Why Formula 1 is under threat from driverless cars

Dabbling in futurology is fraught with pitfalls, but to predict public roads will one day be the domain of the driverless car is to stand on solid ground.

There are still questions to be answered, technologies to be developed and legal hurdles to overcome, but on a long enough timeline it's reasonable to assume humans driving on roads will be largely, even if not entirely, a thing of the past. The motor car will cease to be used every day as a human-operated tool.

And the implications for motorsport are terrifying.

To put it simply, if fewer people are driving, there will inevitably be a significant knock-on effect in interest in getting behind the wheel on track or special stage. Basic driving skills will become scarce, arcane and specialised, those with aspirations to take a car onto a circuit will fade away and, presumably, the appetite for watching motorsport will also be dramatically reduced.

The motor car will become irrelevant to most, certainly in terms of the experiential concept of driving. While driving on public roads has certainly become less pleasurable over the decades with more crowding and ever-more advanced cars, there will be a big change when cars will be distilled down solely to the function of getting from A to B with the sole human artistry involved that of the programmers.

What place might Formula 1 - and motorsport as a whole, for that matter - have in this world?

First, it's worth addressing the problem of complacency. There's a blind belief in motorsport's permanence, its inviolable place in the world, but it's worth remembering the first serious motor race only happened in the mid-1890s (there are various contenders for the title, but now is not the time to discuss their merits). So as a sport, it's about 125 years old.

You can argue the concept of racing has been around far longer than that, but as a distinct entity motorsport is relatively young. While other formalised sports are not much older (for example, Association Football had only been codified for just over 30 years at that point), and in some case younger, most have their real roots far, far earlier.

So it's a mistake to decide motorsport is something innate to humanity. With that established, it's clearly the responsibility of those involved and the fans - effectively the custodians of motorsport - to protect it, nurture it and ensure it evolves as the world around it changes beyond recognition. After all, jousting was once a big mainstream draw; now, not so much.

Remarkably, there are many in motorsport who would disagree with that, more interested in their own petty turf wars to see the bigger picture. They are probably even in the majority. In that respect, motorsport as a whole reflects the problems in F1 with the ownership prioritising its own profit over ensuring the sport is sustainable, including for teams and race organisers.

The next question is whether there have been other sports in similar positions. You could certainly argue horse-racing has some similarities. The rise of the automobile was certainly bad for horses in the long run, but horse-racing still exists and remains popular, as do other equine pursuits.

But it's as limited use as a comparison. Horses never populated a mass-transport network that is comparable to that the motor-car created. Horse-racing retains its niche - in part due to the betting industry - and horses still have their uses. And if you want to get them going in the right direction, you need a human sat on them. Autonomous horses have been around forever, and they can't be trusted.

So motorsport, realistically, is on its own here. There's no other template to follow to ensure its long-term relevance and it's also not an option to remain unchanged as that will be to commit to a long, slow death.

F1 is at the epicenter of this need for change. Everyone involved recognises the need to evolve, to spice up the show, to give the audience what it claims to want, to adapt to a changing world. But over the past quarter-century it has, in doing so, become increasingly introspective.

The latest result is the new-for-2017 regulations, with faster cars, more downforce and swoopy bodywork. It's the result of simplistic thinking, the belief that just by being a few seconds quicker around a lap, and requiring a little more physical strength to drive, it will transform things. Inevitably, it will be those who were most vocal in causing this change who will be most vocal in demanding some other quick fix to repair it.

The short version of the antidote to this, something F1 has still yet to do, but needs to do under the control of Liberty Media (which has yet to prove it has the chops to make good on great expectations heaped upon it as a force for change), is for the current decision-making process to be replaced.

What needs to be created is a kind of full-time body with professional specialists in relevant fields to put serious effort and analysis into setting F1's medium-to-long-term strategy.

Only by looking outside of itself, understanding its place in the changing world and setting itself on a path aimed not just at silencing the wailing masses of the now, but on engaging the silent majority in the future, can F1 ensure it's in the best possible long-term health.

