F1's problems go beyond just engines

No-one needs to be reminded of the continuing debate about what the next Formula 1 engine should be, and by common consent - and sense - it needs to be both simpler and cheaper than the maze-like hybrid monsters of today.

In a perfect world, many would side with Sebastian Vettel and his wistful dream of going back to V12s, but that's not the world we live in, as Toto Wolff recently reminded us.

"I strongly believe," he said, "that Formula 1 stands for high technology and innovation. If you try to crawl back in time to the famous 1980s and '90s, just because you liked it so much, it is the wrong strategy.

"The new engine needs to have cost of development under control, it needs to be high-tech, it needs to be hybrid, to have a better power-to-weight ratio than now, and we need to look at the quality of the sound."

This is the real world and in that context the points made by Wolff are unarguable, but the one phrase that chimes false with me is "just because you liked it so much" - as if that were something of no account.

If in recent years the level of interest in Formula 1, as in IndyCar, as in NASCAR, has plummeted, high on the list of reasons - apart from routine 'dumbing down' - is that the interests of real fans have for too long been ignored.

As Niki Lauda reminded us, while railing against the coming of the halo: "Fewer people are watching these days, because gradually the DNA of Formula 1 has been changing, and in the end we need to remember that it's not only the drivers who are involved with this sport."

Liberty Media, as we know, are hell-bent on increasing the popularity of Formula 1, aware of the need to attract new fans - and also, one hopes, to entice back many of those who have deserted it in recent years.

Eau Rouge, described by Keke Rosberg as "these days just a sandpit for kids", was infinitely more exciting when it was just flat for an ace

That being so, it seems to me that Wolff's throwaway line is something to be seriously borne in mind, rather than thrown away.

These people - and there are a lot of them - well knew what they "liked so much", and if it were still there so, too, would they be: for them rock concerts and 'celebs' at grands prix are no kind of answer.

Ross Brawn, fortunately for us, is aware of that. Whatever the ultimate specification of the next engine, to retain the interest of the manufacturers it must be a hybrid of some kind, but Brawn understands fans' frustration with those in current use: "A lot want to go back to normally aspirated engines, because they create more emotion with the noise and the revs, so can we create a hybrid engine that has that appeal?

"I think the manufacturers know that's a key element, and they need to have a successful Formula 1 - there's no point in an engineering exercise that demonstrates your technology if nobody is watching it."

Whatever else, the next engine, as well as being less complex and costly, must surely also be significantly lighter. Who would ever have believed that in 2017 a grand prix car would weigh about the same as the lumbering Mercedes W125 campaigned by such as Rudolf Caracciola 80 years ago? If that unsurprisingly appals people like Gordon Murray, what Colin Chapman would have thought of it I cannot begin to imagine.

Occasionally, be it at the Goodwood Festival of Speed or wherever, current drivers take the wheel of a Formula 1 car from the 1960s or '70s, and I'll confess that it irks me when some say afterwards that it felt like an F3 car. All right, it didn't have much - if any - downforce, and produced about half the horsepower of today's behemoths, but it was also vastly lighter: the minimum weight limit in 2017 is 728kg, in 1970 it was 530.

The rules have, of course, substantially changed this year, with great emphasis placed on speeding up the cars, which had been markedly slower than those of a dozen years ago, when the three-litre V10 era was at its apogee - as I mentioned the other week, the Hungaroring lap record still stands to Michael Schumacher, and was set in 2004.

Although the best of today's hybrid engines now produce more power than the V10s, they are hugely heavier, so any significant increase in overall car performance had to come from cornering speeds - in part from much wider tyres, but more from increased downforce, which of course also meant increased 'dirty air'.

Hence, Valtteri Bottas had to be asked to move over for his faster team-mate in Hungary because Lewis Hamilton - even with DRS - was otherwise unable to get by him.

Not rocket science, any of this - Lewis and others predicted it as soon as the rule changes were announced, and they were right. Racing drivers always want to go quicker, and they are relishing this year's cars, compared with those that went before, but when they talk in terms of, "It's not really a corner any more", this is not necessarily what fans want to hear.

Eau Rouge - described by Keke Rosberg as "these days just a sandpit for kids" - was infinitely more exciting when it was just flat for an ace, rather than easy flat for everyone.

As they consider the future of Formula 1, therefore, Brawn and his colleagues have much to weigh up, and it goes beyond engines. Brute downforce - and the numbing cost of increasing it even minutely - may be to the taste of drivers and designers, but they are not the ones paying to watch.

There is a reason why those who were there still shiver at the memory of Jochen Rindt or Ronnie Peterson through the old Woodcote: it was spectacle pure and raw, and yes, Toto, we just liked it so much.