - are graduates of Formula Renault 2.0. They are the guys who seem to be able to nail a lap in qualifying, not make endless screw-ups in the races, and race cleanly.

F4 is great, but the aero there is mainly cosmetic and it is undoubtedly a step below FR2.0.

Solution: You can't stop drivers racing in F3 if they want to, but perhaps an intermediate step could be considered on the FIA's approved ladder. That could come via endorsement of FR2.0 (which is graded very low on the governing body's superlicence qualification points table) or even a push for a revival of a lower-tier F3, whether on a national or regional basis.

This could also solve the previous problem of too many cars in European F3...

7) Too much pressure

Linked to the above problem, drivers are expected to perform at a high level straight away in a very difficult and competitive category by parents, sponsors, managers etc.

I've written this in AUTOSPORT magazine this week, but you can see that some of them, while very quick and immensely promising, are at the stage where they're using 100 per cent of their racing intellect just to stay on the track.

When another variable is thrown at them, there is no spare brain capacity to deal with that and accidents happen.

Solution: It's a question of education really, encouraging drivers - and those around them - to pay their dues.

Success doesn't happen overnight. Look at recent Euro F3 champions: Edoardo Mortara, Roberto Merhi and Daniel Juncadella were all in their third seasons of F3 (Mortara having returned from a race-winning year in GP2!); Raffaele Marciello was also in his third year (including one in Italian F3); Esteban Ocon, although a rookie champion, had contested two seasons of top-tier FR2.0.

Going back further, Lewis Hamilton was in his second season of F3 when he won the title, following on from two years in FR2.0.

8) Not enough testing

F3 is about educating drivers - whether that's for careers in F1, DTM, WEC or IndyCar. There is just a handful of official test days during the season, and each team is allowed an additional six 'joker' days.

The rules in this regard are well-intentioned and all about cutting costs, but all that means is that drivers go testing in FR2.0 cars, while at least one team has an old Formula Master car sitting in its workshop. Those with the money just spend it elsewhere.

This is also linked to the 'pressure' problem, as drivers are arriving at race weekends without having had a day of learning since they stepped out of a pile of wreckage at the previous event. Also, a driver who may otherwise have been able to skip through F3 in one season may have to stay for two to get the proper mileage and learning under their belt - doubling the cost in one hit.

Solution: Free up the testing a bit. The cars and full-time staff are sitting there anyway, so it doesn't make an enormous difference to budget - as long as they don't spend the time trying ridiculously expensive development bits in a bid to go half a tenth quicker around Pembrey.