F1’s DNA myth is as damaging as ‘fake news’

Formula 1's alleged 'DNA' has been invoked continually in arguments about the future direction of grand prix racing in recent times. But it's an argument so imprecise as to be close to pointless; a catch-all, go-to phrase that can be used to justify almost any position.

What the DNA argument is generally used for is an argument against change. It's a lazy way to support a reactionary, very conservative approach to directions in which grand prix racing should or should not evolve. That doesn't mean change is always good, but the premise that it is always bad is a dangerous mindset.

The word 'evolve' is chosen deliberately above. At its most simplistic level, DNA is the genetic coding of living beings; mutations in DNA is, in harness with natural selection, at the heart of evolution. If DNA was unchanging, human beings certainly would not be around today - either making grand prix cars or arguing about what they should or shouldn't be.

On the one hand, that's a tediously literal interpretation of what is an understandable figure of speech. But on the other, it encapsulates one of the reasons it's such a shallow argument.

Take the example of the halo. Plenty of those against the halo invoke the DNA argument. Here's four-time world champion Alain Prost on the possibility of its introduction.

"It is against the spirit of the design and beauty and DNA of Formula 1 and the single-seater DNA," said Prost. "It is difficult to say this for me, because you cannot ever say you do not want to improve the safety, which is vital in this sport. But personally, I don't like the look of it."

While Prost's fundamental position - that of being against the halo - is perfectly defensible, it's not expressed especially constructively.

The argument is that it's in the DNA of grand prix cars to be open-cockpit. Fine, grand prix cars have indeed been open-cockpit for time immemorial. But the halo does also offer a significant improvement in terms of safety (albeit, I'd personally argue, as a half-measure that doesn't deliver the extent of gains that a fully-realised frontal head protection system would deliver) - and as Prost himself alludes to, safety improvements have always been important.

The DNA argument has an insidious side, like Donald Trump denouncing anything he doesn't like reported as 'fake news'

In fact, when it comes to racing cars, there has been a constant drive to make cars safer. While the safety revolution is generally thought to have started in the days of Jackie Stewart, and it's true that it was bumped up the agenda significantly during his career, safety improvements have been around forever.

You could say that safety improvements are in the DNA of grand prix racing. You might not make that argument personally, but look at a list of the countless safety gains over the years and try and disprove it. An argument that can be used equally effectively, or ineffectively, on both sides is no argument at all.

Add that to the fact Prost says he doesn't like the look of it and you have a muddying of the waters of an argument. Basically, you could see anything you like the look of as being in the DNA of motorsport and anything you don't as outside of it.

This is the far more insidious aspect of the DNA argument - it just becomes a catch-all. Like Donald Trump denouncing anything he doesn't like reported as 'fake news', rather than using reason and information to prove it to be incorrect. It is nothing more than noise that pollutes the argument. Even if you were on the right side of the argument, lazily countering it is no good to anyone.

The earliest grand prix cars bare little resemblance to modern ones...

...and the great evolution of Formula 1 cars suggest their 'DNA' is far from fixed

Look at the Renault in which Ferenc Szisz won the 1906 French Grand Prix, an Auto Union Type D of the 1930s, the Mercedes W196 streamliner of the '50s, a Lotus 33 of the '60s, a Ligier JS5 of the 1970s, a McLaren MP4/4 of the 1980s, a Ferrari F2004, and today's championship-leading Ferrari and you see vast amounts of change.

The changes in looks, technology and speeds are so dramatic that, to extend the DNA argument further, at the very least you'd say they were different species. You might even go one step upwards in taxonomy and declare they are a different genus, albeit within the same family.

People like the familiar, and the dislike of change alone is rarely a winning argument. So when it comes to the list of what things are and aren't in the so-called DNA of F1, you can declare just about anything, or nothing. More often than not, the supposed DNA of a grand prix car is the template set by whenever the individual describing it was having their formative contact with motorsport.