The same goes for motorsport as a whole. There are several key tenets to this. Clearly, racing cars need to be spectacular, to have that 'wow' factor, so when somebody watches them barreling into Becketts at Silverstone or through the fast esses at Austin, they are impressed irrespective of whether they have ever sat in a car, let alone controlled one.

Needless to say, the concept of spectacular is far harder to nail down that most think. Faster is not necessarily more spectacular: to take an extreme case, a MotoGP bike is around the pace of an F3 car, and way slower around a lap than a grand prix car. You tell me which is more spectacular...and then, if you are one of those who believes lap time is the secret to spectacle, perhaps re-assess your position.

Another aspect is the quality of 'the show'. While the spectacle of the cars in isolation is part of that equation, there's a reason why races are more popular than practice sessions...

The whole concept of the show can be distilled very simply. People want to watch things happening, that are interesting, that have some kind of relevant narrative, that hold your attention and that are unpredictable. So in racing, they want to see overtaking, battles, drivers with character and, most importantly, it needs to look difficult.

And this is probably the biggest single challenge motorsport faces. Because often (but far from always) the scale of the challenge of driving a racing car well is in inverse proportion to how difficult it looks.

For example, a compliant, soft, imprecise car with old-school 1970s rubber with a favourable slip angle will look incredibly difficult. You can see the driver using the throttle and the steering to balance the car and it looks brilliant. But often a car like that gives you far more chance to get away with an error.

With a modern high-downforce car, you have to be more precise. If you overcommit, there's far less chance to adjust, you can't play with the throttle and steering constantly to correct - you are operating in a far narrower window.

So often, something that looks more difficult is actually easier, while something that looks easy - the proverbial car 'on rails' - is far more difficult. How do you reconcile that with a sport that's supposed to be the most challenging possible?

The answer is not to go back to crossply tyres, tempting as it might be. Motorsport, like most areas of human endeavour, is obsessed with the past and trying to recreate it. And for good reason, looking back 40 years and saying 'that was really good, let's remake that' is a lot easier than staring at a blank sheet of paper and trying to work out what to write down something based on what you have and that is partially informed by what you have learned from the past.

So how do you make motorsport relevant in a world of driverless cars? We know broadly what the outcome we want might be in the vaguest terms, but how do you actually achieve that? It's a very good question, and I'm not going to add to the easy answers.

Instead, the message is this: it's going to be difficult, it's going to take time, it's going to take hard work, analysis, humility and understanding. There are no magic bullets, no easy answers and it will be a vast challenge.

But the fact most in motorsport seem unwilling to accept this, preferring to seek comfort in the past, easy answers and complacency. To have any chance of surviving the societal changes to come, this has to be embraced universally today and acted upon.

No one person will have all, or even most of the answers. It's going to require a collaborative effort involving all of the stakeholders.

But the first requirement, the key requirement, is a change in mindset. If that can be achieved, then the news could be very good.

Why? Because motorsport is fantastic, with different forms to suit all tastes. While it rose with the ascent of the motor car, it's so relentlessly challenging, appealing and engaging that it wasn't just by luck that it caught on. What it needs to do is stop riding the coat tails of the ascent of the car and driving and stand on its own four wheels. It needs to be unignorable, even to a world unused to getting behind the wheel.

Some will say this is a negative message. They are wrong. Motorsport is robust enough to thrive for the long-term. And the changes that need to be made will retain the strengths and challenges it has always represented in its many forms.

Some will say that there are no answers in what is written here. They are wrong. They fail to understand that this change in mindset is the key prerequisite to being able to hit on the right answers for the future.

The only thing that will stop it is if it falls victim to the very human traits of being backward looking and failing to move with the times.

If we, collectively, fail to have the right mindset, then motorsport won't have a place in a world of autonomous cars.

But with the right mentality, the best might even be yet to come for motorsport. Only once you have the mindset can you start working on the detail.