The reason such debates have become more and more relevant in recent years is that where once grand prix racing was technology-limited, with simple regulations enough to set the parameters for teams to work in, now it's necessary to control the technology to attempt to keep the costs under control. A century ago, you could just set a weight regulation; today, the technical regulations run to 102 pages and not far off 40,000 words!

To come back to the halo argument, drivers have become ever-more cocooned in the cockpit. So you could say that it's in the DNA of Formula 1 to continue that process. Many of you will disagree, but it's no less valid a way to use the DNA argument than if you are saying the halo shouldn't be there.

And if you must use the DNA argument, then by the rules of mutation and selection you could argue the halo is the inevitable result of evolution because the selective pressure - the need to get driver fatalities and injuries ever-closer to zero - is entirely in keeping. At that point, the argument becomes ever-more meaningless.

So what is in the DNA of Formula 1? Sometimes we have a tyre war, sometimes we don't - which one is in the DNA? Turbo engines or normally aspirated engines? Tyre management or little tyre management? Fuel limits or no fuel limits? Refuelling or no refueling? Aerofoils or no aerofoils? The list is endless. Grand prix cars change a lot.

What DNA is a shorthand for is the list of values that should play a part in decisions about the direction of grand prix racing. So let's be more rigorous and clear in how we discuss and express that.

F1 doesn't have any DNA, certainly not literally and so nebulously in figurative terms as to be worthless even to talk about it

Don't want the halo because it looks stupid and ugly? Use that as your argument rather than the nebulous DNA claim. There have been plenty of ugly grand prix cars - some that, objectively speaking, are hideous but have gone on to become iconic as we have become used to them.

F1 cars today remain the subject of extensive complaints, sometimes on the basis of DNA, yet they are the fastest ever over a lap. This is a result of beefed-up aerodynamics and current engine packages that are hugely potent.

"This generation of car is the fastest ever Formula 1 car, not by a small amount but by a large amount," says Mercedes technical director James Allison.

"They are the fastest, and they are also the heaviest. Normally heavy things are not very fast, but these cars are quite heavy compared with cars of 20 years or so ago. So despite the fact that they are heavier, this generation of cars is by far the quickest that have ever existed.

"A good chunk of that is coming from the power of the current generation of the power units, but a huge amount of the uplift in performance is coming from the aerodynamic forces that these rules are capable of generating."

That all sounds positive, but again the DNA argument when applied to that is confusing. 'Fast' could be argued to be in the DNA, 'heavy' less so. Is downforce in the DNA of grand prix cars? Well, sort of, but Juan Manuel Fangio won plenty of races without wings. And if you take the wings away on a DNA basis, you get very slow cars relatively.

And around and around in circles you go, chasing a DNA argument that has a lot to say about everything but very little to say of substance.

So it's time for those within F1 to stop using the DNA argument when it comes to grand prix racing's direction. Instead, spend some time trying to define the values and requirements against which any rule changes should be judged in order to produce something that works for fans, drivers, teams and race organisers alike. Then don't refer to what you come up with as DNA, because in this case changes for the better really should be the result of what could be called 'intelligent design'.

F1 doesn't have any DNA, certainly not literally, and so nebulously in figurative terms as to be worthless even to discuss. There is a value in constructing coherent arguments, something F1 should have done more often before making rule changes based on poor reason, or motivated by a desire to jerk the knee.

If you think the halo is ugly, argue it damages the aesthetics of the car and will have a negative impact on fan interest that outweighs the safety gains. If you think it's not a good solution to the problem, argue more development work is needed to introduce a fully-realised solution only when it is ready.

And that's just using the halo as an example. Barely a grand prix weekend goes by without some driver or team principal using the DNA argument. It also means the priority becomes the almost passive fitting of F1 into some amorphous tradition, rather than it doing what it needs to do to take control of its own destiny.

While an F1 car, design and concept wise, could be said to have a DNA, as a wider entity F1 doesn't. Stop saying it does, even metaphorically.